Do you have a passion for dance and performance? This week, Kennesaw State will host the Italian Spellbound Contemporary Ballet company for its production of Full Moon, a ballet presented by choreographer and artistic director Mauro Astolfi.
Full Moon is best described as “bathing in someone’s subconscious,” says Harrison Long, professor and associate dean for the College of the Arts and interim chair of the Department of Dance.
In order to bring the performance to the Kennesaw stage, David Tatu, the lighting designer and production manager for the Department of Dance, had to consider how to translate the lighting styles and equipment used in Rome to the equipment available in America. The Department of Dance and Spellbound also needed to contend with the occasional language barrier — that is, until the performance begins.
“[The dancers] may not know a word of English,” Long said. “But the second I’m in that theater with that well-crafted performance, I leave a different person in some way.”
KSU students will not only be in the audience for the performance. Members of the dance program will be backstage and be responsible for lighting, curtains and wardrobe.
“Most of the effort on our side is all done by students,” Long said. “It is rare that student dance technicians are able to so seamlessly come in and work as the support crew for a world-class dance company.”
The one-act performance was brought to KSU as part of an ongoing effort made by the Department of Dance to host dance companies from around the world. Last year, KSU students were introduced to the Israeli dance company Kibbutz.
“We’re looking for companies that are on the cutting edge, doing new and interesting things,” Long said. “We’re trying to present things that nobody else has ever seen before.”
Long selects companies not only for dance students but also for those less familiar in the community.
“It’s in part driven by ‘What do our students need here now? What is the slate of guest artists that are gonna blow their expectations about what dance is and what dance can be?’”
Full Moon is not the end of Spellbound’s association with Kennesaw. Select performers from Spellbound will also teach a master class for the fifty members of the Kennesaw Dance Company.
The Department of Dance at KSU has one of the largest collegiate dance programs in Georgia. Kennesaw’s dance program currently holds students from roughly 110 majors and 50 minors.
“We’re not only training great dance professionals as performers, but we’re also training dance professionals who can be stage managers, dance professionals who understand dance lighting, who are full-service, well-rounded people to support the whole art form,” Long said.
Full Moon will make its premiere at the KSU Dance Theater on the Marietta Campus Oct. 12 and Oct. 13 at 8 p.m. Tickets are available online through Ticket Alternative.
