Speakeasy with - Blake Dalton

Dancer Blake Dalton performs with Several Dancers Core, Beacon Dance, Gardenhouse Dance and other modern dance companies around town. When not dancing, he works as a barista at Decatur’s Java Monkey ... mostly for the free espresso. He is currently at work on “Finding Clear,” a multimedia piece. To see him in action, check out www.orangemancreative.com/video/html/throatsinging.html.</
How did you get your start in dance?</
I decided to take some dance classes just for fun. ... One day we had to do a prop study. A friend of mine had just gotten beaten up the other day, and it was on my mind. So I tied my hands and feet together and put a big iron ring in my nose — like a gargoyle — then I had a knife flashing around and I cut the ropes and started spewing a lot of blood around. The teacher came up to me afterward and asked me if I wanted to perform in a modern dance company.</
What’s the coolest thing you ever did in a dance?</
Circo Zero — the punk-rock version of Cirque du Soleil — came to town, and this organization in Athens [Ideas for Creative Exploration] set up this one-day event. A bunch of musicians and writers and dancers came together ... and we just spent the whole day creating a piece.</
Our piece ... took place outside under a magnolia tree in spring during a thunderstorm. Near the end, I was up the tree, mostly naked, playing an electric guitar, showering the audience with parts of poems that were performed in the work.</
What’s your favorite guilty pleasure?</
Besides espresso? Playing really thick, sludgy, simplistic, bone-crunching heavy metal.