{"id":192992,"date":"2025-12-31T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.slugmag.com\/?p=192992"},"modified":"2026-01-12T13:09:56","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T20:09:56","slug":"limelight-fleet-cooperative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.slugmag.com\/arts\/art\/performance-theatre\/limelight-fleet-cooperative\/","title":{"rendered":"Into the Limelight: Fleet Co-op is Changing the Dance Industry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shelby Taylor<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0established Fleet Cooperative<\/a> in 2023, but she doesn\u2019t call herself the founder of the dance group. Instead, she prefers the title of dramaturg \u2014 an advisor who researches and interprets a theatrical work in collaboration with the performers. \u201cSomeone who listens and asks questions and facilitates the work,\u201d Taylor explains. Dramaturgy in dance is important, she says, because \u201ca lot of mainstream dance has been taken from [its] historic context without knowing where it came from.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Fleet
Fleet Co-op is interested in creating soul-satiating work. Photo: Hayley Stoddard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cMisogyny and pedophilia run rampant [in dance leadership] \u2026 and these men just stay in positions of power.”<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Fleet Co-op is a collective of movement-based artists who are interested in creating \u201csoul-satiating work,\u201d Taylor says, \u201cas well as impacting the greater community and enacting change in the industry itself.\u201d As a lifelong dancer, Taylor has dipped her toes into nearly every facet of the industry: competitive, commercial, creative and intellectual. She participated in dance competitions as a child, taught commercial, pop culture-infused dance after college, learned how to choreograph without music in Oregon and studied Forsythe improvisation technique in San Francisco.<\/p>\n

Though Taylor grew as a performer from each experience, she noticed a common theme in every place. \u201cMisogyny and pedophilia run rampant [in dance leadership] \u2026 and these men just stay in positions of power,\u201d she says. Taylor often found herself in situations that teetered on the line between being empowered and being objectified. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she moved back home to Utah and turned part of her home into an intimate performance space and photography studio called Burnswood, where she started dancing on her own terms. It soon became a safe haven for collaborating with friends. \u201cIt just awoke so much of the playfulness of creating [in] me because I was in charge of it,\u201d Taylor says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIf we just performed the same show for a year, we would get super bored. The performance also the process.\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Even when Taylor sold the house, the community remained, so Fleet Co-op was born in 2023 with a rotating group of 7-12 members. Their approach is characters first, movement second. \u201cWhat kind of mischief can we create based on what everyone\u2019s bringing to the table? Where are the allies? Where are the tensions?\u201d Taylor asks. \u201cMovement is a language to me. I\u2019m not just moving around for nothing. There\u2019s so much scribbling, like an artist scribbles.\u201d Fleet Co-op\u2019s first show, Monomyth<\/em>, was all about collective myth-making, inspired by the literary framework of the hero\u2019s journey. Last year\u2019s GNAW<\/em> explored hunger and rage in the wake of the presidential election using punking, whacking and club-style dance.<\/p>\n