Full Circle Dance Company, known for tackling pressing real-world issues with emotional and physical power, presents the all-new show REFUGE: Needing, Seeking, Finding on November 16 and 17, 2019, at Baltimore Theatre Project.
REFUGE is designed to challenge and nourish both the mind and the soul. Bringing together choreographers from diverse backgrounds, the show dives into big issues such as immigration and the global refugee crisis, exploring ideas of home, loss, and belonging. It also illuminates the more intimate quest for refuge from the strains of contemporary life and from turmoil within our communities, our families, and ourselves.
Featuring dramatic and varied music, vivid personal storytelling, hard truths, and a dose of levity, REFUGE highlights the diverse perspectives of veteran and emerging artists from Baltimore and beyond.
Watch a teaser video here.
The Saturday matinee performance (November 16 at 2:30) will be a benefit for The Esperanza Center. The Esperanza Center is a comprehensive immigrant resource center in Baltimore that offers hope and essential services to people who are new to the United States.
Saturday’s performances feature guest artists Pete Commander and Rebecca Friedman of Charm City Ballet.
What’s in the Show?
REFUGE is composed of individual works explicitly designed to be presented together, providing multiple and extremely varied perspectives on the theme.
- Transient: Choreographer Liz Quinones explores the immigrant experience of leaving, seeking, and finding home. Described by preview audiences as “cinematic,” this work showcases Full Circle Dance Company’s characteristic blend of virtuosity and expressive power.
- It’ll Be Fun…They Said!: Parents of all ages will find truth in Jennifer Seye’s comedic reflection on the need for refuge from the demands of our own children, no matter how beloved they are.
- Facing Me: Working with a specially commissioned score, choreographer Nicole Tucker Smith explores the challenge of confronting mental illness within our families and communities. She explains, “I created this piece because I’ve felt the loss that happens when we look away and I know the struggle of confronting the challenges head-on. Both hurt. This dance is a search for acceptance, healing, and peace.”
- Comic Interlude: Misty Borst Yackshaw finds refuge in clothing, which can both conceal us from the world and facilitate true expression. Believing we all need a fun break from the heavy side of life, her work celebrates humor as refuge from the woes of the world.
- Walled Off: Full Circle Artistic Director Donna L. Jacobs presents a new work inspired by the dehumanizing rhetoric surrounding immigration and refugees in today’s America. This work highlights the power of dance to help us see complex problems in a new light.
- For Keepsakes: Love, Jim Crow: Hope B. Byers illuminates the dark history of lynching that is part of the American story. She reminds us that while many African-Americans found refuge in northern cities, for the thousands murdered, as well as for white children damaged by exposure to racist violence, no refuge could be found.
- the full circle: Kakuti Davis Lin’s brief, meditative work embodies the way a community of female artists provides consistent refuge from life’s challenges and hardships.
- Untitled: Philadelphia-based choreographer Kareem Best delivers a dramatic piece about finding solace in our common humanity in a world that can be isolating and dehumanizing.
To purchase tickets: www.theatreproject.org
For more information: www.fullcircledancecompany.org
To arrange media previews: [email protected]
Photos by Brion McCarthy Photo
