COLUMBIA REPERTORY DANCE COMPANY PRESENTS “IN OUR TIME” FOR TWO EVENINGS AT CMFA ARTSPACE

Professional dance company from Columbia, SC presents fourth annual concert on August 18th and 19th, 2023

The Columbia Repertory Dance Company will present a full evening of dance for two nights at the CMFA Artspace, 914 Pulaski Street, August 18th and 19th, 2023 at 8 pm.

IN OUR TIME explores the stages of life and addresses the human capacity for vulnerability, strength, and growth.

With IN OUR TIME, Columbia Repertory Dance Company presents their fourth annual summer concert and second as a nonprofit organization. Featuring South Carolina choreographers Angela Gallo, Erin Bailey, Dale Lam, Kiyomi Mercadante Ramirez, Jennifer Deckert and Andre Megerdichian, and Stephanie Wilkins, the organization will mount an evening of versatile and exhilarating entertainment that demonstrates the depth and range of talent in dance in Columbia, and follows their mission statement in helping to both employ SC dance artists and ultimately provide dance opportunities that will allow exceptionally skilled professional dancers the opportunity to call Columbia, SC their year-round home.

The company will present works that portray the unique perspective of each choreographer. By collaborating with local artists and organizations and blending the highly physical with the highly emotional, Columbia Repertory Dance Company aims to create an experience that draws people in and encourages them to make dance a regular part of their arts consumption.

Pictured front - Bonnie Boiter-Jolley, co-founder & managing director, formerly of Spectrum Dance Theatre (Seattle) and principal dancer with Columbia City Ballet

Left to right - Megan Saylors - who has danced with Joel Hall and Dancers and Innervation Dance Cooperative in Chicago

Olivia Timmerman - apprentice - currently pursuing a BFA in Choreography at Coker College

Lindsay Fallow - freelance artist

photos from “Two Vulnerable People” photo credit Meghann Padgett

In 2018, co-founders Bonnie Boiter-Jolley and Stephanie Wilkins founded the Columbia Summer Repertory Dance Company with a desire to offer dancers more options in a city focused heavily on ballet. They started with the financial sponsorship of the Jasper Project, a plan focused on summer performances (Columbia’s dance offseason) and a sold-out debut performance in 2019 which was followed by a sold-out concert in 2021. The company has extended their season length and become a 501c3 non-profit organization. The group’s popularity among Columbia natives comes from their commitment to exploring refreshing narratives and styles of dance in their work.

The Columbia Repertory Dance Company will perform IN OUR TIME on Friday, August 18th, 2023, at 8 PM and Saturday, August 19th, 2023, at 8 PM at CMFA Artspace (914 Pulaski St, Columbia, SC 29201). Admission is $30 for this event, and more info and tickets can be found at www.coladance.com  or https://donorbox.org/events/479213 for Friday and https://donorbox.org/events/479216 for Saturday.

Pictured left to right - Ashlee Taylor who performs with Moving Body Dance and the Johnson Company in addition to CRDC

Sakura Oka - 2017 World Ballet Competition Bronze Medalist who has performed with Columbia Classical Ballet, Ann Brodie’s Carolina Ballet, and Columbia City Ballet

This program is supported in part by H-tax funding from the City of Columbia and by the South Carolina Arts Commission which is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts and collaborates in its work with the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies and South Arts. 

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The Columbia Repertory Dance Company’s mission is to broaden the experience of professional dance artists and patrons in Columbia, SC through multidisciplinary collaborative performances year-round. We aim to retain the talents of South Carolina dance artists and provide a spectrum of professional opportunities while inspiring and developing a broader and deeper understanding of dance in Columbia and surrounding areas.

For more information about the Columbia Repertory Dance Company, please visit www.coladance.com or follow on Facebook and Instagram

Coming Up at CMA--Adia Victoria and More than Rhythm: A Black Musical Experience

It’s nice when successful artists come home. Sure, there are sometimes sour grapes in the back (what some like to call the anti-Hooties), but for the most part South Carolinians welcome their success stories back with pride and grace. That will be easy to do on Friday, August 26th when Columbia Museum of Art welcomes Adia Victoria to their Conversation and Concert titled More Than Rhythm: A Black Music Series Featuring Adia Victoria.

