by Cynthia Bond Perry | Mar 10, 2010
Atlanta’s burgeoning dance scene owes much to the city’s growing college dance programs. Last weekend, two Atlanta schools were chosen to perform in the National Dance Festival in May at the Kennedy Center in Washington: Spelman Dance Theatre artistic director T. Lang’s “Agone” (below) and Kennesaw State University dance program director Ivan Pulinkala’s “Chakra.”
These two works were selected by adjudicators at the annual southeast regional American College Dance Festival at Middle Tennessee University, and were culled from a pool of 47 dance submissions. Of the 47, a dozen were chosen for a gala performance last weekend, with the top three going on to nationals.
The American College Dance Festival was ...
by Cynthia Bond Perry | Mar 1, 2010
What’s surprising about the Atlanta dance scene is the number of choreographers who produce interesting, engaging contemporary work. On Saturday evening, the Modern Atlanta Dance Festival showcased seven of those voices in its annual concert at the Marcus Jewish Community Center.
It’s been 15 years since festival artistic director and curator Douglas Scott, seeing the demise of the juried Atlanta Dance on the Loose Festival, decided to start the MAD festival. To pay for the concert's first venue, Scott worked at Agnes Scott College as an adjunct instructor, giving up a semester's wages to cover the college theater's rental costs.
Around that time, 1993 to '95, CORE ...
by Cynthia Bond Perry | Feb 22, 2010
DanceATL, a dance service organization for metro Atlanta, made its debut Sunday evening at the Park Tavern with the first of a series of bi-monthly community dance events. Held in conjunction with Atlanta Ballet’s Barre2Bar social mixer, the fledgling support group hosted a panel discussion led by three distinctly different dance community leaders: Atlanta Ballet artistic director John McFall, CORE Performance Company artistic director Sue Schroeder and Pilobolus creative director Matt Kent.
After a crackling conversation on collaboration, SIDEWAYS Contemporary Dance Company performed sections from Charlotte Foster’s “Coexist.” Later, despite DJ Curt Jackson’s high expectations for the crowd, no one got down on the dance floor -- they were too ...
by Cynthia Bond Perry | Feb 14, 2010
Lauri Stallings' gloATL has gone public. Not on the stock exchange, but in Atlanta’s heavily trafficked Lenox Square mall, where the new nonprofit arts organization Flux Projects presented “Bloom” over Valentine's Day weekend.
In the new site-specific work, internationally noted choreographer Stallings, based in Atlanta, collaborated with Sonic Generator’s Tom Sherwood and Brad Ritchie, accordion player Don Discenza and poet Big Rube of the OutKast/Dungeon family. The imaginatively rich, emotionally compelling "Bloom" bravely thrust Flux Projects toward its primary aims -- to bring diverse, high-quality artworks to Atlanta’s public spaces, to attract new audiences to the arts and ultimately to increase public demand for innovative, thought-provoking ...
by Cynthia Bond Perry | Feb 7, 2010
In rehearsal with Lauri Stallings’ gloATL last week, a flock of dancers draped in layers gradually filled the 14th Street Playhouse stage while Ravel’s “Bolero” gathered force. They were rehearsing “bloom,” a site-specific work that will premiere this weekend at Lenox Square mall.
“bloom” will launch Flux Projects, a new nonprofit arts organization devoted to the creation of artworks around metro Atlanta outside of traditional arts venues. (Read Catherine Fox’s ArtsCriticATL story about Flux Projects.) With music by Sonic Generator and def poetry by Big Rube, “bloom” will open Friday evening at 7 and run through the weekend, Saturday and Sunday at 4 p.m.
Stallings coached the rehearsing dancers to ...
by Cynthia Bond Perry | Feb 5, 2010
When you think of the ballet "Cinderella," based on Charles Perrault's classic fairy tale, you may envision a poor but virtuous girl transformed into a prince's bride, pumpkin and mice changed into a coach and horses, a benevolent fairy godmother and comical ugly stepsisters performed by men in travesty.
Atlanta Ballet's new production of "Cinderella" has all of that. Top that with the stage debut of artistic director and choreographer John McFall's 5-year-old daughter, Stella Blue, and you have an outing made for the kids. The production opened last night at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre and will run through Feb 14.
But there's more to the ...
