"On the first night of Artscape,
Full Circle Dance Company filled Theatre Project with an energetic and broad
range of modern dance works… a combination of technical strength and
tremendous passion.”
—Stacie Lanier, Radar
“Have you ever seen dance that
moves you? Not just in your seat--we're talking about moving your soul and
informing your life. If not, then you've never seen Full Circle in action...Whenever
you see this multiracial company, composed of veteran dancers and talented
newcomers, it makes you feel like you're seeing the full circle of life
danced onstage.”
—CityPaper, Best of Baltimore
Issue 2006
About Full Circle Dance Company
Full Circle Dance Company is a multiethnic professional ensemble that performs exciting choreography from a variety of modern dance traditions. Drawing on the diverse backgrounds of its dancers, the company works in a collaborative spirit to bring technically stunning and emotionally challenging dance to a wide audience.
The company makes special efforts to collaborate with artists from other disciplines and to reach beyond traditional audiences for dance. In October 2004, Full Circle Dance Company presented an evening of dance at the Baltimore Museum of Art called The Dancers and Writers Project. At this groundbreaking event, professional writers, young people, and members of the general public joined together in writing down their thoughts about the action onstage. This interdisciplinary project, which included a free workshop for young dancers and writers, was named “Critic’s Choice” for dance by the Baltimore City Paper.
In 2005, Full Circle presented Motherhood, Memories, and Movement, and evening
of new and repertory works exploring themes of motherhood. Based upon community
workshops with nursing home residents and expectant mothers, this event earned
Full Circle a Best Dance Company 2006 award from Baltimore City Paper.
Full Circle Dance Company has performed locally at the Hippodrome Theater
hosted by Dance Baltimore, at Artscape, at Theatre Project, at the Baltimore
Museum of Art Exhibit Expressions series, and by invitation in the Maryland
Council of Dance Festival Concert. The company has also performed by invitation
at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, at Wesleyan University in Middletown,
Connecticut, and the Broadway Dance Center’s Choreographers’ Performance
Outlet in New York.
Full Circle Dance Company is in residence at the Morton Street Dance Center.
The important partnership between school and company creates opportunities
for professional dancers to share their knowledge with young dancers in training.
Full Circle Dance Company, c/o Morton Street Dance Center,
3600 Clipper Mill Road, Suite 108, Baltimore, MD 21211
Sacred Body
In Response to Religion
Religion provides solace and inspiration, motivates charity, and unites
diverse communities. It also fuels bloody battles across the globe, provokes
debate over the rights of women and gay people, and wields hidden power
over the
political process. Religion’s complex history of comfort and conflict
stretches across the millennia, as old as human culture itself.
On February 16, local and visiting choreographers will bring together
their
own visions of the human spiritual impulse. Baltimore’s Full Circle
Dance
Company presents Sacred Body: In Response to Religion, an evening of inspired
and inspirational new works that are the result of a yearlong project exploring
religion, faith, and culture. Weaving the personal stories and spiritual
questions of members of the community into an interdisciplinary sensory
experience, Sacred Body is designed to engage the souls, minds, eyes, ears,
and even
hands of the participating audience.
Drawing on the powerful postures of prayer found in different religions
from
around the world, Ohio-based choreographer Travis Gatling has created a
work
that is at once personal and universal. Filled with both appreciation and
questioning of his own religious upbringing, it is a visually stunning symbolic
representation of one person’s spiritual journey.
Baltimore choreographer Erica Feriozzi’s intimate, serenely beautiful
choreography draws on Buddhist and Christian source material. She invites
the
audience to experience the stillness and peace that are central to several
faiths.
Baltimore physician/choreographer Misty Borst’s work offers an alternative
paradigm founded in science. Her odd and quirky movements make vivid the
marvels of the communities of life, often invisible, that surround us.
Full Circle Dance Company director Donna Jacobs’s narrative, historical
work
explores the central place of the Bible and Christianity in the African
American journey from slavery to citizenship. It is a story of suffering
and
endurance, of faith and strength that will both move and educate.
In addition to these premieres, Sacred Body will feature a special
collaborative work that incorporates ideas about religion and spirituality
contributed
through community discussions. The performance will also include guest
artists and Full Circle favorites that contribute to an understanding of
the
diversity of human faith experiences. Donna Jacobs’s Worthy, performed
to stunning
live gospel music by Alton Scarborough, is an uplifting expression of
praise. Special guest company Native America’s People will give the
audience a
sense of how dance and spirituality are linked in Native American culture.
The Morton Street Foundation, Inc.
And Full Circle Dance Company Present
Sacred Body: In Response to Religion
February 16 at 7:00pm
Baltimore Museum of Art
10 Art Museum Drive, Baltimore
Tickets $15
For tickets call 410-235-9003(credit cards accepted by phone)
Cash or check only at the door
Photo credit: Erica Feriozzi
*This project is funded in part by the Maryland State Arts Council
and by
Mayor Sheila Dixon and the Baltimore Office of Promotion & the Arts.
