Podcast: What St. Pete’s New Arts Leader Sees in Her First 3 Months
Seventy days into her tenure as Executive Director of the St. Pete Arts Alliance, Helen French is doing what dancers do best: listening, adjusting, and finding the next right step.
“I’m incredibly grateful that I can say I have more good days than bad days,” she says. “I find such hope and excitement about our arts community, even in the midst of… anyone’s first 90 days in the middle of a new job.”
French didn’t arrive as a traditional administrator. She arrived as someone who built her life — and identity — through movement. A Juilliard-trained dancer who once made ninth-grade spreadsheets to convince her family she could pursue a professional career, she grew up at Gibbs High School’s PCCA program, watched local dancers make it to major stages, and followed them to New York.
Those early years planted seeds she didn’t fully recognize at the time:
the budget-minded planning, the instinct to translate artistic language to institutional structures, and the understanding that art-making and administration are more closely linked than most people think.
“I look at administration so much like choreography… you see a pathway, and then you adjust: pivot here, shift here,” she says.
Returning to St. Pete wasn’t just about affordability or family — though those mattered. It was about imagining what a performing-arts ecosystem could look like in a city where visual art has long dominated the attention. She co-founded Beacon to fill one of those gaps, helping shape a space where contemporary dance had room to breathe.
Now, she’s looking at the wider map.
The Arts Alliance oversees 16 programs — some dormant, some hyper-active like SHINE — and French is assessing what’s next.
“What are the voids in the arts community? And if I was bright-colored paint, how would I mesh into those voids?” she says.
Some gaps are structural: access, advocacy, professional development, and the persistent question of how performing artists fit into a city known for its murals.
Some are simple: more opportunities to connect face-to-face, more ways to decode arts administration for the people making the work.
“One of the biggest questions is performance opportunities for performing artists — and yes, that’s a need,” she says. “But then how do we fill it?”
French doesn’t pretend a three-person staff can do everything at once. She’s thinking in seasons, rhythm, and sustainable pacing — choreography again, but this time across a city.
And if there’s one through-line in her first 70 days, it’s this:
St. Pete is ready for more.
More performance. More connection. More ways for artists to be seen not as a footnote to the mural scene, but as a vital part of the region’s creative future.