Singer-songwriter and poet, Adia Victoria, was born in Spartanburg, SC and lived in the upstate until she left high school and moved from New York City to Atlanta and finally to Nashville where she resides today. She released her first album, Beyond the Bloodhounds, a reference to Harriet Jacob’s autobiography, Incident in the Life of a Slave Girl, in 2016, followed by Silences in 2019 and A Southern Gothic in 2021, which was written mostly in Paris.

Having toured internationally for the past few years and performing some gigs in the US with Jason Isbell and the 400 unit, Victoria is performing in Columbia as part of a multidisciplinary event that will include song, poetry, dance, and discourse. Dr. Mason Hickman, musician and civil engineer with a uniquely math and science approach to his guitar work, will be performing with Victoria and Dr. Birgitta Johnson, professor and ethnomusicologist at the University of SC will be performing host duties.

According to the CMA, the “More Than Rhythm series returns for its second season with a special performance from South Carolina native and globally recognized blues musician Adia Victoria. On break from her world tour, Victoria joins host and ethnomusicologist Dr. Birgitta Johnson to discuss her journey as an eclectic 21st-century blues artist before taking the stage with guitarist Mason Hickman. Their performance includes original poetry paired with dance interpretations by Columbia-based dancer Erin Bailey.”

The CMA galleries and bar will open at 6 pm with a Conversation at 7 pm, followed by an 8 pm concert. The event is free, but seats must be reserved by contacting the museum.

USC Dance Brings Back Live Dance With Spring Concert

Junior dance majors Logan and Lydia Acker rehearse Jennifer Deckert’s original work, A Season of Echoes, on the Drayton Hall stage.

Part of being a student of dance is learning how to dance in front of an audience. For pre-professional dance students at USC’s School of Dance this hasn’t happened since before the COVID-19 pandemic brought much of live performance art to a halt last March.

But this will change when USC Dance presents its Spring Concert next week, February 10 -13 at Drayton Hall.

Like every arts organization that is making a foray into live performance, the dance school is taking enormous precautions to protect the health and safety of their students, staff, and audience. So if you’re really itching to see some live art next week and you’re willing to take a chance, this may be your best bet.

Over the years, USC Dance has given the community innovative choreography that, more than a decade ago, arguably challenged the programs the professional companies in the city were presenting, resulting in a much more 21st century dance diet for audiences. While Columbia still has a long way to go to catch up with other cities of the same size, if not the same arts budgets, the past few years have offered some delicious treats such as Columbia City Ballet’s annual Body and Movement presentation of all new and innovative choreography (coming up in March, fingers crossed.)

For more on what to expect from the performance , check out USC Dance’s media info below.

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USC Dance Spring Concert

February 10-13, 2021

Show Times:

February 10-12, 7:30pm | February 13: 2pm

Drayton Hall Theatre,1214 College St.

Purchase Tickets

Tickets available only for the purchase of a single seat or a pair of seats, with single seats priced at $15 for students, $20 for UofSC Faculty/Staff, Military and Seniors and $22 for the general public, and ticket pairs priced $30-$44. Tickets may only be purchased online and will not be sold at the door.

UofSC Dance is back and in-person on the Drayton Hall stage next week!

Featuring three brand-new contemporary works by dance faculty Erin Bailey, Jennifer Deckert and André Megerdichian, the concert will mark the dance program’s first on-stage performances since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Concerts during the fall semester were filmed and streamed online.

To help ensure a healthy environment for all gathering in the theatre, a number of safety measures are being implemented by the department. In addition to socially distanced seating, facial coverings will be required of all audience members, performers and theatre staff. To help ensure distancing, patrons will be seated upon entering the building and asked to leave immediately after the performance. Patrons are asked to monitor their own health and not attend if they have been previously diagnosed with COVID-19 within 14 days, have been in contact with anyone diagnosed with the virus or are exhibiting any symptoms of illness. The theatre will be cleaned before each performance.

Precautions have also been in place during rehearsal, with dancers required to report their temperature and health conditions daily and wear face coverings. Additionally, the choreographers have incorporated social distancing into their works. Dancers are only allowed to be in close contact if they share a living space.

