Dale Lam

By Bonnie Boiter-Jolley Dale Lam packs a lot of punch in her four feet and ten inch stance. Spending her life fighting to make a career for herself in the entertainment industry has instilled in her a passion and drive she hopes to pass on to her students. Owner and Artistic Director of Columbia City Jazz Dance School and Company, Lam finds herself in a position to use her guidance and instruction to do just that. Born in Augusta, Georgia, Lam grew... Read More

Avery Delores Bateman

By Bonnie Boiter-Jolley From the moment Avery Delores Bateman stepped on stage during a high school production of Bye Bye Birdie, she was hooked. “I had to perform,” she quips.   No stranger to performance, Bateman was often given small roles as a child in church plays authored by her mother, Rosalind Russell. “I was the child who had the epiphany,” she reminisces.  Bateman, New York City bound this summer for the American Musical and Dramatic... Read More

Journy Wilkes-Davis – Telling Stories through Dance

By Bonnie Boiter-Jolley Twenty-three year-old Journy Wilkes-Davis comes from a tight knit, supportive family of seven. The Columbia City Ballet dancer says that though his parents have always been “extremely supportive” of his dance career, they are also his biggest critics – something he is grateful for. It is no surprise that this combination of support and criticism have led Wilkes-Davis to constantly pursue the perfection of his craft. He... Read More

Terrance Henderson and the Power to Evolve

By Bonnie Boiter-Jolley You may know him as the artistic director of Vibrations Dance Company, the founder of Dimensions Dance Festival, director of Trustus Theatre’s recent production of “Smokey Joe’s Café,” or as teacher at Columbia Ballet School, Southeastern School of Ballet, or Logan Elementary. You may admire him for his stunningly honest choreography, intense joy of life, gravity-defying movement, or his big ideas for the arts in Columbia.... Read More

Stacey Calvert – Columbia’s Dance Connection?

By Bonnie Boiter-Jolley When Stacey Calvert was 15-years-old, she was one of a very few young dancers selected from literally thousands to attend the prestigious year-round program at the School of American Ballet in New York City.  When her mother, Naomi Calvert, one half of the famed Calvert Brodie School of Dance in Columbia, South Carolina, told her she could not go, she quit.  For nine months, the stubborn young Calvert was a cheerleader instead... Read More

Editorial- Issue 1

Dear Friends,  Building a local arts magazine from the ground up must be something akin to building a guest house. You know what you want it to look like, and you hold dear the message you want to convey to your friends – you are welcome here, the door is always open, we want you to feel as if this is a place where you can come to be nurtured, to enjoy yourself, to reflect and grow.  But it would take a fool to try to undertake either endeavor... Read More