Q&A with Jacob Henss, Artistic Director of Space Station Dance Residency

Calvin Windschitl: For those who were unable to attend, could you describe your piece? Paint us a picture of what we saw on Saturday. Where was the performance, who were the dancers, what was the movement aesthetic, etc?

Jacob Henss: This past weekend was Space Station’s fundraising event featuring an evening-length work by myself (Jacob Henss), with additional choreography by invited artists Josiah Gundersen, Sara Hook, Samanvita Kasthuri, and Carly Vanderheyden. The invited artists showed shorter pieces leading  to my evening-length work titled “E.T.C.- Ephemeral Time Capsule”. Audience members arrived and were checked in, greeted, and sent to the piano in our chapel space at Hope United Church of Christ, where musician Natalie Mayor checked vocal ranges of our audience and assigned them to singing roles; an assignment that would not be performed until the end of the night. 

My work moved the audience from the chapel space, where we regularly perform for Space Station, to the main sanctuary— a space used consistently for worship featuring gorgeous stained glass windows and an English pipe organ. My piece was full of luscious and indulgent movement that oscillated between draping movements with moments of anxiety-filled pulses, which was performed by five exceptional dancers— Elodie Andrews, Josiah Gundersen, Elyzah Gasmen, Marlee Doniff, and Ramona Orion and had live music performances by Noah Petti, Natalie Mayor, and Roberta Van Nest. Little did the audience know, but they too would be singing and contributing to our Ephemeral Time Capsule.

Calvin Windschitl: I want to start with the obvious—this performance was staged in a church, and the whole piece was built around themes of religiosity. What inspired this work and why did you choose for religion to be such a central theme?

Jacob Henss: Actually, the main theme of the piece for me was the Ephemeral Time Capsule, treating music and dance as if they are tangible things that we can preserve and save for our future selves and/or future humanity. Or at least this is how the piece first started. It wasn’t until halfway through the process that I decided to add religion as another layer. My thought was to create a culture around art and dance that encourages audience members to become disciples of the arts, blindly trusting in us that dance is changing our world, even if we can’t always measure this. Since this was a fundraising event that affects how many artists we can hire for our summer residency, I wanted to frame the money giving aspect of the evening as if they were tithes, a monetary support to their faith. It was natural to have this piece in the main sanctuary, where this kind of worship truly takes place. In this context, our time capsule becomes a relic, an item that we direct our intent towards and doesn’t become special until after this exchange.   

Calvin Windschitl: It’s been a while since I’ve seen your work presented. I saw many familiar threads of your previous work shine through, but one big difference for me was the level of audience interaction in this piece. When and why did you start exploring that? 

Jacob Henss: Audience interaction is something that myself and my Co-Director, Robbie Van Nest, have been pondering deeply in regards to Space Station.  We were inspired by the solo created by Marlee Doniff during our past Summer residency, which received such positive feedback after she demanded the audience to karaoke with her to “Take Me Home, Country Roads” by John Denver. It felt natural when asking the audience for money or the elevated price for our tickets for our fundraising event,  to be invested in the piece, not just as a viewer, but as a contributor to the dance arts in St. Louis. The intent of audience participation is also going to be the “main theme” in our upcoming Summer Residency, so why not lubricate our audiences now as a foreshadowing of our future? 

Calvin Windschitl: What does your process typically look like? How did creating this piece challenge or deepen your understanding of your creative process?

Jacob Henss: This piece was a whirlwind to create and did not fully come to completion until the night before opening night. Because there were so many components, I created a script to inform everyone where and when to be. With only 6 rehearsals to put this together and the chaotic schedule of professional performers, I rarely had all the dancers in the same space which led to a mixture of trios, solos, and duets that were added slowly over time as if the work was a de Kooning painting, painting over existing paintings constantly. Luckily, I did a shorter version of this piece at Illinois State University which was where I developed a lot of the movement invention alongside my students. After this, it was time to chaotically frustrate this original version to finally reorganize and stretch to the version that was presented. 

Calvin Windschitl: Architecturally, the piece felt very ceremonial. There were moments where you asked the audience to stand, to sing, to make offerings. There was a sense that we were not only observers but participants in something larger. Did you know intentionally craft this workaround these ceremonies, or were they products of the work itself?

