Wabi Sabi, Atlanta Ballet's contemporary dance offshoot, is like quicksilver. It's here then there for a few summer performances and then gone again by the time the weather cools ever so slightly.
So it's worth noting that the nimble ensemble will give three performances over the next two weekends, before the dancers disappear back into Atlanta Ballet's Westside studios to prepare to battle the Mouse King yet again in "The Nutcracker."
On Friday night, Wabi Sabi gives a free performance on the Woodruff Arts Center's Sifly Piazza, amid the High Museum of Art’s outdoor “Los Trompos” (or "Spinning Tops") installation.
On Sunday evening, the dancer-led troupe makes its first appearance at Serenbe, the green-growth community in the south Fulton County town of Chattahoochee Hills.
Both programs are titled "Whim" and feature Heath Gill’s “Idyll,” Tara Lee’s “Swimmer” and “Between” by Sarah Hillmer. Gill and Lee are highly regarded Atlanta Ballet company dancers,.and Hillmer is one of its ballet mistresses.
The Friday performance outside the High Museum also will feature “Fields Magnetic” by former Hubbard Street Dance dancer Robyn Mineko Williams. At Serenbe on Sunday, audiences instead will witness Nathan Griswold’s “Two and a Half Songs.”
At the Atlanta Ballet Block Party on Aug. 29 at the company's Michael C. Carlos Dance Centre, Wabi Sabi will share the spotlight with the Alliance Theatre (performing an excerpt from its season-opening "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest") and the Atlanta Opera (soloist Elizabeth Claxton singing two arias).
The first-time, family-friendly event also will feature mini dance classes, rehearsal viewings, scenery-wardrobe tours, a costume sale, food trucks, photo booth and even a Dunk-a-Dancer Booth.
DANCE PREVIEW
Wabi Sabi
7 p.m. Aug. 21: "Whim" amid the High Museum of Art's outdoor "Los Trompos" installation. Free. 1280 Peachtree St. N.E., Atlanta.
5 p.m. Aug. 23: "Whim" at Serenbe Open Air Function Room. $30. 10950 Hutcheson Ferry Road, Chattahoochee Hills.
5-8 p.m. Aug. 29: Atlanta Ballet Block Party at Atlanta Ballet's Michael C. Carlos Dance Centre. Free (suggested donation of $20 supports the Dancers' Resource Fund). 1695 Marietta Blvd. N.W., Atlanta.
Information: www.atlantaballet.com/wabisabi.
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