Long flowing skirts, sweat and anticipation enveloped Union Chapel Monday night as dancers rehearsed for the 28th annual Built on Stilts Dance Festival.
Ropes blocked off the chapel’s entrances, with flyers arranged on tables encouraging the community to come back once the doors officially open.
The festival begins Thursday, August 8 and runs this weekend and next weekend. Each summer, many dancers return to perform. Some, like Laura Sargent Hall, have participated since the first year, back in 1997.
“I can’t imagine not doing it,” Ms. Hall said on Monday while watching her daughter Grace and Andy Jacobs rehearse a duet. “It’s been part of my life for 28 years and it shapes my summer.”
Ms. Hall is the founder and director of Kaleidoscope Dance on the Island. This years she is in four Built on Stilts pieces, choreographing one herself. She said the size of the event has changed over the years, growing from a handful of dancers with a one-night performance to six nights with dozens of performers, but the audience’s energy hasn’t wavered.
“[The audience] is still super encouraging and enthusiastic,” she said. “[Abby Bender] has worked really hard to keep the festival the same idea as it started: open for everyone, free for the community, and for professional dancers.”
Abby Bender, co-founder of the festival, was switching her attention Monday between her laptop and the dancers. On her computer she edited a remembrance video of those who had died in the last few years who were pillars of the event. The video will be shown at the start of each evening.
Looking up from her laptop, Ms. Bender called out instructions to Mr. Jacobs who, in addition to his duet, will dance an energetic jazz number in six-inch, bright red stilettos as drag queen Betty Bootleg.
“Play more of the stage if you can,” Ms. Bender said.
Ms. Bender then turned to a large ballet group, working on a piece choreographed by Libby Stackhouse. The dancers wore white as they did sautés, bourrées and glissades across the floor to Chopin, ensuring that spacing was accurate.
Ms. Bender marveled at the group, noting how she had started dancing “very late” and so doesn’t have the training many classical dancers have.
“I don’t have a lot of form but I have a lot of imagination and energy,” she said.
Minutes before, she and Ms. Hall were on the side working on their own jazz dance.
On the second floor of the chapel, Brent Alberghini oversees sound and lighting. He started working with Built on Stilts at the start, back when he was just 19 years old, and has been doing tech for the festival ever since.
“I like running a good and clean show,” he said. “Although it’s a lot of emerging artists alongside professional artists, it’s good to provide a really professional show with so many different kinds of people, talent levels, ages and types of dance. All of that coming into one show...it’s so magical.”
Mr. Alberghini has taken what he’s learned working with Built on Stilts into his off-season life in Mexico City, where he runs Manos Amigues, the first LGBTQ+ soup kitchen and cultural center in that city.
“I have learned so much from doing this every year about how to run an organization [like Abby does],” he said. “Just being around it and participating in it, you just learn what it takes to run a community program.”
The performances are the gold at the end of the rainbow, Ms. Hall said, but she enjoys the process just as much.
“When I first started, [my favorite part] was the performance part, but now it’s the rehearsal process and getting together with friends,” she said. “The performance is the best, but the rainbow is really fun.”
Built on Stilts takes place at Union Chapel in Oak Bluffs, August 8 to 10 and August 17 to 19. Doors open each night at 7:30 p.m. Visit builtonstilts.org.
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