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On a white background, the words Dance/USA are written in the middle of a circle of blue and green dots.
Photo: Dance/USA
  • thINKpieces

Policy and Precarity: Thoughts on the End of Dance/USA’s Fellowship to Artists

Brendan McCall
  • American dance versus COVID, capitalism, and our present-dance culture wars
Nayara Lopes, a Brazilian Black woman, performs in the ballet Swan Lake. As Odette (the White San), she wears an ornate white costume, with tutu and headdress.
Photo: Arian Molina Soca
  • Interviews

The Real Work of Undoing Racism in Ballet

Rachel DeForrest Repinz

After a painful whiteface incident at the Finnish National Ballet, Principal Dancer Nayara Lopes returns to Philadelphia Ballet.

A hand holds a well-worn book over a sunlit wooden floor, with the shadow of a spider plant beside it. Torn yellow paper scraps stick out as bookmarks. The white cover reads “Interdisciplinary Laboratory of Art Nature and Dance, a Field Guide to iLanding,” above an abstract charcoal drawing of circles, arches, towers, scratches, and stacked squares.
Photo: Emilee Lord
  • Interviews, Reviews

With, Between, Through

Emilee Lord

20 Years of iLanding

Five dancers in Awakening Lion hold ornate lion heads against a dark stage. White, blue, gold, and red heads form an arc above a black lion head held by one of the story’s heroes (a lion dance champion) in a deep side lunge at the front. The performers wear layered, earth-toned tunics with wrapped forearms and lower legs.
Photo: Guangdong Song and Dance Theatre
  • thINKpieces

When Tradition Takes the Stage, I Stop to Watch

Ziying Cui

Two Chinese dance dramas make me reconsider what I call “my culture.”

thINKingDANCE is a consortium of dance artists and writers who work together to provide critical coverage for dance, to build audiences for dance, and to foster the art of dance writing.

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The Latest from thINKingDANCE

A woman is in a headstand, while a man stands nearby with his arms raised in shadow to her right. Both wear tan, form-fitting clothes with strips of white plastic running along the outside of their limbs and backs. On the white walls are unusual glass sculptures that look like waterways.
Photo: Natalie Moore
  • Reviews

The Sand Is Alive

Brendan McCall
  • Dance, glass, and music invite a deeper contemplation of sand
Seen from a low angle against a black background, a performer wears black blazer and bright red shorts with a black drawstring. Crinkled yellow cellophon covers their mouth and cascades down their chest, with a loose flap jutting to the left. They look down toward the camera, one hand raised near their abdomen and the other hanging beside their thigh.
Photo: Pep Casadevall
  • Reviews

Cryptic Precision: On Vanessa Kamp’s ‘Houndstooth’

Mang Su
  • 'Houndstooth' unleashes the subversive power of parody with bewildering precision.
Tissues are scattered all over the black box theater floor. Upstage a white wire waste paper basket sits upside down and empty. On a huge pile of tissues lies a woman in black with yellow crocs, yellow sleeves sticking out of her coat, a yellow scarf and white and yellow pompom knit hat. She stares up at the ceiling. She has a pair of red crocs on her chest.
Photo: Maria Baranova
  • Reviews

It would seem we need each other

Emilee Lord
  • The GREEF of Christina Gelsone at Baryshnikov Arts Center
In a dance studio with white walls, a light gray marley floor, and two large whiteboards along the back wall, situated above a double-stacked wooden ballet barre, eleven college students lay supine with their arms raised and legs parted in an “X” shape on the ground. They lay at different angles, breathing deeply, following the instructions of the teacher at the front of the room. The instructor, tD writer Jennifer Passios, faces the students. She wears a black Adidas jacket. Her hair falls in a half-up-half down updo as her arms reach skyward in the same “X” gesture that the students make on the ground.
Photo: Jacob Regan
  • thINKpieces

To You—who I think about all the time:

Jennifer Passios
  • A letter to my favorite student
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From the Archives

A collection of featured work from our archives across the years

On a sunny day, a group of graduate students, and faculty huddled close together, smile at the camera. Their body language is loose and relaxed, and they look comfortable with one another.
Photo: Charly Santagado
  • News

To Close, To Ripple

Megan Mizanty
  • Examining the long and short term impacts of sudden closure on UArts students
Photo: Preeti Pathak
  • .

“The Stakes of this Play are the Stakes of the World”

Preeti Pathak
  • Anissa Weinraub’s Philly Education Stories explore strengthening Philadelphia’s school communities through devised theater.
  • .

Dance Education: A Privilege in Public Schools?

Megan Bridge
  • As codirector of a performance group based just blocks away from KCAPA, I dreamt about the partnerships I could initiate at the school.
Photo: Anna Drozdowski
  • News

The Art of Articulate Economy

Annie Wilson
  • I think the gold of the TD project is the opportunity to understand our personal and shared ideologies about dance and performance.

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thINKingDANCE gratefully acknowledges support from the Philadelphia Cultural Fund, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and from our readers and other individual donors like you! thINKingDANCE is supported by Critical Minded, an initiative to invest in cultural critics of color cofounded by The Nathan Cummings Foundation and The Ford Foundation.

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thINKingDANCE Winter Tea with tD: Come Celebrate the Year with us! Sunday December 13th, 2026 2-4:30pm Free event featuring work-in-progress performances, dancing, tea & snacks Come at 2om for a free beginner-friendly hip hop dance class with Bee
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