The AJC Decatur Book Festival, metro Atlanta’s largest literary event, has invited more than 40 Atlanta arts groups to the Decatur Square and to venues around its downtown. Here is a guide to the groups participating in this super-sized (and all free) arts sampler. The overall festival begins Aug. 30, but arts DBF is Aug. 31-Sept. 1.
AHANA
The letters in the name of this Emory University a cappella group stand for African, Hispanic, Asian and Native American. Founded in 2003, the racially and ethnically diverse vocal group specializes in soulful R&B music.
At Decatur Book Festival: 1:45-2:15 p.m. Aug. 31, Community Bandstand
Web: www.facebook.com/ahanaacappella
Alliance Theatre's Theatre for the Very Young
A theatrical experience developed for children 18 months to 5 years old, Theatre for the Very Young is highly interactive and nurtures creative thinking, allowing small-fry audience members to experience art and culture on their terms. Its third season includes one encore and two premieres.
At Decatur Book Festival: Performing "Songs to Grow On," a cross-country trip in search of the sounds of America, featuring the children's music of Woody Guthrie, 11:15 a.m.-noon Aug. 31, Decatur Recreation Center Dance Studio.
Coming this fall: An encore of "Waiting for Balloon," starting Oct. 17, written by folk artist TMarq and loosely based on Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot."
Web: www.alliancetheatre.org/content/theatre-very-young
Art Papers
From its humble beginnings as a one-page newsletter in 1976, Art Papers has become a respected contemporary art magazine with an annual circulation of more than 130,000 in the U.S. and abroad. An independent critical voice covering contemporary art and culture, from local to international, the Atlanta-based publication is distributed in more than 60 countries around the world.
It also reaches readers through an active online site and public programming. Art Papers Live is a quarterly lecture series featuring American and international cultural leaders.
At Decatur Book Festival: Encouraging guests of all ages to make collages out of old copies of the magazine at its booth in the plaza exhibition area.
Coming this fall: Along with the Georgia Tech School of Architecture, presenting a talk by Mark Binelli, author of "Detroit City Is the Place to Be," at Tech's Reinsch-Pierce Family Auditorium at 6 p.m. Aug. 28.
Web: www.artpapers.org
Atlanta Contemporary Art Center
One of the Southeast’s leading contemporary art centers, the Contemporary (ACAC) is a non-collecting institution dedicated to the creation, presentation and advancement of contemporary art by emerging and established artists through exhibitions, educational programming and a studio artist program.
Founded in 1973 as Nexus, a grass-roots artist’s cooperative, ACAC presents six to eight exhibits yearly, featuring artists from the local to international art scenes. It commissions some of the work it exhibits, paying particular attention to noteworthy artists who have not had a significant exhibit in the Southeast. ACAC presents 50-plus diverse educational events a year, and offers subsidized studio space to 14 working artists. It is open free to the public every Thursday with extended hours and programming.
Its Westside facilities currently are under renovation, with reopening set for Oct. 19, coinciding with ACAC’s 40th anniversary.
At Decatur Book Festival: In keeping with the fest's literary theme, ACAC will present an exhibit in its booth in the plaza exhibition area of text-based drawings, videos, photographs and books by Atlanta-based artists including Ashley Anderson, Steven L. Anderson, Paul S. Benjamin, Craig Drennen, Nikita Gale, Michael David Murphy, Joe Peragine and Nathan Sharratt. Also: performances, raffles, giveaways and dialogues about creative careers.
Coming this fall: The multimedia benefit event, Art Party: Nourish, marks ACAC's reopening on Oct. 19, featuring exhibits by the Los Angeles-based art collective Fallen Fruit and Atlanta artist Steven L. Anderson, performances and more.
Atlanta Celebrates Photography
Marking its 15th anniversary this year, ACP aims to make Atlanta a leading center for one of the world’s fastest-growing art forms.
ACP hosts an annual, citywide photography festival in October: the Atlanta Celebrates Photography Festival, billed as the largest annual community-oriented photo festival in the U.S. The festival includes a wide variety of exhibitions and events around the metro area. Its diverse offerings bring together professional and amateur photographers, art enthusiasts, gallery owners, critics and collectors. Throughout the year, ACP sponsors additional community programming and opportunities targeted for the professional development of photographers.
At Decatur Book Festival: Providing information about its events at booth 301-302 at the end of North McDonough Street adjoining the Decatur Square.
Coming this fall: The Atlanta Celebrates Photography Festival runs throughout October.
Web: www.acpinfo.org
The Atlanta Opera
Founded in 1979, the Atlanta Opera has grown into an important regional opera company, attracting top talent from the regional, national and international opera scenes. It launches its 2013-14 season this fall under the leadership of a new general and artistic director, Tomer Zvulun. The company presents three productions each year at Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre.
At Decatur Book Festival: Giving an introduction to the opera and season preview, 10-10:45 a.m. Aug. 31, Decatur Recreation Center Dance Studio; also appearing at DBF After Dark on the festival plaza, 7 p.m. Aug. 31.
Coming this fall: Zvulun directs the season-opening Puccini's "Tosca," Oct. 5-13.
Web: www.atlantaopera.org
Burnaway
Celebrating its fifth anniversary in October, this online publication has contributed a critical and engaged dialogue about the arts in Atlanta and beyond.
Daily content includes reviews of exhibitions, interviews with local artists, feature columns on issues in the arts, a weekly calendar highlighting arts events and exhibitions around the city, a monthly compilation of opportunities for Atlanta artists, essays by local writers, and columns that reflect a wide range of subject matter and perspectives.
