The sun beamed as a soft rain fell on the Fourth of July in 1974. At a graveyard in Boulder, Colorado, as the glistening droplets hit the light, they landed on the face of 19-year-old Beckah Reed, who was fully immersed in tai chi. For her, the practice and place were perfect for solitude: peaceful, quiet and private, her gentle movement flowing with the rhythm of the world around her.
But in that stillness, something shifted – a clear and certain voice pierced the calm.
“You’re going to dance.”
It was a moment of revelation as the universe itself had seemingly whispered its truth.
That voice was the push Reed needed to move to New York City and pursue a life in dance after graduation from the University of Colorado – Boulder.
Five decades later, Reed, Webster University professor emerita of dance, continues to nurture her enduring connections with students and faculty, even in retirement.
Reed’s lifelong love of dance began in Cañon City, Colorado, at 5 years old. Her first memory of movement lies in the Independent Order of Oddfellows of Colorado’s basement, featuring no bars, wooden floors or mirrors to aid her.
Reed was influenced by her mother, who was in modern dance pioneer Martha Graham’s third company. The exposure led her to concentrate on technique, composition, improvisation and international dances, fostering a broad understanding of dance and culture.
Reed says she learned how to dance from within.
“It was a very all-encompassing experience,” Reed said. “It was more than a ballet class or a jazz class. It was something that really opened my eyes to various cultures, and to myself, to what was within me.”
For her, the lack of formal settings allowed for a more internal and self-guided approach to dance, a philosophy that still lives in her teachings today.
Throughout her time dancing, Reed quickly realized that in order to make a living, she had to focus on teaching rather than performing.
She had the passion, joy and creativity required for the art form but felt she was still far behind on her technique. New York City had the solution she believed she was looking for. But there were setbacks: working multiple jobs, facing financial instability and even being robbed multiple times in the city. Despite it all, Reed continued to dance.
“If I screwed up, I just went on to the next minute,” Reed said. “Also, growing up in nature, I learned that the rock slides, the snow slides, the mountains are there to get lost in. That puts you in a particular place where you get the mentality of, ‘I got to do this and figure out how to do it.’”
Reed began teaching at Webster in 1986, serving as program head and chair of the Department of Dance from 2006 to 2013 and artistic director from 2013 to 2021.
Reed’s choreography is best described as theatre dance, as she draws on props, voice and the motivation of human interactions to create her works. Her teaching emphases lie in modern technique, composition, dance history and improvisation.
Through all this, her love and gratitude for working with students remains unmatched.
Paige Walden-Johnson, a 2013 Webster dance graduate and current executive director at CommUNITY Arts Festival, considers Reed her forever mentor.
“I was really able to find my own way because of her and her encouragement, and I am so grateful that she took me under her wing because I wasn’t the dancer that would take the traditional path of performing,” Walden-Johnson said. “At the beginning, I was like, ‘No, I want to be like everybody else.’ It took me so long to really let her advice and mentorship sink in.”
Reed’s impact goes beyond students. Department chair Maggi Dueker describes Reed as a force of light felt by all, who shaped the department’s culture.
“I’ve really found her to be such a great leader. She leads from that very, very giving and empathetic way and really puts students first,” Dueker said. “That’s something that I feel like we’ve really tried to embrace within the program. I feel like she’s been a role model to me, and it’s something that I’ve tried to model and, hopefully, keep true in the program.”
Putting students first means addressing all aspects of their wellbeing, including mental health.
“She was one of the first people to really advocate and put mental health in the forefront of my life,” Walden-Johnson said. “I can’t dance, I can’t work, I can’t do life unless I take care of myself.”
Now, Reed says her future lies in the energetic world. The former Webster professor spends her time diving into her work in somatics, focusing on transformation through subtle energies. She is a master reiki practitioner, with training in hunyuan taiji and qigong: practices that center around natural healing and wellbeing by using the body’s innate energy.
The soft-spoken Reed plans to keep educating through promoting Continuum Movement, a somatic experiential method that aims to consciously explore the self as an unfolding biological and planetary process. She is eager to share this modality with as many people as possible, despite feeling burnt out from teaching.
While she was a student, Dueker witnessed Reed’s performances. She recognized firsthand that Reed’s teaching approach extends beyond performance art. Deeply based on her somatic practices, Reed created a collaborative environment at Webster where students, still, are safe to explore.
“This is a place that’s very collaborative,” Dueker said. “We’re going to dig deeply, take risks, be vulnerable, fail at times, but together, we push each other and make beautiful, challenging things in a way that’s really rooted in integrity and authenticity.”
Reed hopes those she collaborates with understand the importance of being one’s own best healer and the ability to make significant shifts within oneself, both in a professional and personal sense.
“When I was teaching at Webster, I used to say, and I still tend to say, ‘If there’s not a place for you, you’ll create a place for yourself,’” Reed said. “I had a great career, and it was simply doing what I love to do, just continuing doing what I love to do. So, there is that perseverance, and it’s allowing myself to do what I need and want to do.”
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