The Lucky Penny’s summer season kicks off

Contemporary dance curatorial platform The Lucky Penny will kick off its summer season in Atlanta on June 21 and 22 with Colony, a 50-minute duet choreographed and presented by collaborators Kelly Bond and Melissa Krodman.

Described as “mesmerizing and hypnotic, mechanical and incessant,” Colony is an experimental dance duet that invites viewers to consider both the human and the herd. Created in 2012 by Bond and Krodman, it grapples with uniformity, identity and belonging through choreographic investigations of synchronization, repetition and duration.

In the work, Bond (from Nashville, TN) and Krodman (from Philadelphia, PA) perform in unrelenting unison like spellbinding, strange sirens. They move with conviction and prowess, a militaristic commitment to precision and disarming seductive power.  

The work is performed in an empty space, where the audience can surround the work, meander and freely respond to choreographic shifts in energy, time and proximity. This is intended to call attention to spectatorship itself: the charged intimacy between performer and spectator, and the power of one’s glance to include or exclude. Colony puts gazing on display, daring viewers to feel the tension between watching and being watched; between individual and mob; autonomy and group intelligence.

This presentation of Colony has been curated by The Lucky Penny and added to Bond and Krodman’s residency at Theater Emory’s Breaking Ground Series. While in residence, the choreographers will have access to daily studio space to develop new work. They will teach a free workshop open to local artists and students on Saturday, June 28 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Finally, the duo will join The Lucky Penny’s other Breaking Ground artists, choreographers Blake Beckham and Corian Ellisor, for an informal Artist Showing, capping off the residency and marking The Lucky Penny’s Third Birthday on June 28 at 5 p.m.

“We are honored to be a part of Breaking Ground,” explains Blake Beckham, The Lucky Penny’s Executive and Co-Artistic Director. “What an incredible opportunity to invest in the generation of new work, to provide a learning platform for research and experimentation, and to introduce Atlanta audience to distinguished guests like Kelly and Melissa, who are working with the kind of rigor and risk that The Lucky Penny values. Colony has the magic ingredients: it’s provocative and its smart.”

During the Breaking Ground residency, Beckham will also benefit from rehearsal intensives with her dancers, as they prepare for The Lucky Penny’s next major production, Dearly Departures, premiering July 24 – August 2 at Drama Tech Theater. Beckham’s dancers will give a short preview performance of the highly anticipated piece at the June 28th Artist Showing. Also presenting at the Showing will be Corian Ellisor, another Lucky Penny artist-in-residence, who will teach free classes and workshops (June 21–28) open to all levels of theater and dance artists in the community.

For more information on Colony, or for details on the Artist Showing and free classes, visit The Lucky Penny’s website and Facebook page.

Photo: Kelly Bond and Melissa Krodman in their duet Colony. Photo by John Muse.