Think about the last big family dinner you went to. Forget the food for a second. Think about the rules.

Who sits where? Who gets served first? Does somebody say grace? Do you pass dishes in a certain direction? Do you wait for everyone else before you start eating? 

In my family, we all still laugh about our parents constantly reminding us to “pass to the left!” at dinners with four ravenous teenagers. Nice manners were the goal. Getting to the mashed potatoes first was the reality.

That’s pretty much the world of GRACE, the new world premiere from LED that kicks off the company’s 2026/27 season at The Dixon in Garden City on October 16. It’s part contemporary dance, part live music, part wrestling match, and part 1940s dinner party. Oh, and according to LED co-founder and artistic director Lauren Edson, you’re gonna laugh.

“GRACE is also really joyous and funny,” she said. “It’s not always easy for dance to be funny, but that’s something that has always existed in the work we create.”

A quick LED refresher

LED is the Boise performance company led by husband-and-wife duo Lauren Edson and Andrew Stensaas. Lauren choreographs. Andrew composes. Since 2015, they’ve been making incredible shows out of movement, original music, story, and design. Their shows feel less like a night at the ballet and more like being transported into an alternate world. 

It started with two people

Lauren told me GRACE grew out of conversations she and Andrew kept having about the state of the world.

“There is obviously so much conflict happening around us right now,” she said. “We wanted to think small for a moment and imagine: What if that conflict started between two people? What happens when it begins with two bodies, two opposing ideas, two people trying to figure out where they stand, and then grows from there?”

Wrestling became the way in. It gave them a physical way to explore power, territory, trust, and control.

“GRACE is not a piece about wrestling,” she said. “It definitely has some wrestling in it, but it became so much more than that for us.”

What hooked them was how performative wrestling is. Everyone agrees on the structure and what’s allowed. There are boundaries. 

“And then there’s everything happening underneath that. The power dynamics. The desire to win. The desire to be seen. The moments when someone gives in, or refuses to give in,” she said. 

Why a 1940s dinner party

LED often reaches back into a specific era, and this time it’s the years right after World War II, when people were wrestling (sorry) with big questions about morality, power, and what humans are capable of.

“I think we’re in a strangely similar place today,” Lauren said. “We’re asking a lot of the same questions, even though the world looks very different.”

The dinner party puts all of that tension into a tidy, polite little box. There are manners. There are expectations about what you say and how you present yourself. And underneath, there can be a whole lot going on.

“We create the world, we establish the rules, and then we start pulling at the edges of it,” she said. “What happens when the veil begins to lift?”

So many kinds of grace

The title works on a few levels, and Lauren said all of them made their way into the piece.

There’s a character named Grace, who the audience follows as she tries to hold her ground. There’s grace as a physical quality, the thing dancers chase, and the idea of flipping that on its head. What happens when something that looks graceful on the outside isn’t necessarily graceful underneath? And there’s grace as forgiveness, the kind you extend to someone who has fallen short.

“Can we actually extend grace to one another when we’re in conflict?” she said. “We didn’t set out to answer those questions. They’ve just continued to surface as we’ve made the piece.”

Eight artists and a live score

The ensemble has eight dancers from across the country. Six are LED regulars: Cassidy Fulmer, Jonah Tran, Colleen Loverde, Kylee Killian, Quincie Bean, and Annika Barlow. Two are new to the company: Kevyn Butler and Nick LaMaina.

“Over time, a shorthand starts to develop,” Lauren said of the returning artists. “They know how I work, I know them well, and that allows us to go deeper and take more risks together.”

Then there’s Andrew. For GRACE, he’s on stage playing live drums and piano, singing, and looping the score as the show unfolds.

Lauren said even the dancers, who hear his original music all the time, had a moment the first time he played it for them in rehearsal.

“I think we were all a little taken aback by the fact that it was actually him playing it,” she said. “Having Andrew on stage makes that relationship visible. You get to see the music being made, right alongside the dancers.”

Year two at The Dixon

GRACE is also the start of LED’s second season at The Dixon, the restored historic building on Chinden Boulevard in Garden City’s Live Work Create District. The theater seats up to 150, so you’re only a few feet from the dancers. 

Lauren said the first season came with plenty of nerves and unknowns. This time feels different.

“We’ve not only opened our doors, but now it feels like we’re at home,” she said. “It feels like The Dixon is becoming what we hoped it could be.”

The details 

GRACE runs October 16, 17, 22, 23, and 24 at The Dixon, 3300 W. Chinden Blvd. in Garden City. Get there early and grab a drink in The Lounge, which pours from local wineries and breweries. Get tickets here.

We all follow rules we never agreed to out loud. At the dinner table, at work, in our families. GRACE asks what happens when we stop, and whether we can still give each other a little grace when we do. I’m gonna be there to find out.

Thanks for reading! 

With love from Boise,

Marissa

This story is sponsored by LED