Daily Inspiration: Meet Lexi Clark-Stilianos

Today we’d like to introduce you to Lexi Clark-Stilianos

Hi Lexi, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I am a dance-maker, intermedia artist, energetic educator, and multidisciplinary mover. I grew up dancing from a young age but have been choreographing and engaging in movement research (what I now recognize as such) since I was a teenager. I remember riding my bike to the local library and finding a book on choreographic methods and tools when I was around fourteen or fifteen. The book prompted basic scores such as making your limbs carve pathways in space to recreate shapes, numbers, and letters and being fascinated at this new exploration on how I could create my own movements. I have always been energized and curious about the body and dance as a vehicle for expression and connection.

I earned my Bachelor of Science in Dance Education at Bowling Green State University and then moved to Los Angeles to pursue a professional dance career. In my years in LA, I was fortunate enough to sign with a commercial agent, dance with a variety of professional contemporary companies, train in a myriad of styles and methods, and create and collaborate in many stage and film projects. I presented works at festivals, shows, and online screening forums throughout my time there and found a deep interest in using integrated technology (film, interactive media, etc.) to inspire and support my dance-making. I decided I wanted to pursue this research further and applied to several US and international graduate programs and ended up matriculating into The Ohio State University for their MFA in Dance due to their prestigious reputation, deep resources, knowledgeable faculty, and interdisciplinary department collaborations.

During my MFA I engaged in a lot of multidisciplinary course work in and out of the Department of Dance including Women Gender and Sexuality Studies, Department of Theatre, and the Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design. During my degree, I focused on choreographic techniques informed by feminist theory as well as integrated film and media design technologies for dance theater. My choreography was featured in department concerts, regional and international tour groups, the American College Dance Association East Central Gala, and regional professional festival opportunities. I was also commissioned by several universities in Ohio to teach master classes and create new works for their departments, continuing to grow and share my choreographic works.

Post-degree, my (now) wife and I relocated to Chicago, IL where I continued to work as an independent artist and educator- both for higher education and youth programs. I presented work at venues across Chicago including Jello Performance Series, New Light Festival, Going Dutch Festival, and more as well as performing across the midwest at Detroit Dance City Festival and Midwest RAD Fest. I was commissioned by Side Street Studio Arts to take over one of their gallery spaces and transform it into an evening length interactive media installation and rotating dance performance. In 2019, I formed STILGO dance + tech to bring dance-based programming and performance infused with DIY technology to the Midwest arts community. From the outset and through the present, STILGO has been a project-based movement company that creates intermedia, participatory, collaborative, and exciting dance works grounded in feminist, queer, radically inclusive values.

In late 2020 we relocated back to Columbus and since I have had deep ties to the Columbus dance community- teaching open professional technique and movement classes, commissioned to create work on other companies, and being awarded generous support by local arts organizations. This year, I was fortunate enough to be awarded $25,000 in the Greater Columbus Arts Council’s inaugural Artists Projects Program to create a now work-in-progress experimental dance film project. In this work I am collaborating with six local artists, a myriad of talented and passionate crew members, and elevate my making to another level with the resources provided. This grant felt extra special since it went through a community grant review process, a deep vote of confidence from my peers and current/potential audiences. STILGO is a platform, a place for collaboration, a home base. It’s a community and a creative outlet, and a megaphone for brave, inquisitive, diverse, unapologetic bodies and minds to take up space and I’m so excited to keep building this work (to premiere in July 2025) to share that with Columbus. No matter what I am doing- teaching, choreographing, designing, art-making- I have a deep passion for creating vibrant, inclusive, rewarding, rigorous, and honest dance spaces to dance and live inside of.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Being a project-based company and an independent artist always comes with its challenges. I am so grateful for the deep support Ohio has for its artists and that I have been able to apply for and be awarded various levels of support while working here. I have received grants to help subsidize a self-produced show, get more gear for deeper technology research, and most recently a large grant to fully produce an experimental short film. In between these grants though, all the work is self-funded or dormant until I can pay my collaborators. It’s not uncommon for artists (dancers especially) to work for free and it’s an unfortunate cycle that tends to devalue the incredible artistic and physical labor dancers bring to the table. My work is especially collaborative and I try my hardest to compensate my artists fairly, within whatever resources I can attain for that project. The ebb and flow, and inevitable period of hibernation, are what makes creating a sustainable practice and consistent community a challenge.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am a dance-maker, intermedia artist, energetic educator, and multidisciplinary mover. I create dance works that elevate queer and feminist stories and experiences. I also deeply enjoy bringing other dancers and movers into my practices. Whether that is teaching a contemporary floorwork class and sharing best practices for safe, momentous, and exciting transitions between levels of movement to making media design programming accessible to artists who otherwise do not identify as technicians to support their creative visions- I am always excited to bring others into my passions and share that knowledge. Currently, I am the Integrative Media and Digital Technologies Dance Lecturer at OSU Dance and in that role (among other duties) I am able to work with undergraduate to graduate level students to help them explore both practical and creative tools for integrating various technologies into their choreographic processes. Supporting their work informs my larger professional research practices that spills out into my community making. I have also taught Isadora (a media and design platform for live performance visuals by TroikaTronix) programming online as well through STILGO to empower makers from all over to use technology in their processes and performance works. Isadora’s community of makers is such a rich, generous, and relatively small community and its exciting to be amongst other artists using this platform in such compelling but different ways. I also have a history of working in the commercial dance world so bringing the musicality, performativity, and fun of those practices and forms into community classes or other performance projects helps keep my practice exciting and grounded in different dance spaces. I like to work across- disciplines, technologies, places- always in service of creating art with others.

What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?
Work with people who want to work with you. Find the folks that are down with your values, the kinds of spaces (in rehearsal and in class and in performance) you want to exist in, and the kind of stories you want to tell. I want to dance in spaces that are body neutral, that are explicitly queer and trans friendly, that work in community minded and anti-racist frameworks, and much more (and I want always be growing in these ideals as well). I strive foster the kind of space where those values can thrive and the people who enter the room value them as well. Once you have community around your work the ideas flourish. I less excited by what people can do but rather the commitment, inquiry, and excitement they bring to the process (I also happen to work with amazingly talented movers as well). When looking for dancers or collaborators I often just invite folks who have come to my classes, or hold open rehearsals that are free and available to anyone to see who is down to clown with my current project and way of making. Auditions can sometimes feel dry and distant, I want to know how you can bring your whole creative self to the project, in the time and space we are wiggling our bodies around together.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.stilgoco.com/
• Instagram: @stilgoco
• Facebook: @stilgoco
• Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/clarkstilianos