CKDC’s 2023 Spring dance concert
Friday, April 28 - Sunday, APRIL 30
The Gun Violence Archive is a nonprofit group that tracks gun violence using police reports, news coverage, and other public sources. They define mass shootings as “an incident in which at least four people are injured or killed, excluding the shooter.” According to their records, 2022 was the second most deadly year for gun violence in the United states in over a decade - a year that did not leave St. Louis unscathed. The Gun Violence Archive has recorded nearly 700 mass shootings in 2022, with the United States holding the ghastly record for more than any other country. Some studies indicate that the rate at which public mass shootings occur has tripled since 2011, leaving us desensitized. CKDC’s spring concert questions some of the contributing factors to this plague on our country including high access to guns, low access to mental health resources, as well as a variety of sociocultural factors. Join us for a sobering, yet important discussion through movement this spring.
Meet Our creative artists and Choreographers
Leah Fry
Leah Fry has recently graduated with her BFA in Dance from Lindenwood University. Leah has previously choreographed works for Lindenwood University and worked with a variety of studios choreographing for competition and teaching technique for 6 years. Her piece,Cabinet Thoughts,was selected to represent Lindenwood University at the American College Dance Association. She is also an avid creator of Dance for Film projects. She has collaborated in three works; Into the Divine, Paragon, and Faroe in collaboration with Lindenwood Cinema Arts students. Faroe was selected for American Dance Festival’s Movies By Movers, an International Screen dance festival. She currently teaches and dances with Consuming Kinetics Dance Company.
Hannah John
Hannah John is 18 years old and has been dancing with CKDC for 7 years. She began in the Junior Junior Company and worked her way up to dancing with and choreographing for the Professional Company at CKDC. Hannah has been dancing her whole life and is currently preparing to study dance in college in New York City next semester. She is excited to see where this journey takes her.
Cheriyah King
On starting college at SIUE, Cheriyah took her first Hip Hop class, and everything changed from there. She started creating her own pieces and getting even more comfortable with the artform. She started incorporating modern techniques into her choreography and personalized her version of Hip Hop. Four years later, in August 2021, she discovered Consuming Kinetics Dance Company, where she started her career as a professional choreographer.
Carly Lucas
Carly Lucas graduated summa cum laude from Ball State University in 2021. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance Performance, a minor in Business Administration, and was one of ten students in her graduating class to receive Academic Honors in Writing recognition. At Ball State, Carly received the opportunity to train under nationally and internationally recognized artists such as Indya Childs, Ryan Johnson, Sidra Bell, and Noa Shadur. As a dance artist, Carly is most interested in improvisational movement, devising work, and the potential of dance as a scholarly pursuit. Her previous choreographic works include “When I Screamed Loud Enough” (2022), “Individuals Indivisible” (2020), and “Handprints” (2019). Carly has been a dance artist and educator in St. Louis since August 2021, and is grateful for the connections she has made through CKDC.
Mary Meo
Mary Meo is a movement artist originally from Elmwood Park, Illinois. Her early dance education includes Légere Dance Centre, DeMaira Dance Studio, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, and Lou Conte Dance Studio. In 2021, Mary graduated summa cum laude from Ball State University where she obtained her BFA in Dance Performance. At Ball State, Mary had the privilege to work with artists such as Sidra Bell, Noa Shadur, Jamy Meek, Beverly Bautista, and Tweet Boogie. Mary was a part of Sidra Bell’s piece, “Works Within Dreams,” selected to be performed at the American College Dance Association South Conference in March of 2020. Throughout her collegiate experience, she was able to discover her love for improvisation and how that contributes to the creative process. She is a strong proponent of limitless self-expression who finds passion in generating truly thought-provoking works. Mary joined CKDC in August of 2021 and is thrilled to be performing, teaching, and choreographing this season.
Arica Nyamsi
Arica is the Founder, Executive and Artistic Director of Consuming Kinetics Dance Company. CKDC has worked with dancers in and around the St. Louis area and abroad, extending all the way to France, Korea, Italy, Russia and Poland. Arica has hosted several master classes throughout St. Louis, Baltimore, Denver and the state of Arkansas.
Jessica Pierce
Though her primary focus is film and video, she has a background in dance as well, having danced ballet, jazz, and tap from ages 4 to 18 plus a few classes in college. Jessica's interest in dance is deeply rooted and she enjoys bringing film and dance together whenever possible.
Hobie Wolff
A 17 year-old who grew up in Saint Louis city, Hobie Wolff is a poet who aims to capture different aspects of the human experience in her poetry. With subjects ranging from simple everyday moments to larger, front-page issues, Wolff hopes to use her poetry to open channels of discussion about current events, equity, human emotion, and personal, everyday experiences.
Drawing her inspiration from Ocean Vuong’s fragmented and impactful storytelling and Ada Limon’s ability to capture everyday moments and turn them into something beautiful, Wolff has been writing poetry for almost six years. She writes introspectively, trying to capture aspects of the human experience that are not often normalized or centralized such as grief, isolation, and mental illness. She uses her poetry as a platform to discuss current events and injustices she sees across her city and the nation. This can be seen in her discussion of the Delmar Divide in her poem “City of Houses.” She also uses her poetry to lay bare the adolescent experience of violence such as with her poem “October 24th.” Wolff continues to be active in her community through her workshops at other schools and the Spoken Word class she has been running through her school for two years. She plans to go to college on the west coast and hopes to continue her studies in Mandarin, photography, and literature as well as continuing to write and perform her poetry.
