Off the Edge to reach beyond the stage

8 p.m. Jan. 31 and Feb. 1. $33.24-61.32.

$15 for students, dancers and arts professionals, $28 for both nights.

$22 student rate for both nights.

Rialto Center for the Arts, 80 Forsyth St., Atlanta. 404-413-9849, https://tickets.rialtocenter.org/Public/show.asp?shcode=1152.

Edge in Unexpected Spaces

11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Jan. 28, 29 and 30; 6-7 p.m. Jan. 31 and Feb. 1. Free admission.

The Healey Building, 57 Forsyth St. N.W., Atlanta.

Next week, passers-by in shopping malls or city parks may chance upon an odd encounter. A stranger might start turning, thrusting legs into the air or making peculiar arm gestures.

Or the person might start clapping or stomping rhythmic patterns. It looks completely out of context until it becomes clear that this graceful oddball is a dancer. If more dancers join in — as many as 50 to 100 — it's a bona fide flash mob. Pedestrians stop, stare and take out their smartphones. Soon, photos and videos are flowing across the Internet.

Created by choreographers Michelle Dorrance and John Heginbotham, these happenings are fanfares for Off the Edge, a small but ambitious international dance festival culminating next weekend at Georgia State University's Rialto Center for the Arts.

Flash mobs are an affordable and interactive way to drum up interest, said Off the Edge Curator Ilter Ibrahimof. He has assembled two distinct evenings of dance, Jan. 31 and Feb. 1, that include samplings of works by artists gaining visibility on national and international dance scenes.

The idea behind Off the Edge, said Rialto Director Leslie Gordon, is to connect the Atlanta dance community with the dance world at large and to test-run these groups for future bookings. Perhaps the festival’s most pointed charge is to attract and educate new dance audiences.

“We want to take the fear out of watching dance,” Gordon said. “People tend to overthink it. They’re often put off by what they see as new.”

The Atlanta-based Charles Loridans Foundation is primary funder for the initiative, which is presented in partnership with CORE Performance Company and Kennesaw State University.

While contemporary dance was the first festival’s focus, Ibrahimof is taking the festival’s second iteration on a different tack. He’s seeking new ways to engage the community, emphasize artists’ ties with the Southeast and broaden the sampling of styles and genres. His vision includes ballet, hip-hop and tap choreographers who are pushing their genres in contemporary directions.

Ibrahimof takes cues from the New York City Center's Fall for Dance Festival, where he served as agent and producer for several years before assuming a curatorial role for 2013. Though time and money limited Off the Edge, Ibrahimof has assembled an accessible, mixed lineup of quality works that is rare for Atlanta, or anywhere.

Headliner Wayne McGregor, resident choreographer of London's Royal Ballet, is a major international dance figure whose work "Eden/Eden" appeared in 2011 with the Atlanta Ballet. His London-based company, Random Dance, will perform duets from "Entity" on Jan. 31 and "Far" on Feb. 1.

“If you enjoy ballet, it’s not a big stretch to enjoy Wayne’s work,” Ibrahimof said. These pieces are “beautiful in a simple way.”

“Wayne is someone who can tell you a story in a short amount of time,” Ibrahimof said. “I think the audience will get that.”

But for those who don’t like McGregor’s body-torquing style, there’ll be different kinds of works to enjoy.

These range from three playfully inventive modern dance works by Heginbotham to a tap solo by Dorrance, who'll perform with Atlanta-born vocalist Aaron Marcellus and an a cappella choir of Atlanta singers.

France-based Compagnie Käfig will present a project developed with Brazilian hip-hop dancers; Hubbard Street Dance Chicago will perform Alejandro Cerrudo's powerfully physical duet, "Never Was." Atlanta Ballet's Wabi Sabi group will reprise Jennifer Archibald's "Sweet Sorrow," and Kennesaw State University's dance department will show Ivan Pulinkala's "Touchdown," celebrating the college's new football team.

"Edge in Unexpected Spaces" will round off the festival. This series of free performances by Atlanta choreographers D. Patton White, Lori Teague and Nicole Livieratos runs Jan. 28 through Feb. 1 in the lobbies of downtown Atlanta's Healey Building.

With quality, variety and accessibility, Ibrahimof hopes to build a larger audience for Off the Edge. Aficionados may love an evening that’s all contemporary work, though that can be tiresome to audiences that are new to dance, Ibrahimof said. Still, he wants to push them a little bit further.

“We want to keep them on the edge of their seats,” he said. “We want them to discover new things. We want to surprise them.”