Dance and theater changed Chris Page's life. Now he wants to change the world
As told to Lynnda Greene
Watch Chris Page lead a dozen 6-year-olds through a few rudimentary steps to that seminal place where dance is ... and you glimpse our future. Here, the 18-year-old University of Missouri–Kansas City dance-scholarship student, an alum of both COCA and the Metro Theatre Company, talks about growing up on the North Side, the beauty of risk and how he intends to get his hometown up on its feet—and dancing.
I grew up in North City, surrounded by everything that keeps a black kid down—violence, despair, poverty, prejudice. But at some point when I was still very young, my parents gave me my dream: They took me to the Black Rep. Over time, I saw lots of plays about the life I was living. Suddenly I saw what life could be—on a stage.
At first I thought I wanted to act, and, although my parents weren’t keen on this, they did their best to expose me to whatever arts they could.
Then I took my first dance class at COCA, and everything changed. I loved the teachers because they connected me to a whole world of professional performance arts, especially dance. I loved the physicality of it; here, finally, was a way I could express everything I was feeling. For the first time, I could see a way forward—through the arts.
I took ballet, tap, jazz, modern and West freshman in high school I was performing in some serious new works choreographed by visiting dancers from all over the country.
Sometime during seventh grade, Metro Theatre came to my school to perform, and I loved it—the whole idea of theater for kids—because this was what had changed my young life: theater. So I got good acting training from them, and by the time I was in high school I was teaching the little kids in their Arts Intersection program. Working with the little ones gave me a whole new perspective; I realized that teaching is in itself creative.
Metro enabled me to work with Ron Himes in a production of Raisin in the Sun, and there I learned how to process all I was living in—the bad stuff of black urban life, but also the good, the beautiful—and use it to make something meaningful. In lots of ways, I was living in West Side Story, only in North St. Louis.
I went to a number of schools over the years: first a private Christian school in our neighborhood, and then I was bussed to a couple of suburban schools—not a good experience. Finally I got to Crossroads School, which was the best because they gave me a chance to do a play of my own. I wanted to write, direct and stage a series of one-act plays for kids depicting black history. My friends all said, “Oh, forget it, no one would care or come.” But Crossroads let me do it, and it was a huge success—it sold out several performances.
That’s when I realized that theater and dance aren’t just creative outlets but means to make a real difference in people’s lives. Theater is important because it tells our stories literally. Dance is important because it makes us feel those stories in a visceral, almost primal way, and to feel deeply is to become better people.
Now I want to give that back to my own community. Black children today, even after years of talking about black history, still know very little about their heritage right here in this city. They don’t know about Katherine Dunham, Josephine Baker, Miles Davis, Chuck Berry, Tina Turner, Quincy Troupe, on and on—all these artists who came of age and learned their craft right here in St. Louis.
I want to change that.
After graduation, I want to come back and do in St. Louis what Alvin Ailey did in Chicago: start my own dance and theater troupe. Sure, it’s a risk—but dancing and acting, COCA and Metro, even teaching, are all about risk. There’s no reason we can’t go right on changing the face of American culture. If we’re producing young talent—and we are—then we’ve got to use it. We can’t give up on St. Louis. We’ve got too much to lose—and everything yet to give.
