Annual dance celebration with 24 choreographers creating one-minute dances in rounds across two programs.
Dance Carousel returns to the Ground Floor Theatre this October, running from Wednesday, October 7 through Saturday, October 10. It's an annual Austin dance celebration that’s built around a very specific, compact format: 24 local choreographers each create four one-minute dances, and those pieces are then performed in a round. That adds up to a 48-minute program, so you get a wide range of voices in a single sitting rather than one long piece by a single person.
Because the format is so tight, the bill tends to jump around. The organizers describe the result as running from the humorous and poignant to the virtuosic and occasionally subversive, and that's a fair way to put it. One minute you might be watching something light and funny, and the next you're seeing something more technical or a bit more challenging. Since every choreographer gets four slots, you also get to see how different artists approach the same one-minute constraint, and you'll likely see a few of them return throughout the night.
It's billed as a quintessentially Austin dance celebration, and that's because it draws from a growing roster of local choreographers. The focus is on the city's own dance community rather than bringing in outside names, so it's a good way to see a cross-section of who's working here right now. If you've been following the local scene, you'll probably recognize a few of the names; if you're new to it, this is a low-stakes way to get a sense of the variety.
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Shows run Wednesday through Saturday, with doors opening at 7:30 PM and the performance starting at 8 PM. Tickets are $28, and the venue is the Ground Floor Theatre at 979 Springdale #122 in East Austin.
