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If You Say So

If You Say So

a multi-arts exhibition & experience of visual art, literature, dance, and music

All events are free and open to the public, but we request that you RSVP online using the links below.

The Exhibition

Tuesday, June 17–Saturday, July 12, 2025

Urban Arts Space is open Tuesday through Saturday, 11:00 AM–6:00 PM, with extended hours on Thursday until 8 PM.

 

If You Say So is a multidisciplinary show of art, literature, and dance about heightened experience: love and loss, grief and fear, and “everyday” struggles and challenges and the way we seek solutions for them. It is anchored by an exhibition of recent work by the painter Glen Holland as well as novelist and essayist Michelle Herman’s latest book, If You Say So, in which a series of Holland’s paintings are reproduced.

The exhibition includes Holland’s most recent comic book painting series, “Scenes from Life (in the Near Future),” in addition to the comic book/still life painting series “Nature/Nurture and Other Old/Odd Debates,” a set of devotional paintings (“Retablos of Lamentation from the Future”), and other new work in egg tempera, India ink, shellac inks, acrylic, and water-miscible oil on glue/chalk gesso ground on panel.

Herman’s new book—a collection of essays—tells true stories about loss and reinvention, longing and loneliness, friendship and community, family and home—and dance, the dedicated practice of which has led her on an unexpected new path through her life. If You Say So is a book about grief and the way it lives in the body—and joy, and the way it lives in the body too. 

Both Holland’s paintings and Herman’s book are in conversation with two dance works. One is the award-winning dance film “Spatula” (the making of which is chronicled in the book’s first essay), choreographed by Russell Lepley, with music by Counterfeit Madison. In the film, armies of ragtag, masked, and poorly armored “soldiers,” fitted with spatula swords and pot lid shields, confront each other in a scene that might have come directly out of one of Holland’s comic book panels. The second is a new, live-danced piece, “If U Say So,” co-created by Herman and Mallory Rowell and performed by a multigenerational, multinational group of dancers.

Workshops, classes, talks, panel discussions, Q&As, talkbacks, and performances will occur throughout the run of the exhibition. A reading room in the gallery, stocked with copies of If You Say So and comfortable chairs, offers visitors a space to read, relax, and talk. On July 11, visitors can also participate in a book discussion facilitated by Christopher Purdy, host of WOSU/NPR Affiliate Radio’s “All Sides Books.” 

Every aspect of this interdisciplinary show explores and interrogates the making of art, the way art transforms experience, the way our experience of art transforms us—and the way art makes the unbearable bearable.

The Reading Room will be stocked with copies of Michelle Herman’s new book, the memoir/essay collection If You Say So, and comfortable chairs for reading in. Come by on your lunch hour, after work, or any other time the gallery is open during the run of the show. We encourage visitors to read If You Say So throughout the month and to join the author at the culminating book discussion on July 11 at 6:00 PM in the gallery. 
 

Club Urban Arts: A Dance Party

Tuesday, June 17, 1:00–2:00 PM

Tuesday, June 24, 1:00–2:00 PM

Saturday, June 28, 2:00–3:00 PM

A daytime dance party facilitated by Michelle Herman, which serves also as a warmup for the ballet class that follows it (but you can come for the party and not stay for ballet!). The music will be a six-decade-span mix of soul, R&B, hip-hop, pop, and more.

 

Absolute Beginner, No-Experience-Whatsoever-Needed Ballet Class for Adults

Tuesday, June 17, 2:00–3:00 PM

Tuesday, June 24, 2:00–3:00 PM

Saturday, June 28, 3:00–4:00 PM

A class designed to introduce adults who have never taken a single ballet class (like Herman herself in 2017, when she took her first one, as described in her book) to the art of ballet. This class can be taken alone or as a series with two other sessions and will serve as preparation for an absolute beginner or beginner ballet class at a studio—or just give you a taste of what ballet feels like in your body (and what all those French terms mean!). You need not take Club Urban Arts the hour beforehand—we’ll do a brief warmup at the start of this class—but if you have the time, the more warmup, the better (always).

 

Opening Reception & Performance

Friday, June 20, 6:00–8:00 PM

The opening reception for the multi-arts exhibition/experience If You Say So, featuring the paintings of Glen Holland, will begin at 6:00 PM with a performance of a new contemporary dance piece, “If U Say So,” created in relation and response to Michelle Herman’s new book, If You Say So, in which reproductions of one of Holland’s recent series of paintings are included. A reading from the book will follow, and copies (which both author and artist will be happy to sign) will be available for sale. 

“If U Say So” was created and directed by Mallory Rowell and Michelle Herman in collaboration with the dancers: Tracey Adams, Jennifer Johnson, Lindsey Johnston, Natalia Nekrasova, Dena Pierog, Danielle Schoon, Tawny Sit, Lindsay Weaver, Lizzie Williams, and Mia Wu.

