kick-off 30th season in “High” style

CORE Atlanta – a nonprofit, contemporary dance organization based in Decatur – launches its 30th season by participating in events at the High Museum in conjunction with two exhibitions.

CORE’s first performance of the season will be a Waltzinspired show at the High on Oct. 23, at: 7:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m., as part of “A Royal Affair—Opening Party for Habsburg Splendor.” The performance is free with the price of museum admission.

“We love collaborating with CORE,” said Erin Dougherty, the High’s head of public programs and community engagement. “They bring such passion and creativity to every project they work on. CORE’s performance adds another layer to our patrons’ experience on top of viewing the art work.”

Sue Schroeder, CORE’s founder and artistic director, said her company is committed to the creative process.

“We respect the museum and try to create an intentional kinetic entry point to the exhibition for the museum patrons,” she said.

To that end, CORE member Joshua Rackliffe of Little Five Points, who is choreographing for the upcoming event, said he has been studying the Habsburg dynasty. He said he is selecting Waltz compositions that are “complimentary with the Habsburg collection.”

“The Waltz is a dynamic piece of music that is indicative of high society, civility, and gracefulness,” he said. “I plan to incorporate music that will represent the themes of the rise and fall of the empire.”

Rose Shields, a fellow CORE member and one of the performers in the show, said she is drawn to the Waltz.

“The spiral element of the Waltz makes you lose sense of what’s around you,” she said. “You give-in and fall into the rhythm.”

Next spring, CORE members will perform at the High on May 6 and 13 at 7:30 p.m. in conjunction with the exhibit “Iris van Herpen: Transforming Fashion,” which runs from Nov. 7 to May 15, 2016.

To learn more about CORE’s other performances around Atlanta this season and the classes and workshops being offered at its studio, visit coredance.org.

By Martha Nodar

A new European exhibit comes to the High Museum of Art this fall ushering in the allure of vintage treasures from an old dynasty.

“Habsburg Splendor: Masterpieces from Vienna’s Imperial Collections,” featuring objects, artifacts, costumes and works for art from previous centuries, opens Oct. 18 and continues through Jan. 17, 2016.

Among the 20 paintings spanning from the 17th to the 19th centuries included in the exhibition is “The Crowning with Thorns,” an oil on canvas masterpiece by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio – an Italian painter who came to be known as Caravaggio – the name of a small town near Milan where he grew up.

Oglethorpe University’s art history professor Jeffrey Collins said that because of disagreements among some scholars related to the Italian artist’s real name “we use the name of the city where he lived to identify him.”

Influenced by the Baroque era – a creative period known for drama and contrast when religion was at the forefront – Caravaggio captivates his audience, then, and now, by blending the physical, poignant, mundane, and spiritual aspects of human life through his expertise in chiaroscuro (blending dark and light).

“Caravaggio gives us such powerful, emotional depth,” Collins said. “He places the sacred stories in ordinary places. He gives us the deeply human and the mystery all at once.”

“The details in this painting are really terrific,” said Virginia Sweeney, the High’s coordinator of museum interpretation.

“Habsburg Splendor” will feature more than 90 artworks and artifacts tell the story, including arms and armor, sculpture, Greek and Roman antiquities, court costumes, carriages, decorative art objects, and paintings by other masters such as Correggio, Giorgione, Rubens, Tintoretto, Titian and Velázquez. Most of the artwork has never been exhibited outside Austria.

Sweeney said her department is “hard at work” preparing docents’ discussions and audio tapes to enhance the patrons’ museum experience during this exhibition.

For more information, visit high.org.