CELEBRATING ST. LOUIS’ VIBRANT DANCE COMMUNITY
St. Louis Dance HQ’s Blog is a compilation of writings and performance reviews from a variety of St. Louis based dance writers. If you’re interested in sharing your writing on our blog, please email stlouisdancehq@gmail.com.
HQ Review: Saint Louis Dance Theatre’s Love Languages Fall Series
On Saturday, November 15, 2025, Saint Louis Dance Theater (STLDT) celebrated its 15th season by hosting its “Movers and Shakers Ball: Cristal Anniversary” gala. Many donors, dancers, and patrons came adorned in glittery themed formal wear. The night began with champagne toasts, a buffet, and a cocktail hour. The audience was already buzzing with excitement for what STLDT has to offer when the performance began for the first installment of their Love Language season, aptly titled Fall Series.
HQ Review: SIUE presents “Timeless Reflections” Fall Dance Concert
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville presented their fall dance concert, Timeless Reflections at Dunham Theatre in Edwardsville, IL, featuring choreography by Carly Vanderheyden, Maria Majors, Kristin Best-Kinscherff, Geoff Alexander, Omar Olivas, Lindsay Hawkins, Snack Break Movement Arts, and Brenda Serrata Tally.
HQ Review: Webster’s New Works Concert
On November 6th through the 7th, Webster University's dance department performed original choreography at their annual New Works Concert. The talented BFA students learned challenging choreography from both alumni and faculty, with styles such as jazz, contemporary, and modern being highlights of the show.
HQ Review: RESILIENCE Dance Company opens its season with “ENTRY POINTS”
Resilience Dance Company’s fifth annual concert, Entry Points, was performed at the Center of Creative Arts’ Catherine B. Berges Theatre on October 30th and November 1st, 2025. The evening featured two new works as well as one reprised from 2023 and an expanded piece from 2024.
HQ Review: Ballet 314’s “Fall Fête: Angels and Demons”
On October 18, Ballet 314 presented Fall Fete: Angels & Demons at UMSL’s Touhill Performing Arts Center Lee Theater. Ballet 314 delighted their audience with an intimate matinee performance as well as a luxe evening performance and fundraiser. This review is for the 3:00pm matinee performance.
HQ Review: Chew+Spit presents WHATEVERFEST!
Since its inaugural performance in January 2025, chew & spit – a dance residency created by Marlee Doniff and sponsored by Space Station Dance Residency – has sought to actively lower the stakes of performance by creating a space that prioritizes process over product. That essence of low-stakes performance billowed through every aspect of chew & spit’s first annual fundraiser event, Whateverfest, presented on Saturday, October 18, at Webster University’s Department of Dance. A myriad of mismatched living-room lamps framed the makeshift performance space and offered a soft, homey glow that, along with the steady patter of rain on the roof, wrapped the afternoon in a sense of warmth and community.
HQ Review: MADCO kicks off its 50th Anniversary Season with “SET: The Legacy Concert”
MADCO kicked off its 50th anniversary season with SET: The Legacy Concert at COCA’s Catherine B. Berges Theatre on October 11-12, 2025.
HQ Review: Saint Louis Ballet presents “Take Five…More or Less”
Red, orange, blue, and purple leap out onto stage as Henri Matisse-inspired costumes paint their way into live performance danced by Saint Louis Ballet. On October 11th and 12th, Saint Louis Ballet debuted Take Five…More or Less, a captivating show featuring three unique works by both guest artists and faculty.
HQ Review: Webster BFA Concert “The Paradox”
80s rock and roll, a disappearing moon, a thunderstorm, a trickle of laughter, a prop gun, and the indecisiveness of being a libra. All disparate elements that collectively contribute to the daring artistry of Webster University’s BFA concert “The Paradox.” Featuring three works by BFA candidate Ally Lamkie, as well as four works by recent Webster alumni, “The Paradox” is a fitting title to illustrate how these imaginative works existed beside each other. At times dramatic absurdity took hold as comedic expressions were undercut by tensions of seriousness. Elsewhere, the ecstasy of dance reigned supreme as the electricity of movement bounced from one dancer to the next. Though containing a hodgepodge of dance theatricalities, this concert’s contradictory features depicted the reality of existing in an illogically serious world.
Behind the Movement: MADCO “SETs” the Stage with its 50th Anniversary Performance
Behind the Movement: MADCO “SETs” the Stage With its 50th Anniversary Performance. This weekend, The Modern American Dance Company (MADCO) celebrates that legacy with SET: The Legacy Concert. The performance will bridge the company’s past and its present. In rehearsals leading up to opening night, the studio has been buzzing with energy! Alumni have visited, stories have been shared, and dancers have been connecting with the roots of the work they now carry forward.
HQ Review: Space Station Dance Residency
Space Station, an annual dance residency showcasing experimental works, featured seven choreographers and six new pieces this year, including two guest artists from out of state. The 2025 edition had a special focus on audience participation, deployed in a variety of ways by the evening’s artists. In a pre-show video, viewers were even given instructions on how to decline performer interactions—simply by shaking our heads.
