Photograph courtesy of Stages St. Louis
When the Missouri Arts Council recognized Chesterfield as its 2011 “Creative Community” on February 16, it confirmed a trend: The arts are moving west. Because the large and established arts institutions—the Saint Louis Art Museum, the St. Louis Symphony—are in the city, and conventional wisdom casts the suburbs and exurbs as cultural dead zones, some think that’s a new thing. But that presence has a long history.
Alexandra Zaharias, founder of Alexandra School of Ballet and artistic director of Alexandra Ballet, moved her studio to Chesterfield 45 years ago. “When I first rented my studio, that portion of the Four Seasons Shopping Center wasn’t even built,” she says. “People said to me, ‘Why are you going so far?’ And I said, ‘I think this is really going to be the next Clayton.’”
Now, in addition to Saint Louis Ballet, Chesterfield has “a studio on every corner,” she says. Of course, that didn’t happen in a vacuum—Zaharias directly credits Chesterfield Arts, a West County arts advocacy organization founded in 1995, with galvanizing the community out west. “I think what we really needed was someone to focus all of the arts together,” she says.
In fact, it was Chesterfield Arts executive director Stacey Morse who nominated the city for that award. Morse says there were many contributing factors in Chesterfield being recognized, including the city’s dedication to public art. Chesterfield’s best-known public sculpture is probably J. Seward Johnson’s The Awakening, but the city has purchased or obtained on-loan works from artists such as Ernest Trova, Harry Weber, and Ludovico De Luigi.
Ron Gibbs, managing director of STAGES St. Louis, says while the organization is still between Kirkwood and Chesterfield (the theater’s educational and administrative facilities are out west), the hope is to be completely moved to Chesterfield in about three years. “I think it’ll become the next sub hub for the arts in St. Louis,” Gibbs says, adding that art is part of the city’s urban-planning strategy. He says Sachs Properties, which is developing the new Downtown Chesterfield, plans to cater to arts lovers. “Chesterfield Arts will be located right there, so I do think arts enthusiasts who live there will come out of the woodwork.”
