Full Circle Dance Company's
2021 Season
Full Circle Dance Company, one of Baltimore’s most recognized dance organizations, had planned to celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2020 with a gala performance. Instead, the year’s unprecedented events have shifted the focus from celebrating the company’s past to capturing an extraordinary present.
Full Circle Dance Company will present a multimedia digital season entitled BRAVE: Art in a Time of Crisis, with performances beginning in March 2021. “Because of the diversity of our artists,” said artistic director Donna L. Jacobs, “we are able to bring many different experiences of 2020 to bear on the creative process. Our company is composed of dancers of different races and ages. We have among us artists who work in medicine and mental health, science and education, politics and law. We have artists who are parents and those caring for elders. In many ways, we reflect America, and we have drawn on all of those perspectives to create the works that make up BRAVE.”
BRAVE
ART IN TIMES OF CRISIS
The BRAVE season will include a streamed performance of For Keepsakes: Love, Jim Crow, a 2019 work by Full Circle choreographer Hope B. Byers. This work illuminates the dark history of racial-terror lynching, a savage tool of white supremacy that is part of the American story. This work probes beneath the surface of the violent acts against thousands of Black citizens to reveal layers of motive, myth, custom, marketing, and impact. From the experiences of Black people forced to become refugees in America, to the role of religion, to the indoctrination of white children, Byers dissects lynching in order to motivate reckoning in our present moment with this profound source of enduring pain.
This piece premiered for a limited time on March 14, 2021
Watch an excerpt HERE
The performance was followed by a live discussion, moderated by Full Circle Artistic Director Donna L. Jacobs. Panelists included Dr. Jewell C. Debnam, Assistant Professor at Morgan State University, choreographer Hope B. Byers, and several of the dancers who performed the work.
For Keepsakes:
Love, Jim Crow
The Healing Project
The centerpiece of the BRAVE season will be The Healing Project: Moving Through Parallel Pandemics, a deeply collaborative work funded by a Creativity Grant from the Maryland State Arts Council. With Artistic Director Donna L. Jacobs and company member Shaela Davis providing choreographic leadership, this work for film explores the ways we are feeling and healing in the face of multiple challenges, including the pandemic and the crisis of racial inequality and police brutality. This large cast work features specially commissioned music by Baltimore-based recording artist Jazzo. It will be presented virtually Sunday, June 6, 2021, with additional live outdoor elements in early summer 2021.
"With the essential support of the Maryland State Arts Council, we are embarking on an ambitious multimedia exploration of the ways our communities are both feeling and healing in this extraordinary time. We are so grateful to be able to create meaningful new work with the help of MSAC."--The Artists of Full Circle Dance Company
View the film The Healing Project HERE
Sunday, June 6, 2021
A second new work, DISSONANCE, created by choreographer Misty Yackshaw as part of the BRAVE season, aims to honor the commitment of all those working to save us during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on extensive interviews with physicians and other healthcare providers around the country and filmed in Baltimore, DISSONANCE, to be presented in spring 2021, shines a light on their extreme efforts, experiences, and sacrifices.
Release Date April 24th, 2021
View the Dance Film HERE
Dissonance
dedicated to our health care workers
heroes, but also humans
For our full performance archive CLICK HERE
Postponed Stage Performances
Due to the Covid-19 virus, our in-person performances have been postponed. In the meantime, enjoy clips from some our favorite performances and make sure to stay in touch with us through social media and here
on our website.
Thank you as always for your support!
