The Tribune

By DENISE MAYCOCK

Tribune Freeport Reporter

dmaycock@tribunemedia.net

BAHAMIAN choreographer Georgia Storr-Taylor has taken her live theatre productions to the next level with multi-media projection screen backdrops, sounds, and a live choir to enhance the audience’s experience.

After sold-out performances in April, the Georgia School of Dance Theatre’s Circle of Life: Reloaded is back with encore performances tomorrow and Saturday at the Kingdom Worship Centre.

The production - an adaptation of Walt Disney’s The Lion King Circle of Life – has a 60-member cast and production crew, including a full choir singing live while the characters perform on stage.

Tickets are available at Imagine Graphics and Printing or by calling 441-3426.

Ms Taylor opened her performing arts school 20 years ago. She has taken the opportunity also to incorporate the work of junkanoo artisans in her productions.

Junkanoo artist Pedro Basden created the animal props in the Circle of Life production. “I like to incorporate people in the community such as junkanoo artisans to make the props,” she explains.

Hurricane Dorian had postponed Taylor’s initial plans to reintroduce the Circle of Life production to the stage following the debut in 2013.

“After all that we have gone through with the hurricane, it reminded me that life is a circle; there are good and bad times and all the connections made in life happen for a reason.”

“The story of Simba (in the Lion King) having a purpose, being distracted, and then reminded of his greater purpose in life is something we could relate. When we go through challenges, we feel sad and downtrodden, and so even in bad times, we need to have hope,” said Taylor.

Taylor wanted the production to have more elements than the previous one in 2013. “Circle of Life: Reloaded has much more music as well as other things added in,” she says.

Rather than manual scene changes, she wanted to do things different. Instead of using curtains, backdrops, and sliding props in and out, Taylor incorporated a digital projection screen for various scenes in the production.

“I needed to find a way to have different scenes without having too many things coming in and off of the stage because props tend to take up space that we need for the dancers. The projection screen gave us every backdrop we could need, and physical props were minimal.”

Taylor said the cast of 60 people includes sound and light, a makeup artist and assistants, students, and parents.

Many of her students are excelling and have received scholarships to attend performing arts camps and schools in the United States.

Taylor danced with well-known Bahamian dancer Shirley Hall-Bass in Nassau many years ago. Although dancing was her first love, she worked for 10 years in banking and another 14 years in the casino before retiring to open her dance school.

“This is where my heart was,” she said. I opened the school in 2003, and it’s been been 20 years,” she shares. ‘I have touched the lives of many young people, and a lot of my students received scholarships from the GB Performing Arts Society to French Woods, a summer camp in Upstate New York. Another student is presently off to college on a scholarship studying Dance in Boston, and she is doing very well.”

“I am grateful that what I am teaching is something my students can continue, and they are doing just that. But, the most important thing is teaching them about community, caring for each other, helping each other, and accepting their differences,” said Taylor. ‘I also tell them about being on time and being responsible citizens.”

Ms Taylor believes that the arts are important. “Not every child is astute academically, and we tend to put people in a box for education which I never understood. As a child I always wondered why I had to go to an academic school when I wanted to go to a school to sing and dance all day.”

“I feel performing arts embraces the individual. I work with each child’s strength. I work with whatever they bring to me so that they are comfortable in their progress, and that is so important because that helps them develop confidence.”