Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Sharlee Peay. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Sharlee , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s the kindest thing anyone has ever done for you?
A couple years after I co-founded Oquirrh West Project, my business partner found herself in circumstances that required her to move out of state. As we discussed what this would mean for OWP, she asked if I wanted to become the Artistic Director, which eventually led to me taking over the company. My first season as an Artistic Director without her had many mountains to climb and I faced multiple challenges as I worked hard to progress the company, it’s mission, and it’s future. The biggest challenge wasn’t finding artists. In that regard, there was an overwhelming support from the community. The biggest challenge, like so many other art related companies, was funding. I highly value my dancers and everything they have to bring to the creative space, including anything outside of movement that they can contribute and want to offer. So I counseled with them to see if they had any fundraising ideas I hadn’t yet considered to make our season a reality. Truthfully, we still live in this space and work hard to find the support we need to keep creating art and bring new ideas to the community. At this point, I was merely in the beginning stages of weighing the options of obtaining non-profit status for Oquirrh West Project. Since we weren’t a nonprofit yet, we didn’t have very many grant or fundraising opportunities. Despite all of that, the OWP artists were incredible, and offered their whole selves, talents, and abilities above and beyond movement in order to help make it all happen. They even volunteered to work in committees to help everything progress. We advertised a lot and reached out to everyone in our personal circles as well as everyone in the community. Our show was almost sold out and we were excited to share our voices, creativity, and everything else we had prepared throughout the season. The camaraderie in the group was tangible and unlike anything I had experienced. I loved and respected each of them, and I felt that care from them in return. As we were finishing our dress rehearsal, hours before our opening night, I got a call from our event manager that our show would be cancelled due to the Governor’s announcement to cancel all Salt Lake City events because of Covid-19. I was crushed and tearful as I looked into my artists’ faces to break the news to them. Many had family and friends already on route traveling from out of state to support and see the show. We shared tears together, and then I quickly entered problem solving mode to find a way to enable them to perform the show anyway. I reached out to a colleague and friend to ask if we could use her studio space, and she allowed us to have a studio showing of our show that night. We notified the audience we could fit into the new space and made it all happen. Just before the show began, I expressed my love for them and gratitude for their characters, hearts, and commitment. They then told me they had something for me. They presented me with a check comprised of their personal money that they had combined to donate to the company. I was overwhelmed. It was the nicest, most unexpected thing anyone has ever done for me. The very dancers who deserved payment for all of their hard work, instead, were concerned about me and OWP covering season costs. I will never forget their kindness and the special time we had that season amidst one of the most challenging worldly changes any of us had experienced.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I am a performer, choreographer, and educator. I began my dance training in classical ballet in SLC, Utah, attended Brigham Young University on full tuition scholarship for both dance and academics and graduated magna cum laude with a BA in dance performance. While pursuing my college degree, I performed with ballet and contemporary companies, touring performances in Idaho, Colorado, India, and China. I also received several awards including Rookie of the Year, Outstanding Female Performer, and All-Around Excellence in Performance, Academics, Leadership and Choreography. The most pivotal moment in my training, however, was the time I spent at the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance with Summer Lee Rhatigan. I studied Ohad Naharin’s “gaga” technique and repertoire with Bobbi Jene Smith and Tom Weinberger (Batsheva) as well as improvisation and choreography with Christian Burns and Alex Ketley. They opened doors to my creative mind and helped me imagine and access my body in ways I hadn’t been able to yet. Because of these brilliant artists, I saw dance from a whole new perspective–testing my extremes and failing to succeed. Their influence has ultimately inspired my philosophies as an artist, choreographer, and Artistic Director.
Upon graduating with my degree, I began my professional career with SALT Contemporary Dance. As a performer I felt lucky enough to learn and study with some of the “greats”. I studied with and/or performed works by Martha Graham, Peter Chu (“Paper Cuts”, chuthis), Jermaine Spivey (Kidd Pivot), the legendary Donald McKayle, Alex Ketley (The Foundry), Loni Landon, Brendan Duggan, Joni McDonald, Ching Ching Wong, and Ihsan Rustem amongst others. My time as a company artist was wonderful and I enjoyed my professional work. But life shifted for me and my family, and I found myself not only ready to have another baby, but also craving additional opportunities to create my own work and further develop my choreographic skills. Ultimately, I decided to step away from SALT and structured company work to begin a journey down the free-lance artist route. It was extremely difficult, uncertain, and I wasn’t quite sure what was next. I will always be grateful for the doors that opened through my time with SALT, the artists I still stay connected to, and the mentors that challenged me and believed in me enough to get me to where I am now. Shortly after stepping away, a colleague of mine announced that she was hosting auditions for a new contemporary dance project. I reached out with my interest to participate and also offered to help as an assistant director if she had a need. We met to discuss details and ended up deciding to build the project as partners. I was excited to perform, direct, teach, coach, bring in artists to work with the company, and begin my own personal journey as a resident choreographer.
As I dove into this new work, I found out that I was good at many administrative tasks and possessed other skillsets that made me a good fit for directing a company. I was connected to wonderful artists who wanted to work with me and the dancers of OWP. I could lead, teach, love, choreograph, sew, and had a knack for design which led me to build a set for our show in 2022. Somehow along the way, I also became a professional photographer which makes it easy for me to do photography for the company. I’m resourceful and ultimately creative which helps me do what I do on a budget. But I also know what the company needs, and can see when I need the strength of others to fulfill it.
