thINKpieces

A show poster with mostly purple tones and a purple banner below that reads RWP Fringe Knowledge 2025 Season TIMESTAMP by Karen Cecilia and Emilee Lord Dovecot Studios. Above is an image of two middle aged women in black tank tops, the one on the left with short curly red hair looking straight into the camera, the one on the right with long curly hairs looking up into the distance, Behind them is mirrored a reflected image of this same pose.
Photo: Emilee Lord
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Fringe Didn’t Kill Me!

Emilee Lord

A Guide to Not Losing Your Shit

An overhead shot of performers on a massive white stage or field holding up giant, elongated banners. The banners feature large red text outlined in white against a blue background, spelling out excerpts like "HAPPINESS" and "LIFE, LIBERTY". The performers wear numbered red vests over casual clothes and hold their arms high to display the fabric. Photo credit: Balich Wonder Studio.
Photo credit: Balich Wonder Studio.
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Heavy Canvas and the Performance of Patriotism

Lauren Berlin

Performing at the FIFA World Cup on July 4th in the City of Brotherly Love

Nia Love, Vincent Thomas, Miko Doi-Smith, Paloma McGregor, Will Bond, Leah Cox, Elisa García Radcliffe, and Ruby Morales in Wicked Bodies at Arizona State University, Gammage (2022). Organized in three staggered lines atop individual black stools, (three dancers, two dancers, three dancers), the performers each assume a “superman” position on their stomachs, back muscles taught as arms and legs lift off. The dancers wear an array of costumes (billowing pants, structured blazer, expansive gauzy skirt, a polka dot jumper) in shades of black, white, fuchsia, and red. Collectively, they cast their gaze stage left, the direction of their “flight” as haze descends over the top ⅔ of the stage height.
Photo: Tim Trumble
  • Book Reviews, thINKpieces

A witch, some kitsch, and a theory walk into a book

Jennifer Passios

On Liz Lerman’s "Shape and Momentum"

An empty well lit back stage space, with flats, and other equipment leaning to each side.
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The Adrenaline Cliff

Emerson Valentina

Surviving the Dance Gig Economy

Dancer KJ Holmes, leans onto her left hip, legs folded behind her, and both hands planted on the hard wood floor. She wears a blue t-shirt, white pants, and her grey hair is pulled back from her face. Newspapers are scattered about the floor around her, and she watches the pieces she has just thrown at the camera as they fly away from her. They are blurred by their motion and closeness to the camera.
Photo: Rachel Keane
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Serious Play

Brendan McCall

Cathy Weis prioritizes experimentation over commercialism in her “Sundays on Broadway” series.

Historic postcard image from the 1930s–1940s showing the Flagler Memorial Bridge illuminated at night, spanning the water between West Palm Beach and Palm Beach, Florida.
Photo: courtesy of the Tichnor Brothers Collection, Florida Postcards Series
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Dancing Across the Bridge from Epstein: A Beautiful Place of Horrors

Lauren Berlin

A reckoning with girlhood, dance, memory, and power in Palm Beach County

Two dancers in long-sleeved red tops face away from us with arms round one another’s waists as their free arms reach outwards. There are singular, red feathers extending from their heads many feet into the upwards space. To the left of the duet, we see a large Taiko drum.
Photo: Mike Hurwitz
  • Interviews, thINKpieces

Afterglow: The Dancers of KYL/D Take a Final Bow

E. Wallis Cain Carbonell

‘Anticipating something and hoping it will be everything you wished for’

Four people in a desert. On the left, a woman with black hair in a red dress sits, a dusty backpack at her feet. Next to her, a bearded man with short brown hair sits looking down, his hands on his knees. To his left is a second man, bald and bare from the waist up, with tattoos covering his left arm and his right arm missing his hand. To his left is a third man, standing, with one hand on his right hip. He is older than the rest, has a white beard, and wears a light blue shirt.
Photo: Quim Vives
  • Reviews, thINKpieces

Nothing But Dust

Brendan McCall

Mysticism and rave culture collide in Oliver Laxe’s latest film "Sirât"

A scene from the 2025 film, The Testament of Ann Lee: Ann Lee (Amanda Seyfried) opens her arms wide and looks on a slight upward diagonal, lips gently parted, gaze forward, or perhaps “beyond.” The reverent gesture takes up the whole horizontal span of the image. Lee dresses modestly in a muted cerulean dress with long sleeves. A cream colored scarf covers her head and wraps around her bust in an X. The image cuts off just beneath the scarf.
Photo: Courtesy of Disney and Searchlight Pictures
  • Reviews, thINKpieces

Rave, or Revelation? Celibate Orgies & Mixed Messaging in The Testament of Ann Lee

Lauren Berlin

In this cinematic story of the Shakers, contradictory messages about the body compete with ecstatic movement sequences

Mulunesh, a Black woman in a thick, hooded raincoat, stands crookedly with her weight shifted over one foot. Her arms are lifted out from her sides and her hands are in fists. She is lit with harsh, bright lights, and boxed in on three sides with heavy transparent plastic. Behind her, a sheet of white marley and two red cables dangle limply, as if caught mid collapse. The floor beneath her feet, made of the same white marley, is spotted with piles of black paper confetti.
Photo: Bas de Brouwer
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Decomposing Mediation: On FRANK

Writings from tD's Emerging Writer's Fellowship