Wabi Sabi outdoor dance series flowers again under Terminus’ direction

In her first year with Terminus Modern Ballet Theatre, Lenai Wilkerson has not only impressed with her versatility and artistry as a dancer, she has stepped into a leadership role. She is spearheading Terminus’ revival of Wabi Sabi, an annual outdoor performance series that ran as part of Atlanta Ballet’s programming from 2011 until 2016 and introduced the city to choreographers such as Jennifer Archibald and Terminus co-founders Tara Lee and Heath Gill.

Now, after more than nine years on hiatus, Wabi Sabi, the brainchild of Terminus Executive and Artistic Director John Welker, returns to the Atlanta Botanical Garden as Wabi Sabi Terminus, Oct. 30 through Nov. 2. Titled “Echo,” the relaunch bill will present new choreography from Wilkerson, fellow Terminus dancer Amalie Chase and New York City-based dancer and choreographer Chris Bloom.

Artistic and creative director Wilkerson said Wabi Sabi Terminus retains its predecessor’s spirit in addition to its name, which references the traditional Japanese aesthetic that embraces impermanence and well-crafted simplicity and celebrates how nature and time shape and transform material objects. At the same time, she said, its productions will speak to the concerns of the current moment and meet the needs of an evolved artistic context.

Wilkerson highlighted two major inspirations for Wabi Sabi‘s reboot. She believes Atlanta has a need for programming that connects ballet to the rest of the city’s diverse and cross-disciplinary arts scene while also engaging new audiences. In particular, she hopes that by bringing ballet to young professionals in a less formal outdoor setting and collaborating with artists who may already have caught their attention, Wabi Sabi will entice them into the theater as repeat patrons and sponsors of Terminus’ other offerings.

Wilkerson began conversations with Welker about the new venture in the moments between rehearsals and classes last season. At the time, she was completing a master’s degree in arts leadership at George Washington University and, as she explored art installations and live shows around town, she noticed a lack of awareness among patrons about Atlanta’s diverse offerings in contemporary concert dance, especially the unique blend of ballet and contemporary forms that is Terminus forté. She found herself thinking, “How can we get this audience excited about ballet and get them coming back to the theater by showing them something they haven’t seen before in new spaces?”

For “Echo,” which is free with garden admission, Wilkerson decided to collaborate with Atlanta-based ensemble vim, a female-led chamber music collective dedicated to performing the works of living composers, especially those with strong ties to the Southeast. The group will provide live accompaniment for the dances.

In addition to forging connections between ballet and the broader Atlanta arts community — as Welker did in programming the original Wabi Sabi performances — Wilkerson put together a bill that connects the work of Atlanta choreographers to what is happening in contemporary ballet elsewhere. Bloom, who created a premiere for “Echo,”, is a company member at Ballet Hispánico, and he and Wilkerson frequently shared the stage during her tenure with that New York company.

Bloom said that because of the trust they built working together as dancers, he was all in when Wilkerson approached him more than a year ago about her ideas for Wabi Sabi Terminus. This will be his first choreography in Atlanta, but he has previously created site-specific work for dance on film and music video projects. For “Echo,” he has crafted a duet with Wilkerson that is inspired by their particular strengths as dancers and responds to the program’s garden setting.

Like everything else at Terminus, Wabi Sabi is a team effort. Chase, who joined as a protégé in 2023 and was promoted to the company in 2024, has stepped up as social media and marketing director. Elizabeth Labovitz, a “Terminator” since 2023, is the rehearsal and logistics director. Wilkerson, Chase and Labovitz are performing in “Echo,” as well.

“Terminus is always evolving and transitioning, and it’s very exciting that John is kind of passing the Wabi Sabi baton to another generation of leaders,” Chase said.

She said her piece for “Echo” addresses the theme of seasonal and evolutionary transition and comprises a pair of pas de deux.

Though audiences may be more familiar with Chase’s work as a dancer than as a choreographer, she explained that creating dances has always been as much a part of her artistic identity as performing in them. “During my time at Charlotte Ballet, I had an opportunity to choreograph for the trainees, and, this past season, my work for the Terminus Modern Ballet School student company was selected for performance at Regional Dance America, which was a cool full circle moment because I grew up going to RDA.”

Given that Wabi Sabi helped set Welker on a path to becoming a Terminus’ founder and the executive and artistic director, his decision to hand Wabi Sabi Terminus to a new cohort is in keeping with the project’s original mission. The fact that Wabi Sabi Terminus is now in the hands of an all-female team and launching with a program on which two of the three debut works are by young female choreographers who are also still in their prime performing years shows how it is evolving along with dance as a field of artistic endeavor.

While the situation is improving, according to Dance Data Project’s ”Global Leadership Report 2025," which summarizes data gathered in 2024 from 217 ballet companies around the globe, women continue to be significantly outnumbered by men in company leadership positions at nearly all levels.

As Elizabeth Yntema, founder and president of Dance Data Project, has noted, early career leadership and choreographic opportunities provide essential training for dancers hoping to climb the career ladder in ballet. With the launch of Wabi Sabi Terminus, the Atlanta company may be helping change what ballet looks like, both in the boardroom and on stage.