Several Dancers Core Kicks-off 2005-06 Season
Celebrating 25 Years of Thought-Provoking Dance

Atlanta—October 1, 2005, During its 2005-06 Season Several Dancers Core celebrates 25 years of innovation, risk-taking and collaboration as a nonprofit dance organization. Several Dancers Core creates new dance works, performs internationally and nationally, and presents experimental contemporary dance through its professional touring company CORE Performance Company, and deepens the experience and education of movement for the community through performances, presentations, workshops and classes in contemporary dance.

Founded as a small performance group in 1980 by Sue Schroeder and Kathy Russell, over 25 years Several Dancers Core (SDC) has grown into a multifaceted dance organization spanning two cities and generating connections throughout the world. SDC has built a sustainable arts organization which provides opportunities, programs and support for artists, students and populations at-risk. The philosophy of Several Dancers Core centers on a commitment to fostering creativity and to experiencing the power of dance as a method of healing and communicating.

CORE Performance Company, the professional contemporary dance company of SDC, focuses on creation through intentional collaboration and performance of new and innovative dance. Made up of individual artists, the company performs new choreography that evolves through experimentation, improvisation, and collaborations with artists from different mediums. Through the interaction of each dancer’s individual physicality, CORE develops an idea into an intricate and layered expression through visceral and evocative performance. CORE Performance Company creates new works often in collaboration with artists of different mediums and from different countries worldwide. The company’s current Chiapas Project: Corazon Abierto collaborates with musicians, a video artist, a writer and visual artists in a new work examining the weaving traditions of Mexico’s highland Maya.

CORE Performance Company will re-envision Handel’s classic, Messiah, as part of the new Woodruff Dance @ the Rialto series on April 1, 2006. The premiere of this collaboration by contemporary dancers and classical musicians, between CORE Performance Company and Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, will “add color, movement and meaning to an already rich text and score.” Antoine Plante, Artistic Director of Houston’s Mercury Baroque, will conduct the orchestra, vocal soloists and choir, who will interweave themselves with the dancers into the stage presentation. CORE Performance Company’s collaboration with Atlanta Baroque revives the intimate and nuanced quality of the work as it was originally performed in 1742, but with a new take on the classic work through the use of contemporary movement and an innovative staging of the dancers and musicians.

Several Dancers Core also provides extensive offerings outside the realm of traditional performance, including CORE Initiatives for community arts development such as the following:

• “Lunchtime in the Studio” is a series of bi-monthly events showcasing Decatur’s finest dance and dining in a free lunch and performance by CORE Performance Company. This program that gives audiences a behind-the-scenes look at the creative process is in its 6th year.
• Fieldwork workshops provide a forum for artists to receive feedback while developing new work. In partnership with Emory Dance Program, Fieldwork will be offered in Fall 2005, on Wednesdays beginning September 28, culminating in a showcase on December 4, 2005;
• Dynamic X-Change Healing Arts Program uses dance and movement as a means to open up new pathways to joy, working with people of all ages who are isolated because of their circumstances —dealing with abuse, homelessness, language barriers, refugee status, aging, and AIDS. The partnerships with Atlanta Union Mission, Latin American Association and CHRIS Homes continue in their third year;
• Performance and residency programs for school-age children are designed on a case by case basis to meet the needs of teachers and students in schools nationwide.

Several Dancers Core opened a studio in 1986 on the Square in Downtown Decatur where the company rehearses and which is offered to the local artists and community organizations for events and classes. The classes currently offered include a wide variety of dance and movement styles. For more information about our programming, please call (404) 373-4154.
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Committed for 25 years to innovation, risk and collaboration, Several Dancers Core, a professional dance organization, creates, performs, and presents contemporary dance. Dual-based in Atlanta and Houston, the organization promotes dance awareness and education through performances, presentations, workshops, and classes in contemporary approaches to movement. For more information about Several Dancers Core, please call (404) 373-4154 or visit www.severaldancerscore.org.

Several Dancers Core’s 25th Anniversary Season is supported by AirTran Airways, Regency Suites Hotel, the DeKalb County Office of Arts, Culture and Entertainment, the John H. and Wilhelmina D. Harland Charitable Foundation, the Pattillo Foundation, the Richard C. Munroe Foundation, and by a grant from the Georgia Council for the Arts through the appropriation of the Georgia General Assembly. The Council is a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts.

Photo URL: http://www.severaldancerscore.org/press/photos/messiahgroup.jpg

Note: For interview requests, contact Claire Horn, 404-373-4154 or claireh at severaldancerscore.org.