Artist Bio

Joy Peace wore holes in the floor with her passion for dance before she began formal training in her early teens in North Florida. After graduating high school, her affinity for dance and theater evolved as she continued to study dance in Tallahassee, and performed lead roles with Off-Street Players and Theatre Types under the direction of David Carlton. Eventually, she found her way to Atlanta and enthusiastically explored the diverse local modern dance scene until injuries sustained in 2006 caused her to stop dancing. After a six-year hiatus, Joy returned to her passion with renewed determination, training intensively to overcome physical and neurological setbacks. She currently teaches in various locations around Atlanta, and was a featured contemporary choreographer for nationally-renowned Summer Dance Company and Summer Partnering Workshop. She has performed most recently with Room to Move Dance and in Hidden Away, the Library at Night.

Thomas Bell (co-producer, dancer) is the co-founder of the Decatur Book Festival, partner and co-founder of Chronicle, and founder and CEO of MineCart.  For several years, he was the book editor and dance critic for Creative Loafing. Bell is chair of the board of CORE, Atlanta’s premier contemporary dance company, and sits on the board of Emory Friends of Dance. In addition to studying and performing with Crossover Movement Arts, he studies and performs with Rule of 3 Dance and Room to Move Dance.He also studies aerial dance with The D’Air Project.

Sara Gregory (aerialist/dancer) is a Candler Park native and social circus artist who recently returned to the states after a two year project working with circus troupes to promote art for social transformation in 11 countries of Latin America. Nourished and inspired by her trip, she hopes to share a process of discovery and transformation of self and community through her art. Here in Atlanta, she has teamed up with fellow social circus artists to form makeShift Circus Collective. They are currently working on a public circus show called the Race Circus Project to be shared in Spring 2015. This performance will explore the current state of race relations here in Atlanta fifty years after the 1960s peak of the Civil Rights Movement.