Dance The Corporeal World: Dancer/choreographer Meghan Flanigan brings all bodies into her work

By Ruth Reader | Posted 8/26/2009 Dancer and choreographer Meghan Flanigan sits cross-legged in a blue-and-white-print armchair that accentuates her blueberry colored eyes. She's slim and at ease in her own body. "When I left Baltimore for college, I don't think I really knew there was anything beyond ballet," she says in her serene tone...

Deviated Theatre's Aspiro

By Ruth Reader | Posted 10/8/2008 THIS PROGRAM LOOKED OVERLY ambitious for a debuting dance company, but Deviated Theatre proved it is not only performance ready, but that it is raising the standard for Maryland dance companies. Photographer and theater tech Enoch Chan and his fiancée, Kimmie Dobbs, started a dance company last winter. Dobbs has been dancing since she was 4, and Chan has always had a passion for photographing dancers; he quit his full-time job as a cameraman for Voice of America to pursue Deviated full time...

Solo: a Two-Person Show

By Ruth Reader | Posted 6/4/2008 SEEN HERE LAST IN 2004, UNDER the Table, the Brooklyn, N.Y., physical theater ensemble returned to Baltimore for another uproarious performance. Four years ago, the troupe performed the original play Fever Pitch as a response to the art community's lack of response to Sept. 11 and its surrounding politics. This year the group graced the stage with Solo: A Two-Person Show, a performance about life, death, brotherhood, and loss...

Paul Taylor Dance Company at UMBC May 1

By Ruth Reader | Posted 5/21/2008 The Paul Taylor Dance Company performed seven of famed choreographer Paul Taylor’s most inspiring works May 10 for an intimate crowd of fewer than 200 people at the UMBC Theater. The show was so intimate, in fact, that there was only a small aisle that separated the audience from the dancers on the low stage. The performance was sold out, and for good reason.Taylor’s theatrical choreography is as clever and relevant as ever...

Variations On Power

By Ruth Reader | Posted 5/14/2008  TWO DANCE COMPANIES PARTICIPATE in Variations on Power, the first time Run of the Mill Theater has invited a movement company to join its Variations project. Think! Dance Company of Gambrills and Baltimore's the Collective contribute three performances each, accompanied by a statement of power...

Let's Move: a Community Dance Concert

By Ruth Reader | Posted 4/23/2008

THE BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART'S auditorium was packed last Saturday for Dance Baltimore's Let's Move: A Community Dance Concert. The show was the culmination of a four-part dance series throughout the month of April that showed off the local amateur and professional dance community, from young to old...

Unexpected Beauty in Baltimore

By Ruth Reader | Posted 10/24/2007 The Unexpected Beauty in Baltimore drawing series on display in the lobby of An die Musik comes from an unexpected artist. Baltimore native William Rhodes put his artistic furniture business on hold to devote himself to 30 drawings portraying the city's sometimes forgotten musical talent...

Allyson Smith

By Ruth Reader | Posted 6/27/2007 ARTIST ALLYSON SMITH LITERALLY TRANSLATES her life's daily complexities and joys onto canvas at her first Antreasian Gallery solo show. A self-proclaimed lesbian soccer mom, Smith attempts to reconcile her many selves in paintings that stretch beyond identity lines...

The Family of Dance

By Ruth Reader | Posted 4/18/2007 DANCERS DECKED IN SCRUBS and sweat pants slouch into their hips as Chorégraphie Antique director and co-founder Chrystelle Bond prepares them for their upcoming performance, The Family Tree of Dance. "The twist really needs to be exaggerated," says the 69-year-old Bond. "More of the hiney movement," she adds, shaking her bum...

Pressing On: Boy And Girl Meet, Move In Together, And . . . Start A Magazine?

By Ruth Reader | Posted 1/24/2007 Locus Magazine Release party for its second issue Feb. 17 at the Current Gallery. For more information visit www.locusartmagazine.org. The locally produced Locus art magazine enjoyed an auspicious debut. About 300 people crammed into the H&H building's Whole Gallery last Oct. 21 for the launch party, complete with five bands and about 300 issues being offered at $6 a pop...

Fall Jury Art Exhibition

By Ruth Reader | Posted 11/15/2006 BALTIMORE SCHOOL FOR THE ARTS STUDENTS chose 15 of their best works to be scrutinized by a panel of artists and teachers who would select the finest of these 15. The department head then whittled down the final selection of exemplary works to be displayed in this public exhibit. And the BSA kids have done it again...

A Closer Look: Abstraction in the Urban Landscape

By Ruth Reader | Posted 11/8/2006 DOUG HANSEN USES TEXTURE AND COLOR to give a focused look at the minutiae we commute through daily in the 48 digital images exploring Baltimore’s vibrant urban architecture installed in the foyer outside the entrance to Theatre Project’s main stage. Using closeups of wood fences, concrete, pavement, brick wall, trash bins, and curbs, Hansen mines the beauty in the nuances of city life...

The Body of Work

By Ruth Reader | Posted 11/1/2006 MICA STUDENTS BUSTLE THROUGH PINKARD GALLERY on their way to class, making this gallery a casual setting. Grab a coffee from the nearby stand and cozy up to Christopher Whittey's collection of socially and politically charged works. Make sure to pick up one of the accompanying pamphlets when you visit, though, as this exhibit requires a little reading...

Summer 2006

By Ruth Reader | Posted 8/2/2006 C. GRIMALDIS GALLERY’S SUMMER SHOWCASE is an eclectic collection of work ranging from the usual landscape to the untraditional use of lights and mirrors. Summer 2006 highlights 16 local and international artists, with no discernable theme connecting them, but among this mix are six whose work’s originality sets them apart...

Dangerous Books: Pushing the Pop-Up

By Ruth Reader | Posted 7/19/2006 CURATOR J.W. MAHONEY CORRALS nine local artists and a Swede forDangerous Books: Pushing the Pop-Up, Area 405 gallery’s 2006 satellite Artscape entry. While Dangerous Books does push the limits on artistic uses of words and dimensions, don’t be misled by the title. Each artist has expanded upon the idea of pop-up books, but some of the work is out there.

Private Eyes

By Ruth Reader | Posted 4/6/2005 DIANE RICHARDSON'S FAMILY  HAS owned the Richardson Farms produce stall in the Northeast Market on East Monument Street for the last 75 years, and she confesses it’s not like it used to be. “People used to come from around the corner, but most of the houses are boarded up now,” Richardson says...