Philadelphia Fringe Festival

Six dancers in grey jumpsuits sprawl across the top of a concrete wall in a large warehouse-like space. They fall on top of each other, with arms extending out in different directions, fingers and hair blurred as if caught in motion.
Photo: Ben Bloodwell
  • Reviews

Filling Empty Pools

Zoe Farnsworth

The Naked Stark flows between performance and interactive experience at the Fairmount Water Works Interpretive Center.

Four dancers move among scattered votive candles in a darkened studio, the studio lights off, their forms illuminated only by the flickering flames.
Photo: Lauren Berlin
  • Reviews

This One is Dedicated to the Bunheads

Lauren Berlin

Where Echoes Remain by Marina Kec Explores the Psyche of a Ballerina

The full cast of Can You Feel It? basks in applause under blue stage lighting following their performance at the Asian Arts Initiative Black Box Theatre.
Photo: Nylah Jackson
  • Reviews

Still Sitting? This Is Your Cue.

Lauren Berlin

Nylah Jackson’s Can You Feel It? Invites Us to Stand Up and Feel Something….Anything…

Four women gather onstage, three seated and one hovering above, creating a palm-reading tableau together. They wear black-and-gold metallic sarees and ornamental jewelry that adorns the crown of their heads. The dancer whose palm is being read wears a smug smile on her face while her two friends and the palm-reader seem puzzled, hands to their chins in contemplating her fate.
Photo: Navya Sree Kupparaju
  • Reviews

Life-Cycles: Love After Tragedy

ankita

Rituals for the masses

A black-and-white photo of two dancers in a brick-walled room. One, masc-presenting, has long curly hair and peeks out at the ceiling, mouth slightly open in expressive thought, one hand bent to touch their forehead, shielding half of their face. The other hand rests against the center of their body. A second dancer stands to their left, mirroring this pose with face tilted all the way to the sky and taut arms.
Photo: Thomas Kay
  • Reviews

Dances from the Churn

ankita

Bodies across generations resist being silenced.

Two Black performers stand side-by-side, wearing pedestrian clothing – lacy, patterned white tops layered over shades of beige and brown. Their gaze extends out to their right, converging on an unknown entity in the distance. Surrounding them, a park with green grass and trees foregrounding urbanity.
Photo: Shoshana Isaacs
  • Reviews

Secrets shared, Innocence lost

ankita

How do you perform secrecy?

A black graphic with large blue lettering that spells NFRW/T across the center. The word overlays a yellow triangle with images of a bird, cat, and serpent with human figures layerd over them are placed at each corner of the triangle. The subtext reads “Neferu”, “Neferet”, “adj. Egyptian”, “good beautiful perfect”, “Ankole, a BIPOC, queer proud circus”, as well as subtext giving details of the production.
Image Courtesy of the Artist
  • Reviews

Good, Beautiful, Perfect, Black, Indigenous, Queer

Caitlin Green

A sacred message well-received

A mischievous joy permeates the image, as one performer with blunt black bangs seems to cheer with an open-mouthed grin, shoulders reaching up to her ears. To her left, another stands gazing at her, with a grin just as wide, but a tad more sinister, an open jazz hand covering her face. Behind the first is a taller person with a yellow bow, tucking something into the first performer’s black-and-white luxury jumpsuit.
Photo: Lance Reha
  • Reviews

From the Studio: “MAYDAY” with Grace Tong

ankita

“MAYDAY” resists assimilation through self-producing.

Two dancers sit on a red floor in front of a black backdrop with their hair braided into updos with cornrows. They are topless with their bare backs facing the camera, wearing black leggings. They mirror each other, leaning toward one another with one hand outstretched, resting on the other’s shoulder. The other arm arcs overhead, also in the direction of the other.
Photo: Wright Eye Visuals
  • Reviews

Seeking Sisterhood Amidst Unsafe Systems

Caitlin Green

The dynamic and expressive dance carries a constant groove amidst the rhythmic shifts.

Two bodies pressed almost into each other, fingertips grazing another’s hand. In front, a dancer in a modest white shirt and long skirt glances behind her through tousled hair. A second dancer dressed in black sackcloth hovers behind her, as if readying to whisper something in her ear.
Photo: Anna Siegel
  • Reviews

Circling with the Dybbuk

Madeline Shuron

Beloved Yiddish play is translated through dance. Madeline Shuron reviews Nell Adkins & Helen Sher’s Within the Fall.