Annex Dance Company officially opened Season 18 with a performance at the Performing Arts Studio on the Emory University campus on September 7, 2024. The concert was an Atlanta debut for the Charleston, SC modern dance company, with new and reimagined repertory highlighting the company's continued investigation of connection. The company will celebrate the start of Season 18 in Charleston with a Season Opener Fundraising Event on Tuesday October 8, 2024 at the Cannon Street Arts Center. Ticket prices for the 5:30-7:30 PM event are $15 students/seniors, $25 adult. Tickets can be purchased at https://tickets.
Starting the company’s 18th season outside of its home city set the tone for what’s to come for Annex Dance Company. The heart of Annex Dance Company is performance, collaboration, and education, and celebrating nearly two decades of creating modern dance works with a performance at Emory University, featuring both professional and student apprentice dancers, highlights the company’s purpose. Associate artistic director Julie Clark shares, “The pieces in the Atlanta concert were selected to show the company’s origins as well as its future, which is exactly what patrons can expect from all of Season 18.”
The company will celebrate the start of Season 18 in Charleston with a Season Opener Fundraising Event on Tuesday October 8, 2024 at the Cannon Street Arts Center. The Season Opener Fundraising Event has become a company favorite. “Most often we catch up with audience members after a performance with a very brief conversation. I love that this annual event allows us to get to know our patrons as much as they are getting to know the company,” says artistic director Kristin Alexander. Patrons will have an opportunity to meet and mingle with the company while enjoying light refreshments prior to an informal performance of company repertory and new works in-progress.
Tickets are $25/$15 and can be purchased at https://tickets.
Building upon a successful program facilitated at the James Island Arts and Cultural Center in January 2023, the company has created a Fall 2024 Art Meets Movement workshop series. The company is partnering with with Public Works Art Center (Dorchester County), Berkeley County Museum/Interpretive Center (Berkeley County), North Charleston Cultural Arts Department (Charleston County), and the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston (Charleston County). The one hour workshops are open to all ages, with opportunities to participate and observe.Through movement exercises and guided visual art prompts, the participants will explore different ways art and dance can intersect. “The company is always looking for more ways to connect with the community, and this workshop is designed to not only observe our process of collaborative art making, but experience it too. When creating the series, it was important to me that Art Meets Movement was a free event facilitated in multiple counties. I am thrilled about the artistic and organizational partnerships we established to make this happen,” says Alexander. The company is collaborating with a different visual artist for each workshop, allowing the participants the opportunity to see their work and experience collaborative art making between disciplines in real time. Although some elements will carry from workshop to workshop, the company will implement new exercises and prompts of exploration, encouraging participants to attend more than one event. No ticketing or registration is required for the the Art Meets Movement workshops.
Art Meets Movement workshops with Annex Dance Company and collaborating visual artists.
Free admission. All ages welcome.
Public Works Art Center
Friday, October 11 – 6:00-7:00 PM
135 W Richardson Avenue, Summerville
Berkeley County Museum/Interpretive Center
Sunday, October 27 – 2:00-3:00 PM
950 Stoney Landing Road, Moncks Corner
North Charleston Cultural Arts Department
Saturday, November 2 – 11:00AM-12:00 PM
4800 Park Circle, North Charleston
Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston
Saturday, November 16 – 1:00-2:00 PM
161 Calhoun Street, Charleston
On January 25, 2025, the company will premiere The 4th Wall at the Sottile Theatre. Created in collaboration with composer Marcus Amaker and filmmaker Maggie Bailey, The 4th Wall is an evening-length work that breaks the fourth wall of a traditional theater space. A first for the company, the collaboration of live dance, film projection, specifically composed soundscape, and audience participation will blur the lines between performer and audience. “Our repertory ranges from very accessible in theme and movement vocabulary to quite abstract and potentially challenging. For this project, Marcus and Maggie are integral to the realization of the new dance project because the choreography, music, and media projections will all share the space in real time,” states Clark. She continues, “Our biggest question centers around the ‘why’ of breaking the fourth wall. Building this work around transparency, connection, and collective experience feels both familiar and foreign.” The audience will be invited to use their cell phones, verbally respond to questions, and share performance space with the dancers in their seats. “When I teach Dance Appreciation at the College of Charleston, I talk a lot about being an active audience member. We discuss being immersed in a performance by silencing distractions, like cell phones or smart watches, and challenging one’s aesthetic by being open to the unfamiliar. I have thought a lot about the idea of active audience members while investigating breaking the fourth wall for this project. I hope the openness to the unfamiliar will be there, but am excited for what the patron experience will be like as an active part of the creative process,” shares Alexander.
The company and collaborators just finished a five-day residency for the project, allowing the development of all aspects to inform one another. Alexander, Clark, Bailey, and Amaker all creatively contributed to the company’s most recent dance film, a PUSH and a PULL (2023), but have never worked this intimately with one another as a collective voice. “A core moment of our ‘4th Wall’ residency has to be when we were in the Sottile Theatre with Maggie capturing footage of Marcus creating sound as Julie improvised with company member Jordan Benton. For me, this is what collaboration is all about. Those twelve minutes sparked so many new ideas to consider while at the same time solidifying the direction of the work,” shared Alexander. To continue to build excitement for The 4th Wall, the months leading up to the premiere will be captured and shared with patrons through social media.
The 4th Wall will be presented at the Sottile Theatre (44 George Street) on January 25, 2025 at 7:30pm. Tickets will be available through the George Street Box Office: $40 (general admission); $25 (students and seniors) plus ticket surcharge.
In March the company will present two public performances of It’s Itself. Premiered at the 2024 Piccolo Spoleto Festival, It’s Itself is a 45-minute work straddling themes of the spiritual world and the earthly world and questioning the desire to place lingual descriptions on dance and art. Created in collaboration with visual artist Susan Klein, choreography and art inhabit the performance space, allowing for connection, interaction, and manipulation of human and inanimate objects. Klein shares, “In making this work, I was thinking about the relationship between tactility, movement, and creation. Ideas around non-lingual communication, symbolic language, and the connection between art-making and spirituality arose in conversation and developed throughout the creative process with Kristin and Julie.”
With Alexander and Klein as School of the Arts faculty, the performances of It’s Itself at the College of Charleston’s Chapel Theatre allows current students ease in access to the professional work of the faculty and alumni. “As an alum of CofC, it’s empowering to dance alongside other alumni while presenting work to current students. It can be challenging as an artist to see your path forward, and I hope that by sharing this piece we’re able to inspire other artists to collaborate and create within Charleston,” states Clark.
It’s Itself will be presented at the Chapel Theatre (172 Calhoun Street) on March 9th at 5pm and March 10th at 7pm. Tickets will be available through the George Street Box Office: $15 (general admission); $10 (students and seniors) plus ticket surcharge.
Alexander and Clark look forward to the Piccolo Spoleto Festival to round out the season of collaborations and performances. Included will be the company’s annual residency performance with the students at the College of Charleston as part of the Stelle di Domani Series. Performances related to the Festival will be shared in Spring 2025.
As always, patrons are encouraged to find more information regarding the performance and take a look into the behind-the-scenes process by on the following social media outlets: https://www.facebook.com/
