Striving to reinvent movement for both the artist and spectator
Mr. Atkinson was introduced to dance at the New England Ballet School and studied composition and choreography in the ninth grade while attending high school at ECA, The Educational Center For The Arts, dance department, directed by Susan Matheke and teacher Willie Feuer. At ECA his passion for composition quickly began, and he was provided with his first choreographic opportunity called "In Heaven Eyes" set to music by Sergey Prokofiev. The following year he pushed the boundaries and created a fifteen-minute work called "Love For Tina" set to music by Tina Turner and took several dancers to perform excerpts of his work at Starship Dance Thaeter. Training became his main focus at the Dance Theatre of Harlem and New England Ballet, but still managed to create a production of Beauty and the Best at the Hamden Public Library, two children ballet on film as his Eagle Scout Project for Hamden Public Schools and several other choreographic projects around Connecticut and New York including Teen Armature Night at the Apollo Theater. During his college years and while training continued to be the main focus, he audited a ballet composition class that was offered to sophomores as a freshman. Mr. Atkinson studied composition for four years with Kazuko Hirabayashi and spent one summer in Spain studying intensely with her and he even donated a pas de deux he choreographed in Spain to the Compania de Danza Contemporanea de Burgos at their request. As a professional dancer performing with many companies he continued choreographing, constantly utilizing fellow colleagues.
Artistic Statement
Dance is a living art form that is constantly transforming and reinventing its boundaries. I try to make my style of movement look very different from traditional ballet although my work originates in classical ballet, my work investigates new ways to use the classical ballet technique: it expands the dancer's physical abilities and pushes the bodies of classically-trained dancers beyond their familiar limits.
Inspiration
Alvin Ailey, John Alleyne, George Balanchine, Ben Stevenson, Val Caniparoli, Ron Cunningham, Ulysses Dove, Eliot Feld, William Forsythe, Robert Garland, Geoffrey Holder, Christopher Huggins, Alonzo King, Arthur Mitchell,Jean-Christophe Maillot, Alexei Ratmansky, Jerome Robbins, Michael Smuin, Christopher Wheeldon.
