A New Movement and Music Festival Is Taking Over RiNo

"I love dance. I love it so much. I love seeing people create. I love going and seeing a show and feeling like I understand someone on a deeper level after seeing the work that they create. I love the joy I feel when I see people thriving in their element and doing things that they love," says Kimberly Chmielewski, co-founder of Somebody's Friend Movement and Music Festival.

Chmielewski and festival co-founder Cecelia Jones are infusing that love into the festival, which makes its debut in the RiNo Art District from Thursday, May 18, through Sunday, May 21. The event will showcase 41 diverse Colorado dance companies and includes dance classes, parties and a bar tour for a fun-filled, dance-driven celebration.

A lifelong dancer, Chmielewski grew up in Chicago and graduated from the University of Iowa in 2012 with a BFA in dance. She moved to the Denver area ten years ago, dancing her way through several companies, including Lemon Sponge Cake Contemporary Ballet and Kim Robards Dance. She started her own company, jk-co, with her former college roommate in 2018, and has filled the roles of teacher, business owner and artist in Denver ever since.

Jones is a Denver native who began dancing at Cleo Parker Robinson Dance at just three years old. She attended Fordham College in New York City and graduated with a BFA, then bounced between Denver and Chicago, dancing in and managing different companies and schools before retiring from the industry in 2010. "I got into the restaurant industry because I needed insurance and a break from what was a very difficult path as a dancer," Jones explains.

For years, Chmielewski and Jones each worked in the Denver area, unknowingly sharing a collective artistic vision and creating buzz within their separate circles. Early last year, "the forces that be" (aka mutual co-workers and acquaintances) insisted that they meet.
"Cece and I came together through our advocacy for our hopes and visions and dreams for our arts community," Chmielewski says. "We are both super passionate about ways in bringing artists together, ways in building equity around art."

In April 2022, they decided to create the Somebody's Friend Movement and Music Festival. At the time, Jones was returning to the dance scene, and the half-filled audiences in performance venues sparked her desire to generate more creative marketing tactics, making dance more approachable, welcoming and fun.

"It's a lot of work in terms of not coming at it as this hierarchy of like, 'I am making high art ,and it's for you to view,' but really how to bring people into a process and get people excited about dance and feel the vibrations and feel the fun of it," Chmielewski explains.

The two spent several months compiling a comprehensive list of Front Range artists, networking with studio teachers from around the state before finalizing a list of 41 groups to perform. Jones explains that the festival is a great performance opportunity for dance groups of every size, which often land in Denver before flitting to the coasts for more lucrative professional opportunities.

"We have lost some really interesting people to really big contracts that we couldn't duplicate here in Denver," she says. "And so some of our intention was also like, 'Let's pluck some soloists, duets, people that are here in Denver that we know are doing innovative work and see if we can't keep them [here] by creating work in the festival for them, too.'"

Chmielewski and Jones know the challenges professional dancers face. For many years, Jones had to choose between pursuing her passion and financial stability, working full-time as a dancer while still earning below the poverty line. "My experience as a dancer, although I've loved it, has always been a question of passion: Do you love it enough?" Jones says. "There are portions of the community that are getting paid incredible dollars, and there are portions of the community that aren't."

Knowing the monetary struggles of professional artists, the pair wanted the festival to prioritize artist equity. "Every dollar we have spent to pay our artists is above and beyond what our contracts were as dancers. Every connection we have made with the city...was to help the artists underwrite the creation of their work for the festival," Jones explains. Every company that the festival hosts is paid based on the number of dancers they bring, ensuring that every dancer is paid a fair wage.
Lisa Engelken's Breaking Barriers is absolutely stoked to work with the festival. Engelken has been dancing for 29 years and explains that she hasn't seen equitable wages like those Somebody's Friend is offering before. "Usually when a dance act gets booked, it's a flat rate regardless of the number of people," she explains. "Sometimes dancers will be walking away with minimum wage. So Somebody's Friend is dope, because it's all about equity, and they are really creating this platform in Denver that doesn't exist."

The festival is also focused on diversity: The 41 dance companies range from ballet to an Indonesian orchestra and an Aztec dance group from Colorado. "Something we have seen time and time again is that these Eurocentric aesthetics have such a higher budget because people will put money in and invest," Chmielewski says.

"We are still valuing ballet as the most important version of dance art," Jones adds, "and so we have got to do our work to de-colonize what movement should be funded, what movement should be valued in our community."

The variety of performances, from solo and duet dances in bars to a mime pop-up, helps Chmielewski and Jones bring the art to a wide audience. The festival will host different events each day, beginning with a five-stop bar crawl down Larimer Street on Thursday, May 18, that starts at Barcelona Wine Bar, with a dance duet at each bar. Friday boasts a VIP Noble Riot concert pre-game, vogue-style classes at Cleo Parker Robinson, ticketed festival performances and a festival parade from the 2900 block of Larimer Street down to Denver Central Market.

Saturday includes more dance classes, free street performances and another parade, as well as the highly anticipated Magic and MAYhem Ball. The ball highlights queer ball culture, celebrating ’80s recording artists with a 35-category competition walk. On Sunday, the festival wraps up with more dance classes and several free street performances outside of Denver Central Market.

Events occur outside and inside Denver Central Market, 2669 Larimer Street; find tickets ($10-$200) and an event guide here.