Paige Walden-Johnson, Dancer and Founder, CommUNITY Arts St. Louis

Paige Walden-Johnson is a dancer, an Ohio native who has made St. Louis her home. She’s the founder and director of the local St. Louis arts, education, violence remediation, and community unification nonprofit appropriately titled CommUNITY Arts St. Louis. The third annual CommUNITY Arts Festival and Concert are happening on September 7th and 8th, 2019!

As we enter a discussion of what CommUNITY is and what Paige and her team are hoping to do with the festival, some level-setting and history is necessary. We start our chat talking about a woman named Rain Stippec. Rain is a St. Louis dancer and was the victim of a random act of gun violence in February of 2017. She was shot eight times.

Rain has since made a great recovery and I don’t want to spoil any of the conversation, but I think I need to in order to give context to who and what Paige and I talk about. The CommUNITY Arts Festival was set up to support Rain in her recovery in the festival’s first year, occurring over two weekends in late Summer 2017. The planning for this festival started before Rain had even become conscious.

The story Paige has to tell about the evolution of the St. Louis arts community’s support for Rain’s recovery is one of love and dedication, but it’s also about recognizing opportunity when it presents itself. There are lessons in there too about being open to change, to evolve as a situation evolves.

Since the success of the first festival, the CommUNITY Arts infrastructure has grown into something bigger. The coming festival is in its third year in 2019 and looks quite different. Under the roof of St. Louis’s Intersect Arts Center, there are local art performances, but there are also arts workshops, the Midwest premiere of a documentary on endemic violence called The Sweetest Land, and a Voices Against Violence panel discussion, again intended to connect CommUNITY and its partner resources to the community it seeks to serve.

CommUNITY Arts St. Louis focuses on proper communication, education, and healing through the arts – the effort came from tragedy and flourished into a community celebration.

#VerseShow comprises conversations that give voice to creators, their process, their struggles, and the celebrations of their work. It's an interview podcast with a bend toward curiosity about the creative process.