FALL Productions is a Nashville-based nonprofit that believes the Artist is more important than the Art.

FALL's mission is to create art in a variety of mediums, fostering an environment of positivity and support, with a focus on presenting work with depth that is for, by, and about marginalized communities.

We believe in the power of working together to make something new.

While specializing in movement-based art forms such as aerial dance and contemporary ballet, each project involves collaborations with artists of many other disciplines, prioritizing the sharing of knowledge and resources, and operating with the understanding that we are always stronger together.

VALUES

We aim to be a haven for artists who have had less-than-ideal experiences with other arts organizations or situations.
Therefore, we believe that:

- We are Humans first and Artists second -
- If we take care of the Artist, then the Art will take care of itself -
- The Process is as important as the final Product -

ORIGIN STORY

(in a nutshell)

Founded in Nashville in 2010 by artist and choreographer Rebekah Hampton Barger, FALL became the city's first aerial dance company. Known for thought-provoking, multi-genre, full-sensory performances, RHB and the company have been instrumental in bringing aerial dance to greater prominence in Nashville.

In 2022, we began pivoting toward making work that specifically examines the experiences of the chronic pain community and other marginalized groups. While narrowing our focus related to the subject matter, we have also expanded the scope of the projects that we take on, leaning into our strengths of cross-genre collaboration - allowing the work itself to dictate the mediums through which it is made - all while prioritizing shared knowledge and resources.

MEET FALL'S ARTISTS, COLLABORATORS, AND COMMUNITY PARTNERS

The Rise of FALL

- Founded in Nashville by Rebekah Hampton Barger as the city's first aerial performance group.

- Premiere performance, Silence in the Gallery, a site-specific, structured improvisation installation on aerial fabric and hammock by founding artist Audra Almond-Harvey and RHB for the Edgehill Village Artisan Fair.

- Featured Artist in the inaugural Sideshow Fringe Festival (which later evolved into the critically acclaimed Kindling Arts Festival). Fighting With Windmills included the first of many collaborations with metal artist Robert Cortner and introduced our invented apparatus, the Spaceship Kite.

- Broken Cymbals was a contemporary aerial ballet with original music composed by Andrew Collins and featuring collaborative choreography and a guest performance by martial artist Justin Harvey.

- 40,000 FT, a collaboration between RHB and performance poets Herb Bailey and Tavius Marshall, who performed alongside a quartet of aerialists and dancers for the 2012 Sideshow Fringe Festival.

- FALL joined four other Nashville-based dance companies (Company Rose, Blue Moves Modern Dance, Chinese Arts Alliance, and Nashville Ballet) in creating original, site-specific performance installations in the trees of historic Shelby Park as part of its Centennial Celebration.

- Entered into a 5-year Artist Residency and Small Business Incubator program with abrasiveMedia, Inc. abrasiveMedia provided mentorship, administrative support, and fiscal sponsorship during this pivotal time of growth that allowed FALL to expand within a rich environment of other working artists.

- FALL Aerial Arts was established, in partnership with abrasiveMedia and aerialist Molly Graves, as Nashville's first comprehensive aerial training program and began offering high-quality, affordable instruction in the aerial arts to the community of Middle Tennessee.

- Under The Big Top was commissioned by the Nashville Symphony for their Pied Piper Series. It was developed in collaboration with circus artists Molly Graves, Lizard Walker-Keegan, and Kristen Teffeteller, and performed at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center.

- Guest artists for the debut concert of chatterbird, a nonprofit, experimental, chamber music ensemble.

- Official music video for Night Girl: Nycteris Sees The Sun by harpist/vocalist/composer Timbre, choreographed by RHB and featuring FALL Company Artists

- Live performance of Night Girl..., joined on stage by Timbre and a trio of musicians. Hosted by the 2015 Sideshow Fringe Festival, this performance also featured a new restaging of Fighting With Windmills and the debut of RHB's signature solo, 5 Things I Know To Be True.

- The brainchild of choreographer Laurel Desmaris, and presented for The Artists' Lounge at OZ Arts, space is the place was an exploration of the space we move through and blurred the lines between audience and performer.

- abrasiveMedia gave us an opportunity to revisit space is the place and present Part 2, which incorporated the unique structures and architecture of aM into the performance, as well as the audience.

- I Can Feel It, You Can Feel It, a music video for Kat Jones & The Prophets; filmed and edited by Emily Newton; choreographed and performed by RHB and Kat Jones

- World Premiere of DEAR APOCALYPSE, hosted by the 2016 Sideshow Fringe Festival and produced by abrasiveMedia. With songs written over the course of 10 years and inspired by personal "apocalypes", this rock opera was a collaboration between musician/performance artist Kat Jones, FALL, and writer/performance artists Tavius Marshall and A. Almond-Harvey. With her band, The Prophets, Kat performed the entirety of her full-length album, with FALL joining the band on stage for seven out of ten songs.

- From Dawn to Dust (and Other Cognitative Realities) was an evening of choreography and visual art, produced by FALL and created by former Company Artist Ryann Lievens. The three-part work was performed by FALL, di Mossa, and students from DancEast, examining the “shoulds” we live under and the spiraling worries that cloud our judgment and our vision.

- Written by Timbre, Sing Into The Dark was a 360 degree video project produced by NATIVE Magazine and featured FALL artists alongside musical performances by Timbre and her band.

- RHB was the featured dancer in You Were The Rain, a music video for Ryan Beaver, which premiered on CMT & Amazon Music

- World premiere of FALL's flagship work, A Bending Of Its Own Kind. Commissioned by OZ Arts, it was created in collaboration with visual artist Mary Mooney and featured costumes by Lily Guilder Design, original music by Porcelain Teeth, and the introduction of our invented apparatus, the SpineVine.

