gloATL performs at Lindbergh MARTA
Photos from gloATL’s second performace in its installation series
At a MARTA station, one oddly dressed person moving erratically, smiling, mouthing incomprehensible phrases, twitching, crouching, beckoning, would probably be ignored. Twenty people doing it synchronously are not so easily disregarded. Commuters passing through the Lindbergh Center MARTA station last evening, July 14, encountered the dancers of gloATL quietly assembling on a plaza outside, beginning the second performance in their series of five installations occurring in public places around the city throughout the month of July.
People snapped pictures with their cell phones or stopped to ask what was going on. Various answers were attempted: “Modern dance.” “Performance art.” “Flash mob.” Observers still seemed puzzled, though most were clearly pleased that something was happening. The dancers assembled and dispersed, assembled and dispersed, sending out little exploratory tendrils, until the whole group poured down a side street, eventually lining up single file in front of a turnstile at an entrance to the station, waiting for a MARTA cop to let them in. A mother tried to pull her little daughter past the scene, but the girl stayed put, and they both stopped to watch. “Look at what people are doing,” another kid said, as if these adults were unfairly getting away with something fun but prohibited.
The group explored the interior of the station for a while, motioning through bars and windows to spectators outside or peeling off to move alone through the space’s odd utilitarian shapes and multiple levels. Eventually, the dancers lined up again at a turnstile and returned to the plaza. Atlanta residents may not know that the weird little nonstreet that passes over and bisects the Lindbergh Center MARTA Station is actually called “Main Street.” Toward the end of the performance, one of the dancers lagged behind as the others departed, stretching herself momentarily over a phony-antique brass street sign placed there in the concrete: Main Street it is.
In the end, the evening produced some apt advice: Look at what people are doing. The group’s next performance in the series will be tonight, July 15, in the store windows of various shops in Little Five Points from 6-9 pm. Next weekend, Friday and Saturday, July 22-23, at 7:30 p.m. both evenings, the group will be at the corner of 15th and Peachtree streets.
Check out a gallery of photos gloATL at the Lindbergh Center MARTA Station