At Decatur Book Festival: Previewing its debut print issue and a limited-edition print from Ben Roosevelt's "The Blue Frame" series, and talking up its website and the Atlanta arts scene in general, in its booth in the plaza exhibition area.
Coming this fall: On Oct. 8, it debuts the project "UnmonumentATL," which considers unknown or under-appreciated sites, structures and artworks around the city.
Web: www.burnaway.org
ChaiTunes
Founded in 2009 at Emory University, which boasts a roster of a cappella student singing groups, ChaiTunes celebrates and explores Jewish culture through secular and religious music. Its members are not exclusively Jewish.
At Decatur Book Festival: 10-10:30 a.m. Aug. 31, Community Bandstand
Coming this fall: Will perform at Emory's First Fridays series of a cappella performances at the Dobbs University Center terraces, dates TBA.
Web: www.facebook.com/chai.tunes
‘Cinder Block City’
“Cinder Block City” is a public art installation by Atlanta-based artist Scott Ingram that invites the public to become collaborators. The work is composed of artist-made FMUs (faux masonry units), which are realistic-looking cinder blocks cast from a soft yet dense foam that can stack, bear weight and even float.
The work is installed by the artist in a minimalist installation of cubed stacks of 75 blocks each. From there, the public is encouraged to re-contextualize the installation by creating their own structures. In previous presentations, adults and children alike have constructed high walls and arches, laid elaborate foundations evoking ruins of long-gone structures, and lifted and tossed them around like strong men in a circus sideshow. The blocks encourage creativity, communication and camaraderie in viewers, be they friends or total strangers.
At Decatur Book Festival: Find the installation next to the Community Bandstand.
Web: www.scottaingram.blogspot.com
Dooley Noted
Dooley Noted is an Emory University a cappella group that arranges and performs a wide variety of songs spanning decades and genres. The community service-minded group plans to release its fourth album next spring.
At Decatur Book Festival: 3-3:30 p.m. Sept. 1, Community Bandstand
Web: www.facebook.com/DNACappella
Emory Dance
Emory University’s dance program provides a range of opportunities for students to experience dance, from performance and production to technique and theory. The mission of the program, which offers a major and minor in dance and movement studies, is to provide a curriculum that interweaves the practical and theoretical to foster students’ creative, intellectual and communicative powers.
Emory Dance presents a wide range of public programming each year, including Emory Dance Company concerts, the Friends of Dance Lecture Series, guest artists, dance on film presentations and informal and site-specific performances and events.
At Decatur Book Festival: 4:15-5 p.m. Aug. 31 at Decatur Recreation Center Dance Studio: "body land: New Works by Emory Dance Alumni"
Coming this fall: Emory Dance Company presents performances of contemporary pieces created by Emory faculty Anna Leo, George Staib and Lori Teague, and guest artists Emily Johnson and Kristin O'Neal, Nov. 21-23 in the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts' Dance Studio.
Web: www.arts.emory.edu/about/institutions/emory-dance.html
Fabulous Pinkie Sisters
Ranging in age from 6 to 13, this six-girl group was dubbed the Fabulous Pinkie Sisters by their music teacher, Decatur singer-songwriter Allison Adams, who says they all can do fabulous things with their pinkie fingers on their guitars and ukuleles. The members are Lucy Chester, Ava Chester, Isabella Beeson, Anna Mahany, Alice Freeman and Paige Garcia.
Adams has been making music on Atlanta’s acoustic scene for more than a dozen years. Her second CD, “Songs From the Garden,” is scheduled for release this fall.
At Decatur Book Festival: 10:45-11:15 a.m. Aug. 31, Community Bandstand
Coming this fall: Adams plays Oct. 6 at the Woodlands Garden in Decatur.
Web: www.allisonadamsmusic.com
Film Love
This decade-old series provides access to important but rarely screened cinema, including archival films, historic footage, unusual documentaries, handmade films, home movies, art films, ethnographic films, hand-painted animations, film diaries, classics of the avant-garde and many other genres.
Through public screenings and events, Film Love preserves the communal viewing experience, provides space for the discussion of film as art and explores alternative forms of moving image projection and viewing. Series curator Andy Ditzler introduces each screening (at Atlanta Contemporary Art Center and other intown sites).
At Decatur Book Festival: Setting up a pop-up microcinema in its booth in the plaza exhibition area where it will show classics of the avant-garde and handmade films by Atlanta's Robbie Land, a Hudgens Prize finalist.
Coming this fall: It continues its yearlong premiere of Emory University professor Anna Grimshaw's "Mr. Coperthwaite: A Life in the Maine Woods," a four-part work about the seasons of the year and the life of a remarkable man who has called the Maine wilderness home for 50 years.
Web: www.filmlove.org
Flux Projects
Flux Projects produces surprising temporary public art in often-unexpected places. The organization works with visual and performing artists as well as writers and filmmakers, placing their work in spaces that are part of the stream of daily life in Atlanta — parks, shops, along thoroughfares. It presents year-round, with its most ambitious project being an annual one-night public art extravaganza that draws thousands to the Castleberry Hill neighborhood each fall.
At Decatur Book Festival: For DBF After Dark, Flux will present a site-specific installation by video/filmmaker and installation artist Micah Stansell and his artist-wife, Whitney Stansell. In "An Inversion (with sky)," the act of "looking up" into the darkening sky will be reframed and retimed through a series of synchronized immersive projections.
Coming this fall: With the theme "Free Association," Flux Night 2013, Oct. 5 in Castleberry Hill, will include 20 public art projects. Projections, dance, performance, music, sound and light installations and more will fill the neighborhood.
Web: www.fluxprojects.org
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