Reviews

One dancer kneels on the floor, wearing a long wig and a garment wrapped around their waist. Their feet are bare and flexed, and they lean forward, with downcast eyes and hands near their mouth. The stage behind them is covered with lemons and limes. The dancer is Quentin Chaveriat. He has become a fantasy of surrealist painter and writer Leonora Carrington.
Photo: Shahryar Shahamat
  • Reviews

Queer Butoh Festival: Still Life

Jen George

The Queer Butoh Festival 2025 offers a rare generosity of access, vulnerability, and narrative layering.

Outside on a lovely summer day, an elderly Black woman with a joyous smile wearing a flowery dress with a matching headband is dancing outside. To her left is another Black woman dancing with a smile and wearing a grey felt hat and a white button-down shirt.
Photo: Meg Goldman
  • Reviews

Movement as Community: Revival 9: Neighborhood Stories

Brendan McCall

Dances for a Variable Population highlights seniors´ lives.

One dancer is elevated in a supported position while others provide grounded bases for a lift, demonstrating coordinated weight-sharing and balance. The movement highlights contemporary partnering, spatial precision, and controlled transitions.
Photo: SEB Photography
  • Reviews

Pas de Umbrella: On Weathering the World with Whimsy

Lauren Berlin

39 is a reclamation of the wild child within.

Vyette Tiya (she/her) smiles with her eyes closed and head tilted upwards, arms lofting upwards as she descends downwards. She wears baggy pants and a textured crop top, and is washed in a dark blue light. Two white chains hang in the background above her head. To her left is Daniel Sohn with a mixing board and laptop, focused on mixing for his music. He is wearing a baseball cap, t-shirt, and pants.
Photo: James Izlar
  • Reviews

Fresh Juice 2025: Joy, Heart-Ache, Apocalypse

Zoe Farnsworth

Experimental explorations tackle climate change, queer romance, and more.

JJ Omelagah, holding a mic for Kayla Hamilton, inside of a Movement Research studio. Kayla is demonstrating a movement for the How We Move cohort with both arms pointing in opposing directions. Both folks are masked.
Photo: Whitney Browne
  • Reviews

When Something Does Not Exist, We Must Create It

Rachel DeForrest Repinz

Embraced Body redefines the dance intensive in their inaugural How We Move program.

Four women stand in a group with their arms upraised and their heads in profile. They are wearing long-sleeved shirts in yellow, red, navy blue, and black.
Photo: Alan Simpson
  • Reviews

the power of community

desire amaiya

a caring, authentic ensemble that allowed me to bask in the community of movement.

In a vast black expanse with a dark brown floor, two Gogglers in warm colored shirts, leather aprons, and steampunk goggles hold up a square of red thread around Temple, a Black girl in a bright green sweatshirt. She's pointing at the viewer as her brother, Arturo, looks on in interest while sitting on the ground.
Photo: Courtesy of Pig Iron
  • Reviews

Franklin’s Key: A Fun Romp Through Fiction

Madeline Shuron

Pig Iron’s latest adventure amuses.

One dancer stands tall, snapping the Shuka with fierce precision to carve rhythm into silence, while the other kneels in exaltation, their body echoing Horton hinges and Graham’s sculptural forms—an image of power, reverence, and kinetic devotion.
Photo: Carlos Avendaño
  • Reviews

Noise See: Weaving Masking, Memory, and Maasai Legacy

Lauren Berlin

Fernandes threads a performance of Self

a dancer presses against the bare ground on all fours while another dancer stands barefoot on top of their back with the support of two others who hold her arms. They are wearing long-sleeved clothing in shades of grey, black and red. They are surrounded by trees and foliage. There are audience members in the foreground watching.
Photo: Michelle F Smith
  • Reviews

Embodying Human-Nature Interdependence

Caitlin Green

Dancers create a shelter that shape-shifts into tableaus of home.

Shavon Norris stands on stage in black clothing with her eyes closed and mouth open as if shouting in discomfort, with her hands covering part of her face. There is a person playing the upright bass in the background, and a sliver of blue and yellow lighting behind Norris.
Photo: Johanna Austin
  • Reviews

Shavon Norris’ CRONING (solo.duet 48:25) at The Philadelphia Death and Arts Festival

Caitlin Green

A work that makes space for the constant tug of death