Baltimore’s Full Circle Dance Company is known for digging deeply into a single theme each year, bringing together diverse choreographers to explore the theme from multiple angles. In 2024, the theme is power. Full Circle’s “Season of Power” will include community workshops and performances from October 2024, through February 2, 2025.
“What we love,” said Full Circle Dance Company Artistic Director Donna L. Jacobs, “is the richness of this topic. There are so many facets of power to explore. We are interested in how power works in our daily lives, how it has shaped history, and in the transcendent power of dance to impact our communities, our artists, and our audience.”
A highlight of the project is Jacobs’s creative collaboration with acclaimed indigo dyer and multi-disciplinary artist Kibibi Ajanku and composer/recording artist Jasmin “Jazzo” Walters. The resulting new work draws on the history of indigo, its connections to slavery, and its spiritual value within the African Diaspora and in Baltimore. An original score by Walters honors this history as well as the power of art to lift us, to connect us, and to make change. Eight dancers will perform Jacobs’s eclectic and deeply personal choreography, which blends multiple dance traditions to evoke a layered story. Ajanku’s original costume designs, each a work of art, will reflect her unique, historically and indigenously informed practice.
Season Headline Event:
“From the Source of Our Power”
November 3, 2024, Baltimore Museum of Art
Headlining the season is “From the Source of Our Power,” to be presented in two performances on November 3 at the Baltimore Museum of Art. New and repertoire works will explore not only physical strength and energy, but also social, political, and historical power. The show will include the premieres of all new works commissioned by Full Circle Dance Company in 2024. Collaborations with local designers and musical artists will make “From the Source of Our Power” a true celebration of Baltimore-based interdisciplinary innovation.
Full Circle Dance Company Presents
From the Source of Our Power
Sunday, November 3 at 2:30 pm and 6:30 pm
Baltimore Museum of Art
10 Art Museum Drive, Baltimore MD 21218
Tickets: $25 general, $15 students
Full Circle’s “Season of Power” Will Also Include:
●A free “Dance Your Power Workshop” October 8, 2024, at Morton Street Dance Center in Baltimore City;
●A performance at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, January 20, 2025;
●A free “Dance Your Power Workshop” in January 2025 at the Gordon Center for Performing Arts;
●A boundary-crossing collaboration with Ballet Theatre of Maryland to premiere February 2, 2025, at the Gordon Center for Performing Arts;
●Additional performances throughout the region.
For more information, including performance ticketing and workshop registration details, please
visit Fullcircledancecompany.org. To arrange a media preview or interviews with the artists, please contact Liz Pelton at fullcircledanceco@gmail.com.
Full Circle’s “Season of Power” is supported in part by Mayor Brandon Scott and the City of Baltimore/Creative Baltimore Fund, the Mayor’s Office of Recovery Programs of Baltimore City, the Maryland State Arts Council/Creativity Grants, and the United Way of Central Maryland.
Works Included in “From the Source of Our Power,” November 3, 2024, at the Baltimore Museum of Art
● “1868: Liberation and the Ever Lashing” by Hope B. Byers. Byers delves into the complex and often disregarded Reconstruction era when formerly enslaved Black Americans made extraordinary strides toward freedom and equality. Byers explores how the notion of a true interracial democracy gave rise to profound hope, simultaneously evoked violent resistance, and ultimately led to abandonment of this first attempt to truly evolve as a nation. (November 3 premiere)
● “The Sleeves of Love” by Morgan James celebrates the power of all kinds of love to improve our lives—as individuals, as communities, as a nation. Features original costumes by local fashion designer Eryn Boggs. (November 3 premiere)
● “Birthrights” by Nicole Tucker-Smith, performed by a real-life mother and daughter, challenges us to discover power by defying limits imposed by others. (November 3 premiere)
● A solo, not yet titled, by choreographer Alicia Williams, explores the power of perseverance on the journey to find one’s true self. (November 3 premiere)
● “The Ceiling,” created in response to the 2017 “Me Too” movement, addresses decades of women’s struggles in the workplace. This piece illustrates both the progress made in workplace equality and the significant challenges that remain. (2018)
● “The Embodied” by Travis Gatling explores the physical power of our diverse bodies to do amazing things. (2011)
Press Images
Publicity photos at this link can be used in any coverage of Full Circle Dance Company’s 2024-25 “Season of Power.” Required credit is “Photo of Full Circle Dance Company 2024 by Brion McCarthy.”
Full Circle Dance Company was founded in 2000 by Donna L. Jacobs. From its inception, Full Circle has been committed to presenting diverse stories, tackling real-world issues, and creating technically excellent work that engages and moves a broad audience. In addition to performing frequently throughout Maryland, Washington DC, and Virginia, Full Circle has performed by invitation in Connecticut, New York, Ohio, Arizona, and Tennessee. Venues have included Baltimore Artscape Festival, Baltimore Museum of Art, Tempe Center for the Arts (AZ), Broadway Dance Center (NY), Ohio University, Wesleyan University (CT), Dance Place (DC), and many others. Tackling such issues as race, religion, body image, gender, and more, Full Circle’s yearlong choreography projects have received both local and national attention.
Ancient while at the same time new-world and always changing, Ajanku’s muscle as a visual artist spans from contemporary fine art to village inspired craft to performance. Her artistry is layered with—and entrenched in—indigenous folkways. Through the melding of ancient practices and Afro-futurism, Kibibi creates new ways for people to connect with the African Diaspora and themselves. Kibibi’s work is rooted in oral traditions of the African Diaspora. Her travels fuel the information with which she executes her artistry, pedagogy, and curatorial practice. Kibibi approaches all of her work from a lens of Liberation and Justice. Her work strives to connect the deep divides of this nation using universal truths and rigorous dialogue in order to create a common language with which all can converge their realities.
Donna L. Jacobs is Artistic Director and Founder of Baltimore’s Full Circle Dance Company. Under her direction, the company has won numerous grants and awards and has performed at festivals throughout the region and around the country. She is also Founder and Director of the Morton Street Dance Center, which has trained dancers in Baltimore for more than 30 years. Her work and leadership have garnered recognition from many sources including the Howard County Arts Council (two-time recipient of the Mark Ryder Award for Choreography), Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance (Ruby Grant recipient), Baker Foundation (bgrant Artist Award), Dream for It Foundation (Excellence in the Arts), and The Baltimore Links (Excellence in the Arts). She was a School of American Ballet National Visiting Fellow, 2022-2023.
Jazzo has been studying visual and performing art her entire life. She wrote her first mixtape at twelve years old using a karaoke machine and cassette dubbing. She has delved into various artistic forms including acting and dance, music and video production, crafts, poetry, and choreography. Some of her notable accomplishments include winning Baltimore Unsigned Hype Artist Competition 2016 with her unique vocal looping and live production skills and being nominated by the Baltimore Crown Awards as Best New Artist and 2017 Vocalist of the Year. That year she also released her second EP, “Cygnus” which was a collaboration with CYGN, super producer from Lille, France. She is a Reverbnation CONNECT artist, RAW Artist, Sofar Sounds alumni, publisher/writer for SESAC, and an International Songwriting Competition nominee. She has toured the northeast with Grammy-nominated artist, Bernhoft. She is currently creating while supporting the art education non-profit Leaders of Tomorrow Youth Center (LTYC) as Director of Operations.
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