Pandemic-related limitations have directly inspired the creation of Jennifer Deckert’s A Season of Echoes. Set to the music of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, the contemporary ballet explores how the solitude of social distancing has, for many, provided a chance for personal reflection.

“I think this forced stillness that we’ve all been put into allows us to reflect on past experiences and emotional baggage that we may not have had the time, energy or space to acknowledge in our lives,” says Associate Professor Deckert. “It’s very much a reflection of managing this pandemic, managing the social unrest and managing how we’re reflecting on ways of being and interacting.”

The impact of the pandemic has similarly informed Megerdichian, an assistant professor in the dance program. However, his work, Meetings Along the Edge, intends to give audiences a more visceral experience.

“We’ve all been sort of cooped up in these times and that has put us in this state of external stillness,” says Megerdichian. “But, internally the wheels are spinning at 90 miles an hour. I thought what we need is a release of that internal spinning, projected physically.”

Contrasting emotions also fuel dance instructor Erin Bailey’s under. Inspired by a trip to a Berlin museum, the piece brings to light conflicting feelings of contrition and redemption.

“I felt… an overwhelming sense of shame,” Bailey says of her powerful experience with history. “At the same time, I felt very much alive and pure. This experience of simultaneously feeling heavy and light, unclean and clean, inspired me to explore the complexities of these relationships through movement.”

One feeling shared by all of the artists in this concert, choreographers and dancers alike, is a sense of excitement at finally being able to get back on stage

“This is what we live for,” says Deckert. “We’re craving interaction with each other and that creative energy. There are a lot of artists who aren’t able to have that right now and I’m just grateful that we’re in a place where we can.”

“Our hearts feel a little calmer than they had,” she adds, “knowing that we get to be on stage in front of an audience and living the life that we were born to live.”

Columbia Dance and Improvisation Festival happening NOW - blog by Jasper Intern Abby Davis

The first annual Columbia Dance and Improvisation Festival (CDIF) is taking place in Columbia from Thursday, August 7^th through Sunday, August 10^th.  The event is being hosted by The Power Company Collaborative at Columbia College.  Dancers will spend the four days participating in a wide array of classes, improvisational jams, informal performances, and discussions. The four-day intensive aims to bring South Carolina dancers together to practice improvisational skills, showcase works in progress, and share feedback.  Associate director and instructor Amanda Ling says she hopes people leave with “more security in dancing and moving through space with other people.”

CDIF is offering six different classes—contemporary dance technique, contemporary dance fusion, yoga and somatic reflection, contact improvisation, improvisational methods, and site-specific dance and composition. Instructors include Martha Brim, Marcy Yonkey-Clayton, Amanda Ling, Ashlee Taylor, Erin Bailey, Angela Gallo, and Terrance Henderson, the 2014 Jasper Artist of the Year in Dance.

In addition to technique classes and morning yoga, there will be three improvisational jams throughout the festival.  Amanda Ling says that she is mostly looking forward to the improvisational jams, “that is the time for people to just be spontaneous, and you never know how it’s going to turn out.  Sometimes they’re really subtle, reflective, and meditative, and other times they get really wild and crazy where everyone is dancing and laughing and the music is loud.  It can really go either way, and I enjoy both directions, so I’m excited to see which way they will go.”

“Dance, dessert, and discussion” will take place on Saturday night, with the dance aspect consisting of an informal performance from any dancers that wish to share.  This gives the dancers an opportunity to showcase some of their works, finished or unfinished, and get constructive feedback from fellow dancers.  The Power Company Collaborative, Columbia College, Coker College, and Winthrop College will all be participating in the showcase.

While this is only the first annual Columbia Dance and Improvisational Festival, The Power Company Collaborative is already looking forward to the future of the event.  They are interested in adding a component that would involve younger dancers, offering housing to people coming from out of town, and expanding to include other states and even other disciplines. Martha Brim, director of The Power Company Collaborative, says “The Power Company has just gone through a transformation of becoming more collaborative, so I think it would be wonderful to open it up to other arts and disciplines beyond dance.”  For this year, however, Brim hopes that when the dancers leave the festival, “everyone feels rejuvenated, artistically and personally, and really connected with a community that’s growing.”

- Abby Davis