A weekend of dynamic dance and music performances marks the beginning of the first full season in the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts. The Emory Dance Program’s season launches in the Dance Studio with Emory Dance Faculty in Concert, Sept.11–13 at 8 p.m., and the Flora Glenn Candler Concert Series in Emerson Concert Hall starts the season with a performance by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra on Friday, Sept. 12, at 8 p.m. Center staff recommend advance ticket purchase for these performances.

The dance performance will spotlight some of Atlanta’s celebrated dancers and choreographers as well as some newcomers to the region. Among the faculty presenting works are George Staib, who came to Emory in 2001, and Gregory Catellier, who joined the faculty in 2002.

Cattelier, manager and lighting designer for the dance program, will present two solos as his premiere works at Emory. His “Feeling Tight (well past midnight)” with music by George Gershwin was selected for the American College Dance Festival at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Brockport Gala Concert in 2000. Catellier describes the work as “a movement study of a man trying to get home after a night of heavy drinking.”

Staib will contribute a solo to the concert, as well as a group work. The latter, “Pictures of an Exhibition,” with music by Meredith Monk, is in keeping with one of his ongoing dance themes: absurd interactions Staib witnesses between people.

His solo,“NarcissEros,” focuses on the fine line between vulnerability and exhibitionism.

Choreographer Sally Radell, director of Emory Dance, generates dances through writing and movement exercises that explore autobiographic events. She describes her duet, “Double Exposure,” as a character study between two women that “explores our individual struggles to integrate our public personas with our private lives.”

Other performers includefaculty members Tara Shepard Myers, Anna Leo and Lori Teague; Amanda Exley Lower, director of Atlanta’s Duende Dance; Bridget Roosa, who is on the dance faculty at Agnes Scott College; Elizabeth McCune Dishman, an Emory Dance alumna and director of Coriolis Dance in Atlanta; and 2003 Emory Dance graduates Kathleen Wessel and Casey Viggiano.

The next dance event of the season will be the Emory Friends of Dance Fall Lecture, “Cambodian Dance: History and Mystery,” with Richard Long on Tuesday, Sept. 16, at 7:30 p.m. in the Dance Studio.

The music highlight of the weekend will be the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (ASO), the only professional orchestra performance on campus during 2003–04.

The ASO began giving concerts in 1945 and will begin its 59th season the day after its Emory performance. The ASO is one of America’s youngest orchestras to achieve international prominence.

ASO Music Director Robert Spano will conduct for the Emory show. Spano joined the ASO in 2000 and is acclaimed for the breadth of his repertoire and imaginative programming. Spano recently made his New York Philharmonic debut and has conducted with the likes of the Boston, Cleveland, Houston, San Francisco and Toronto symphonies, and Filarmonica della Scala (Milan), New Japan Philharmonic (Tokyo), the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Chicago Lyric Opera.

Dance concert general admission ASO tickets are $10; tickets for students, children, faculty, staff and patrons over 65 are $7. Each Candler Series concert has reserved seating, and tickets are $45; faculty, staff and other discount group members, $36; and Emory students, $10. To order or for more information, call the Arts at Emory box office at 404-727-5050 or visit www.emory.edu/ARTS.