thINKpieces

The Adrenaline Cliff

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

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

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

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

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

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

Decomposing Mediation: On FRANK

Writings from tD's Emerging Writer's Fellowship

Georgina Pazcoguin, her short black bob framing her face, wears a white bodysuit decorated with blue and red flowers and holds a classical Chinese fan. Her eyes are defined with lined makeup as she extends into an elongated ballet pose.
Photo: Pentalina Productions LLC

About Face: Yellowface and the Cost of Looking Away

Lauren Berlin

To love ballet is to let it evolve

In a dark-lit space, a group of barefoot dancers huddle together. Someone lays on top of their shoulders, their face upside down to the audience.
Photo: Michael Tubbs

Ephemeral Patterns: Translating “The Yellow Wallpaper” into Movement

Writings from tD's Emerging Writer's Fellowship

Anh Vo performing at The Rail Park, an outdoor space. Three dancers stand with their backs toward the observer, looking toward a blue and white modern-style building. They stand on a concrete edge, with the chalked words "FORM IS A FEELING" sketched across the platform.
Photo: Albert Yee, Courtesy of Asian Arts Initiative

The Assurance of the Ecstatic: On Anh Vo’s Three Performances

Mang Su

Being possessed is not a state but a devotion.