Local students showcase their arts abilities at Sarasota Art Museum

Gabrielle Helmer's ideal location for a dance performance was an art gallery. 

"Art museums are one of my favorite things in the world, because I'm also an artist," said Helmer, a senior dance student in Booker High School's Visual and Performing Arts program. "I also take a lot of art classes, and I was just so excited when I walked in and I realized we were actually going to be performing with the art pieces."

Helmer was among the students who participated in the Arts in Education Celebration, held at Sarasota Arts Museum on Nov. 1, through a collaboration between the museum and the Arts and Cultural Alliance of Sarasota County.

The alliance's CEO Brian Hersh said the organization advocates for many things, which includes the importance of arts education. 

He said the art museum, the former building of Sarasota High School, was a fitting location for the event. 

"The Sarasota Art Museum is an amazing space and institution itself, being a former school, and we can see how it's transformed by art, so a perfect spot to celebrate and highlight arts in our schools, and what makes Sarasota County Schools such a highly rated and dynamic, special school district," he said. 

The event brought together students from Sarasota High, Sarasota Middle, Venice High, Booker High, Laurel Nokomis, Ashton Elementary and North Port High, to perform in locations throughout the museum from the Marcy & Michael Klein Plaza to the Thomas McGuire Hall.

Helmer enjoyed showcasing improvisational dance to guests in the museum's second floor Art Deco: The Golden Age of Illustration exhibition.

"I love theaters a lot, but it's really special to perform when the people watching you are just right in front of you, because you're able to connect with them more as people than as like, 'Oh, we're an entity on stage, and you guys are just viewers," she said. 

She also calls improvisation, which she says is sometimes a component of her curriculum, her "favorite thing in the world."

"Improv comes up in our curriculum through choreography, because sometimes when you don't know where to start, the best way to start is just to put on a song and try to move around," she said.

In 2020, Helmer had quit a competitive dance program she was involved in, amid experiencing burnout, before joining Booker High's artistic dance program in 2023. 

She calls this "probably one of the best decisions I've ever made."

"When I joined the VPA Booker dance program, it's like a very special, unique atmosphere, and everyone's actually a family and very welcoming, so it's made me rekindle my relationship," she said.

Although she is planning to major in science and social studies, and doesn't plan for dancing to be her main job in the future, she says she hopes to continue with it into the future. 

"It's an incredibly good form of exercise, because you exercise every single muscle, every single bone in your body, every single time you move, and also it's just, like, very therapeutic, so I really hope that I can stick with it," she said.

Regardless of what direction she is taking, however, she says the program has stood out among the many extracurricular activities she has been involved with. 

"It's like one of the most enriching experiences I have ever had in my life, because it teaches us how to dance, and all about different kinds of arts, but we also have learned about the world," she said. "We've learned about history, we've learned about connecting with each other, we've learned about leadership and every possible skill you can really think of, like these people are everything to me. I love them so much."