This story was originally published by ArtsATL.
In the world of dance, keeping things fresh after 45 years can seem impossible. But that’s exactly what Core Dance keeps doing. The Atlanta-based, award-winning contemporary dance organization recently announced its 2024-25 lineup, and there’s still some spring in this group’s step.
“I’d like to celebrate 45 years by putting new work in the world,” said Sue Schroeder, director-choreographer of Core Dance. Schroeder cofounded the dance collective with her sister, Kathy Russell, in 1980, originally in Houston, where she’s from. “That’s a good way to commemorate it! Let’s just put new work out there.”
New work, indeed. Part of this vision for the 2024-25 season involves “Constructing Dance,” a set of playful and improvisational original works celebrating the art of dance-making, taking place over multiple dates from Jan. 23 through Feb. 8, 2025.
Credit: jerry siegel
Credit: jerry siegel
But the big centerpiece is a new multimedia work, “Braiding Time, Memory and Water,” that will take place along the Chattahoochee River in Sandy Springs this fall and Midtown Atlanta in the spring.
This original artistic creation will feature artwork by Jonathon Keats, original music by Mexican composer Felipe Pérez Santiago, a live performance by Georgia State University percussionists and three Core Dance performers: Alexia Jones from Atlanta (who originally danced with Core Dance in the early ‘90s) as well as Barbora Látalová from the Czech Republic and Polish dancer Katarzyna Pastuszak, both of whom have worked with Schroeder in Europe.
“For the last decade at least, I’ve been working with environmental issues and concerns that started primarily with water,” said Schroeder. “If you breakdown and study the water in rivers, it flows in what’s called ‘fluvial braids,’ which became a very striking image to me.”
Schroeder met her “Braiding Time” collaborator and conceptual artist Jonathon Keats through Anne Dennington, executive director of Flux Projects, which itself has been creating or sponsoring numerous water projects. Schroeder and Keats hit it off over their shared interest in aqua art and soon began planning a movement piece that would incorporate the geography, history and conservation concerns of the Chattahoochee.
For this ambitious work — marrying outdoor performance, water, music and dance — Keats has crafted a water clock, or clepsydra, to utilize the river as a timekeeper while three dance artists and eight percussionists move along the water. Dancers will engage with the surrounding nature and, conditions permitting, the river itself.
Water has long been a central motif of Core Dance’s programming. For years, the dance collective has participated in National Water Dance and Global Water Dances initiatives. In 2020, for the Global Water Dances’ international event celebrating World Ocean Day, Core Dance livestreamed dances and conversations from Hawaii, where the troupe also partnered with the Hawaii Wildlife Fund and Hawaii Environmental Restoration to clean up polluted beaches.
Credit: Photo by Simon Gentry
Credit: Photo by Simon Gentry
For “Braiding Time,” there will be performances at two different locations: Powers Island in Sandy Springs on Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 19-20, and April 26-27, 2025, at Midtown’s Zonolite Park, a 13-acre nature sanctuary along the south fork of Peachtree Creek. For the April performances, two additional Atlanta dancers will join the project: Alejandro Abarca and Joshua Gilyard.
“We’re going to have lots of things to play with,” said Schroeder about both performances. “Scavenger hunts in nature and instrument making and nature games — things that bring us back to play.”
Also big for Core Dance’s 45th year is the launch of Lift, the company’s first true artist-in-residence program that will support dance creators with 15-day residencies during which they can generate, workshop and disseminate new, movement-based works.
“We’ve got two beautiful studio spaces to use,” said Schroeder. “I’m working a lot internationally and in nontraditional spaces, outdoors or in architectural spaces, so I don’t need a studio for my rehearsals.”
The Decatur studios that used to be regularly occupied by Core Dance performers will become an extension of Schroeder’s lifelong passion for generating and inspiring new works. “Last season, we piloted it with a couple of artists to see what we knew and didn’t know,” said Schroeder about creating the fellowship, which will officially start on Oct. 21 with Czech artist Bára Látalová and continue in November with Fly on a Wall and in March with Gilyard.
“We’ve always been a laboratory for exploring and experimenting with new ideas,” said Schroeder, who hopes to offer more time to artists as she grows financial support for Lift. “It feels really right that we have this resource. It’s in our mission to support the creation of new work and to experiment and be supportive of artists.”
But it’s not just local dance. In recent years, Core Dance’s mission has expanded overseas, with Schroeder becoming a bit of a globe-trotter by spearheading multiple multiyear projects in Mexico and France. In Poland, she revitalized a historic manor into an artistic center, the International and Interdisciplinary Art and Cooperation.
“It kind of happened organically,” Schroeder said about the growth of international work. “I’ll make relationships here, mainly through consulates that want me to help with international artists, and then it ends up being a dialogue where we travel back and forth.”
Schroeder dismisses rumors that these international obligations will draw her away from Core Dance. She calls Atlanta home and says she’s here to stay.
“I come and go, but I live here, and Core Dance has never shut down or quit doing what it does,” she said. She also points to the artistic cross-pollination of these many projects, for instance, bringing Polish artists to perform in Atlanta last year or inviting Látalová to Atlanta as a Lift fellow this year.
Yet guiding this much work across so many borders and time zones can be a lot, even for Schroeder. “Sometimes I thread the projects together if they make artistic sense,” she said. “This particular year, they’re all very distinct, and the creative process is in weaving [them together]. Generally, the projects all have activism behind them. They’re about taking action for something, using the artistic practice to build something that serves as a response and encouraging people to see things differently.”
DANCE PREVIEW
Core Dance: “Braiding Time, Memory and Water”
2:30 and 5 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, Oct. 19 and 20. Powers Island, 5450 Interstate N. Parkway, Sandy Springs. Free. coredance.org
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Jeff Dingler is an Atlanta-based author and entertainer. A graduate of Skidmore College with an MFA in creative writing from Hollins University, he’s written for New York Magazine, the Washington Post, the New York Times, Tiny Love, Newsweek, Wired, Salmagundi and Flash Fiction Magazine. Learn more at jeffdingler.org.
Credit: ArtsATL
Credit: ArtsATL
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