Program Pieces
D!3L!V!NG
D!3L!V!NG is a lengthened work about gun violence in spaces meant to cultivate community and queer joy. It is specifically set in an LGBTQ-affirming bar, but could represent other spaces such as dance clubs or music festivals. Nevertheless, it portrays a group of seven individuals, some friends, but mostly strangers who come together to exist in an accepting, non-violent community. Like victims of shootings such as The Pulse or Club Q, they dance joyfully in ignorance of what is to come. As we continue to read about anti-LGBTQ+ movements in the news, such as action toward drag bans and barriers to gender-affirming care, we feel the importance of portraying this real, unthinkable threat to a group that means no harm. What do these spaces look like when the people that come to live freely don’t make it out alive?
The Root of Pain: A Decision Made for Others
Through this work we look at the lens and experiences of community both good and bad and how they both contribute positively and negatively to the forces and decisions made for us..
October 24th
Written by Hobie Wolff
We learned about guns in 10th grade world history
We learned about how they revolutionized war
We learned that after 1914
War would never look the same again
Maybe war could mean something new
--
I always wondered how news outlets got their stories so fast
That only 5 minutes after something happened, every seemed to know already
That only ten minutes after something happened, they already had a catchy headline
I wondered if they had someone waiting for the sound of a siren
Ready to chase those flashing lights to the next story
Ready to boil everything down into one or two sentences
It seems unimaginable to have your life reduced to a headline
--
I never thought I could lose you until 100 shots went off in the next room
100 shots shattering doors and glass with 100 instagram stories filled with prayers
I never thought I could lose you until I got a text saying you were ok
--
Who knew that lesson never stopped that we’d continue to learn about guns all through high school
That we’d learn 3 bullets can kill someone our age
That we’d learn what blood looks like spilled across the floor and that we could keep running
Who knew we’d learn fear would make us keep running
--
Maybe war looks like a highschool
With 3 metal detectors, security guards
And students running to get out of it
Maybe war looks like freshman wondering if their friend is alive
Maybe war looks like a gym teacher who won’t get to teach tomorrow
Maybe war, today, is all around us
--
I remember the first time I had to do a lockdown drill
I was in preschool
In pigtails with bangs straight across my face I asked my teacher
“Why are we hiding under the desks? What are we hiding from?”
She told me we were hiding in case a dog got into the building
I was 15 when I realized:
We were preparing for an active shooter
--
Since 2018 there have been been 132 school shootings
121 people have been injured in this year
34 people have been killed
A modern rifle carries an average of 30 rounds
Only 29% of Americans have never shot a gun before
28 children have been killed in school shooting this year
24 states have had a school shooting occur in the past year
The standard handgun carries 17 rounds
And the average american owns 5 guns
--
We used to be statistics
It seemed further away when it was numbers on a page
How could it be us
When it was a face we’d never seen before
How could it be us?
When it happened a state over
I never thought it could be us until 100 shots went off in the next room
--
“What are we hiding from”
I asked
Cause I don’t think we’re hiding from dogs anymore
--
Maybe war is all around us today
Maybe war is becoming a statistic
Maybe war is 100 shots going off next to a room of people who never thought it would be them
Maybe war is realizing, maybe all along you were hiding from animals, just not the ones you thought
Maybe war is thinking we should still be hiding
And maybe, that lesson never ends
Maybe everyday we’re still learning what a gun can really do
School These Days
Choreographed by Artistic Director, Arica Nyamsi, School These Days emphasizes the fears that school-age children face in America during an age of increased gun violence and mass shootings. Where once puberty, sports tryouts and test scores were the source of worry, our youth face new, life-threatening fears and anxiety in schools and public spaces. School These Days begs the question, are we all too Desensitized to challenge these systems? Or can we imagine a future where children can focus in the classroom and find peace in spaces intended for learning and growth.
The Alarm
Students at a high school face an active shooter alarm. Fear and anxiety runs high as they identify concerning cues, strong possibilities that the threat is real, and not a drill. Students attempt to support each other through the terror, but frequently get overwhelmed with their own. A series of solos created by the junior company artists themselves illustrate the students looking back and reflecting on their short lives, unsure if they will soon be stolen. In the end, the door to their hiding space begins to open and we don’t know what lies on the other side; a threat or a rescue? While difficult to watch unfold, The Alarm is sadly a reality for many survivors, as well as many who lost their lives at the hands of gun violence. We dedicate this piece to the lives of all those who left home for school one day but never returned. May they never be forgotten and may their stories forever be told.
What Comes After
Choreographed by a survivor of the October 24 school shooting, What Comes After details the emotions that occurred following the event. From the disbelief of the immediate moment in the wake of the shooting, to the pretense of normalcy of the same day, to the numbness and anger and sadness of the following weeks, place yourself in the shoes of the children who were in the building while it happened and how their lives have changed. Can we let this happen again? We already have.
N.ever O.ffer W.arning
N.ever O.ffer W.arning, or N.O.W., is an exploration of the importance of community. In the dictionary, community is defined as a feeling. That feeling can be a range of things for a range of people. When this community finds themselves in a dangerous position, one leader must step up and make sacrifices for the good of the group. How does this effect the rest of them? How do they respond? How does the importance of the leadership position weigh on the leader?
As the group makes their way through the situation, they discover the true importance of community. They learn to trust and rely on each other as the piece progresses. They end their journey on stage with one final supporting gesture, melting together as one.
Wake Up! It’s Real.
Wake Up! It’s Real. guides you through a unique process of emotions. Audience members get to explore a victim’s grief through their state of disassociation before their eventual acceptance of a traumatic experience. You will be guided through a series of “memories” that are influenced by racially motivated incidents including the mass shooting events at the Tops Supermarket in Buffalo, NY and the Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, as well as the Kyle Rittenhouse incident.
The Weight of Survival
Other Contributors
Lighting Designer, Master Electrician, and Programmer
Claire Winston