On November 18th the Movement Arts Collective will present “Arrival” at the Performing Arts Center’s Spanos Theatre. The show, the Collective’s first, will feature dancers from across the county in works that span the ballet genre from classical to contemporary. Billed as an approachable introduction to ballet, the first act includes Camille Saint-Saëns’ “Carnival of the Animals” with the second act featuring a World Premiere, “Seasons End,” by Ryan Lawrence, set to a moving re-composition of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.
“The aim of my work is to elicit a reaction from the audience, love it or hate it I want them to be moved in some way. With ‘Seasons End’ I was able to highlight the strengths of the dancers, their physical technique as well as the depth of their emotion to bring about a pretty unique amalgamation of phenomenal pointe work with rich modern movement,” said Lawrence.
Founded just this year, the Movement Arts Collective aims to enhance the local arts landscape with dance performance, outreach and education. By securing some of the top dancers from Paso Robles to Arroyo Grande, the organization is raising the bar to match other performing arts organizations’ regional aims.
“Dance on the Central Coast has long been dominated by local influences, with few outside voices,” said Lawrence. “We’re eager to share our European and professional dance backgrounds with dancers and audiences alike.”
Lawrence, a San Luis Obispo native, left when he was 14 to study on the East Coast, then headed to Juilliard for college and eventually to the Netherlands where he met his wife and co-director, Maartje Lawrence-Hermans, herself a professionally acclaimed ballerina.
“The biggest difference between dance in Europe and here is the aim to entertain versus the desire to enrich,” said Lawrence-Hermans. “We hope that San Luis Obispo audiences are curious to see what we’re about and are ready to be a part of the journey. That’s why it called the Collective, because we want to honor the relationship between the artist and audience and believe that one can’t exist without the other.”
The Movement Arts Collective is a non-profit organization whose Board of Directors includes Meg McCall, VP of Digital West (president); Andrea Soderin, Broker Associate at Richardson Properties (secretary); and Dondi Hubley (treasurer). Ryan Lawrence and Maartje Hermans-Lawrence are both serving as artistic and executive directors. More information can be found at https://www.movementartscollective.org/