dance theater

On a dark smokey stage littered with fruit loops and rocks, two dancers whip their hair forward from a wide second position plie (legs wide, turned out, and bent), their hands smacking their thighs. The dancers are dressed like it’s the 70s and they’re going to the club: one in an orange halter jumpsuit with sparkly fringe, the other wearing tall silver heeled boots, purple booty shorts, and a fluorescent green shirt with flared sleeves.
Photo: Maria Baranova

Friday Night Rat Catchers Suck The Titties Dry

Xander Cobb

Lisa & Lena’s dance theater extravaganza is disgusting and impeccable.

three performers wearing plain white or black tanks/tees are mid gesture as if having a family argument. The performer in the front hunches their shoulders, crosses their arms, and has mouth open, perhaps in the middle of a sentence. Behind them, another performer looks to be yelling and pointing at the third performer, a hand on their shoulder, who has eyes closed, a soft smile, and holds their fingertips to the center of their chest.
Photo by Zeze Schorsch

Do something else!

Xander Cobb

room/in/nation tests our agency amidst family dysfunction/nation dysfunction.

When The Inner Critic Meets A Little Delusion

Caitlin Green

Kirner exposes the quintessential stage dancers’ inner monologue.

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

There is Something Happening in the Basement of Judson Church

Rachel DeForrest Repinz

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

A spacious dance studio with a gray floor, mirrored walls, and colorful geometric murals is shown during a rehearsal for First Floor Spectrum. In the foreground, two people interact through expressive movement: one stands with an arm extended overhead while the other kneels and reaches upward toward the raised hand. Additional people are visible in the background practicing choreography, while another person stands near the right side of the room, directing. The studio contains chairs, exercise equipment, and a cluster of colorful balloons near the back wall. Natural light enters from windows along the left side of the space.
Photo: Bridgette Ivkovich

Transcendental Resistance: A Write Back Atcha

Emily “Lady Em” Culbreath

A collective reflection on Vince Johnson’s Original Scrap & First Floor Spectrum.

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.

nora chipaumire, a Black African woman takes the stage in 100% POP with her collaborator, Shamar Watt, a Black Jamaican man in a black Adidas tracksuit and red-green-yellow, Zimbabwe-flag-colored Nike shoes. As he runs through the frame upstage, backgrounded by a grungy, urban wall, chipaumire captures the camera’s focus as she jumps into the air, one knee tucked up to her chest, the other a foot off the ground. Wearing a ripped white shirt, black track pants, and all-white high tops, chipaumire gazes down at the ground while she leaps up, as if stomping her way back to Earth.
Photo: Ian Douglas

The West Did Not Make Me

ankita

An Interview with nora chipaumire

David Adrian Freeland Jr., wearing a blue sleeveless top and pants, and Morgan Lugo, wearing a red sleeveless top and pants, kneel facing each other on the red-lit stage. With closed eyes and tilted heads, they touch palms, one arm straight and the other bent by their cheeks.
Photo: Stephanie Berger

A (Mostly) Moving Romeo & Juliet for Our Times

Caedra Scott-Flaherty

Benjamin Millepied’s Romeo & Juliet Suite uses dance, theater, and film to retell a timeless tale.

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

A group of dancers move together in a clump holding toilet plungers, some of which are donning messy black wigs or flightlights-as-eyes.
Photo: Jenna Maslechko

By the Way, You Can Laugh

Rachel DeForrest Repinz

Brian Golden on disability, play, and humor as access.