Paul Kieu
Dancer Rebecca Allen, in rehearsals for Clare Cook's "Rounding the Edge" dance performance.
In Alexandra Kennon Shahin’s survey of New Orleans’s experimental theater scene, Monica Harris from The NOLA Project says, “You’re just kind of deciding your own fate. You’re the master of it, and you take the resources that are around you. One of the greatest resources in this city are people, and seeing what you can create together.” This sentiment resounds throughout this year’s Performing Arts issue, which celebrates the theatrical culture of our region and the grassroots, gritty, community-centered art it inspires.
On our cover, dancer Rebecca Allen breaks through the end of her introductory solo as the lead in Clare Cook’s new work “Rounding the Edge,” to be performed at the International Dance Festival in New Orleans on September 12 and at the Acadiana Center for the Arts in Lafayette on September 13. The dance is an exploration of human systems and routines, and how to navigate them, use them, push against them with softness and care. This mindset might also reflect Cook’s approach to cultivating her own arts community in Lafayette at Basin Arts, where she—with gentle determination—fosters a world of artistic collaboration and experimentation, rooted in the spirit of invitation.
