Stacey Temple

Stacey Temple DANCE

www.presentingdenver.org/listing/stacey-temple-dance/

“I see the world through movement, and my artwork gives me a chance to use that as a way of viewing and coping with life.”

What made you want to join Art Gym? When I retired from my teaching, one of my biggest regrets was losing the easy access I had to the college’s dance studio. And so when an artist friend told me about finding a perfect place to paint, I started grumbling about how lucky visual artists were to have that available. She piped up with — there was a performance space there as well. Amazingly, right here in my neighborhood this beautiful space existed.

How has Art Gym helped with your art practice? It has given me a wonderful space in which to choreograph works for my dance company’s performances (the next one on April 26 & 27th).  The warm and creative energy that I feel the minute I walk into the space encourages my own creativity.

What are you hoping to communicate through your work? I create dance to make sense out of my world and my life.  Sometimes funny. Sometimes darker. Dance has a visceral and powerful way of communicating, allowing audience members to filter the work through their life experiences and creating their own vision. I hope to bring that moment to people.

Who and/or what are some of your biggest artistic influences? I started to dance many years ago in Denver, so I must mention two New York teachers who found themselves here in the 1970’s – Al Brooks and Maxine Munt – living what all of us considered at the time, a “strange, loft existence.”  With their urging, I thought of myself not only as a dancer but also a choreographer. As I moved on through college, teaching and performing in NYC, I haven’t stopped creating dances. My actual movement influences range from ballet to Limon and Hawkins technique.

What does your artwork mean to you? I see the world through movement, and my artwork gives me a chance to use that as a way of viewing and coping with life.  As my body has aged, I might have given it up, but I couldn’t.  And because I work with a company of talented and creative dancers, the process always makes me joyful, even when the world or the piece that we are working on, isn’t.