HQ Review: Dancers Making Moves inaugural event “Living Gallery”
Dancers Making Moves, a project conceived and spearheaded by Carly Vanderheyden, describes itself online as “a multimedia series capturing the essence of a dancer through photography, videography, movement, and storytelling.” The project began after Vanderheyden received an artist grant from the Regional Arts Commission and used the funds to create a platform and support system for a selected group of performing artists. It culminated in an evening-length experience of dance viewing, wherein the twenty-four artists involved were spotlighted as valuable members of our vibrant dance community.
In the months leading up to the performances, Vanderheyden platformed her dancers through a podcast—inviting them to share their unique journeys through dance—a professional photo shoot, and video of each artist practicing their craft. The culmination of this work was Living Gallery, a live dance performance held at the Center of Creative Arts in the style of a visual art gallery. In this format, the audience was encouraged to wander through and among the moving bodies—no space was off-limits. It was emphasized that dancers were expecting to find audience members in unexpected places.
The show was well attended, with roughly one hundred forty people wandering through the four rooms where dancers performed a series of short vignettes. The format of the evening was certainly unique: artists showed work in four designated spaces, with their pieces repeated twice throughout the hour-long performance. This structure allowed each audience member the opportunity to curate their own experience—to linger where they felt drawn, to pop in and out of rooms, or to miss performances entirely. The event had a porous structure; something was happening in many different places all at once. As the evening went on, the audience—who had initially made their way timidly through rooms—began moving with much more ease. Applause broke out periodically. Outbursts of approval or excitement bled into the sounds of music and shuffling feet.
The dancers involved in this project represented a diverse array of artists—from contemporary to jazz, salsa to hip hop, fusion to ballet. The styles and heritage of each dancer were juxtaposed with the next. In a career field that can sometimes flatten the dancer to a moving body devoid of voice or point of view, this project offered audiences a glimpse into the contrasting nature of different dance forms, as well as the humanness of its practitioners. The format offered a dynamic and exciting way to experience dance and invited the notion of dancers as complex people with individual journeys, varied interests, and diverse points of view.
Living Gallery further interrogated the idea of dance as an ephemeral art form—one that is famously difficult to capture and document. It is a form that lives in time, which is constantly passing. Offering a performance format akin to an art gallery becomes a study in ephemerality and individual agency. There was agency demonstrated by the audience in their choices to leave, stay, sit, stand, walk, or wander—and the agency of the dancer: to perform to a full room, an empty room, or a distracted room.
The evening was lively, energetic, and lighthearted—not necessarily because each dance piece held those qualities, but because of the many bodies moving freely in and around the dancing, performing bodies. The pathways of the audience became their own kind of performance, and each person who entered a room contributed to the environment created there.
Dancers Making Moves, as a project, served above all as an incubator. The podcast, photo shoots, videos, and performance format created a unique support system and ensured that artists were not just seen but also heard. This group of diverse movers and dancers challenged both the format and the presentation of dance as a form, presenting their unique work as a reflection of the dynamic dance community in St. Louis.
Listed here are the twenty-four artists who contributed to Dancers Making Moves and the Living Gallery performance: Carmen Guynn, Cici Kai, Dawn Gilbertson, Dawn Karlovsky, Delainey Bailey, Diamond Riley, Emily Small, Erin Morris, Gabriella Ray, Hayley Barker, Jorrell Lawyer-Jefferson, Kyla Kikkawa, LLord Brown Jr., Lorraine Stippec, Marcela Gomez Lugo, Mark-David Bloodgood, Maura Caldwell-Thompson, Nyna Moore, Randi Reinert, Sam Gaitsch, Samanvita Kasthuri, Spencer Everett, Tess Angelica Losada, and Theron Steele.
Photos by Carly Vanderheyden