Reviews

A black and white bust shot of Bempa looking forwards with a serene and powerful expression. He is black and wears his hair short cut in a fade. His chest juts out forwards proudly in his collared cross hatched shirt.
Photo: Vessel Day
  • Reviews

Afrofusion, Bempa’s Way

Zoe Farnsworth

“Untitled” explodes with queer black joy as Bempa gives the audience his own version of a good time.

A dancer dips into a low second position, leaning over her right knee, chest and chin lifted, an open right hand reaching. Her silver top and the billowing folds of her skirt shimmer in the blueish light. Behidn her a row of dancers standing in gowns of different constructions and colors, sparkling and reflecting as behind them a video of a field path plays, one dancer in a yellow dress walking on screen.
Photo: Maria Baranova
  • Reviews

Multilayered Memory in a Feminist Timescape

Emilee Lord

Jasmine Hearn’s Memory Fleet: Beloved, Let’s Cross

A photo from Nami Yamamoto’s work of an Asian femme with blunt bangs and a shoulder-length haircut, standing open-mouthed. This image is translucently superimposed onto another image of two dancers wearing colorful tshirts and sweats, engaging in physical scores.
Photo: Elyse Mertz
  • Reviews

40-years-old and still kicking

ankita

Opening night at the Performance Mix Festival

Two bodies are centered in the image, their brown skin a vibrant complement to the red skin tight garments they wear. One dancer balances on her coccyx bone and hands while supporting a tall figure lushly leaning against the seated dancer's two feet.
Photo: Mark Garvin
  • Reviews, Write Back Atchas

Temperature Check

Noel Price-Bracey

Tommie-Waheed Evans’s World Premier of in case of fire, speak

maura nguyễn donohue lunges forward onto one foot with her arms slicing outwards from her back. She wears a mustard yellow button-down shirt, navy blue coat, grey pants, and vibrant blue sneakers. She is framed by the grey-shirted backs of Shannon Yu and Rami Margron, and the darkness behind her.
Photo: Marcus Middleton
  • Reviews

There is Something Happening in the Basement of Judson Church

Rachel DeForrest Repinz

The relentless drive of Pink Fang’s “The Table.”

The West Philadelphia High Dance Ensemble performs in front of an audience seated around the perimeter of the room. The dancers stand close to each other with their arms raised mid-clap overhead. Some dancers wear long evergreen or rose colored dresses, while others are dressed in black pants and a white button-down shirt. One dancer stands in front of the group wearing a preacher’s robe. The ensemble resembles a lively church congregation.
Photo: Courtesy of Black Dance Confab
  • News, Reviews

Celebrating Philadelphia’s Black Dance Legacies

Caitlin Green

“Without [them] we wouldn’t have had a portal to come through.”

Four dancers move in front of a large abstract painting rich with textured color, their bodies reaching, extending, and twisting in multiple directions. Their hands and feet reach upwaerds, downwards, and away from us, creating dynamism in the air. Along the edges of the painting, bystanders stand and look--some at the dancers, others at something unseen.
Photo: Maria Baranova
  • Reviews

Perception is Participatory

Brendan McCall

John Jasperse frolics amidst fields of perception in this site-specific collaboration with artist Julie Mehretu.

Three people sit in an oblique triangle that fills the frame. To the left, a musician, Aabeizer, sits on a black bench in carpenter jeans and a dark t-shirt. His eyes are closed and his feet bare. He moves his hands around a circular plate and wooden dowels that extend from a wood board he holds against his chest. To the right, a saxophonist, Bhob Rainey, sits on a folding black chair in a black cardigan and grey pants, blowing into the mouthpiece and pressing the keys. Between them, a person with short red curls, Kayliani Sood, crosses their legs on a white stool, sitting higher than the musicians beside her. They wear brown shorts over grey pants and a black t-shirt with a blue square patch in the center. She rests one hand on her knee, and the other over their forearm, closes her eyes and tilts their head pensively to the right.
Photo: Loren Groenendaal
  • Reviews

Unscored Improvisation, H-O-T or Not?

Xander Cobb

Does dance need meaning to be meaningful?

A group of five dancers, three women and two men, form a circle around a female soloist. The soloist, wearing a vibrant pink vest over a black top paired with light blue, wide-legged pants, moves exuberantly with her arms out akimbo while standing on her left toes with her right leg out to the side. A live five piece jazz band, including a piano, drums, a bass trumpet, and trombone, is visible behind the dancers upstage. A projection on the brick wall in the back displays a collage of sheet music and colonial artwork of a scene from a pub.
Photo: Jano Cohen
  • Reviews

Scats off the Score

Nadia Ureña

Lauren and Brent White breathe new life into Francis Johnson’s suites from the Antebellum.

Three dancers, two men and one woman, stand on a stage covered in bright autumn leaves. The background is black. They stand in a wide stance, holding thick black rolls over their heads. The man on the left, in gray pants and a t-shirt, looks up at the roll. The brunette woman wearing green pants and a brown tunic stares directly out. The man on the right, dressed in a red suit and white dress shirt, also looks straight forward.
Photo: Steven Pisano - Courtesy of Ballet Hispánico New York
  • Reviews

Mujeres in Motion

Caedra Scott-Flaherty

Ballet Hispánico’s 56th season is an exciting women-led tour of the Latine diaspora.