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

Happy Hour Release Party for Jasper Magazine Spring 2022 - Thursday, June 9th at Black Rooster Rooftop Bar

Join us as we celebrate all the artists honored in the spring 2022 issue of Jasper Magazine for the official release event at 5:30 on Thursday, June 9th at the Black Rooster’s beautiful rooftop bar.

Among the artists we’ll be celebrating are cover artist Lindsay Radford (written by Kristine Hartvigsen) and centerfold Michael Krajewski (which was shot by Brad Martin in the Black Rooster itself!)

In a jam-packed 64 pages you’ll find another piece by Kristine Hartvigsen on Mike Miller’s new novel, The Hip Shot, as well as excerpts from Jane Zenger and Angelo Geter’s new books of poetry from Muddy Ford Press.

Music editor Kevin Oliver put together a detailed section of new music called “10 to Watch” featuring new work from Saul Seibert, Katera, Desiree Richardson, Tam the Vibe, Rex Darling, Space Force, Admiral Radio, Hillmouse, Candy Coffins, and Lang Owen, with contributing writing from Kyle Petersen and Emily Moffitt.

Tam the Vibe

Stephanie Allen writes about Josetra Baxter and Tamara Finkbeiner’s Walking on Water Productions and their new series Secrets in Plain Sight, with photography by Bree Burchfield.

And we highlight Columbia artist Quincy Pugh as well as feature Will South’s interview with Tyrone Geter all the way from Gambia.

The Three Graces by Quincy Pugh

USC filmmaker Carleen Maur helps us understand more about the art of experimental filmmaking.

Emily Moffitt profiles visual artists Rebecca Horne, Lucy Bailey, and designer Diko Pekdemir-Lewis.

Ed Madden curates poetry from Juan David Cruz-Duarte and Terri McCord.

Christina Xan details the incredible success of Cooper Rust and her non-profit organization, Artists for Africa.

Cindi Boiter profiles SC Arts Commission executive director David Platts, with photography by Brodie Porterfield, and writes about the new public art, Motherhood by Nora Valdez, with exquisite photography by Stephen Chesley.

Motherhood by Nora Valdez, phot by Stephen Chesley

And finally, we memorialize two pillars of the Columbia arts community, Mary Bentz Gilkerson and Wim Roefs, whose loss this spring we are still reeling from.

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We look forward to seeing you Thursday night.

The event is free and Black Rooster’s regular rooftop bar will be serving drinks and food. Come by for happy hour and grab a drink, a magazine, and a hug from your favorite folks. Or plan on staying a while and grabbing dinner or snacks.

Thanks to restauranteur extraordinaire Kristian Niemi for hosting us.

We can’t wait to see you and show off these exceptional artists who call Columbia, SC home!

Featured Fall Lines Contributor -- Glenis Redmond

My poems come from my core. Then, I pour what percolates onto journal pages. They are hot-inked scribblings, handwritten epiphanies that morph and manifest into soul driven colloquial anthems. My poems stand up – sing and dance of lineage or lack thereof. They come from a deep-seated oceanic need to know about my heritage. What I cannot answer, I imagine. - Glenis Redmond

Glenis Redmond performs spoken word poetry as the Keynote Speaker for the Greer SC Arts Council

In January, the JASPER PROJECT released a combined double issue of volumes VII and VIII of Fall Lines - a literary convergence, our annual literary journal. In the weeks to come we will be highlighting some of the contributions to the journal by featuring the author and their work in ONLINE JASPER.

This week, we’re featuring one of South Carolina’s treasured poets, Glenis Redmond.

A 2020 recipient of the South Carolina Governor’s Award for the Arts and an upcoming inductee into the SC Academy of Authors, Redmond considers herself a poet, a teaching artist, and an imagination artist. From her website we learn that, “Glenis Redmond is nationally renowned award-winning poet and teaching artist traveling the world sharing and teaching poetry. She writes about the strength of her Afro-Carolinian roots, while exploring their weighted and palpable histories. Glenis is a literary community leader. She is dedicated to coaching and uplifting youth poet’s voices. She co-founded a literary program called Peace Voices in her hometown of Greenville, SC from 2012-2019. Glenis is also  Kennedy Center Teaching Artist and a Cave Canem poet.

