Wheat State Dance Collective creates new opportunities for professional dancers

When Goddard native Heather Eilerts was getting a fine arts degree in dance at Wichita State University in 2014, she says she began noticing a lack of professional opportunities for dancers in the area.

She went on to earn her master’s degree in dance at the University of California, Irvine, this year and now is back in Wichita with a new company: Wheat State Dance Collective.

“I wanted to create opportunities here . . . so these dancers don’t have to move to a big city . . . and they don’t also have to give up on their dreams just to stay home,” Eilerts says.

She stresses that the collective is a professional-level contemporary dance company.

“Sometimes when I say dance company, people just assume I mean dance studio.”

For now, the collective is using space at Midwest Dance Mechanix.

Eilerts plans two shows per season. The first, “The Seven Deadly Sins,” will be Nov. 9 and 10 at the Fisch Haus at 524 S. Commerce.

There are seven dancers in the collective so far, and Eilerts got the idea for “The Seven Deadly Sins” while watching TV.

“How could I depict those through dance?” she says she wondered.

Eventually, she hopes to grow the collective to about 15 dancers.

“Right now, we’re just starting off small.”

The group has a Go Fund Me page.

Eilerts hopes to perform with the company but can’t for the first show because she’s running the technical side.

“I can’t afford to pay an extra person.”

In addition to providing an opportunity for professional dancers, Eilerts says she has a bigger goal.

She says she’s “just trying to get the community’s attention and say, ‘Hey, look at these wonderful artists that we have in the city.’ ”

This story was originally published October 26, 2018 at 2:58 PM.