 

Complete Exposure: A Panel Discussion/Q&A on Writing About Yourself . . . & Others

Thursday, June 26, 6:00–7:30 PM

Silas Hansen and Kelly Sundberg join Michelle Herman for a frank conversation about writing frankly. All three have published deeply personal writing about their own lives, and thus inevitably also about their loved ones—and their less-loved ones. They’ve written about some of their most painful experiences and some of their most private ones. They’ve written about their families and friendships, their marriages and children. What’s off limits? How does one decide? What’s the cost of revealing so much? Is there a cost? Is it possible to tell too much?

Silas Hansen is an Associate Professor of English and the Director of the Creative Writing Program at Ball State University. His essays and memoirs have appeared in The Normal School, Colorado Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Redivider, Slate, and elsewhere. Kelly Sundberg is the author of Goodbye, Sweet Girl, and the forthcoming (August 2025) The Answer is in the Wound.

 

Rhythm and Release – A Dance Experience with Cherelle Brown 

Thursday, July 10, 6:30–8:00 PM

Dance artist and educator Cherelle Brown performs and teaches her upbeat, exuberant, inspiring (and extraordinarily fun!) class, an exploration in movement of the African diaspora. Cherelle is a part of the Flux Flow teaching community—as well as many other dance communities in Columbus—and her diasporic fusion (African/Caribbean/modern) is among the most joyful movement experiences you’ll ever have.

 

Community Dance Education and the Making of “Spatula”: A Conversation

Thursday, July 10, 8:00–9:00 PM

Come for the dancing, stay for the talking! Choreographers, dancers, and dance educators Russell Lepley and Fili Pelacchi—the founders and directors of Flux Flow Dance Center—talk with Michelle Herman about teaching and setting choreography. They discuss a variety of audiences: those who became devoted to the pursuit of dance as adults; those who are returning to dance after a long absence; and those who’ve danced all their lives. Russell and Fili have created a space and a community for dance in Columbus that is welcoming, supportive, open, and joyful—a multigenerational come-as-you-are dance and movement experience. 

The dance film “Spatula,” which they created with a large group of dedicated adult dancers during the pandemic, is on view throughout the run of the show, and an essay about the making of the film is the first chapter of Herman’s book (in which they are also main characters!). How did “Spatula” and Flux Flow’s many other community dance projects and performances come to be? What is the role of community dance in the larger dance world? And what role do dance and movement play in the lives of these nonprofessional but profoundly committed dancers? Indeed: Why take up dance—or any other art form—as a busy adult? These and other questions will be explored in this far-ranging conversation. 

 

If You Say So Book Club Discussion with WOSU’s Christopher Purdy

Friday, July 11, 6:00–7:00 PM

Christopher Purdy, the host of All Sides Weekends Books (among many other programs on WOSU!), facilitates a discussion of Herman’s book. So, buy a copy, borrow one from your neighborhood public library, or make regular visits to our Reading Room and read the book I the company of other readers. Read it by July 11—then join us for a lively conversation!

 

Artist Talks with Glen Holland and Michelle Herman

Friday, July 11, 7:00–8:30 PM

Holland and Herman talk and answer questions about the paintings and the book featured in this show, the relationship between the project(s) of the paintings and the writing, and their own working relationship. (Spoiler alert: The artists are married and have been making art side by side since the early 1990s in their 120-year-old Clintonville house—to which, by the way, an entire chapter of the book [“Old House”] is devoted.)

 

Belly Dance Class with Danielle Schoon

Saturday, July 12, 2:00–3:00 PM

Join Danielle Schoon, who has long been performing and teaching belly dance, in an exhilarating, accessible, fun class for all ages and all bodies. (And consider making a day of it! Come for a belly dance class and stick around: get a bite to eat or a drink nearby at Parable Café, Pat & Gracie’s, Sidebar, Condado Tacos, or Pecan Penny’s, among many other downtown restaurants. Then come on back to Urban Arts Space for the closing event of the show from 5–7 PM. 

 

Dance Performance with Talkback & Rock ‘n Roll Show 

Saturday, July 12, 5:00–7:00 pm

At the closing event for If You Say So, there will be a repeat performance of the dance piece “If U Say So” at 5:00 PM, followed by a talkback with the co-creators and the performers with whom they collaborated. What on earth would possess a novelist and essayist to team up with a health researcher to create a dance piece? How did they do it? And what was the experience like (and what on earth made them do it?) for the two astrophysicists, anthropologist, mental health counselor, school psychologist, French linguist turned data scientist, mechanical engineer et al. who rehearsed (for months) and helped to make and shape the piece, then performed it? (Bonus questions: What would it take for you to get involved in such a project? If you wanted to, where would you start?)

…and then we’ll close out the month of If You Say So with a rock show—a performance by the original blues-rock garage band bottleflies at 6:00 PM. (Cash bar.)

Bottleflies is artist/bass player Glen Holland, software engineer/educator/lead guitarist Brian Cerney, lawyer/writer/rhythm guitarist Willie VerSteeg, and labor relations specialist/drummer Donald Gibson. Holland and VerSteeg are the founding members; bottleflies has been creating and performing original songs—many of which are inspired by or respond to Holland’s paintings—for over a decade.

Books will be available for sale (and signing) at the closing.