Remember how it feels on a hot summer day to perch at a swimming pool’s edge, hover toward the water’s surface, inflate the lungs and plunge into the cool, enveloping drink?
The dance troupe GloATL will capture that feeling with Cycle II of “Search for the Exceptional,” a free, site-specific event in and around the empty pool at Maddox Park.
Choreographer Lauri Stallings’ ensemble is known for enlivening Atlanta’s public spaces by combining contemporary choreography with interactive art installation. Costumed in early 1960s-era swimwear, GloATL dancers will investigate themes of intimacy in public spaces.
Images of dancers in precarious underwater scenes will be projected on pool walls in a film by Atlanta-based artist Micah Stansell. The encompassing soundscape includes music by David Byrne, Brian Eno, Max Richter and … Elvis.
Stallings’ movement language riffs off balletic lines with strikingly original, off-kilter expression. Only 12 minutes of choreography remains from Cycle I, which debuted in May at Historic Fourth Ward Park. The rest, Stallings said, is new.
In preparation, it took gloATL and volunteers five weeks cleaning and painting the pool, closed since 2005. Ultimately, Stallings hopes “Search for the Exceptional” will help audiences “connect to a level of magic and mystery.”
Performances are set for 8 p.m. Sept. 21-22, 1142 Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway N.W., across from the Bankhead MARTA station. (www.gloatl.org)
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