Rawlinson’s lab space offering approaches ballet through a contemporary lens promoting exploration and investigation inside of traditional ballet vocabulary. The structure is designed as a lab space, establishing a framework of ballet progressions at the barre and in the center while experimenting with movement vocabulary translations, contemporary embodiments, artistic composition, and expression. Participants must be 18 years and older.

Attire: Comfortable athletic wear to move in, ballet shoes, socks, or bare feet.

JOLT! Performing Arts Festival is launching January 22-24, 2027 at Columbia Music Festival Association's Art Space in Columbia, SC. JOLT! is a festival celebrating the fleeting, investigative, and underground moments of contemporary performance art that honors, challenges, and provokes the past, present, and future. Building on traditions, but taking the performing arts to the next level. A weekend offering professional artistic performances and lab space offerings. The festival is for adult participants and attendees only (ages 18+). Please visit website for more information: https://joltperformingartsfestival.org/

Instructor Bio: Melinda “Mindy” Rawlinson

Melinda “Mindy” Rawlinson holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of South Carolina and a Master of Fine Arts in Dance from Hollins University. As a dance artist, Rawlinson’s research and creative work revolves around topics such as Radical Ballet: finding transgressional spaces, Voyeurism and the Ballerina, and the performance of sexuality. As a professional dancer, Rawlinson has performed with the following companies: Carolina Ballet Theatre (Greenville, SC), Wideman Davis Dance (Columbia, SC), Ballet Florida (West Palm Beach, FL), and Full Circle Dance Company (Baltimore, MD). As a dance educator, Rawlinson has served as an adjunct instructor at the University of South Carolina, Visiting Assistant Professor and Assistant MFA Director of Dance at Hollins University (Roanoke, VA) and was the founding director of the dance department at West Boca Raton Regional High School (Boca Raton, FL). Rawlinson currently resides in Lexington, SC and is Co-Artistic Director of JOLT! Performing Arts Festival while also serving as a board member with Full Circle Dance Company (Baltimore, MD) and for Ann Brodie’s Carolina Ballet (Columbia, SC).

Photograph by Lola Dee Photography