Experimental & Performance Art

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
  • Reviews

Friday night rat catchers suck the titties dry

Xander Cobb

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

Chloe Marie Newton, a black female dancer wearing a gauzy dark blue tank and Helen Hale, a white female dancer with a long brown ponytail wearing shimmery silver, sit on a light grey marley floor, reclined on one hip with knees gently stacked and one arm intertwined with the other, reaching upwards. They have their backs to us and around and beyond them, we can see pale, cool-toned, sheer fabric. Through and beyond the fabric, we see a row of shadowy-figured audience members, seated and wearing headphones that emit a blue glow.
Photo: Johanna Austin
  • Reviews

Indelible Release: a Moonscape

E. Wallis Cain Carbonell

“Inside a womb of memories where the water body floats…”

A group of twelve people pose in front of a white wall. on the floor level, four group members either sit, lie, kneel or lunge on the ground. standing members lean on one another on either side of the crew, and people in the center sit or lay on a bench together.
Photo Credit: Jeffrey Evans
  • Interviews

Cannonball Bets on Philadelphia’s Indie Artists

Caitlin Green

“Cannonball is no one person’s vision, but the collective fever dream of us all.”

A photo from Nami Yamamoto’s work of an Asian femme with blunt bangs and a shoulder-length haircut, standing open-mouthed. This image is translucently superimposed onto another image of two dancers wearing colorful tshirts and sweats, engaging in physical scores.
Photo of Nami Yamamoto by Elyse Mertz
  • Reviews

40-years-old and still kicking

ankita

Opening night at the Performance Mix Festival

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
  • thINKpieces

Serious Play

Brendan McCall

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

Sage Ni'Ja Whitson, a queer transgender Black person with long black-brown locs faces the camera with a soft, powerful smile. They wear a round-brimmed brown hat, a triple-ringed silver septum piercing, and a black jacket. One hand with vein-like tattoos is held in a loose fist near their sternum, while the other is wrapped loosely around their stomach. They stand in front of a leafy green backdrop.
Photo: Ryan Landell
  • Book Reviews

In Visible Darkness: A Non-binary Book

ankita

Sage Ni’Ja Whitson builds Black trans portals into darkness.

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
  • thINKpieces

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
  • Interviews

By the Way, You Can Laugh

Rachel DeForrest Repinz

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

Three performers stand in a triangle in Studio 34. The camera blurs the background and focuses on their upper torsos and faces. The two dancers in backwear jeans and t-shirts; one laughs and the other holds a serious expression, bracing for impact. Together, they support the front dancer’s hips and shoulders. This third performer looks expectantly forward for the shove of another performer not in the photo.
Photo: Rachel Warriner
  • Interviews

Resistance and Art-Making: ‘Dancing Collective Power’

Zoe Farnsworth

Integrating improvisational dance skills into direct action protest

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
  • thINKpieces

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

Mang Su

Being possessed is not a state but a devotion.