HQ Review: Saint Louis Dance Theatre presents Norbert De La Cruz III’s world premiere “THE NORTH STAR”
There is a gnawing tension that aches within the body of Norbert De La Cruz III’s newest work “The North Star.” De La Cruz’s previous work for Saint Louis Dance Theatre, “Cloud 9,” found the dancers of this company in an ethereal world, emulating utopia amongst the clouds of COCA’s Catherine B. Berges Theatre. While their gaze still reaches towards the heavens, in “The North Star” the dancers have fallen from the clouds, finding themselves among the debris of this earth. The sun is dimmer, the stakes are higher, yet this community of dancers continues to resonate amongst the residue of this newly inhabited world.
Before You Go: Second Annual St. Louis Contemporary Dance Festival presented by RESILIENCE Dance Company
Returning for a second year, the St. Louis Contemporary Dance Festival is an annual event hosted by RESILIENCE Dance Company connecting contemporary dance-makers across the country for performance, exchange, and dialogue. This two-day event includes four master classes and two evening performances at the Center of Creative Arts (COCA).
Before You Go: American Natya Festival presented by Soorya Performing Arts
The 16th American Natya Festival is a three-day long Indian classical dance festival hosted by Soorya Performing Arts, a not-for-profit dance organization based in St. Louis, dedicated to the education of the Indian classical arts of Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Carnatic music, and Mrudangam. This year's festival will occur from June 13-15, at Clayton High School, and will showcase a variety of artists representing Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Kuchipudi, Andhranatyam, Odissi, and more!
HQ Reveiw: Ballet 314 presents “THE ACCUSED”
For their final production to wrap up their 6th season, Ballet 314 presented The Accused at the Skip Viragh Center of the Arts. The night was a triple bill with The Lark Ascending, Envy of Angels, and the headliner, The Accused. The three pieces presented did not have a general theme that created a tether between each piece. But that did not matter as they were strong as standalone pieces, highlighting different strengths of the dancers.
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.
HQ Review: STLDT’s Trainees present their “(Em)Power” Spring Concert
Spearheaded by STLDT’s Director of Education Brandon Fink, Saint Louis Dance Theatre’s Spring Trainee Concert was performed at Nerinx Hall in collaboration with the Nerinx Hall High School Dance Department. The evening’s performance consisted of seven pieces by six different choreographers. Though each piece offered unique insight into this particular group of dancers, the standout works of the evening were Murmuration by Brandon Fink, Meld by Jorrell Lawyer-Jefferson, and IAN/IVE by Hui Cha Poos and the dancers.
HQ Review: Leverage Dance Theater presents “Refractions of Being”
Beneath the hallowed sanctuary of Hope United Church of Christ, the audience of Leverage’s concert “Refractions of Being” finds themselves. Illuminated by the sterile white lights of the church’s basement, Leverage’s fourth concert in their series “Spiritual Architecture & Sacred Spaces” began. The unconventional use of space that Leverage is well known for is immediately made evident as the audience is corralled into a corner facing a rectangular hole in the wall that looks into the church’s cafeteria space. There is a stark informality to being shepherded into such a space to watch dance. Though the program speaks of inviting people “to participate in an experience of shared spiritual intention,” it feels discordant to begin the concert in a space that is charged with such mundanity. However, there is spirituality even in the commonplace, and the mundane will soon bubble with vibrancy as the dancers of Leverage enter the space.
HQ REVIEW: Pack Dance presents “Disruption”
The May 2nd premiere of Disruption at The Marcelle Theater in St. Louis’s Grand Center arts district marked a notable milestone for Pack Dance as their first concert since officially rebranding from Consuming Kinetics Dance Company in the summer of 2024. With over 15 years of history and evolution at its heels, Pack Dance may be most recognized for its educational programming at its home studio in Central West End that caters most notably to adult dancers of all backgrounds and abilities in dance. Pack Dance’s annual spring dance concert, presented by its professional and junior companies of dancers, has built a tradition for itself of tackling topical, often darker political themes. In the past three years alone its concerts have centered around gender politics, gun violence, and climate change. This time around, the six choreographers chose to cast an even wider net, tackling a much wider range of themes centered around societal, cultural, and biological disruptors.
HQ Review: Saint Louis Ballet presents “FEELS LIKE BROADWAY”
Saint Louis Ballet’s recent production, Feels Like Broadway, presented at the Blanche M. Touhill Performing Arts Center, ambitiously sought to bridge the worlds of classical ballet and the showmanship of Broadway’s golden age. Featuring works by George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, and Christopher Wheeldon, the program leveraged some of the biggest names in ballet to explore where these two categories converge and contrast. While the evening showcased moments of brilliance, particularly in Wheeldon’s Carousel (A Dance), it also highlighted a shared conservative approach to gender, sexuality, and romance.