Artists of Pennsylvania Ballet in William Forsythe’s Artifact Suite Photo: Alexander Iziliaev By Lewis Whittington for The Dance Journal Choreographer William Forsythe was in Philly weeks ago to set Artifact Suite on Pennsylvania Ballet and the inside story was that he couldn’t have been more engaged with the dancers and willing to tweak his revered [...]
Koresh Dance Company; Melissa Rector, Jessica Daley, Shannon Bramham Photo credit: Alexander Iziliaev By Lewis Whittington for The Dance Journal There may have been chunks of empty seats at various performances of Koresh‘s Come Together Festival, but this ambitious event was so well organized and executed that it has to be reported as a rousing [...]
by Lewis Whittington for The Dance Journal At the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts, dance and physical theater are providing intriguing time-traveling moments. The opening dance event, Savion Glover’s DANCE SPACE, left audience members angry because they couldn’t see his whole body in motion for much of the time, but no such concerns in [...]
by Lewis Whittington for The Dance Journal The theme for PIFA is time travel and Savion Glover did a little of that with “DANCE SPACE”, a single performance directed by Chaney Chuck Buster Brown and Slyde. The high-concept was just a backdrop to the virtuoso tap star, who without doubt, is on his own time-space [...]
by Lewis Whittington for The Dance Journal Everyone was ready for the ‘Showgirls’ theme after those provocative posters peppered the city and on Saturday night the annual Shut Up & Dance benefit for MANNA (Metropolitan Area Neighborhood Nutrition Alliance) was in motion onstage at the Forrest Theater with What a feeling (dancing for my life) [...]
by Lewis Whittington for The Dance Journal Kun-Yang Lin/Dancers are premiering ONE: Gifts from Afar by choreographer Kun-Yang Lin at the Mandell Theater this week on the same bill as Lin’s 2011 piece, The Mandala Project. Twice this month, Lin, his dancers and Ken Metzner, executive director of the company, opened their rehearsals for their [...]
by Lewis Whittington for The Dance Journal The corps de ballet at the Pennsylvania Ballet isn’t saving themselves for next year’s demanding 50th anniversary season, they have been performing with dazzling and muscled technique in the 49th. They are just finishing up a glitteringly run in George Balanchine’s ballet A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It almost [...]
by Lewis Whittington for The Dance Journal For the second year in a row, Pennsylvania Ballet principal dancer Ian Hussey is again directing Shut Up and Dance concert benefit for MANNA. This year 26 dancers from PB will be participating and Hussey has been working on the event between rehearsals and performances of A Midsummer [...]
by Lewis Whittington for The Dance Journal Photo credit: Julietta Cervantes Painted Bride Arts Center February 23 Avid fans as well as apparently the entire Philadelphia dance community filled the rafters at the Painted Bride for three performances of Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company‘s program “Body Against Body” this month. The directness of the [...]
Pictured: Jodi Melnick in the 2001 performance of Behold Bold Sam Dog Credit: Tom Brazil by Lewis Whittington for The Dance Journal At the Arts Parlor Studio on South Broad St. earlier this week, dancers Gabrielle Revlock, Meg Foley and Bronwen MacArthur rehearsed excerpts of Behold Bold Sam Dog, an “old work” as choreographer Susan Rethorst [...]
