Coverage of dance, movement, and related performance art in Philadelphia.
The retrospective of Judson Church choreographer-dancer Lucinda Childs’ SELECTED DANCES, 1963-78 last week was instructive and artistically purposeful. This work is still so vibrant in its exploratory nature that Childs’ innovations are part of the evolving dance stream.
View More Modern dance DNA is Childs’ play
Fresh from the inaugural weekend of NICE AND FRESH, I’m heartened to report that SmokeyScout Productions (founded by Josh McIlvain and Deborah Crocker in 2008)…
View More NICE AND FRESH October (SmokeyScout): New art pops up
What a pleasant corner of Philadelphia is Mount Airy. A suburban urban neighborhood: trees and grass yards but also sidewalks and train lines; driveways and…
View More NICE AND FRESH theater in Mount Airy
Beyond the Light is a devised puppetry/theater/music/acrobatics/dance exploring unrequited love through whimsical, nighttime wonderment. A blonde boy and a black-haired girl stand in separate shadows,…
View More [74] BEYOND THE LIGHT (Leila Ghaznavi and Pantea Productions): Fringe review
AKA performance is a new dance collective, formed by young choreographers Katrina Atkin, Ann-Marie Gover, and Alessandra Delle Grotti to showcase their individual approaches to…
View More [73] ROOTS (AKA performance): Fringe review
An exciting new company with a promising future, Birds on a Wire Dance Theatre presents a mini-festival of six short world-premiere performances in HATCH. Led…
View More [66] HATCH (Birds on a Wire Dance Theatre): Fringe review
Excerpted from thINKingDANCE.net. There’s some strong male/female attraction buzzing through CAVIDAD, but it never loses its cool feel. The dancers come together in various combinations, relating,…
View More [61] CAVIDAD (Enza DePalma): Fringe review :: Strangers in a Void
Excerpted from thINKingDANCE.net. I was riveted. Eve Gentry’s Tenant of the Street (1938) held me breathless as Carrie Ellmore-Tallitsch, of 360° Dance Company, pushed her deeply curved body through…
View More [60] CELEBRATING DANCE (Dancefusion & 360° Dance Company): Fringe review :: Then/Now
Excerpted from thINKingDANCE.net. Swings, hoops and ropes hang expectantly in the rectangular cavern that is Philadelphia Soundstages, drawing my gaze up and seeming to wait for…
View More [59] BREAK/DRIFT/RESIST (Tangle Movement Arts): Fringe review :: Tonight I watch a mantis-limbed woman…
Dim lighting, old motion clips, tap shoes, broad sounds, and internationally acclaimed Colin Dunne in the flesh, calling Irish dance “exhibitionistic”: these elements and more…
View More [58] OUT OF TIME (Colin Dunne): Fringe review
Excerpted from thINKingDANCE.net. Brushing back hair. Stringed instruments. Momentous lifts. Placing and replacing of bodies. Instant transitions between sustained and staccato movement. These were shared elements…
View More [57] The Iron Factory Presents (allendance and Tori Lawrence + Co.): Fringe review ::
Published by The Dance Journal. Republished with kind permission. Leah Stein‘s ADJACENT SPACES is an elegiac chamber dance that interacts with the incredible rooms at Shiloh Baptist Church…
View More [54] ADJACENT SPACES (Leah Stein Dance Company): Fringe review
Montreal-based performer William Bonnet (formerly of 7 Fingers, who delighted in last year’s Philadelphia Live Arts with Sequence 8) executes a seamless blend of dance,…
View More [42] LEO (Y2D Productions, in association with Chamäleon Productions): Fringe review
Choreographer par excellence Brian Sanders creates a psycho-sexual dreamscape of children’s fairy tales and nursery rhymes morphing into adult erotic fantasies in HUSH NOW SWEET…
View More [25] HUSH NOW SWEET HIGH HEELS AND OAK (Brian Sanders’ JUNK): Fringe review
Published by The Dance Journal. Reprinted by kind permission. Site specific works are nothing new to Philadelphia but two performances in the 2013 Fringe Festival,…
View More Fringe Preview :: Muse: The Body Overlooked and ThElastic Air Project
Published by The Dance Journal. Reprinted with kind permission. New Street Dance Group, led by co-directors Krista Armbruster and Shannon Dooling will present ChORDED Motion on Saturday,…
View More Fringe Interview with New Street Dance Group presenting ChORDED Motion
Published by The Dance Journal. Reprinted with kind permission. Between the paperwork, the deadlines and the fees, producing a show for the Fringe can intimidate…
View More Fringe Preview: Recent Graduates Tackle the Fringe, Roots and Enormous PoCkEtZ
Published by The Dance Journal. Reprinted by kind permission. On September 6 and 7, Keila Cordova Dances will present As Pretty Does at Temple’s Conwell Dance Theater, a…
View More Fringe Interview: As Pretty Does by Keila Cordova Dances
Published by The Dance Journal. Reprinted with kind permission. The Dilemma Each August thousands of dance majors grace the halls of college campuses around the…
View More How to better educate college dancers
Published by The Dance Journal. Republished with kind permission. Although most folks equate classical Indian dance with Bollywood, local Bharathanaatyam dancer Anita Ranjani is working…
View More Fringe Preview: Naatya Seva’s Shringara Rasa