Concert conveys PHILADANCO!’s creative lineage

PHILADANCO! presented one revival and three new works in a concert billed as “Intangible Influences” over the past weekend (December 8-10) at the Perelman Theater. The program addressed PHILADANCO!’s past, present, and future—focusing on abstract works that paid tribute to the company’s choreographic lineage and celebrated the physicality of its dancers. Now under the leadership of Artistic Director Kim Bears-Bailey, the 53-year-old troupe continues to share its robust dance heritage and connect with audiences.

The concert opened with the company premiere of From Dystopia to Our Declaration, choreographed by Nijawwon Matthews. Based primarily in New York, Matthews is a PHILADANCO! alumnus and a prolific choreographer, performer, and educator. From Dystopia… serves as a vigorous tour de force for PHILADANCO!’s full company of sixteen dancers. A duet for Brena Thomas and Mikal Gilbert and a solo for Raven Joseph are woven into the group sections of the piece.

In the opening moments, the dancers are seated on stage, breathing together—but this proves to be the calm before the storm. Driven by Dave August’s surging music, the dancers are soon rolling across the stage, and from here on out they are perpetually up and down from the floor. They devour space with full-bodied, angular swoops. Like paint flung across a canvas, they travel in fast, hunched-over steps across the stage. The dancers’ tan jumpsuits, designed by Mondo Morales, feature colorful insets in the sleeves that catch the eye when the performers turn in circles.

Next on the program came Mating Season, a world premiere choreographed by Christopher Rudd. He is the director of his own company, RudduR Dance, and also the recipient of a 2019 Guggenheim Choreography Fellowship. Three couples (Brena Thomas and Victor Lewis, Brandi Pinnix and Christian Gonzalez, and Mikaela Fenton and Mikal Gilbert) dazzle in the piece, which depicts the mating instinct as an elemental force of nature rather than a romantic human endeavor. Anna-Alisa Belous’ magnificent costumes emphasize the dancers’ bodies—ensheathed in flesh-colored unitards with designs evoking blood vessels and muscles painted on them—as biological entities.

Loscil and Tariq Al-Sabir’s otherworldly, bubbling music and Alan Edwards’ smoky lighting emanating from the wings contribute to the atmosphere of a primordial swamp. Mating Season’s kinetic partnering capitalizes on the dancers’ flexibility and strength. Several times women wrap a foot behind their male partner’s neck and lean backwards into a layout position —balancing their full weight on a single point of contact. Rudd’s background in the circus arts influences the piece’s spectacular acrobatics: the men frequently twirl the women overhead like starfish; a few times the women point at the floor as if to command: “Put me down right there.”

The second half of the concert opened with Reflections and Ode to Sagan, a seamless compilation by Bears-Bailey of choreography by Gene Hill Sagan. The piece is a tribute to Sagan’s influence on the company during his many years as resident choreographer (1976-1991). The piece includes excerpts from Sagan’s Elegy, Yeriel, and Conversations for Seven Souls and highlights his abstract, architectural inventiveness. The dancers’ movements are beautifully layered on top of one another, with their limbs extending every which way in opposition to each other. In the final tableau, the dancers form a shape that spills downstage like the spine of a gigantic animal.

The final work on the program, Retro, is a world premiere by Christopher Huggins (also a recent Guggenheim Choreography Fellow). Retro again features PHILADANCO!’s full company of dancers, outfitted in pink and purple dresses or skirts for the women and leotards for the men (designed by Natasha Guruleva). The piece is set to a mixed score by Tony Anderson, Cremation Lily, and Private Press. Huggins is a former soloist with the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater and a self-described “Ailey disciple.” Indeed, Retro’s first section recalls Ailey’s iconic Revelations, yet it’s splintered apart—as if dancers are each in their own, private rehearsal space.

The second section features the eloquent William Burden in a sublime solo; he moves across the stage like rain skittering off a roof onto the pavement. He’s joined by Christian Gonzalez and Mikal Gilbert, who toss him back and forth and help him get in step with them; then they leave him behind, struggling on the floor; eventually, he stands on his own. In the third section, the full company returns, strutting with confidence and commanding the stage with glorious jumps, turns, and acrobatic maneuvers. Couples follow one after another, outdoing each other with their dancing feats. The stage—filled to the brim with swirling pink and purple—can barely contain the company’s sixteen dancers. They are fully charged by the end, their bodies continuing to reverberate in the aftermath of their tremendous exertion.