Jacob Henss: I stated this briefly before, but both. I value following the creation of the work and constantly ask myself, “What does this work need?”, a lesson and skill I have learned from a friend, collaborator, and dramaturg, Betsy Brandt, but I also didn’t want to shy away from building the audience as contributors and investors. When you are invested in something, you feel you can give the most energy, support, and monetary donations. 

Calvin Windschitl: How do you think about your role in the work? You’re the choreographer, but you also acted as the evening’s MC, and in your piece, a liturgist. That’s quite the nexus—what does that say about you as an artist? What are the implications for the piece itself?

Jacob Henss: In a campy way, it says I want to be a dance/art cult leader! Joking but only partially. In quoting one of my speeches, I hope to be a leader in St. Louis, creating a group of people who give their worship to the process and our faith to making the unknown known, hoping to unlock a better self and a healthier shared world.” I am not always only the choreographer, but more of a caretaker. In this piece, it seems instinctual to not only “tidy up the spaces” as the MC and production assistant, but also “tidy up” as a curator and presenter as to what I think St. Louis dance should be in conjunction with other existing organizations. Specifically, with a drive to elevate and present this kind of work in no different way than the other dance presenters around me. 

Calvin Windschitl: Returning to another obvious point. This work comes at a time where many artists are feeling threatened, unsupported, and uncertain of the future. We are beginning to finally see the implications of generative AI on many artistic fields—though dance may be one of the few truly AI-proof mediums—and the current administration is ripping funding for anything with even a hint of liberal-codded sensibilities. How did the current political and cultural context inform the work and your process?

Jacob Henss: I did gravitate towards wanting to harbor community and connection with this piece in response to our political climate. There was a moment in my piece where some dancers looked up as if they were searching for relief and answers, but they were met with another dancer shutting their eyes and pulling them back down. As an artist, I feel helpless in our current political climate and forced to blindly adhere and just follow orders, but the minimum I can do is to create work that bonds others and reminds others that we need art to mentally and emotionally survive this American political climate. We truly cannot measure the amount of joy connections that were made that evening among a diverse group of people. 

Calvin Windschitl: At the beginning of the night, you set up a moment that I felt was profound. You asked those of us in the audience to take a moment to reflect on how we might support arts in the future. Then you reminded us all that art can challenge our beliefs. What struck me was that you then asked the audience to observe a moment of silence to think about those two points. Why did you feel this was necessary? What do you hope the audience reflected on in our moment of silence? 

Jacob Henss: This is a curatorial moment for me that is necessary and serves two purposes. One is a foreshadowing of my religious piece to come, but a deeper purpose is to prime the audience for self-analysis. Quite often, I hear friends and family members come to support solely because it is a duty they do for their connection to the show. But there is more than this surface-level attendance operating at our productions. We are not solely an entertainment business, but also attempt to expand our audience's knowledge and empathy for others and the world around them. There is even a physiological nurturing by being exposed to visual stimuli outside of your daily routine, which is physically expanding the minds of our attendees. As Space Station slowly becomes a staple in the St. Louis dance community, I want to train our audiences to support this, and a moment of silence is a simple way to begin the process of letting this questioning settle internally for our viewers.  

Calvin Windschitl: This evening was a fundraiser for the Space Station residency in August. Could you tell us more about the residency? What sorts of information would you like to share with all interested parties (choreographers, dancers, arts lovers).

Jacob Henss: Dancers, we are searching for performers for an audition on April 27th at 1 pm. This audition will showcase some local choreographers' processes, which will be determined after our selection of them in the weeks to come. It will also include our guest choreographer audition, Kara Beadle, who hails from Seattle, WA.  More information about them will be posted on our social media in the weeks to come.

 We are also currently accepting proposals from local St. Louis choreographers to be a part of our summer residency. Information for these can be found on our instagram page or via email at spacestationdance@gmail.com. The deadline for these submissions is April 18th by Midnight.

All of this is leading up to our full residency performances that will occur on August 8th, 9th, and 10th at 7 pm at Hope United Church of Christ. More information about this can be found on our website at spacestationdance.com.

Photos by Carly Vanderheyden