Review: Among the Aisles

By Allison Tonini

There was dancing in the aisles at Border’s bookstore on Saturday and Sunday, and it had nothing to do with their “Buy Two Get One Free” sale.

The dance performance called “Among the Aisles” was part of the Arts Unleashed initiative launched by Athens-Clarke County Leisure Services Department to bring art work to unconventional venues in the city for one weekend. Ten or so dancers from Floorspace, a dance studio in Athens, performed an improvised dance routine for an unsuspecting book-buying audience in the Borders located on Alps Road. The dance was choreographed and directed by Laura Hoffman and Julie Rothschild, the co-founder of Floorspace. Other spontaneous performances around town included Shakespeare enthusiasts reciting monologues in Earth Fare on Lumpkin Street, artists painting on easels along Hancock Street, belly dancers in the Michael Brothers Building on Clayton Street and musicians playing in various empty bank drive-thru lanes.

The impromptu dance was unstructured yet still well planned. The dancers were dressed in clean, neutral-colored costumes that complimented the simplicity of their performance. Although it was graceful, honest and at times humorous, the dance had no obvious underlying story. The labyrinth of bookcases at Borders kept the audience from being able to see the dance as a whole, which was disappointing. At most, it was possible to see only a few dancers in the same aisle at a time. Because of these structural difficulties, the dancers hardly interacted with each other.

Even though it wasn’t ideal, it was understandable. For Fred Astaire’s sake, Borders is a huge stage! The dancers resourcefully dealt with the challenging setting by using books, bookcases and the few leather chairs dispersed throughout the store for integral parts of the dance. It looked like the dancers were able to move throughout the space with ease, performing in every square inch, from the coffee shop to the children’s book section. More importantly, it looked like they were having fun.

As the dancers fleeted from the self-help book aisle to the travel book aisle, some interested customers followed to watch. Others were startled and let the dancers eventually come to them. The dancers were always respectful of the customers and workers. When the half hour performance came to an end, everyone in the store was undeniably left with a smile on their face. With no admittance cost and no front row seats, well actually no seats at all, everyone in attendance had an opportunity to appreciate the surprising art performance.

“Among the Aisles” was extremely successful in sparking interest in the arts around Athens. The performance had me asking one final question, where’s the next venue for the Floorspace dancers? My vote is the Terrapin Brewery, because after a few beers they might get some crowd interaction.