Today we’d like to introduce you to Jessica Heaton.
Hi Jessica, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers?
I always knew I wanted to direct a dance company, but I didn’t imagine I would start it in Utah or at the age of 23. I saw so many talented dancers graduating from the nearby universities, specifically in Utah County, and having nowhere to continue developing as artists unless they were willing to relocate or commute to Salt Lake.
I felt like professional dance could be an important part of Utah County’s growth, and also serve the talented dancers who wished to remain in Utah County. Wasatch Contemporary Dance Company was born out of this need and has now trained over 100 professional dancers since its start (12 years ago this month!). Dancers have even relocated to Utah from other states to dance with Wasatch Contemporary Dance and it amazes me the kind of community we have been able to build that appeals to so many dancers.
Our program allows for dancers to balance their dance career with family life and other career goals, and also focuses heavily on dancers receiving a broad range of experience, from performance to choreography and even administrative roles within the company. There are many barriers to professional dance in Utah County, but we have learned to use them to our advantage, creating dance for unique spaces and challenging the outdated model for conventional dance productions.
I personally began dancing as a youth in San Diego, CA. I moved to Utah to attend BYU from 2005-2011 (with a pause in the middle to serve an LDS mission in Spain) where I studied Exercise and Wellness with a minor in Contemporary Dance. I served in many leadership and choreographic positions during my high school and college career that helped me feel like I had enough tools to create a dance company, but it has been a steep learning curve.
I had help from other dancers like Christine Harbor and Beth Mason in the company’s earlier years and Rachel Robison, Heather Norton, Jessie McCloskey, and Jocelyn Smith in more recent years.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
There have been many challenges along the way that have caused me to use my creativity in ways I never imagined. But creativity is the name of the game in the arts so problem-solving has become a daily practice.
As is often the case in the arts, funding hasn’t always been easy to come by. We recognize that Utah County is a place where everyone expects a good deal, and people just aren’t used to or willing to pay as much for performances here as they are in Salt Lake County and other major cities. It has been a major focus of our work to show the importance of professional dance and how it merits the ticket price, although we still try hard to keep it affordable for families and students.
Utah County is not home to many professional-quality theaters either. Those that do exist are fully booked and hard to get into if you weren’t there when the theater’s doors first opened. Some theaters charge rates that only well-established arts organizations can afford, with no regard for the grassroots organizations that are working hard to provide a varied arts scene for the community. There is not a single black box theater in all of Utah County, while there are several in Salt Lake County.
Because of this, WCDC has performed in some very interesting, nonconventional spaces including the Provo Library Ballroom, an underground jazz club, the Woodbury Art Museum, and the Northampton House. We have thoroughly enjoyed creating dance for these unique sites, delving into immersive dance experiences and audience interaction, but these also come with their challenges. Inadequate sound systems, less-than-ideal flooring for dance, low ceiling heights, and small venue sizes are some of the problems we’ve had to creatively solve.
Despite the quirkiness of some of these venues, these shows have often been the most rewarding to us as artists and the most enjoyable for our audience members. Still, we look forward to having a theater to call home someday for at least one of our 4 performances annually.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
My personal choreography is my main source of self-education.
It’s how I organize my experiences, what I’ve learned, and what I want to know more about. Driven by relationship and connection, I love to explore new ways of partnering in dance and how that mirrors our personal relationships off the stage. In recent years, I find myself drawn to technology and props and the extra dimension they can add to dance.
I have a love for dance films and their unique ability to story tell. I completed a work in October 2021 that utilized personal-size trampolines and am now working on a piece that features lightboxes. I think that movement can be fun and exploratory and I reject the notion that all professional dance must be highly abstract, serious, and avant-garde to have value.
Who else deserves credit in your story?
I will forever be grateful to my mentor Pat Debenham who has cheered me on from the beginning. I first learned from him as a performing company member on BYU’s dancEnsemble which he directed. Under his guidance, I served as a choreographer and student leader, eventually becoming his assistant.
In the early years of WCDC’s formation, we invited Pat to rehearsals and showings to give feedback on our choreography. He has guided us well. When times have been tough, he has reminded me to just put my head down and get to work. The people will come. But you just be about your work as an artist and don’t waste the time worrying.
Other crucial members of this team over the years include Christine Harbor, who was my original partner in founding the company, and Beth Mason, who gave me the support and manpower I needed to take the company to the next level. Heather Norton, Rachel Robison, and Jessie McCloskey have had an immeasurable influence on WCDC and its survival through a global pandemic.
Currently, Jocelyn Smith joins me at the helm as my Associate Director as we launch forward.
Contact Info:
- Email: wasatchcontemporary@gmail.com
- Website: www.wasatchcontemporary.com
- Instagram: @wasatchcontemporary
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WasatchContemporary
Image Credits
Heather Young, Greg Baird, Amy Howton, Katie Bruce, and Dat Nguyen
