Philadelphia Fringe Festival 2026

Five women wearing a mix of ballet attire and club wear crowd an empty bathtub in a white-tiled bathroom. Two of the women sit on the tub's edge. The other three sprawl out inside the tub. All five look up. The camera captures them from a high angle. Along the walls costumes including silk dresses and white tutus hang.
Photo: Ben Marcus
  • Reviews

Barre, Club, Another Club

Nadia Ureña

One must imagine Petipas at the function.

A young person with shoudler length red hair stands in a green long sleeve shirt hodling a blank white sign. onthe left a large mural of a female face looking up, and scales and lotus flower.
Photo: Amelia Candeub
  • Reviews

Notes from Within Blank Placard Dance, Replay

Jonathan Stein

Protest, a living legacy and a committed practice

Dancers stand close together, forming a clump. They face in all directions, their bodies back to back, front to back, and back to side. Each one grips a wooden post holding high attached white posters. They wear bright yellows, purples, reds, blues, pinks, teals, and oranges. Some are visibly sweaty. Dancers facing the camera look serious and a bit fatigued. Glimpses of blue sky, clouds, a street, and city buildings fill the cracks between their blank signs.
Photo: Amelia Candeub
  • Reviews

Is Halprin’s postmodernism as radical today as it was in 1967?

Xander Cobb

Blank Placard Dance, Replay in Philadelphia

Three women in faded blue and white jumpsuits stand supporting or leaning into each other. Marcie Mamura stands in the middle; she looks down and away, the only face visible in the group. Chloe Marie embraces Mamura from behind. Katherine Kiefer Stark supports Mamura from the front, also in an embrace. The three women create a quiet, intimate, peaceful tableau. Bright light illuminates their bodies against a dark, shadowed background.
Photo: Bridgette Ivkovic
  • Reviews

The Naked Stark’s Deep Dive Enchantment at the Water Works

Jonathan Stein

‘swimming through the stars or schools of fish’

Delwin Elk Bear Fiddler kneels with one arm outstretched to the left and the other bent across his body holding a wooden pipe. Fiddler wears bright attire with multicolored strips of ribbons and a yellow feathered headdress. He kneels on a brown animal hide near a drum and several piles of plastic hoops in a blackbox theater.
Photo: Joshua Crone
  • Reviews

The Chief Called Upon the Grass Dancers to Purify the Ground, and the Tradition Lived On

Caitlin Green

Dance and oral tradition of the Lakota people

A maroon graphic says “Philadelphia Butoh Collective” in white bold font. Below the words there’s a black emblem with an image of a person sitting on the ground with one foot and their arms raised in the air. Red lettering overlays the image and also reads “Philadelphia Butoh Collective. To the right, lining the border, there are duplicate images of two people in motion. One is bent over from the waist with arms hanging to the ground, and the other stands with bent knees, hinging slightly backward with one arm outstretched and the other folded over their torso. To the far left border, vertical lettering reads “two new pieces” in black, bold font.
Photo: Philadelphia Butoh Collective
  • Reviews

Butoh: Addressing The Discomfort

Caitlin Green

There’s drool, (and lots of it).

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.

A dancer with short hair reaches their right arm forward, left arm back with their head bowed down. They stand with their left leg slightly turned out and bent, their right leg extended behind them.
Photo by Jeff Warden
  • Reviews

Wake up with a gasp

Megan Mizanty

Foursome Performance plumbs subterranean depths.

In a black and white photograph, two men lean their foreheads into one another while blurry people walk around them.
Photo: Joan Dwiartanto
  • Reviews

Off Your Feet

Megan Mizanty

five two dance company sweeps and defies

In a black and white photo, four dances are mid-run. The image is slightly blurred, and they are in different moments of stepping forward and reaching.
Photo: Ella Martin
  • Reviews

The multiverse, and a pile of clothes

Megan Mizanty

Ella Sommer Martin leaves fate at our feet