The happiness of the beating, loving heart. The sombre raincloud, umbrella-wielding. The power of the human. The rainbow after the thundercloud, raining happiness. These were the themes for the ULM Dance Repertory Ensemble’s performance art piece at the October Downtown Gallery Crawl.

The Downtown Gallery Crawl is a bi-monthly event at the art alley district of Monroe’s downtown. The crawl showcases “new fine art from local, regional and national artists,” according to their site.

The ensemble performed as trios in front of different murals. Each trio created their performance based on the mural.

Brooke Gaspard explained her group’s performance as a story of love. Her group performed in front of a mural with hearts all over and “#LOVE” written at the bottom.

“My group used lots of leaps, pirouettes and handwritten notes (that were given to the audience) to portray a story of how showing love to someone, when they may be facing difficulty, can really help them power through their trials,” said Gaspard, a pre-occupational therapy sophomore.

The 12-membered ensemble was selected through an audition.

“We’re looking for dancers that have at least one year of experience of dance. That can be anywhere from the dance/drill team to dancing at a studio,” said Tina Mullone, associate professor and co-director of the ensemble.

Although each trio had their own story to tell, the ensemble performed at the same time. It incorporated visual arts and music to create a performance art piece.

Bria Winfree, a self-proclaimed art crawl connoisseur, called the performance a “logical inclusion for the crawl.” Winfree, a history sophomore, hoped to see the ensemble and other ULM artists in future crawls.

“I thought it was really neat how they incorporated different types of art at the art crawl,” said Martha Zabel, a ULM alumna and former member of the ensemble.

This month’s crawl also featured Warhawks like freshman Hal Mayfield, who performed with his band, Hay Mayfield and the Velvet Cowboys.

The ensemble will next perform during VAPA day on Oct. 17.