Words beginning with the letter “e” come up a lot when curator Julie Delliquanti discusses the sorts of performing arts groups and visual artists she selected to appear in the arts festival that is tucked into the AJC Decatur Book Festival.
For art|DBF's second edition, Aug. 30-31, Delliquanti said she sought collaborators who she knew could execute, who would be excited to participate and want to be engaged with their audience. Here are several among the more than 50 presenting individuals and groups about which she's particularly enthusiastic.
Alliance Theatre: "Native Guard." In what's being billed as a "page-to-stage" experience, Alliance Theatre Director of New Projects Celise Kalke and Natasha Trethewey will discuss the world premiere production of the former U.S. Poet Laureate's "Native Guard" that's being readied for a Sept. 26 world premiere on the Alliance's Hertz Stage. Trethewey's Pulitzer Prize-winning collection juxtaposes her experiences as a child of a mixed-race marriage with the experiences of a soldier in the Native Guard, an African-American Union troop guarding white Confederate captives. Recommended for ages 14 and up. 5 p.m. Aug. 31, art|DBF Stage, Decatur High School Performing Arts Center. alliancetheatre.org/production/native-guard
Staibdance. "Surprise me." Those were Delliquanti's instructions for last year's art|DBF to choreographer George Staib, the Emory University dance faculty member who has directed this contemporary company since 2007. So Staib brought a dozen dancers who performed a beautiful dance sans music and then were gone almost as magically as they appeared. "I knew it was going to be wonderful," the curator said, "and it was." Expect Staibdance to do another pop-up this year, but the troupe will also give a staged performance of an excerpt from "Chamber," a work that will premiere in January, about how simple decisions and actions can give rise to major life shifts. 12:30 p.m. Aug. 30, art|DBF Stage, Decatur High School Performing Arts Center. staibdance.com
Art Papers Live: Emory Douglas. The Atlanta-based art journal will present a talk by the Black Panthers minister of culture from 1967 to the early 1980s, credited for creating its powerful graphic style in the group's newspapers, posters and pamphlets. When a retrospective of Douglas' work opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, several years ago, the museum noted: "Douglas' bold illustrations and striking images spoke forcefully … with unmistakable humanism." In his talk, he will discuss the power of print and ways in which text and image can engage, educate and empower. 4:15 p.m. Aug. 30, art|DBF Stage, Decatur High School Performing Arts Center. artpapers.org
Soul Food Cypher. Soul Food Cypher seeks to reverse the rap about rappers. Believing in the power of speech to transform the lives of individuals and their communities, the organization hopes to reverse negative perceptions about rap through cypher events, a membership program and school outreach. 4 p.m. Aug. 31, Teen Stage. 5:45 p.m. Aug. 31, Community Bandstand. soulfoodcypher.com
Théâtre du Rêve. arts|DBF is shining a spotlight on this French-culture troupe that curator Delliquanti believes "a lot of folks don't know enough about." Théâtre du Rêve will do storytelling with music, object puppetry and audience participation on the Community Bandstand and present a staged performance of an adaptation of Fanny Britt's children's graphic novel "Jane, the Fox and Me," featuring projected images and sound effects. A talk-back with actress Caitlin E. Roe follows. 1:15 p.m. Aug. 30, Community Bandstand. 2:30 Aug. 31, art|DBF Stage, Decatur High School Performing Arts Center. theatredureve.org
Wabi Sabi. Atlanta Ballet's contemporary dance offshoot that showcases new works by the next generation of choreographic talent performs Gretchen Alterowitz's "Holding Ground" and Benny Royce Runyon's "Me in Your Fall." 4:30 p.m. Aug. 31, Community Bandstand area. atlantaballet.com/wabisabi
90 Second Newbery Film Festival. Fitting for a book festival that features a "Kidnote Address" and a large children's lit program of readings, parades and more, art|DBF will present a "best-of" selection from the annual video contest in which kid filmmakers create movies that tell the stories of Newbery Prize-winning books. Funny things happen when even serious or somber books are compressed into 90 seconds or less by clever pint-sized filmmakers. 3:45 p.m. Aug. 31, Decatur Library Stage. jameskennedy.com/90-second-newbery
Film Love. This screening series that promotes awareness of the rich history of experimental cinema presents the program "Projectionist Please Read: Projection Instructions as Film Literature," a selection of historical film works that involve written projection instructions. 3 p.m. Aug. 30, art|DBF Stage, Decatur High School Performing Arts Center. frequentsmallmeals.com/film_love.htm
Blackout poetry project. Fusing words and illustrations found in used and discarded books, artist Mike Germon and poet John Carroll create a new take on blackout poetry in the project they call "Transfiguration." Their creations are simple messages of hope laced within symbolic collaged imagery. Four of these collaged poems will be enlarged and displayed as interactive structures on the festival grounds. Anyone inspired to make their own will find materials and helpers in an art|DBF activity tent. makeblackoutpoetry.com
"Radio Books." Bibliophiles may feel like audiophiles, too, after encountering Meredith Kooi's audio installation of "Radio Books" around the grounds of art|DBF. Each book contains a radio that receives the sounds of unseen flipping pages. "Instead of encountering a radio drama or audio book," the Atlanta performance/visual artist writes in her artist statement, " the listener confronts an empty narrative — the only sounds of which are the book's pages." meredithkooi.us
"Worth a Thousand." A project of the community-driven photography organization #weloveatl and small press literature advocates Vouched Books, "Worth a thousand" pairs four writers and four photographers to explore the Southern narrative through their combined mediums. 5:30 p.m. Aug. 30, art|DBF Stage, Decatur High School Performing Arts Center. vouchedbooks.com, weloveatl.org
P. Seth Thompson installation. An Atlanta photographer whose influences range from quantum physics to cinema to mythology, Thompson creates an art installation blending original and appropriated digital imagery. "My work highlights the slowly elusive boundary between images and our reality, resulting in an identity that has been formed, is mediated and is constantly compromised by a McLuhan-esque barrage of media imagery." Got that? On the side of the Community Bandstand. pseththompson.com
"Otherwise, Welcome to Atlanta." Googling the question, "Should I move to Atlanta?" Kelly Kristin Jones received more than 71 million "results" in less than half a second. "No result is benign," the Atlanta artist said. "Each is covered in layers of cultural connotations, agglutinations and associations from the broadest cultural discourse to the most private longing." Jones' installation harvests some of the responses and represents phrases on large felt banners created in the team colors of metro colleges. "In a city where identifiers are important … the anonymously offered text occupying public space acts as a rallying cry to both supporters and dissenters and offers new insight into the historiography of place," she writes in her artist statement. kellykristinjones.com
About the Author