One thing I first loved about developing Oquirrh West Project, was that it provided another space for professional artists to be challenged, grow, and explore their craft. There is so much talent in Utah in the movement art industry and I love seeing multiple projects, companies, and opportunities arise to give these artists a place for their voices. I feel that my work, and the work I do with OWP, provide just that–a place for choreographers to envision their next idea and for artists to be challenged and showcase their virtuosity in a hungry, safe, and exploratory environment.
I select my dancers with care. I’m looking for humans. People beyond technical ability. I care about their commitment, work ethic, eagerness to learn, sharing appropriate respect and professionalism with one another, and their trust to allow me to provide them opportunities that will develop their artistry no matter how uncomfortable it might be. In fact, I want them to be uncomfortable, for that is the pathway toward growth. I want them to test their limits and safely go to their extremes so they can reach their full potential and discover what they are truly capable of. I want to immerse them in physical theater work, technical work, and everything in between in order to help them become the best wholistic artist they can possibly be, capable of all kinds of work and articulate in every sort of way. I care about their personal growth and ultimately value that beyond their work on the company. I have had many love-filled, tearful goodbyes with artists who I have worked with and who have helped build OWP, knowing that the time had come for them to explore something new. A natural step for them on their personal journey. When I finally get to the moment where I watch one of theses artists who has worked with me and OWP for multiple seasons truly become an artist, I sit back in awe and am empowered by the way they have mastered their ability to truly articulate their full body–movement, voice, intent, context, and connection to their craft with full confidence. This is why I do what I do, and ultimately what I look forward to as I continue my personal research and exploration with the OWP artists.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
Like many artists, I encountered various setbacks after the global pandemic in March of 2020. Building a new company is hard. Building a new company within the past few years has been even harder, add trying to obtain a nonprofit status and you can imagine it has been quite the uphill climb. When my show and the rest of my season with Oquirrh West Project got cancelled, I could have easily dropped activity with OWP. However, my passion to provide more artists a space to create, teach, develop and share their craft with the community kept me moving forward. Instead of taking a break, I decided to allow Oquirrh the space it needed to shift, change, and evolve into a new kind of company to meet the global circumstances. One that artists, the community, and choreographers essentially needed to make it through a time that was incredibly challenging to find work. I knew that I needed to create work and be in the studio space investing in this art form more than ever. I also knew there were artists out there who felt the same. I did not take the pandemic lightly, and we went into auditions virtually as well as issued safe practices with mask wearing and over-communication about healthiness to ensure everyone’s safety. We stepped away from contact partnering and improvisation, which was incredibly challenging for the kind of work that I like to do. But ultimately, the bond we felt with one another and with our surrounding community was almost palpable. People were taking our free virtual classes regularly, donating, and rallying around us with so much support throughout the season. At OWP’s 2020-2021 season capstone show, the audience was hungry for art. Tears were shed in multiple exchanges that weekend from grateful audience members to have been able to see live art. For many, it was their first live art show in over a year. The community craved it, we craved it. It was a very sacred space and experience. I knew at that moment, I needed to continue pushing to create this space. So I have. Despite a constant battle for funding, grant writing and limitations, the challenges of building a board full of members who share my vision and commitment, natural changes in Associate Directors, Assistant Directors, and the coming and going of dancers who have all become dear friends of mine, I have pushed forward. Because artists keep coming to be involved, studio owners offer us space to rehearse, and choreographers continue to reach out to be a part of my vision. It’s undeniable that I am fulfilling a need in the community, and I’m hear for every part of it. I’m excited to see how future challenges mold me as an Artistic Director, Choreographer and artist, and what that does for Oquirrh West Project and the surrounding community.
How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?
Art makes the world spin around. Without it, what are we?
To me, art is a testament that we are higher thinking beings full of complexity, joy, heartache, challenges, and deep thinking. Art faces the human condition head on with all intent and purpose to have a conversation with it. It allows us to laugh, escape, sympathize, contemplate our existence, and even explore ideas that we haven’t considered yet. It is at the core of what gets us excited to be human. We are all impacted by it. Even when people tell me they don’t have a palate for fine art, I can’t help but smile. Because in my opinion, people are made up of fine art. Everything that art is, is human. And everyone has some sort of interaction with art like listening to music, watching cinema, reading books, taking photos, and recording videos for starters. Our connection to art is intertwined with our existence. We crave it. I believe that if we want to keep the world spinning, the best way to do it, is by investing in artists and creatives. Doing so will not only enable a thriving creative ecosystem, but will also enable humanity to thrive. Society can show up for creatives, attend art events and performances, invest in arts education, and ultimately make donations regularly and consistently to art platforms. A lot of parents, especially in the Utah community, invest in their children’s art education through dance lessons, theater training, music lessons, art classes, and more. It’s beautiful how much the Utah community values art education. Truly. There are incredibly talented artists being born in our community. I think my question is, once that artist is an adult and has mastered and developed their talents, what’s next? Where do they go? Many don’t have a professional space where they can continue to showcase and master their skills and passion, so they stop. We often forget to support the next step–the professional artists who continue to bring art to the community at higher levels. Investing in these companies is huge. I’m clearly an artist running one of those companies and feel passionate about supporting these kinds of artists who, I believe, can change lives with the gifts and messages they share. Ultimately, small donations each month to artists’ patreon pages, a consistent donation to professional dance companies and projects, providing artists space to create for reasonable trade and/or costs, rightfully obtaining music rights from musicians so they can continue bringing music to the community, and creating a community that uplifts, trades, supports, and gives back to each other is huge.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.owproject.org/
- Instagram: @oquirrhwestproject
- Facebook: @oquirrhwestproject
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@oquirrhwestproject
Image Credits
Sharlee Peay Jake Eveler