- FALL Company Artists were featured in Takin’ Over, a music video for Nashville-based band, Humming House.

- Received 501 (c) 3 status from the IRS and became one of a handful of nonprofit dance organizations in Nashville.

- Created and presented in collaboration with Actors Bridge Ensemble and abrasiveMedia, HAUNTED was an ambitious, site-specific and site-responsive, immersive theatrical production that explored the forgotten stories of the deadly Dutchman's Curve train crash that happened in Nashville a century prior.

- Guest performance of Arabian for the Children's Ballet Theatre's performance of The Nutcracker.

- FALL Company Artists joined dancers from New Dialect and Middle Tennessee State University in iconic artist Nick Cave's large-scale performance piece, Nick Cave: Feat. Nashville, performed at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center. A collaboration with the Frist Art Museum, the event featured Soundsuits, music, and dance, highlighting local talent to explore themes of identity and social justice.

- Guest artists from aerial and circus collective, Suspended Gravity joined us in FALL. Stand, Learn. Fly., a co-produced concert of solos, duets, and group pieces.

- The creation of musician and performance artist Genuine Joy, FALL joined them onstage for Resolution, a one-night-only rock opera that explored the artist's crisis of faith. The project included a music video for Preacherman.

- A site-specific and site-responsive choreographic project created and performed on a playground, The Playground Project was a partnership with Stratton Elementary in Madison, TN and included a 6-week residency at the school with onsite rehearsals, four days in the classroom teaching creative writing and movement as tools for personal expression and storytelling, and a final, free performance for almost 500 students inspired by their stories and their community.

- Embarking on a new chapter, FALL relocated from our longstanding home studio to facilitate a partnership with Nashville School of the Arts, becoming the school's dance company-in-residence. Through this mutually beneficial relationship, FALL artists provide training and performance instruction in aerial dance for students of the NSA Dance Conservatory, and FALL company rehearsals and training take place in the school's largest performance space.

- The first production in our new home, “Stories”, was a concert of collected works by FALL featuring work by guest artists Kat Jones, Becca Hoback, Bailey Freeman, Beth Anne Loosmore, David Flores, and Tavius Marshall

- FALL Aerial Arts instructors and Company Artists banded together to pivot to a fully online class program within days of the country going into lockdown.

- Due to health concerns, Rebekah took an extended sabbatical while Assistant Director Lena Mazel stepped in as Interim Director and produced "Windows", a creative, socially-distanced performance that was developed through a thoughtful and unique approach that was reflective of the restrictions of the times.

- The year ended with the difficult decision to close FALL Aerial Arts indefinitely. Serendipitously, shortly after our closure, former FAA students Truc Le and Hong Yu opened Nashville School for the Aerial Arts, which has evolved into FlyNash and continues to serve the Nashville aerial community.

- In response to the pressures associated with being a small, founder-led organization, changes were made in order to become more sustainable. Most notably, FALL transitioned from an annual season structure to become project-based with approximately 2-year production and development cycles.

- Bending 2.0 became the first restaging of “A Bending Of Its Own Kind” and explored the unique relationship between chronic pain patients and their healthcare providers. It included a partnership with the Osher Center for Integrative Health at Vanderbilt University Medical Center that involved an in-office presentation and invitation-only performance with Q&A for their medical staff.

- RHB and FALL Board Member/pain psychologist Landrew Sevel, PhD, were invited to give a presentation entitled Bending Together for the annual conference for Integrative Medicine for the Underserved.

- In collaboration with filmmaker Michael Mallicote, we created a dance film for "Who's To Say This Will Make More Sense the Next Time Through" that was a composite reflecting both the original choreography, as well as the beautiful ways that the rest of the dancers stepped in to hold space for Rebekah when she was too ill to perform in the live version several months prior.

- Taking a year for strategic planning, we began shifting our focus to make work exclusively for, about, and by the chronic pain and other marginalized communities.

- Aspiration, an expansion of Bending, was an ambitious collaboration with experimental chamber music ensemble, chatterbird, that explored the connections between hope and breath, and what each of those means in the face of living with a chronic condition. Inspired by a conversation between five individuals living with connective tissue disorders, the dancers and musicians developed an hour-long, structured improvisation. FALL Artists we joined live on stage in 2024 by Wu Fei on guzheng, Timbre on harp, Annaliese Kowert on violin, Paul Kowert on bass, and led by R. Aaron Walters on percussion.

- The third iteration of the full-length performance of A Bending Of Its Own Kind was hosted in the summer of 2024 by Dragonfly Aerial & Circus Arts in Knoxville, TN, and was the first time it was performed outside of Nashville. RHB and other Company Artists also led masterclasses in both contemporary and aerial dance, which allowed us to further connect with the Knoxville arts community.

- Led by R. Aaron Walter of chatterbird and RHB of FALL, Accessing Intentional Awareness While Improvising was a masterclass for dancers and musicians that used Aspiration, our recent long-form improvisational performance, as an object lesson in the different ways to approach and integrate improvisation prompts across artistic disciplines.

- Inspired by Rebekah's story, My Body, My Frenemy developed into an educational lecture-demonstration for young dancers, which includes a talk with the choreographer, a creative/reflection prompt, a company performance, and a Q&A with the performers. In 2024, RHB worked with advanced dancers from Centennial Youth Ballet in a more intimate workshop setting. Then, in 2025, the company presented the full program to students from the Nashville School of the Arts Dance Conservatory.