What would global culture look like without the contributions of East St. Louis? Thank God we will never know.
It was the “City of Champions” that groomed Miles Davis into a music icon – and where Ike met Tina. Hip hop has East St. Louis airwaves to thank for its introduction to commercial radio. Before they were filmmakers, Reginald and Warrington Hudlin had their educational and creative talents nurtured through The Katherine Dunham Center for the Performing Arts.
A generation after the Hudlins attended, The Dunham Center was where a five-year-old Heather Beal-Himes (then Beal) stepped foot on the path to her destiny. “My teacher, Ruby Streate, told me, ‘Your mission – your purpose in life – is to continue the legacy of Katherine Dunham,’” Beal-Himes said.
On Monday, she will be celebrated for her world-renowned work within the field of dance. Beal-Himes is among the 2024 cohort for the Saint Louis Visionary Awards, which happens on April 29 at Grand Center’s Sun Theater.
“Some of the women that I admire most have received a Saint Louis Visionary Award,” Beal-Himes said. “So, to have my name listed alongside theirs is amazing.”
Beal-Himes will be recognized as this year’s Outstanding Working Artist. She’ll share the spotlight with Elizabeth Mannen Berges (Major Contributor to the Arts), Shawna Flanigan (Outstanding Teaching Artist), Meredith McKinley (Outstanding Arts Professional), Luisa Otero-Prada (Community Impact Artist) and Alexa Seda (Emerging Artist).
“The great joy of this is lifting up women with these amazing stories, who are making change in our communities through the arts – and to share this gift,” Saint Louis Visionary Awards board member Sara Burke told The American in 2016.
Several prior recipients will surely be on hand to celebrate Beal-Himes and the 2024 Visionaries for the ceremony that will be hosted by Min Jung Kim, Saint Louis Art Museum’s Barbara B. Taylor Director and Margaret McDonald, Senior Principal at the global architecture firm HOK.
“I’m happy I will be in a room full of love,” Beal-Himes said.
By the time she was 12, Beal-Himes was fully committed to the call that Streate had placed on her life. She was taught by some of the greatest practitioners and educators with respect to the world-renowned Dunham Technique. Streate, the late Theo Jamison and Doris Bennett-Glasper were among them. “Modern dance the way we see it would not exist the way we see it without the labor of Katherine Dunham,” Beal-Himes said. “Our bodies wouldn’t move the way we move had it not been for the work that she did – particularly the work that she did building and codifying her technique on the bodies of the people of East St. Louis in the 1970s.”
She is grateful to her grandfather, Leonard Beal, who left his roots Bealsville, Florida and arrived in East St. Louis, where she thrived thanks to the community’s “village” approach when it comes to nurturing young people.
“I never understood why he left the sun – and a city named after his people – until I received a spiritual reading,” Beal-Himes said. “I was told, ‘He came here for you.’ Dancing because I like to dance versus knowing that I am living and walking in my purpose is a completely different feeling.”
Her intention is to pass that energy along.
“I am teaching children the same way I was invested in,” Beal-Himes said. “I am pouring into students so that they see themselves reflected back to them.”
A certified Dunham Technique instructor – as well as a choreographer, actress, director, and curator – Beal-Himes received her B.A. in dance from Columbia College Chicago and her MFA in Dance from Washington University in St. Louis. She considers herself a lifelong student of the Dunham Technique and says she learns something new every time she teaches.
A recent message came courtesy of the Dunham Walk.
Legend has it that the step was inspired by Ms. Dunham watching women in Haiti come down the mountain carrying everything that they had to sell at the market.
“They are stepping over rocks, but they can’t lose anything that they are carrying, because they have to sell it,” Himes said. “It made me think of how in life you have to step over obstacles but you can’t lose anything important while you are carrying them. I was like, ‘Come on Ms. Dunham with the life lessons.’”
When she delivers her remarks in front of family, friends and supporters – there is one person in particular Beal-Himes will have her eye on.
“I’m really excited to see the look on my mama’s face,” she confessed. “I always think about the sacrifices my mother made. Performance parents don’t get the flowers they deserve. They are the ones who truly supply the shoulders for us to stand on.”
Her mother, Cheryl Beal, will be in the crowd cheering her on – as usual. So will her husband Ron Himes and their children Ronald and Vivian Himes.
“I want to make sure that I am making my mother, my family and my ancestors proud that I am walking in my purpose,” Beal-Himes said. “I’m especially excited for my daughter to be able to see something like this.
And for everyone to know that while my grandaddy might have been guided here for me, the things that I do are for my children – and to show them that they can soar.”
The 2024 Saint Louis Visionary Awards will take place at 6 p.m. on Monday, April 29th at The Sun Theater, 3625 Grandel Square in Grand Center. For tickets or additional information, visit https://www.vizawards.org/.
