Techniques for Ecstasy: Alexandra Beaumont’s exhibit showcases joy as resistance

Alexandra Beaumont is reclaiming and revolutionizing dance scenes – through texile art! The Minnesota-based, textile artist and dancer’s solo exhibition “Techniques for Ecstasy” opened May 4 at Public Functionary.

The exhibit serves as celebratory time travel back to the disco house dance party (ala Studio 54) Beaumont hosted back in March 2023 called “Dancing with Friends” in the same space.

“Joy as resistance!” she exclaimed. Her vision for the event was to “create the space of joy and then pay homage through the work.”

Images of folks in various grooves sprawl across the exhibit’s “dance floor.”  Each piece dancing together with their own unique personality. Each of them pulled from photos captured at the dance party.

Amongst her favorite sways, “The Soloist.” The piece showcases a man deep in his own groove. Beaumont’s intrigue about solitary experience in the midst of a crowd is most present in this piece and rings true for the collection of work.

“The contrast of togetherness and celebration into the individual in the space was a reoccurring revelation,” she noted.

Beaumont described the overlapping colors of various textiles as a play on the spotlights that were radiating through the dance party. She utilized an array of materials to highlight the subtlety in movement such as a fabric spotlight on a hand, or an intricately sequined-traced cheek. An intimate effort to “show them in their glittering glory.”

As one moves through the exhibition floor, the installations seem to dance beside them.

“Dance floors are fertile ground for unbounded self expression, cradled in the arms of community. Sites of embodied resistance and celebratory reclamation, according to Beaumont. “Venues are where we would unquestionably unfurl our individual selves.”

Born and raised in South Carolina to a Jamaican father and American mother, she studied dance, eventually attending a conservatory high school away from home. However, an early interaction with a NYC fashion designer was, in retrospect, pivotal in her eventual trajectory from dance to fashion. She went on to study at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and soon after got her start in mens fashion. Quickly, Beaumont fell in love with fine art through abstraction and symbolism.

Beaumont never thought that she would find herself doing figurative art, nor in Minnesota. She found both around the same time: the pandemic. A time in which “we were all very conscious of the vulnerability of our bodies and the separation of each other,” she recalled.

This birthed Beaumont’s detailed exploration of the body in movement. Creating a fusion of mediums that had been a part of her all along.

“The exhibition had been in development for about 8 months. 2-3 weeks varying with each piece,” she said.

Beaumont is no stranger to hard work. She credits this to her Jamaican lineage. More specifically, watching her father during gigs and her parents dedication to their musicianship. “Jamaicains are hard workers! There’s a rigor in my practice, if I hadn’t been raised in that, the work would seem like a lot, but [hard work]’s very familiar to me,” she stated.

Beaumont explained that her practice is nonlinear and the magic is in letting the art inform her direction. “I let my work speak back to me and allow room for the work to evolve and shift how it needs to,” she said. 

For Beaumont, music is a necessity ritual as it quickly evokes movement or a feeling.

Naming Honey Dijon, 70s disco, funk, African highlife/funk, Chic, and Janet Jackson as the soundtrack to crafting this expressive work. Reminiscent of the sounds she’d hear from her parents’ performances.

As Beaumont rendered the movements first on chalk, she recalled “being able to locate the physicality [of the dancer being captured] in my own body kept me moving in my studio.” She credits the subtleties captured in the works to that dancing practice.

Beaumont honored the women of color that embraced her as her initial connection into Minneapolis’ art spaces and eventually to Public Functionary. By chance, she instantly found the community she was yearning for.

Cut to a few years later, she now holds a position of leadership at Public Functionary and gets to provide the spaces she herself was once seeking.

Beaumont notes her inspiration from the marches for George Floyd that took place in Minnesota, June 2020.

“Protests are powerful for a purpose & dance is powerful for release and the potential for community building is present, differently, in both”, she said. “That blend of audience and viewer as a participant of the space is truly inspiring.”

Now a Minnesotan, Beaumont believes the Twin Cities art scene is “punching way above its weight.” She noted Minnesota’s uniqueness in the amount of state funding for the arts and the opportunities for growth.

“There are a lot of artists and galleries that deserve more prominence. Especially within the Black & brown communities. There’s such a density of artists that funnel support and encouragement into each other,” she continued. “I don’t think it’ll be long before people outside of MN are going to be really interested in what’s going on here.”

Alexandra notes that she is “cognizant of how spaces like this are used to  diffuse or distract and so I’m excited to be in conversation to look critically about what purpose do we put this power of our bodies in space together toward.”

Groove on down to Alexandra’s exhibition, “Techniques for Ecstasy,” in its final week at Public Functionary. Gallery viewings are available Thursday 12=9 p.m. and Friday and Saturday 12-6 p.m.

On Thursday, May 23, there will be a salon-style discussion on the power of collective dance spaces from 6-9 p.m. Panelists accompanying Alexandra Beaumont are Kat Purcell, Jess Pretty, and Dwight K. Lewis Jr. Conversation starting at 7 p.m. in Studio 247.

Angel Akurienne welcomes reader comments at angelakurie@gmail.com.