Art is Life Augusta

Augusta Ballet’s Dance in the Garden City season has three more events to go!  If you haven’t seen this fabulous brochure, contact the Ballet office at info@augustaballet.org to receive your free copy. Tickets for the alluring Ballet Hispanico are on sale now. Experience a memorable new style of concert dance that like MOMIX’s Botanica will inspire you to dance in your seat!

Historic downtown Augusta icon, the Imperial Theater, has plans for restoration. Click photo for full article.

Kids at Anyone Can Dance (& Cook) Camp truly impressed us.  It never ceases to amaze how the arts prompt creative thinking and action.  Campers enthusiastically welcomed new moves and eats.  When first approaching the camp, we intended to exclusively direct dance while letting our science partners handle nutrition; it soon became clear our disciplines beautifully overlapped.  Chef Steve Sitnick, dean of Augusta’s first-accredited culinary institute: Helms Career Institute, started his cooking demonstration by asking campers: Are you curious?  The overwhelming response was yes!  We then asked them: How many of you tried something new at this camp, something you now like or love?  Every student raised their hand.  What was it, we asked. Kids cited dance styles they had learned: Classical Ballet, Contemporary Dance, Hip-Hop and the overwhelming favorite Latin Dance - a first-time class added in honor of the approaching Ballet Hispanico. Preparing kids for adventurous choices, this year the writings of Dr. Seuss also served as inspiration.  Each camper received a copy of the author’s Green Eggs and Ham, an Anyone Can Dance (& Cook) Camp apron, as well as a Cooking Matters cookbook with delicious camp lunches such as vegetable pasta and pineapple/carrot cake. We challenged kids and families to continue this journey at home; a sample of their progress will be sent via postcard to Augusta Ballet with a statement or drawing demonstrating adopted activities.  Check our blog for these family-updates.  Kids who meet our challenge will receive free entry to Ballet Hispanico March 16, 2012. For a preview click the above image.

Why would a Ballet host a children’s event incorporating cooking?  Seems like an odd idea, but did you know in the past Augusta Ballet applied for funding based on its camp being “healthy” activity?  Staying true to this vision, Augusta Ballet engaged national and local science partners to form its “Anyone Can Dance & Cook Camp” this December.  While it is true our “thing” is dance, there are no rules we can’t partner with those whose “thing” is nutrition.  Fact is our nation’s kids need healthier lifestyles more than ever.  In our state alone, the Georgia Department of Health estimates the rising obesity epidemic currently costs Georgia $2.4 BILLION in yearly health fees, which is about $250 out of each Georgian’s pocket.  If you think our nation’s youth culture of inactivity and poor nutrition is of no consequence, think again.  Augusta Ballet - with science partners - believes solving a cultural dilemma requires a cultural solution.  As a chief ambassador of dance in the Southeast, Augusta Ballet is proud to host this camp embodying the athleticism of dance (something dance connoisseurs have long recognized) and Augusta’s two great assets: Art and Science. To learn more about Augusta Ballet’s long-term outreach battling childhood obesity via national and local partnership, visit www.augustaballet.org and click the “Dance in the Garden City” icon.  For a video introduction on our camp partner “Cooking Matters” click the above photo.

MOMIX dancers from Botanica conversed with us last night about the work of Isadora Duncan, a woman who threw out her tutu and toe shoes, danced in gardens and began Modern Dance a century ago.  Botanica’s modern interpretation of nature brought Ms. Duncan to mind, whose work and life was one of intense passion and expression.  We loved the complete visual composition of Botanica; it is stunning.  The dancers, classically trained, explained how challenging it is to work with the many props - while making a seamless and beautiful presentation.  Although they moved harmoniously, there were several moments of improvisation, allowing the audience to sense the individuality of each dancer; the diversity and beauty of nature was felt in their moves.  The dancers also noted a touching moment last night: a woman with tears positively remarked “I have never seen anything like this”.  The dancers enjoyed her gratitude and that of our ecstatic audience (including students at Davidson Fine Arts Magnet School they instructed via Master Classes).  We are thankful for the warm Southern hospitality of our audience; one dancer said “this is what we live for.”  We encourage you to come tonight for their LAST show in dedication to Augusta, the Garden City.  We think Botanica somehow channels Ms. Duncan’s avante garde style dedicated to nature.

The first “museums” were called “Kunstkammer” (German term meaning art + room).  Here one found paintings and sculpture alongside objects of nature.  From beautiful shells, plant specimens to bizarre bones etc, visitors (and often artists) were visually and intellectually inspired (mirroring the mission of museums today). Although many years removed from the Renaissance, Botanica recalls these fantasy rooms of art with a moving canvas. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_of_curiosities

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  What is common to some is beautiful to others. Take the “Common Buckeye” a very ordinary butterfly in name (especially seen in the Southern United States) and yet a treasure in appearance.  At Augusta Ballet’s coming performance Botanica by MOMIX, beauty will be subject to scrutiny, as it always is in nature.  The exotic, the rare, the classically beautiful, the strange…. an entire natural world on stage.  With all it parts, we think Botanica beautifully captures the Garden City’s artistic and scientific spirit….earthly, otherworldly and at once a magnificent vision of the everyday miracles around us. 

In dedication to the Garden City

Augusta Ballet presents

Botanica by MOMIX dance theather

October 6 & 7, 2011 Imperial Theater 7 p.m.

Botanica by MOMIX will transport audiences into the unexpected at Westobou Festival. Dancers will morph into plants, flowers and animals….a beautiful and otherworldly display befitting of the Garden City’s spirit.

Go to www.augustaballet.org to secure seats.  For VIP tickets click “sponsorship”.

Support Augusta Ballet’s vision to inspire and unite the world through dance.. and have an amazing time doing it.

Bike for the Ballet (B4B)

Presented by Augusta Ballet in collaboration with the Augusta Sports Council

On August 7, 2011 two cultures of movement synced for an excellent cause: Augusta Ballet’s fighting childhood obesity via dance and science partnership. Each sponsored tutu gained one child entrance into the Ballet’s approaching Anyone Can Dance (& Cook) Camp, formed with the Food Network’s number one charity, Cooking Matters, a division of Share Our Strength. B4B, the only training ride for the ESi ironman 70.3 Augusta competition, is scheduled again for summer 2012.  Sponsoring a tutu to increase camp attendance is still possible.  Go to www.augustaballet.org and click “sponsorship”.

B4B is part of the Ballet’s “Dance in the Garden City” programming celebrating and shaping a healthy region via dance and partnership.  Crowning this tribute, Augusta Ballet will present two mesmerizing performances of “Botanica” by MOMIX dance theater at Westobou Festival on October 6th & 7th.