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Spring Performance workshop: Greek Myths

April 23 – June 17 | Sign up for STH & Blowout Theater’s Spring Performance Workshop: Greek Myths

NEW! Sat. HIP HOP Classes

Mar. 25 – Jun 17 | Sign up now for a new 12 week Hip Hop class on Saturdays with Miki Tuesday aka Michela Diedda

Marta Becket – by Ellynne Skove/aka “FlyGirl”

When it comes to blending the Wild West and ballerinas there is only one person I would ever consider; MARTA BECKET of Death Valley Juncion and the Amargosa Opera House!!!! Marta inspired many and was a true pioneer. What she did out in California after leaving her NY career took True Grit Guts Faith Passion Commitment Creative Thinking Living Frugally Conviction Strength Determination Vision Inspiration And so much MORE! In the end, Marta was the sole living resident of the “town” of Death Valley Junction. She lived in what would have been a Ghost Town (with plenty of ghosts still residing there)! Staying there was surreal. Marta was the most amazing blend of visual artist, musician, costume and set designer, and dancer. She was a Renaissance Being of the highest caliber and she performed whether or not she had a live audience in the Opera House or her painted mural audience. Who DOES THIS? What kind of person is THAT committed to performing? My only regret is that I did not meet Marta earlier in my life. But I will be forever thrilled that I decided to take that” little” 8 hour detour to see Marta the first time. I was driving from the Sierras in Eastern California to Santa Barbara on the coast….when I decided to head to Death Valley Junction for a few days…in over 100 degree weather without air conditioning! The whole trip was wildly crazy! Just what this New Yorker Gal needed when she had thought she’d seen it all! Hah! Really you ain’t seen Nothin’ till you’ve seen Death Valley Junction and Marta’s world! She should have been givne a National Medal for the Arts. Thank you to Elise Long for introducing me to DVJ and Marta, and for hatching the Live Art in Death Valley Event with me as a co-producer. May we all live like Marta in some way in our lives. Meeting Marta Becket inspired me to step into owning that I too am a visual artist as well as a performing artist. I can only hope to live up to her standards. Ellynne Skove/aka “FlyGirl” February 1, 2017

Marta Becket – by Elise Long

In January 2013, over 30 Spoke the Hub artists, students, friends and family members from both the east and west coasts converged on the Amargosa Opera House and Hotel in Death Valley, CA for a magical weekend that few of us will ever forget. The initial impetus for producing “LIVE ARTS in DEATH VALLEY” was to pay homage to maverick octogenarian ballerina/painter, Marta Becket, and to help raise money to keep her vision, the hotel and the opera house afloat. After we received her mimeographed newsletter asking for donations (it’s 2012 mind you) my old friend Ellynne Skove – another big Marta fan – and I came up with a scheme for a STH weekend arts retreat in the desert that in the end raised $10,000 for Marta and allowed us to “experience” her and her vision in person. Marlena Oden and Jeremy Lintz’s slide-show of STH’s “Live Arts in Death Valley” weekend Film-maker Femi Agana’s short film of “Space Walk”, a desert dance improvisation adapted from Nancy Topf ‘s work My personal introduction to Marta occurred almost 50 years ago, when I was a pre-teen in Junior High in California. I was casually thumbing through a National Geographic magazine and came across a photo of this tricked-out, full-blown ballerina in pink tights, a Swan Lake tutu, full stage make-up, on pointe, performing to an empty theater with a painted audience of Spanish kings, queens and cheribum looking on from the walls and ceiling. Suffice it to say, even as a kid, Marta immediately had my full and undivided attention. That article also launched her fame and quirky celebrity for the next 5 decades. Since then, I have kept tabs on Marta, received regular reports from my parents who would venture out to see her in Death Valley many times with their RV group, as well as staying at her hotel and seeing her perform myself several times over these many years. I will never forget the one night I was staying at the hotel, waiting in the dark for her 8:00pm show to start with not a living soul anywhere in sight and I was starting to feel very, very spooked. Then, at 7:55pm sharp, the marquee lights switched on automatically and I spotted a string of headlights streaming across the desert which turned out to be several packed tour buses from Las Vegas delivering over 100 enthusiastic guests to be her audience! (I forget what the ticket price was at the time, but it was not insignificant and so naturally I did the math; for a 45 minute show, the box office receipts were none too shabby and she gave 3 performances a weekend at that time!) Although I have always appreciated Marta’s simple, stylized and almost childlike paintings along with her goofy and camp vaudevillian dance numbers, it was never those elements of her art that inspired me. It was the whole megillah. The huge vision, the moxie, and the courage to leave the “known” NYC dance and art world behind where she had already experienced a modest success. She turned on a dime and left it behind to forge an alternative life and art for herself in that godforsaken desolate landscape with no discernable means of financial or moral support or approval to keep her going. It would be an understatement to say, the woman and the artist has had a profound affect on my own thinking about what art and life I wanted for myself, what price one might be willing to pay for following one’s singular purpose, passion and dreams, and, in the end, is it/would it be worth it? I think Marta would have said “yes”. She lived her last 50 years on Earth on her own terms and how many people living or dead can make that assertion? I will be forever grateful for her presence which touched and shaped my own in so many subtle and yet meaningful ways, and I intend to go looking for her again amongst all those crazy hotel ghosts, dancing in the sands alongside her wild ponies. —Elise Long

2017 STH Calendar

Click below to see the 2017 STH Calendar 2017_STH_Calendar

NEW! Contemporary Rep II w/ Gentry

SPRING 2017 | NEW! Contemporary Rep II w/ Gentry for dancers-in-training, ages 12 and up – adults welcome too!

Join ART EXPLORERS @ STH All Summer Long!

SUMMER CAMP GOWANEE | Join ARTS EXPLORERS- STH’s summer break day camp featuring a full week of Dance, Arts and Crafts, Theater, Games, Special Projects, and more! (Ages 5-8)

HOLIDAY RECYCLED GIFT SHOPPE

December 11 | HOLIDAY RECYCLED GIFT SHOPPE and ELVES’ HOLIDAY WORKSHOP – to benefit Consolation Center – Haiti. Help raise funds to rebuild the school, community health clinic and children’s dormitories destroyed by Hurricane Matthew.