Director’s Fellow
Grace Myers is a 2022 graduate of Washington University in St. Louis, where she studied Anthropology and Dance as an Arnold J. Lien Scholar and John B. Ervin Scholar. She is originally from Rochester, New York, where she trained at Garth Fagan Dance and worked for the organization administratively in development, education, community partnership, and archives. She formerly held administrative roles at CommUNITY Arts STL, served as the president of CityDance at Washington University for three years, facilitating over a dozen weekly, free-access, student-led community dance classes at elementary schools and community centers in St. Louis, and taught classes and pedagogy workshops for Our Chance to Dance in St. Louis, MO. Her arts administration and community organizing work stem from a choreographic practice that unites artistry, ethnography, and interdisciplinary theory. She has conducted three funded independent choreographic research projects, including The Surrender of Coal: Creativity in Conditions of Constraint, which debuted at Studio Alta in Prague, Czechia, in May 2022, and Grace was the youngest choreographer featured in the 2022 MADCO Emerging Choreographers Showcase. She was recently awarded the Ian D.W. Cramer Prize for excellence in dance from the Washington University Performing Arts Department. Her work as an ethnographer, choreographer, pedagogue, arts administrator, and community organizer lies at the nexus of anthropology and dance, examining dance practices in relation to their evolutionary social functions and subsequent utility for psychological healing, promoting coregulation, and fostering community.