Saturday, May 17
Doors 7pm / Performance 7:30pm
Set 1: Drum Major Instinct x Katherine Young
Drum Major Instinct is an experimental music duo from Asheville, North Carolina. Jeff Arnal plays (mostly) percussion and Curt Cloninger plays (mostly) modular synthesizer. The Wire describes Jeff’s drumming as a “highly original concept” having “a balletic sense of time and imaginative deployment of colour;” and Byron Coley says Curt’s modular synthesis “moves like blocks of radioactive adobe being shifted around by architects in space suits.” But, of course, nothing is ever that straightforward. The resultant music is about waves of energy, patterns within patterns (within patterns), sounds from the natural world, and running the voodoo down. Their self-titled first release is on Mahakala Music (2022) and their latest 2025 LP (entitled "Almost Nothing") is on Haunted Apparatus.
For more on DMI and photos: https://lab404.com/dmi/
As a bassoonist and improviser, Katherine Young amplifies her instrument and employs a flexible electronics setup. She performs as a soloist, in ad hoc improvised groups, and with projects such as Beautifulish (duo with Sam Scranton) and Architeuthis Walks on Land (duo with Amy Cimini). Her debut solo album garnered praise in The Wire (“Bassoon colossus”) and Downbeat (“seriously bold leaps for the bassoon”). She has documented her work on numerous recordings, including her quartet Pretty Monsters self-titled debut, a duo recording with Anthony Braxton, and the multi-movement work "Diligence Is to Magic as Progress Is to Flight" (Parlour Tapes+) created with violinist Austin Wulliman of the JACK Quartet. Katherine is based in Atlanta, where she teaches composition, electronic music, and improvisation at Emory University. In 2021, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Music Composition. As a scholar, she researches the incorporation of idiosyncratic electronics and improvisation in contemporary notated music.
For more on Katherine Young and photos: https://katherineyoung.info/
Set 2: Currents of Motion: Sound, Movement & Collective Response with movement by Alejandro (Alex) Abarca, Juana Farfan, Jimmy Joyner, Sue Schroeder, Sammy Spriggs, and Lori C. Teague with music by Drum Major Instinct and Katherine Young.
Alejandro (Alex) Abarca is an artistic alchemist from Houston, Texas. His artistic journey began when he started dancing in his grandmother’s living room at a family function. This later manifested into an interest in musical theater and led him to graduate from Houston’s High School for the Performing and Visual Arts as a theater major. He found his way back to dancing while studying at the University of Houston. He had the pleasure of working with many Houston area choreographers, and after graduation he moved to Atlanta to dance professionally for Core Performance Company from 2009-2012. During that time, he worked with many Atlanta dance-makers. He, then, continued his dance training at the NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and earned his MFA in 2016. There he performed in the works of Sean Curran, Kay Cummings, Vita Osojnik, and Jose Limon. He is currently the Assistant Teaching Professor of Dance at Oxford College of Emory University. Additionally, he is still working professional artist. He has presented work, with his long-time collaborator Corian Ellisor, in NYC, Houston, and Atlanta. He has also had the pleasure of returning to his theatrical roots by being a puppeteer in Scottie Rowell’s SuperCello! (which was performed at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC) and most recently in an immersive production of Pinnochio of 7Stages in Atlanta last year.
Juana Farfan is an independent artist and dance educator based in Atlanta, Georgia, originally from Bogota, Colombia. She has been creating and performing in the Atlanta dance community since 2002, as well as being an arts curriculum integration and dance teacher.
Jimmy Joyner is an Atlanta based performance artist and team member with Fly on a Wall who has worked as a dancer with Nashville Ballet, Ballet Nouveau Colorado, gloATL, Fly on a Wall, and staibDANCE. Jimmy has designed costumes for Ballet Nouveau Colorado, gloATL, staibDANCE, KSU, Terminus Modern Ballet Theater, ImmerseATL, Sean Nguyen-Hilton, and Fly on a Wall. They are a certified yoga instructor and hold an MFA from The University of the Arts. jimmyjoyner.com
In over 40 years of work in the arts, Sue Schroeder has created more than 110 original works at the intersection of movement/dance and visual art for theaters, museums, green spaces, architectural works, and water environments. Her work has appeared throughout the United States, as well as Mexico, Israel, France, Germany, Poland, Georgia, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Iceland, United Kingdom, Sweden, Canada, Guatemala, and Hungary. Her multidisciplinary vision has led to collaborations with major voices in dance, music, spoken word, visual arts and design.
Additionally, she is recognized as a leading arts activist and mentor. As a contemporary artist and dance maker, Sue focuses on the creative process, movement research, exploration, and dance-making as a catalyst for social change.
Sammy Spriggs (she/they) is an Atlanta based independent dance artist. Their choreographic work has been presented in Chicago, New York, Dallas, and Atlanta. She has presented research at the Society of Dance History Scholars/Congress on Research and Dance joint conference. Their choreography and teaching work emphasizes the intersections between performing arts and social justice. She believes that dance and arts education cultivate strength, confidence, empathy and provides the tools necessary to be a good human. Sammy is on faculty at Dance Foundry in Scottdale, GA, where she teaches Adult Ballet, and Modern Technique and Creative Movement to some very talented young movers. They are also the Chairperson for Bautanzt Here’s Board of Directors.
Lori C. Teague, Associate Professor at Emory University, teaches contemporary technique, improvisation, choreography, Laban movement analysis, dance pedagogy, and somatic practices. She cultivates interdisciplinary approaches to extend embodied learning practices with Manuela Manetta, Mathematics professor. Teague earned an MFA from The Ohio State University. She is certified in Jacob Pillow’s Curriculum in Motion® Institute and Laban Movement Studies. Her choreographic research is concerned with human liberation and the actions we must take to sustain resources on this planet. She develops material from improvisational scores that invite kinesthetic listening and excavate personal histories by exploring how we live in our body and how we inhabit spaces. These collaborative processes seek to empower each mover, build community, and relate to the natural world. She is a Fieldwork and Critical Response facilitator.
About Core Dance
For more than four decades, Core Dance has embraced the human form, the creative process and the artist working within it. An award-winning contemporary dance organization with global impact, Core Dance creates, performs, and produces compelling original art that empowers communities to see the self in others. Amplifying the context for art making that is relevant, Core Dance makes Art to illuminate, Art to educate, Art to question. Core Dance is internationally recognized for its artistically driven research practices, the authenticity of its Art, its socially relevant creations and its work as an artistic incubator and convener.
Core Dance Artistic Director, Sue Schroeder, has convened the Dance Artists for this improvisational event at Eyedrum Art and Music Gallery.
coredance.org
