An unexpected announcement showed up on social media earlier this week.
Fly on a Wall, the 10-year-old movement arts collective that has been enconsced at Windmill Arts Center since early 2018, has left that space and is returning to its nomadic roots, at least for the time being.
Fly was one of several resident companies at Windmill and helped create a vibrant dance community there. It presented its own works, such as Byte, Tile and this room is a body and supported emerging artists with programs such as Excuse the Art and residencies.
Team member Nicole Johnson told ArtsATL on Wednesday: “We are leaving the Windmill so we can continue to move forward with our vision, mission and goals and be in a space that fully supports us as an organization.”
None of the team members was comfortable giving more specific reasons for the move but stated in their announcement that they are suspending the 2024 iteration of Excuse the Art and their artist residencies. “We can’t support these emerging artists until we have space,” Sean Nguyen-Hilton told ArtsATL Wednesday.
Fly members were eager, however, to talk about their future plans both as a team and as individual artists.
First some history. Fly on a Wall began in 2014 as a three-person adventure for Nguyen-Hilton, Johnson and Nathan Griswold, all of whom had danced with companies such as Atlanta Ballet and glo.
“We had all recently left company structures where we were ‘material’ for other artists,” Nguyen-Hilton said. “In that moment of bravery, stepping out and creating our own work, we were supporting each other physically, mentally and emotionally.”
They got support along the way from organizations such as Dashboard, a nonprofit that produces non-traditional arts experiences in public spaces.
With Dashboard’s support, Fly created Dust House in 2015. They cleaned up a dilapidated house in…
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