"Stairs, Chairs, and Squares"

*NOVEMBER 8 CANCELLED*

“Stairs, Chairs & Squares” is a playful site-specific dance piece created for performance on the Performing and Visual Arts Complex quad outside the Georgia Museum of Art. Created entirely over Zoom, this project is a collaboration between the Georgia Museum of Art, UGA’s Department of Dance and Cornfield Dance Company, presented in conjunction with the exhibition “The Art of Seating: 200 Years of American Design.”

New York choreographer Ellen Cornfield developed the original piece of choreography, inspired by both “The Art of Seating” and the outdoor environs of the museum and quad. All the artists involved, including Cornfield, two of her company dancers/assistants (Cori Kresge and Joshua Tuason), composer Andreas Brade, UGA dance faculty members Jason Aryeh and Rebecca Gose, and student dancers, worked together remotely this semester to bring the performance to life. Cornfield locates the dancing throughout the outdoor space — in the grassy areas, the walkways and the stairs to the Performing Arts Center — fitting the dance material to each new environment.

The performance will feature a movable set of nine red chairs that the nine female performers dance on, cartwheel over and generally use to expand their material. Not a strict narrative work, “Stairs, Chairs & Squares” aims at delighting the eye with an evolving and unexpected landscape of movement, with suggestions of emotional interactions among the dancers that appear fleetingly within the robust dance language. The dancers gather and disperse like a flock of birds, their formations constantly changing, moving from one end of the quad space to the other. The (socially distanced) audience will be able to watch from any viewpoint in the quad and is encouraged to move around as the dancers change their locations.

This program is cosponsored by the Georgia Museum of Art and UGA’s Department of Dance, and is part of the UGA Spotlight on the Arts Festival.  #SpotlightUGA   #UGA_Arts

(October 24 rain date if needed - October 25 2:30 & 3:30 or October 28th 5:00 p.m. November date TBD)