celebrating 70 years

Off the Wall & Onto the Stage: Dancing the Art of Jonathan Green comes to Chicago on February 27, 2010 at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance. The Columbia City Ballet uses William Starrett’s choreography to bring twenty - two paintings by internationally recognized artist Jonathan Green to life on the stage. It is art rooted in the Gullah heritage, a heritage wrapped in themes of family and community, personal identity and expression, race and culture - a particularly southern imagery that explores life and color in a way that the South, with its often turbulent history of immigration, slavery, war, prejudice and acceptance, understands with a real intimacy.

The 1.2 million dollar production was three years in the making, and features over 150 costumes hand-made by a team of seamstresses to match the clothing worn by the characters in Green’s paintings. “Eye-popping” custom scrims and backdrops made in Sweden and New York duplicate the landscapes and dance halls depicted in the paintings, “…creating the illusion that the subjects…step from the images and onto the stage” according to The Tampa Tribune.

After sell-out performances during opening weekend in Columbia, the company logged more than 3,000 miles touring the “exhilarating” production to eleven cities in North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida and New York City.  The Tampa Tribune praised the production as “…a vibrant, vigorous piece of theater that is religiously profound…,” and The Savannah Morning News was moved to call it “…innovative and inspiring.”