Coverage of dance, movement, and related performance art in Philadelphia.
Part performance piece and part group therapy session, the self-devised offering is a soul-baring exposé of the growing pains of real people, in which an all-female ensemble of five creators/performers (Jess Brownell, Nina Giacobbe, Rachel O’Hanlon-Rodriguez, Rae Bradley, and Samantha Rose Schwab) explores the concept of “home” through memorable events from their own personal backgrounds.
View More NO PLACE LIKE (Kaleid Theater): Fringe Review 21
If dance is a language, it is spoken in a variety of accents. With WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT OUTER SPACE, FringeArts commissioning three contemporary choreographers—Zoe Scofield, Georg Reischl, and Itamar Serussi—to create pieces on PA Ballet dancers.
View More WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT OUTER SPACE (Pennsylvania Ballet, Curtis Institute of Music, FringeArts): Fringe Review 14
Staging a Happening used to be straightforward. To jangle the audience out of the role of The Observer, you redefined art from what-I-the-Artist-do-up-here into what-is-happening-between-you-and-me.…
View More (SOME) LOVE AND (SOME) INFORMATION (Ira Brind School and Headlong Dance Theater): Fringe Review 9
Have you ever been caught between two conflicting emotions at the same time? Have those ambivalent feelings left you hanging, unable to decide what to think or how to act? Have you turned to your most primal impulses to figure out who you are and where you’re going? Baring body and soul, Brian Sanders’ JUNK explores the psychology and physicality of uncertainty and transition in SUSPENDED.
View More SUSPENDED (Brian Sanders’ JUNK): Fringe Review 2
Phindie is providing more Festival coverage than any other publication, and BETTER!
View More Enter the Fringe: the MOST and BEST coverage of the 2014 Philadelphia Fringe Festival + some picks
Dance writer Merilyn Jackson gives her picks for the 2014 Fringe Festival, with the page numbers from the Fringe Guide for helpful reference.
View More Merilyn Jackson’s 9 Fringe Dance Picks
Mike breaks down his picks into two categories: Fringe-tastic are those that embrace the festival, try new ways to story-tell and create an exciting audience experience. The Guide Image picks are picked solely on their image in the guide,
View More Mike Durkin’s 10 Fringe Picks: Fringe-tastic and great-image choices from The Renegade Company director
Some contemporary choreographers prefer not to explain, in concrete terms, what they intend their choreography to mean, but Trajal Harrell is happy not only to talk about his dance works, but also his creative process. In a phone interview from Berlin earlier this month, Harrell delved into the various aspects of his dance-theater opus Antigone Sr. / Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at the Judson Church (L), before its opening as one of the centerpiece shows at 2014 FringeArts.
View More Fringe preview: Trajal Harrell brings Greek theater ‘Realness’
Wanna experience the best of Fringe, but don’t know how? Overwhelmed by the offerings of the Guide? Fearful to take your first taste of Philly’s oldest and largest performance festival and somehow get it wrong? Or else just don’t want to do it alone?
Join Phindie for a one-day Fringe immersion, led by Julius Ferraro—Phindie.com theater editor, journalist, playwright, performer, and veteran fringehopper.
View More PHINDIE’S OFFICIAL FRINGE BIKE TOUR: Experience Fringe in a way never before possible
Dance writer Lew Whittington gives 10 “moving” picks for the 2014 Fringe Festival
View More 10 Fringe Dance Picks: Lew Whittington on the best of the 2014 Fringe Festival
Phindie dance writer Katelyn Bobek spoke with New York City based choreographer John Ollom about his work and a new series of classes in Philadelphia.
View More About, or in, the Liminal Space: John Ollom at 954 Dance Movement Collective
Perennial Fringe favorite Brian Sanders and his dare-devil dance company JUNK have created a provocative new offering for this year’s Festival. Described as a journey…
View More Talking Sex, Substance, and SUSPENDED with Brian Sanders
Philadelphia artist and choreographer Gunnar Montana is no stranger to the Fringe Festival. Since his show ‘RUB’ debuted in 2012, the seriously experimental Montana has…
View More Gunnar Montana rises: Interview with the experimental Fringe stalwart about his show RESURRECTION ROOM
Playwright Douglas Williams collaborated on a stand-out Fringe hit of 2013, Holly’s Dead Soldiers Doug shared five picks the 2014 Fest.
View More Doug Williams’s 5 Fringe Picks: Festival fave reveals his not-to-miss shows
Journalism is fine. Readers are the problem: they don’t demand arts coverage the way sports fans demand sports coverage.
View More Rethinking Dance Writing
Philadelphia’s first and largest LGBTQ theater festival, GayFest! by Quince Productions, returns this August 5-23 to Plays and Players Skinner Studio. Opening this year’s festival is the The Bang Group’s HEAD OVER HEELS, a high energy mix of concert dance, slapstick, and musical theater in a cabaret setting. Artistic director and choreographer David Parker took time with me to offer some insights into the dance and his New York City dance ensemble’s interests in creating the piece.
View More Quince Productions’ GayFest! kicks off with HEAD OVER HEELS
Sebastian Cummings has always been a little edgy. A military brat, a black man in the white suburbs, a Jamaican American in African American black society, a gay…
View More Sebastian Cummings talks about LIFE ON THE FRINGE
With his BalletX summer program SUNSET, O639 HOURS, a long-form narrative ballet, choreographer Matthew Neenan unveiled taps new creative veins, steering clear of all his choreographic safe zones.
View More SUNSET, O639 HOURS (BalletX): Neenan blazes into sunset
Myra Bazell, a much-loved teacher of dance, and Jane Gotch first met fifteen years ago when Gotch had to scratch together enough change to take Bazell’s popular modern class. The good-vibe feeling between these two choreographers was evident as Bazell explained to the audience of about thirty on a (thankfully) not-too-hot June evening that the Iron Factory was a positive venue for this reunion.
View More Cool Dancing in Warm Spaces: Jane Gotch and Myra Bazell at the Iron Factory
King’s teaching philosophy utilizes his firsthand knowledge of the different facets of the dance industry to provide his students with a realistic view of life as a professional dancer.
View More Meet Swarthmore College’s Newest Dance Professor, Gregory King