SHE Created It to showcase Atlanta’s female dancers and choreographers
New company 2 Kids and a Dream seeks to empower the women of ATL
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- THEY CREATED IT: Ursula Kendall Johnson and Juel D Lane founded their company 2 Kids and a Dream to present their own work and to create avenues for other artists. The show “SHE Created It” will present 11 Atlanta-based female choreographers, including Johnson.
The new Atlanta dance company 2 Kids and a Dream will present a showcase of female choreographers this weekend, September 17-18, titled SHE Created It. “These women are not just dancers,” says Ursula Kendall Johnson, one of the group’s founders. “They’re choreographers, they’re directors, they’re instructors, they’re creators. Usually you see shows with women and men, or occasionally all men’s shows, but it’s a big step to have a show that’s just representing Atlanta women: their struggles, their joys, their excitement, their love.”
There are 11 pieces in the show in a variety of styles: from a tap piece by Andrea M. Price to hip hop by CiCi Kelley, from Tambra Harris’ West African dancing, drumming and singing to Johnson’s own blend of modern, African, and hip-hop. “You’ll hear a lot of different voices,” says 2 Kids and a Dream co-founder Juel D Lane, who recently premiered a piece with the Atlanta Ballet but is stepping aside this weekend for the women to take the stage. “The common ground for all these choreographers is a love for what they do.”
The show started out as a solo piece by Johnson about the struggles she’d had as an African-American woman in the dance industry, but she eventually expanded the vision to include a diverse range of other female artists into an evening-length mixed program. “I wanted to open it up because many of us have stories to tell,” she says. “Through my experience, I have been shut down. It wasn’t because of my talent. I was told I was too dark, too short, or I didn’t have long hair... I’m not in that space anymore, but as women we often get told ‘You can’t do that.’ And we have to rise above that.”