Launched in 1995 to showcase the city’s contemporary dance scene, the Modern Atlanta Dance Festival marks its 20th anniversary with performances at Balzer Theater at Herren’s on March 14-15.
Highlights on the 8 p.m. programs include host company Full Radius Dance premiering “Bete Noire,” in which Douglas Scott’s choreography investigates a mysterious threat; Valdosta’s SWADance Collective presenting “A Strange(r) Fare,” a duet based on a couple’s recurring dinner conversation; and Project 7 Contemporary Dance performing Cherrise Wakeham’s “In This Shirt,” exploring burdens women carry as individuals and as females.
Other festival participants include Atlanta Dance Connection and independent choreographers Christen S. Weimer, Emily Cargill and Anicka Austin.
Full Radius Dance has presented 65 companies at the MAD Festival over its two decades, requiring no application or participation fees. In addition to paying theater rental and production costs, it has bestowed $27,000 in honorariums.
Tickets: $20; $15 students, seniors, children, artists. 84 Luckie St. N.W., Atlanta. www.fullradiusdance.org.
ARTS
Francophonie lineup has plenty of drama
The 15th Atlanta Francophonie Festival, the annual multicultural event pitched to the metro area’s diverse community of French speakers and others into French culture, will exhibit a strong dramatic streak during its March 14-30 run.
Joining forces with the Goat Farm Arts Center’s Nearly New Festival and the Atlanta French-speaking troupe Theatre du Reve, Francophonie will feature a half-dozen plays, plus film screenings, a concert and a friendship brunch.
Highlights include Park Krausen of Theatre du Reve performing a first-time reader’s theater version of Quebec playwright Fanny Britt’s graphic novel “Jane, the Fox & Me.” It’s the story of a bullying victim who feels desperately alone until she finds refuge in reading Jane Eyre and encounters a fox who becomes her friend. Isabelle Arsenault’s animated illustrations will be projected during the performance, 10 a.m. March 21 and 2 p.m. March 22-23 at the Goat Farm’s Rodriguez Room.
Britt’s dark comedy “Goodwill” also will be given a reading, in French with English super-titles, at 8 p.m. March 26 and 10 a.m. March 28 in the Rodriguez Room.
Another festival highlight will be a play Haitian writer Beleck Georges will craft over five days with metro-Atlanta students of various ages and backgrounds, to be performed by five professional actors. 2 and 5 p.m. March 29 in the Rodriguez Room.
Francophonie Festival opens 7 p.m. March 14 with a concert by Swiss jazz pianist Alex Bugnon at Alliance Francaise.
Goat Farm, 1200 Foster St. N.W., Atlanta. Alliance Francaise, 1197 Peachtree St. N.E., Suite 561, Colony Square, Atlanta. Admission varies. 404-875-1211, www.francophonieatlanta.org.
THEATER
Horizon ushers in 30th anniversary
Horizon Theatre has announced the lineup for its 2014 season, its 30th:
"Elemeno Pea" (March 14-April 13): Molly Smith Metzler's comedy is about ambition, class, family and the choices that shape who we become.
"Cowgirls" (May 16-June 29): Horizon revives this off-Broadway hit musical about a classical trio mistakenly booked for the reopening of a country roadhouse. Book by Betsy Howie, music by Mary Murfitt.
"Right On" (July 18-Aug. 31): A black radical-turned-business executive returns to her alma mater with her Harvard-bound son for a roller-coaster of a reunion that teaches lessons for both generations in Darren Canady's world premiere.
"Detroit" (Sept. 19-Oct. 19): A suburban couple host new neighbors at a backyard barbecue and chew over matters including upward mobility, spousal relationships and economic anxiety in Lisa D'Amour's drama, a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Stars Carolyn Cook.
Information, subscriptions: 404-584-7450, www.horizontheatre.com.
VISUAL ART
Picturing the natural and phantasmical
Get This Gallery opens dual photography exhibitions on March 15 of two expressive artists, “Topophilia” by Atlantan Stephanie Dowda and “Nevermore” by Tommy Nease.
Dowda’s series probes the powerful sensations people experience from natural environments, inspired by the theories of Yi-Fu Tuan, a University of Wisconsin-Madison emeritus professor whose books include “Topophilia: A Study of Environmental Perception, Attitudes, and Values.” Dowda manipulates her medium-format film camera, using maximum light, to capture the feeling of places (such as state parks) that preserve the land’s history.
Nease continue to explore themes of the phantasmical in his series, prepared as tintypes in an effort to portray a sense of lost time. Formerly based in Chicago, the photographer-musician has been drawn to the Appalachians in recent years, inspired by the folklore of the mountains.
"I've gotten into Southern murder ballads and old-timey music," he told the website graphitepublications.com last year. "It's weird around here … you get this feeling when you're in the Appalachians … a different kind of energy that I find really cool. These mountains are really old, much older than the Rockies. It's the reason why I like coming back to the Southeast."
Opening reception: 7-10 p.m. March 15. Through May 10. 1037 Monroe Drive N.E., Atlanta. 678-596-4451, www.getthisgallery.com.
MUSIC
Decatur organist finds sanctuary in England
Joseph O’Berry, organist-choirmaster at Holy Trinity Parish in Decatur, been appointed to the 2014-2015 position as organ scholar at Blackburn Cathedral in Blackburn, Lancashire, England.
It’s a rare honor for an American to serve in such a role at one of Great Britain’s 56 historic cathedrals. O’Berry, 26, who starts in August, called it “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
