Two dance shows this weekend mark the last chapter for a Decatur institution

• Larry Holland
• CURTAIN CALL: Gathering Wild will present “Sutra” this weekend at the 7 Stages Theatre in Little Five Points. The show is among the last to have been created and rehearsed in Decatur’s Beacon Hill Arts Center which has acted a crucial institution for the Atlanta and Decatur dance communities for the past 25 years. The space will cease to function as an arts center at the end of this year.

Decatur’s Beacon Hill Arts Center, which has housed dance classes, company rehearsals, and performances in downtown Decatur over the past 25 years, will cease to operate as an arts center at the end of 2012. Two dance companies which currently call the space home—Beacon Dance and Gathering Wild—will perform shows this weekend, marking the end of an era when such companies occupied and thrived in the community space.

Beacon Dance will present the appropriately-titled Closing the Space on Friday and Saturday, October 26 and 27, at 8 p.m. each evening, in the Beacon Hill Arts Center. Artistic director D. Patton White refers to the free show, which features the visual art of sculptor Martha Whittington and the music of composer Jon Ciliberto, as “part celebration and part requiem.”

The Beacon Dance company has long been tied to the Beacon Hill space. The group participated in renovating the former school library at 410 West Trinity Place into a studio and black-box style performance venue: the space was christened with an inaugural performance in November of 1987 by Beacon Dance. After using and sharing the space for 25 years, Beacon Dance received word earlier this year that the City Schools of Decatur needed to re-claim the facility for administrative offices while other facilities were undergoing renovations.