Two dance companies to debut intimate works about motherhood, heritage, joy

Atlanta’s fall arts calendar is quickly populating with a host of exciting premieres and returns, and the weekend of August 11 and August 12 features one of each. SOMOS, a new company formed by Kennesaw State University Dance alumna Angelita Itzanami, will have its debut at the Windmill Arts Center with SOMOS, the performance, and Fuerta Dance Company, which co-founder and director Margaret Morrissey revived in 2022 after a five-year hiatus, will have its first solo show since a dance-on-film project in 2017.

The two programs will showcase contemporary dance premieres by Atlanta-based choreographers performed by a strong roster of talented movement artists.

In sole, Morrissey and Fuerta Dance Company ensemble members Audrey Crabtree and Jenn Klammer will offer three works that collectively explore how context and external pressures combine with individual desire to shape one’s sense of self.

In a recent interview with ArtsATL, Crabtree, who debuted an independent work — the jazz-inspired Wail — at June’s MAD Fest, described how Morrissey’s decision to rebuild the company gave her an opportunity to complete a long-term project.

“The piece I’m presenting originated in an exploration of motherhood,” Crabtree said. “Then I realized there was a bigger question about what it means to know oneself and how that involves integrating the selves we create for others. I created a little blip of a piece around that question for a festival in 2021, and when Meg [Morrissey] came to me with this opportunity for sole, that was the inspiration I needed to finish.”

Klammer’s piece delves into how personal growth often involves looking back at discarded identities and desires. That process, she said, can lead to self doubt. “You ask yourself, ‘Why was I doing that?’ And maybe there’s some shame involved. I feel blessed to have a space where I can let myself be transparent.”

Company dancer Lauren Michelle, who arrived on Atlanta’s dance scene by way of Hubbard Street Dance Company Chicago, Shen Wei Dance Arts, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre and other nationally and internationally prominent troupes, also reflected on Fuerta Dance Company’s ethos. “From a dancer-collaborator perspective, there’s no pressure to perform, but everyone loves coming to rehearsal. We all show up and bring so much passion and heart. That’s a very special thing to have in a project.”

Morrissey’s contribution to sole fittingly focuses on how individual identities emerge from the interconnected web of personal relationships. Morrissey described how it felt to bring Fuerta Dance Company back into the studio after stepping away. “Now I’m doing this for the joy of rehearsing with these dancers and making work with people who keep coming back for that same reason,” she said.

Taking joy in the process, not just the performance, was also a recurrent theme in ArtsATL’s conversation with Itzanami and SOMOS members Christina Massad and Jacquelyn Pritz. “[Itzanami] brings so much joy into the creative process. It is so infectious, and in contemporary dance we don’t see enough of that onstage. In this work, joy and grief coexist — in space, in our bodies, in our hearts — together,” said Pritz. “I really appreciate that.”

SOMOS means “we are” in Spanish, and Itzanami, who spent this summer teaching dance for Los Niños Primero,​ founded SOMOS in part as a vehicle for connecting her Mexican roots with contemporary theatrical dance. She also sees the company as a way to help other artists and audiences connect with their roots.

“It’s not just my culture,” she explained. “I am trying to provide a space for everyone to feel safe and seen. I didn’t have that connection growing up as a dancer. When I was little, my dream was to go into the competition studio and play Bad Bunny or some other music I was so into. But my friends didn’t know my music, and I didn’t really know theirs either.”

For SOMOS, the performance, Itzanami is using Spanish-language music from Mexican artists and introducing movement from Latin cultural and popular dance forms, along with a grounded, Gaga-influenced technique she shares with other alumni of the Kennesaw State dance program. At the same time, she invited the SOMOS dancers to draw upon their own cultural identities and experiences in the studio.

According to Massad: “The biggest thing that stands out for me is how [Itzanami] has brought her own culture into this process, which in some ways engages me more because this is not just someone’s art I’m embodying — it’s their heritage. There are also sections where she invited us to speak our languages other than English, if we know them. So I get to speak Arabic onstage in this performance.”

For several years, Atlanta has been on the radar as a destination for talented, emerging dance and movement-based artists. This weekend’s performances by SOMOS and Fuerta Dance Company will showcase for Atlanta dance audiences how small independent companies create the communities and opportunities within which those talented individuals thrive.

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Robin Wharton studied dance at the School of American Ballet and the Pacific Northwest Ballet School. As an undergraduate at Tulane University in New Orleans, she was a member of the Newcomb Dance Company. In addition to a Bachelor of Arts in English from Tulane, Robin holds a law degree and a Ph.D. in English, both from the University of Georgia.