Learning the choreography of being a business owner in St. Louis did not come easy to dance studio owner Gloria Mwez.
The large panel windows, outlined in white chalk marker, distinguish her dance studio, The Untitled Project,” on Cherokee Street. It is nestled among a vibrant collection of businesses owned by women of color.
The studio opened a year ago after Mwez received a grant from the Regional Arts Commission. She had the courage to realize her dream of opening a space where any artist is welcome to express themself – with the help of funds that didn’t come from her savings account.
Born in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mwez moved to the United States when she was very young. She began dancing as a teenager, somewhat later than other professional dancers. She came from the world of gymnastics before she transitioned to dance.
Her first experience teaching a class came after she realized she could get paid for this new-found passion.
“I have it in my diary. That day, I was like, ‘I got a paycheck for dancing, [and] I usually pay to dance,’” Mwez said during an interview on her veranda in the 800 square-foot dance studio.
She attended the University of Notre Dame to pursue a degree in business and a dance certificate, and said she had to fight every semester to transfer credits from a sister school that with a dance program.
After college, she moved to Chicago where she danced professionally and opened a studio called Chicago Untitled project. While there, she choreographed for people, taught dance classes, and danced professionally for productions.
“I found a little niche for myself; kind of quirky, super athletic, acrobatic and storytelling focused dancing,” she said.
“I wasn’t like the beautiful ballet girl. I was five-type person.”
Mwez moved to St. Louis with her partner shortly before the pandemic. She struggled with her mental health trying to discover a new city and spent a year without dancing.
“I had to learn a whole new body,” she said.
“I had to learn a whole new space and went through the worldwide depression that everybody went through.”
After dreaming of opening a small studio in St. Louis, she secured the AARPA grant for artists who lost money during the pandemic and opened the studio on the 2900 block of Cherokee Street.
“I was in a dreamer phase,” she said.
“It started with me teaching a lot of jazz, that’s my base, and then finding artists and teachers to come in here. We’re still growing very slowly but trying to embrace the small studio feel.”
Mwez said her passion lies in bringing a hobby to a community of adults who have been discouraged to move their bodies because of societal pressure.
“Something happens when you have bills and rent and a job where all of a sudden, you’re like, ‘that’s not important unless it’s literally my job,’” she said.
“If we take a step back, we understand how broken that is. I want to hopefully build a world where the arts are integrated and available to them.”
Dynamics to dance
Cherokee Street has historically been home to a large Latino community. In recent years, as the district grows and rent prices increase, the area is growing less diverse.
Mwez said, as a transplant, it was hard to wrap her head around the gentrification of the area.
“I think some things happening at Cherokee…are starting to look a lot like South grand, which is beautiful and wonderful in its own right,” she said. “But it’s also not that unique.”
Still, the district is home to at least a dozen businesses owned by women or people of color.
“Whenever I see another Black woman owned business on the street, there’s a little kinship and that pride, and that makes me feel good,” she said.
“On a bigger note, I desperately want more people to understand that the small businesses that they love that make their neighborhoods really cute and that they think are so interesting, kooky and unique, they only work if the community supports them,” Mwez said.
Mwez said she was excited to open her business in such a diverse place with a network of women who own businesses in the district. But she said she’s been discouraged by the lack of representation in meetings with owners of properties who do not reflect the ideals of those who occupy their space.
“A lot of the representation in some of the business meetings that I’ve gone to do not reflect that. So that’s been a little sad,” she said.
At the Print Bazaar, an event on Cherokee that showcases artists through pop-up booths in small businesses, Mwez said she wanted to uplift some artists who were women of color, but her requests went ignored.
“I just wanted to build community and to have that kind of ignored,” she said. “There are little moments like that where it happens, and I have had to seek it out for myself. [Small business owners] don’t have a lot of time, so that can be really hard.”
Why the weak wi-fi?
Mwez said another barrier to her studio is lack of access to a high fiber Wi-Fi connection. She said the service is not easy to come by for the Cherokee Street District.
“There are only certain spaces in certain cities where you can have them,” she said. “And they tend to align with the richer, whiter spaces.”
The last thing her instructors want during a class, she said, is for music to stop – and not be able to start again. She said she was surprised how much she actually relies on good Wi-Fi, and never realized how companies can block access to something so essential to small businesses and marginalized communities.
In a 2022 study published by the St. Louis Community Foundation, 55% of St. Louisans face barriers to access to high-speed internet. One pillar to this includes the lack of infrastructure to support it, which affects impoverished areas in the region.
“I wanted that high speed internet,” she said. “It’s currently out of my price range, but I would make it work in my budget.”
This year will be the first year Mwez will not have the aid of the grant money to cushion her business. She said that as she looks around her studio, with its comforting decor and wide panel windows, large mirrors and cardboard decorations, she is grateful for the neighborhood and art community in St. Louis.
“I want my business to succeed, not just for my own livelihood, but so that there can be a bigger arts community here,” she said. “So that artists can feel like they can get paid for doing their art and be able to stay where they are.”’
To sign up for classes and learn more about That Untitled Project visit https://thatuntitledproject.com/studio/.
Namratha Prasad is The St. Louis American’s Comcast NBC-Universal Fellow/Reporter