When Kim Martinez saw the dance musical “Illinoise” on Broadway in 2024, she heard critics and promoters praise it as innovative; as the first time dance had taken center stage in mainstream theater.
She loved the show but had to laugh at that line, she said — because she’s been creating dance theater in St. Paul for 25 years as artistic director and co-founder of Out on a Limb Dance Theater Company.
The company’s spring show is an adaptation of the “The Snow Queen,” the Hans Christian Andersen story that loosely inspired Disney’s “Frozen.” The show runs March 5, 6 and 7 at the Luminary Arts Center in Minneapolis; 700 N 1st St. Tickets ($30 for general admission, $25 for students) are available online at https://my.luminaryartscenter.com/2864.
“I think dance is a medium, unlike a lot of theatrical art forms, that it doesn’t tell you what to think. It invite you to feel,” Martinez said. “We’re in a world right now where we’re constantly being told what to think. But isn’t it kind of nice to not have that; to have an opportunity to experience your own emotions?”
The show, as many of Out On A Limb’s productions do, features music from Minnesota bands The Suburbs and Soul Asylum, among others. But the company in recent years has also formed a close working relationship with Suburbs frontman Chan Poling, who now works more as an orchestral composer. “The Snow Queen” features six of Poling’s compositions, including a piece he wrote specifically for this show.
Of course, Martinez said, dance forms like ballet have long been used as storytelling, and Broadway musicals are choreographed. But what makes dance theater unique as a genre, she said, is using a variety of styles of movement as the main narrative tool. Just as a musical uses songs to communicate plot and emotional moments, dance theater pulls in ballet and jazz and hip-hop and tap and acrobatics all as different narrative tools.
“Every scene has a different emotional arc to it, and you can utilize those genres (of movement) just like you would music,” she said. “In some ways, it’s easier to understand than dialogue, because movement is a language.”
Martinez has been dancing her whole life and started teaching when she was 9 years old at her mother’s dance school, she said. And in over six decades in the dance world, she has seen a trend away from professional artistic dance companies and toward competitive dance teams.
This change, from her perspective, makes it nearly impossible for the dancers themselves to earn a sustainable living through dance itself. So besides just telling stories through movement, part of Martinez and co-founder Marcey Mastbaum’s goal when they launched Out on a Limb was to develop audiences for dance theater to actually be able to support dancers’ careers, Martinez said.
“While I thought it’s great that somebody’s monetizing dance, it’s not going to the dancers,” she said. “You’re working your body as hard as any athlete but you’ve got nothing to show for it, and it breaks my heart. When you love it as I love it — I know what it does for kids; I know what it did for me as a kid, and how it kept me believing in myself — I just wanted to make space for that.”
And throughout the years, unexpectedly and unintentionally, Out On A Limb has bumped up against world news events that Martinez said only make the work feel even more poignant and timely.
The organization’s first day, for example, was Sept. 10, 2001.
And this spring’s show, “The Snow Queen,” was chosen before federal immigration agents swarmed the Twin Cities in January and February of this year. The show happens to tackle themes of family loss, grief and the power of caring for those around you, she said.
“When I decided to do ‘The Snow Queen,’ I had no idea how what an incredible reflection it would be on what’s happening in our community,” she said. “We’re in a time right now where so many people feel unsafe and frightened, and it makes the world seem ugly right now. … But even though things seem really ridiculously grim sometimes, if we remind ourselves just how deeply we’re loved and how deeply we love others, we can get back to beauty.”
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