Her work has been showcased on NPR and PBS and  has been most recently published in Orion Magazine, the North Carolina Literary Review, Obsidian Literature and Arts in the African Diaspora, StorySouth, About Place and Carolina Muse. 

She has recently won awards for her poems featuring Harriet Tubman (conductor of the (Underground Railroad) Harriet Jacobs (enslaved woman who hid in attic 7 years to escape her owner, then turned abolitionist and writer) and Harriet E. Wilson (first African American novelist). These poems will be published in Glenis’ upcoming chapbook, The Three Harriets and Others  by Finishing Line Press in 2021.  Her latest book, The Listening Skin will be published by Four Way Books in 2022. 

During February 2016, at the request of U.S. State Department for their Speaker's Bureau, Glenis traveled to Muscat, Oman, to teach a series of poetry workshops and perform poetry for Black History Month.

In 2014-18, Glenis has served as the Mentor Poet for the National Student Poet's Program to prepare students to read at the Library of Congress, the Department of Education, and for First Lady Michelle Obama at The White House. The students now read at the Library of Congress. 

Author and T&W Board member Tayari Jones selected Glenis Redmond’s essay, “Poetry as a Mirror,” as the runner-up for the 2018 Bechtel Prize. Teachers & Writers Collaborative awards the annual Bechtel Prize to the author of an essay that explores themes related to creative writing, arts education, and/or the imagination.  

Redmond’s “Dreams Speak: My Father’s Words” was chosen for third place for the North Carolina Literary Review’s James Applewhite Prize and “Sketch,” “Every One of My Names,” and “House: Another Kind of Field” will be published in NCLR in 2019. These poems are about —Harriet Tubman, the most famous conductor of the underground railroad; Harriet Jacobs, who escaped from slavery and became an abolitionist, and the author of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl; and Harriet E. Wilson, who was held as an indentured servant in the North and went on to become an important novelist, businesswoman, and religious speaker.

Glenis believes that poetry is a healer, and she can be found in the trenches across the world applying pressure to those in need, one poem at a time.  

Visit Glenis at www.glenisredmond.com 

She Makes Me Think of Houses

For Ruth Noack

I.

I lived in many house. 13 by age 13.

This year, I circle back to my first.

The place where I was born: Sumter, South Carolina.

My birth certificate classifies me: Negroid.

On Shaw AFB. My sister Velinda

7 years my elder cannot attend the school on base.

My father writes a letter to the base commander

for his first daughter to attend.

She’s her own version of Ruby Bridges

Unescorted. Chased by white boys with sticks.

Everyday called, Nigger.

II.

This year I drive 2 ½ hours South

to take my grandson, Julian

to a family fun day

on a black-run horse farm.

We both ride on a horse named, Blue.

Julian’s favorite color.

Bessie Smith sings the hue.

On the way back home,

I see a sign to my birthplace.

I tell Julian I want to drive by.

Visit 57 years later.

Apartments. Projects. Hood.

Sub-standard housing,

a crack-riddled man stumbles towards us.

I have eyes all over my body

I assess the cracked windows

and duct taped doors.

Two dark-skinned girls play

in the street. Double Dutch.

I tell Julian to stay in the car.

I take pictures.

When I tell my daughter

I went there: 45 Birnie Circle.

She says, “This house, not home

does not define you.”

X marks my port of entry.

I see all the angles.

Drive back to my home on Endeavor Circle.

Purchased with poetry money.

I’ve indeed come full circle ‘round.

 

Big Fun for Great Causes in Columbia Last Night

Jasper had a great time last night at two wonderful events supporting the arts in Columbia. We started our evening at 5 pm by arriving at the Columbia Museum of Art to select the Jasper Magazine State of the Art award for the Contemporaries Artist of the Year event. Many thanks to Jeffrey Day and Chris Robinson for serving on the panel of judges. It was not an easy choice. But after much deliberation we chose Doug McBee's Clara, pictured below, for its sense of elegance and fun.

