Reviews

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
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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
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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
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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.

Douglas Dunn stands wearing a bright yellow mask which covers his eyes. His right arm is extended to his side while his other rests on a wooden chair painted with yellow flowers. He wears a grey vest, red tie, and dark pants--a contrast to dancers Dongri Suh and Janet Charleston who stand behind him weaering flowered garlands around their heads and wear tulle skirts. A video of two waterfalls is projected onto the wall behind them.
Photo: Jacob Burckhardt
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Douglas Dunn’s Post-modern Pastoral

Brendan McCall

An intrepid choreographer examines classical forms through a post-modern lens

Two people draped in brown fabric rest their heads on one another’s shoulders in front of a white background. The image is edited with faint red and blue outlines.
Photo: Kosoko Performance Studio
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This Is Not Surveillance. You Gon Have To Participate.

Caitlin Green

//shrouded\\ evokes a necessary discomfort within the container of performance.

Six young dancers stand in profile, all facing right, under bloodred stagelights. They balance on their right foot, while holding their bent left leg with their left hand behind them. Their right arms are extended in front of them, their palms flexed, as if threy are saying "stop."
Photo: Steven Pisano
  • Reviews

Donald Byrd’s Five Alarm Dance

Brendan McCall

Donald Byrd sounds the alarm in his latest work connecting 9/11 to the crises of our current moment.

The vast white skirt of a female dancer spreads out across the center of the stage, drawn and lifted by dancers concealed beneath it, resembling a giant wave. The dancers are constantly struggling to crawl out from within this undulating mass of soft fabric. With their upper bodies bare, they curl up on the ground, suspended in a state between weightlessness and struggle. The spotlight focuses on the white fabric and the figures at the center, plunging the surrounding space into darkness.
Photo: David Wong
  • Reviews

Bodies Exposed Under Hard Light: Encountering Fables

Yuying Chen

Virginie Brunelle's Fables reveals how bodies resist and transform.

Thirteen dancers in all white and different color tap shoes dance joyfully off of wooden boards in all directions. Their bodies blurred in space.
Image Courtesy of Michael J. Love
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Peering into Practice

Noel Price-Bracey

Michael J. Love’s “Exercise 3” teaches us to value the balance between preparation and performance.