Full Radius’ concert program at 7 Stages was titled Silver in honor of the company’s 25th anniversary. This prompted me to look up the traditional gift materials for each anniversary and I found that the tradition for the third anniversary is leather. Unfortunately, Artistic Director Douglas Scott didn’t include anything on the program from their third anniversary show, which must have been pretty wild.
The program began with excerpts from Scott’s 2006 piece “Passioné.” This was a fairly fun and very pretty piece set to dance mixes of Schubert’s “Ave Maria” and the Habanera from Bizet’s “Carmen.” Everyone was dressed in velvet, which made me want to hug them all. I miss hugging people in velvet at concerts in bars in the 90’s. Do goths still wear velvet? I should go hug some goths.
The next piece was also from the previous decade, a trio from 2005’s “Climb” choreographed by JoJo Butler, Laurel Lawson, and Scott. Every moment and movement of this piece was beautiful. I was particularly taken with Eric Graise’s poise when he walked on his knees in this piece: he gave me the impression of a skilled ballerina dancing en pointe.
The remainder of the program was choreographed by Scott, beginning with a duet from 2016’s “Tenement,” which I first saw and enjoyed a year ago tomorrow. The pain and support and loss in the piece was really moving. It led without segue into “Breathe” from 2015, which featured some amazing ensemble work.
After the intermission, Scott indulged himself in a little neurotic pageantry with “Do You Know What You Are Doing Now?,” which had its premier on this program. It began in the dark with five of the six dancers asking if “you know what you are doing.” As the lights came up on them, they were staring at the sixth dancer, up among the audience, noisily eating from a bag of chips, as though playing the role of that one person who all too often sits very close to me. From here the piece seemed to have a great deal of fun with people just being mildly, if not intentionally, obnoxious towards each other, poking and picking and squirming around each other and giving each other the stink eye for doing so.
About midway through, Scott came onto the stage with a bag of chips and sat eating them while watching the others before he finally performed a fairly simple solo, which turned out to be an expression of a dream that he then told us about, involving pulling strands of gold thread from his throat. He asked if, at the age of 55, he was happy and finally knew what he was doing; two questions that he left unanswered as he left the stage. After a sped up reprise of some of the opening choreography, the choreography for the dancers became less obnoxious and much more focused on supporting each other. It was touching and fun and if it was somewhat indulgent on Scott’s part then it was an indulgence that I think he certainly earned after 25 years keeping this company going, growing, and producing excellent shows such as this one.
Don’t forget to check out the Atlanta Classical Music Calendar!