By LISA CURRIE

By LISA CURRIE

Rappahannock New* 91aft Writer

The upcoming Memorial Day weekend presentation, “Crossroads,” concludes the season for the Ki Theatre in Rappahannock County.

This year, Ki Theatre offered a four part series “The Exchange,” featuring area artists performing their talents for a local stage. It concludes the season next month with “Crossroads,” a workshop with evening and morning presentations for the entire family, featuring artists from the crossroads of our nation.

“The audience is the community as well as the artist is the community” in this case, said Ki Theatre director Julie Portman.

“The Exchange series offered the chance for the two to meet, converse and see each other as a creator,” she said.

The artists were Nol Putman reading and discussing his works; composers Carleton Coon, Lorriane Duisit and Richard Squires; colorist Ruth Blackwell Rogers and dancerchoregraphers Sally Nash, Sharon Wyrrick and Denise Read.

The audience was comprised of local faces, faces from Northern Virginia, southern Maryland, West Virginia and surrounding counties.

“They came from many different places,” Ms. Portman said.

And, with each presentation, the audience performance with the artist was more intense offering the audience a sense of dynamics with the artist as well as giving the artist a sense of dynamics with the audience.

“Anyone can go to a theater and be entertained,” Ms. Portman said. “But, if we want work that is more personal and truer — what the educated audience is calling for — than we need to add human effort.”

The Ki Theatre “Exchange” series offered that opportunity.

“There has to be some sort of rebirth, a personal quality for the audience,” she said. “We wanted to establish a real community between artist and audience and audience and artist. Both make a difference to the outcome — both have an impact on the other. ” With each performance the audience grew. “We want to continue this type of