Other stand out pieces included Jacob Olsen's Beginning to Understand II, pictured below. We loved the execution of this piece but were disappointed in its presentation. Chris was helpful in pointing out that a solid white piece of this style and size should be presented in pristine condition. Unfortunately Jacob's piece was marred in a few places and showing a bit of wear.

Chris was also impressed by the technique exhibited in The Sleeper, by Margaret Rose Smith, pictured below.

And, having just gotten turned on to the work of local artist David West, I was very much taken by his piece Disconnect below.

We might also mention that at least one of us from Jasper happily took home the piece below by Michael Pope and we look forward to installing it in our new pub room at Muddy Ford where the living room used to be.

After closing down the CAY event at 10, we had the pleasure of heading over the The Hunter Gatherer's 2nd Annual Arts Commission Fundraiser, magnanimously organized by local musician and service industry pro Henry Thomas. The house was packed with  arts supporters and artists and there were some really fantastic auction items. (Jasper took home passes to Indie Grits, tickets to the SC Arts Gala, and two signed books by Pat Conroy.)

And a good time was had by all!

First Novel Prize -- A Guest Blog by Betsy Teter, Hub City Press, Spartanburg

With the deadline of the third South Carolina First Novel Prize now just two months away, it’s a great time to reflect on this literary experiment in our state and update the readers of Jasper about this initiative—the only one of its kind in the United States.

A decade ago Sara June Goldstein of the SC Arts Commission and I began to talk about how cool it would be to have a First Novel Prize in our state. We wanted to help launch emerging writers into the larger literary world and solidify South Carolina’s reputation as a state with unusually good opportunities for writers. Every time we ran into each other, one of us said, “We gotta find funding for that prize!”

We found our funding partner in 2007 when David Goble became South Carolina State Librarian and agreed to underwrite the prize. The first contest, which took place in 2008, drew more than 100 entries. The stacks of novels came to the SC Arts Commission office and were winnowed down by the MFA students at UNC Wilmington to a group of six finalists. We sent those manuscripts to novelist (and SC native) Percival Everett in Los Angeles, who selected a manuscript by Brian Ray, a Columbia writer who had just completed his MFA at the University of South Carolina. Brian’s book, Through the Pale Door, was released in 2009 and received many favorable reviews, including Atlanta magazine and Booklist. Brian did an extensive book tour, we sold out the hardback printing, and the book continues to be available as a paperback. It also received a gold medal as the best novel by an independent press in the Southeast.

The 2010 contest drew fewer entries (about 50), but the group of finalists was amazingly strong. Novelist Bret Lott chose Mercy Creek by Matt Matthews of Greenville. This coming-of-age book was a hit with readers and reviewers (Publishers Weekly called it “a first rate effort displaying skill, sensitivity and grace.”). The book has sold out two hardback editions and was released in paperback in January. Matt has been invited to the Virginia Festival of the Book, and has toured book stores and libraries across the state.

I tell you all this to let you know that winning the First Novel Prize is a big deal. There’s a $1,000 advance on royalties and Hub City Press works incredibly hard to get national notice and sales of the winning book. You get featured at the South Carolina Book Festival and in newspapers all over the state. And even if you don’t win, you might be published. This spring we are publishing one of the runner-up novels in the 2010 contest, The Iguana Tree by Michel Stone.

Unfortunately, because of budget cuts, the State Library was unable to continue to be our major funding partner this year. But the staff at the SC Arts Commission and at Hub City Press decided this project was too important to South Carolina and its writers to let go. While we continue to seek a stable funding partner, we are proceeding in 2012 with confidence, knowing that sales of the last two books have been strong. We know that one of those novels that will arrive at the SC Arts Commission office by the March 19 deadline not only will be a winner for the author, it will be a winner for Hub City Press, for the Arts Commission, and the entire state of South Carolina.

Details are here: http://www.southcarolinaarts.com/firstnovel/index.shtml

What have you got to lose?