This article is presented by the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Visit the museum’s first fashion exhibition Carla Fernández: The Barefoot Designer: A Passion for Radical Design and Community, now through August.
No doubt you’ve heard of sleep walking—how about “sleep dancing”? No? We didn’t think so.
Meet one bona fide sleep dancer: Betsi Graves, founder and director of Urbanity Dance. For Graves, dancing is just as natural as walking, even when she’s asleep.
“I remember summer days when I would get out of bed dancing and go to sleep dancing. Literal visions of sugar plums in my head,” she said.
As a child, Graves spent her time awake choreographing productions for the kids on her block.
“My ‘safe place’ as a kid was on the track with a boom box choreographing to the likes of Paula Abdul, Debbie Gibson, Madonna, and Gloria Estefan,” she said.
But Graves has come a long way since her boom box blasted Paula Abdul at school recess. The award-winning choreographer is spearheading a contemporary dance revolution here in the Hub, redefining the conventional company and shaking up the Boston arts scene.
“Call me a dreamer. I want to enlarge and transform the contemporary dance scene in Boston,” she said. “I think contemporary dance should be a full-time career option for performers. Most other major cites have that, why don’t we?”
Graves is well on her way to achieving that goal. Since it launched over six years ago, Urbanity Dance has grown like wildfire. Now over 30 dancers strong, the company has scored rave reviews, awards, and prestigious venue invitations like the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in the Berkshires and the Alvin Ailey Citigroup Theater in New York.
For Graves, the power of Urbanity Dance extends beyond the talented performers. It’s a medium to engage and empower communities.
“In my mind, you can’t say the word dance without saying the word community,” she said. “Everyone deserves art. Everyone deserves to feel empowered.”
Through workshops, residences and social initiatives; Urbanity is deeply involved in the local community, using dance to impact Bostonians of all ages and backgrounds. But even with a jam-packed schedule of community programming, the upcoming Boston Contemporary Dance Festival, and the move to a brand new South End studio space; Graves isn’t the least bit weary. In fact, she’s just getting started.
“We want to put Boston on the global map for contemporary dance, and ring the bell to elevate arts and culture in this sometimes sleepy Paul Revere town,” she said.
Read on as Urbanity Dance founder Betsi Graves shares how she found her calling and offers some “colorful” advice for aspiring artists.
