Today we’d like to introduce you to Sally Jacques
Hi Sally , so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Sally Jacques, Founder of Blue Lapis Light, creates site-specific aerial dance works that transform urban spaces by engaging architecture with movement, music and nature.
As native of England with a multicultural heritage, Jacques’ life has been unconventional from childhood on. As a young dance performer, she hitchhiked throughout Europe with little money, sleeping on beaches, broken down ruins, and even a heated phone booth in the Swiss Alps. A seeker at heart, Jacques continued to travel to many parts of the world and connect with dedicated and inspiring activists/ artists from diverse and creative backgrounds. Many of Jacques’ creative works are influenced and inspired by her experiences.
Jacques’ early career included international performances in Munich, Barcelona, Vienna and Costa Rica. She studied dance at The Place and The Contemporary Dance Center in London and attended the Lee Strasberg Drama School in New York to study improvisation and acting. Jacques also studied movement at the Oval Theatre in London.
For many years, Jacques traveled the world for social justice, attending United Nations Conferences and World Social Forums in Brazil, Vienna, China, Mumbai and Spain. . She participated in peace talks in Germany, Malta, and Italy, and attended the United Nations Environment and Development Plenaries in Florida. Jacques worked with the Everardo Foundation to raise awareness of Mayan genocide in Guatemala and worked with the American Committee to Save Bosnia. She traveled to rape camps in the former-Yugoslavia collecting medical supplies for the refugees. In 1993, Jacques performed a dance-monologue at the United Nations Conference on Human Rights in Vienna.
The recipient of numerous honors, Jacques has been awarded: the USA Artists Fellowship Award Nominee (2008), Austin Arts Hall of Fame Inductee (2007), Samsung Signature Award (2006), Greater Austin YWCA Woman of the Year for Achievement in the Arts (2003), Honorary Lifetime Member of the Golden Key National Honor Society (2003), Art Matters, NYC (1992) and The Susan B. Anthony Award for Peace (1988).
Jacques has received several Austin Critics Table Awards including: Best Dance Concert (2000, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2010, 2011, 2015, 2016 and 2017), Top Ten Performances (2004), Top 10 Dance Events (2006), Top 10 Dance Treasures (2010, 2012, 2016, 2017 and 2020), Top 10 Joys of Dance (2019) and Best Choreographer (2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017).
Receiving multiple grants throughout her career, Jacques has been bestowed: the New Form Regional Initiative Grant with José Luis Bustamante funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, Rockefeller Foundation and Andy Warhol Foundation (1994), National Endowment for the Arts (1988, 2006-present), Texas Commission on the Arts (1991-present), and the City of Austin Cultural Arts Division (1991-present).
Jacques’ work has been recognized and featured at South by Southwest (SXSW) Community Screening (2018), PBS/KLRU‘s Arts in Context Belonging, Part One (2017), PBS/KLRU‘s Arts in Context Here and Beyond (2014), PBS/KLRU’s Austin Now: Faces of Austin (2006), and PBS/KLRU’s Austin Now (2004). 64 Beds for the Homeless has been screened at museums in New York City, Berlin, Madrid, and Rome (2015-2024). Jacques was a featured speaker at PechaKucha Austin (2019).
As well as being interviewed on many radio and television stations, Jacques has also had her work studied and published in several magazines and books. Some of these include: Site Dance: Choreographers and the Lure of Alternative Spaces by Carolyn Pavlik and Melanie Kloetzel (2009), Dance Appreciation, a collegiate textbook by Dawn Davis Loring and Julie L. Pentz (2021), 64 Beds and Other Site Works by Sally Jacques (1996) published by Plain View Press, and Flying High Above the Texas Sky: Aerial Dance Takes Off in the Lone Star State by Nichelle Suzanne/Arts & Culture Texas (2019). Jacques has had essays published about her works in Portugal, New Zealand, Atlanta’s Arts Papers (1988-2004), Performance Magazine, Chicago (1993), Austin American-Statesman, and The Austin Chronicle (1988-present).
To make dance accessible for all and to foster a sense of community, Jacques taught movement to at-risk teenagers, prison inmates, and senior citizens for many years. Currently, Blue Lapis Light mentors at-risk youth through the Youth Taking Flight program.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It has not always been a smooth road and at times challenging. Lack of arts funding, difficulty in finding sites, permitting, but all the while building relationships with developers and the owners of the building has been a tremendous experience. Their trust in our professionalism and in what we are doing has been heart affirming.
They believed in our work and helped make it possible. The challenges we face in all site-works have been navigating city permits, insurance liabilities, and creating the design for the performance, and working with riggers to see what equipment is needed to rig the building. We have used counter weight systems, outriggers, with back up systems and tiebacks to create what we need to utilize a space.
After losing our studio donated to us by a friend and which was situated on 32 acres we decided with all the equipment and space required for storage to build our own studio. We had zero money but I believe in the flow of the universe and started reaching out to the community and contacts we had. . There are so many miraculous stories to tell during this process, including getting a bank loan, raising a large deposit within a month studio, community outreach to help raise the funds, We manage to raise the deposit needed one day before the deadline!before the loan could go
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
My early large site-works were social-political such as, 64 Beds, addressed Homelessness, performed on the Jefferson Memorial, Washington , Houston, San Antonio and premiere in Austin, TX. Video of this work has been shown in Europe, Spain, Germany, and NY and was recently shown in Rome in response to the overwhelming number of refugees being displaced coming from Syria, Ukraine, Africa and Palestine.
My first sort-of aerial work was on construction scaffolding and once I saw a dancer/body moving in air I was hooked. Soon after, I collaborated with choreographer Jose Bustamante, from Mexico on creating a site work in an abandoned swimming pool. We slung a rope across an abandoned pool and again I was inspired by seeing a body floating in mid-air.
Our site-works have progressed over many years having now danced on Federal Buildings, Power Plant Stacks, Hotels, under bridges and on office buildings.
I am dedicated to the process of creating in a collaborative way with the dancers, riggers and technical light and sound teams and of course the architecture and structures and landscapes we perform on. As in nature nothing is independent, all is interconnected and interwoven and cannot exist without the other.
My dedication is about connection, transformation and beauty. The message is to touch the hearts of those observing the experience, who then become part of the whole performance. Inspiring a moment of possibility is in itself transforming. If we are engaged and attentive to the unfolding artistic process and the act of creation, it is a small shift into collective awakening that applies to many areas in our lives.
Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
Our work is about inspiring and touching our collective humanity in the hope we can bring beauty as a way of connecting us to all we share our earth with and with one another.
Pricing:
- Tickets are available from $25-$65
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.bluelapislight.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/facebook/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bluelapislight/
- Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/user2408149
- TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@blue.lapis.light
Image Credits
Earl McGehee Photographer for all images
