Hip-hop and ballet unite in Remove the Ego

• Stephanie Cottle
• ON POINT: Hip-hop choreographer Codie Wiggins takes a look at the opening ballet segment of the new dance show “Remove the Ego.”

For a long time, Stephanie Cottle wanted to see a show in Atlanta that mixed together the different styles of dance she loved—hip-hop, ballet, contemporary—with live music. After a while it became clear that if she wanted to see it, she would probably have to make it herself. “I kept talking to my friend about this idea,” she says, “and finally she just said, ‘Well, why don’t you do it?’”

Though Cottle is the daughter of a professional ballet dancer, her parents run a dance school, and she grew up performing, she’d never produced a show before. She started with friends, enlisting the help of two choreographers, Rachel Truitt of Phase 1 Contemporary Dance for the contemporary movement and ballet and Codie Wiggins for the hip-hop elements.