“Making work and performing will not be sufficient,” says George Staib, inventive director of the modern dance firm staibdance. “It’s hedonistic.”
That’s one of many causes he determined three years in the past to create Atlanta’s first multicultural dance pageant. (MC)2 shifting tradition, shifting group premiered in June 2021 and will return this 12 months Could 30 via June 3 at Windmill Arts Heart.
Staib has one other very visceral and emotional motive for spending months planning and organizing the pageant. Born in Iran, of Armenian descent, he is aware of what it feels prefer to let unfastened at a household wedding ceremony the place the dancing is rooted in a singular tradition.
“I can’t deny the truth that I’m plunked again into one thing acquainted that seems like residence,” he says, waving his arms to an imaginary melody. Whereas he’s not about to ask Atlantans to an Armenian household wedding ceremony, he’s eagerly inviting them to find out about totally different cultures via dance at this 12 months’s pageant.
Paradoxically, he couldn’t discover any teams in Atlanta that characterize Iran or Armenia, however he was in a position to e-book 9 firms from different world cultures: Academy of Kuchipudi Dance (Indian dance drama), Alma Mexicana, Atlanta Chinese language Dance Firm, Berdolé Flamenco, danza folklórica, Flamenco Underground, Lyrik London, The Faucet Rebels and VIAUNI. The final three firms characterize American tradition via hip-hop and faucet.
Staib felt strongly about together with solely ensembles that use the pure vocabulary of a tradition with out incorporating extra modern components. “We’re within the preservation of those cultures,” he says.
Dancer Julie Galle Baggenstoss, founding father of Berdolé Flamenco, carried out within the 2021 pageant and will likely be again this 12 months. A instructing artist in Fulton County Faculties, she is going to put on the lengthy, flounced skirt and fringed scarf related to flamenco although there are avant-garde performers within the discipline who put on extra modern gown and are experimenting with motion vocabulary.
“Flamenco has advanced,” she says, “however we haven’t misplaced the older varieties. Staibdance does an ideal job of honoring these traditions. Final 12 months’s pageant was produced at a really excessive stage and offered these dance varieties as elegant and highly effective. It was uplifting.”
Baggenstoss hopes audiences will perceive that every dance type is greater than motion and represents the philosophy, way of life, language and historical past of a specific tradition.
She additionally values the cross pollination that’s constructed into the pageant. For 4 days, Could 31 via June 3, lessons in numerous dance varieties will likely be supplied to individuals and most of the people. Final 12 months, Baggenstoss delved into Mexican folkloric, a dance type that advanced from flamenco, by taking a category and speaking with the teacher.
For audiences extra taken with observing than dancing, the inventive administrators of every taking part firm will interact in a panel dialogue on Could 30.
On June 2 and three, Staib will average a group dialog earlier than every night’s present. As well as, every firm may have a couple of minutes earlier than or after their particular person efficiency to clarify what they do, the self-discipline required and the choreographic course of. “We don’t need to overlook the subtlety and particulars inside every of the works,” he says.
Staib plans to current (MC)2 each different 12 months and hopes future iterations will embody African dance, Irish step dancing and extra, maybe even a full night devoted to at least one firm or tradition.
“We would like this to be road truthful meets gala efficiency,” he says.
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Gillian Anne Renault has been an ArtsATL contributor since 2012 and Senior Editor for Artwork+Design and Dance since 2021. She has coated dance for the Los Angeles Day by day Information, Herald Examiner and Ballet Information, and on radio stations corresponding to KCRW, the NPR affiliate in Santa Monica, California. A few years in the past, she was awarded an NEA Fellowship to attend American Dance Pageant’s Dance Criticism program.
