by Mara Miller, Live Arts & Fringe Festival Blog I wish you could see Jenn Rose as she demonstrates what people envision when they think of tap dance. With jazz hands and a cartoony grin, she half-sings, “I’m tappin’! I’m tappin’!” Rose, who presents her choreography this September in The A.W.A.R.D. Show! 2009: Philadelphia at [...]

By Ellen Gerdes for The Dance Journal We began with legs bent low, pelvis free of tension, and hands held softly in front of our energy center (dantian).  As we performed a series of pliés in parallel, we drew breath up from the soles of our feet, through our spine, out our fingertips, and down [...]

Norristown DanceFest will premiere at the Montgomery County Cultural Center in Norristown, Pennsylvania on August 14 and 15, 2009 beginning at 8:00pm. Created in effort to promote the arts in one of Philadelphia’s culturally growing suburbs, Norristown DanceFest will highlight the works of six unique professional dance companies from across the tri-state area creating two full evenings packed with modern, [...]

By Kate Miller, Live Arts & Fringe Blog “Choreographing a dance, for me, is figuring out what my body wants to do,” says Christina Gesualdi, cofounder of Pink Hair Affair, a nine-member dance collective from Philadelphia whose show POOF! debuts at this year’s Philly Fringe. It’s a revealing comment about a creative process that is [...]

Posted By : Live Arts Festival & Philly Fringe In the Rift Valley community of Ibisil, Kenya, a water well is under construction at a secondary girls school with the help of Kristin Scott, a 31-year-old ballet dancer from Bristol, Pennsylvania. Through her organization Come Unity, which brings together dancers, largely from the American Repertory [...]

By Ellen Dunkel, For The Inquirer On its own, Le Baiser Inevitable, the new ballet Jodie Gates choreographed for BalletX, is visually compelling, powerful, beautiful. But there’s no getting around the fact that it was set to Ravel’s Bolero, an extremely well-known piece of music that is loaded with sensuality, emotion and expectations – in [...]

by Mara Miller for Live Arts & Fringe Festival Blog Zornitsa Stoyanova, Philadelphia-based choreographer and founder of Here[begin] dance company, was never really into contests. She had two professional athletes for parents and played her fair share of sports growing up, but “was never all that competitive.” In September, Zornitsa will challenge eleven other area [...]

Yesterday, the General Assembly entered its 20th day without a FY09-10 budget, and this time, HB 1416 came up for consideration in the Senate. HB 1416 did include funding for the arts, but Senator Jake Corman (R-34) introduced an amendment to the budget, which once again zeroed out cultural funding and made it look like [...]

The 13th annual Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe has arrived, now through September 19th! This year promises to be one of the largest offerings of dance performances, with a broad array of performing artists from Philadelphia and around the world. So to help you select from the multitude of offerings, we have provided [...]

The 13th annual Philly Fringe, which runs in conjunction with the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival from September 4 – 19, will host 185 artists during sixteen days of performances in over 80 venues throughout Philadelphia. The 2009 Festival is the largest Philly Fringe in Festival history, topping 2008’s record breaking number of artists. Showcasing the [...]