| Philadelphia Dance Projects

Dance Talk: Q&A with Chris Yon

Leading up to Philadelphia Dance Projects Presents 2010, we’ll be featuring a fresh interview with a series choreographer or dancer, offering an inside peek into the creative development of the artist’s work. This week, we talk with Chris Yon, a Next Up artist.

As part of PDP Presents 2010, you will present the imaginatively titled new work The Very Unlikeliness (I’m Going to KILL You!). Is there a story behind this performance title? Chris Yon: There is a “flashback” sequence in this piece - a sequence that if this were a concept album, it would be the title song - an attempt at a Fred & Ginger type number. And this was the most romantic title I could think of…

Taryn Griggs and Chris Yon in The Very Unlikeliness (I’m Going to KILL You!)

Published on January 29, 2010 - 1:53pm

Dance Talk: Q&A with curator Terry Fox

Leading up to Philadelphia Dance Projects Presents 2010, we’ll be featuring a fresh interview with a series choreographer or dancer, offering an inside peek into the creative development of the artist’s work. This week, we talk with Terry Fox, curator of the series and Executive Director of Philadelphia Dance Projects.

How did you come upon the connecting thread of intergenerational works for Philadelphia Dance Projects Presents 2010? Terry Fox: As often happens in the curating world there’s a serendipitous zeitgeist going on. I just thought looking at my generation of Philly dancers and performance artists might be fun and of interest to a younger generation of artists who weren’t around (or even born) then. At the same time Lisa Kraus said she was collaborating with some of her former Trisha Brown Co. colleagues and creating new work with a young group of artists here. SCUBA also showcases rising artists from Philadelphia and other peer cities, so viola! The theme of re⋅gen⋅er⋅a⋅tion came to be.
Terry Fox and Dan Martin; image Jacques-Jean Tiziou

Published on December 9, 2009 - 1:00am

PDP Presents

Philadelphia Dance Projects Presents 2010 is just a few months away!

Philadelphia Dance Projects Presents 2010 is just a few months away. The second annual series will take center stage in Philadelphia beginning February 26. We are thrilled to present a new program showcasing contemporary dance artists from Philadelphia alongside visiting artists from around the country. Our inaugural series in 2009 was a great success, with sellout shows for all performances, as audiences came out in huge numbers to see contemporary dance, alive and well in Philadelphia. Returning PDP friends and supporters, we hope you will join us once again. Newcomers, welcome!

Megan Mazarick, Avatard; image by Rod Nunez

Published on December 8, 2009 - 1:12pm

Write on Dance

TWO FACES, Review of Brigitta Herman's Physiognomy Of The Spirit by Steve Antinoff

Review of Brigitta Herman’s Physiognomy Of The Spirit
by Steve Antinoff

Performed by: AUSDRUCKSTANZ // Imprints in Motion
Choreographer: Brigitta Herrman
Venue: Meeting House Theater, Community Education Center, Philadelphia
Date: May 16-18, 2008
Cast: First dream figure: Brigitta Hermann; Second Dream Figure: Kristin Narcowich; Three Essence Holders: Rebecca Patek, Zornitsa Stoyanova, Emily Sweeney

In Brigitta Herman’s Physiognomy Of The Spirit death has two faces. One is called death. The other is called life.

The first face is Ms. Herrmann’s. My introduction to this face was decades ago, brought by a friend to a rehearsal of Group Motion. As I entered the studio a woman was moving with astonishing speed across the dance floor, every few steps convulsing maniacally. It was as if the protagonist in Edvard Munch’sThe Screamwas driven to dance. This woman was Brigitta Herrman. I was twenty and knew nothing about modern dance. She was the first “art-dancer,” and the first true artist, I had ever seen.

Published on May 16, 2008 - 3:33pm

Write on Dance

WRITE ON DANCE : JOURNAL V4

This latest ‘07 entry for Write on Dance is about changes that two dancers have recently faced. One is told in the third person, the other in first person. Dancers changing cities; one with success, the other with disappointment. But both overcoming physical obstacles with emboldened spirit. The spirit that ultimately is their reservoir of strength may very well be the same that dance embodies in the first place.

HUNTING FOR THE RIGHT MOVES
Lewis Whittington

Last spring, Pennsylvania Ballet soloist Phil Colucci danced in Val Caniparoli’s ‘Lambarena’ portraying one of the hunter-warriors. Few in the audience were aware that this was his symbolic company bow out- He had been pursuing fresh territory as a dancer for three years.

Published on December 1, 2007 - 1:00am

Write on Dance

Write on Dance: Journal V3

The Perils of Performing Works-In-Progress
Lewis Whittington

You better Cut!

Playwright Terrence McNally was in Philly this summer ‘freezing’ his new play ‘Some Men’ by The Philadelphia Theater Company before it premiere’s this fall in New York. He had already dumped two whole scenes before the month long run here and he was mostly making line cuts noting audience responses (such as laughs) for pacing. McNally told me that the audience was ‘the ‘last creative collaborator’ in the process of finishing a work.

It used to be the out of town circuit that tested the viability of a performance, but those days are long gone. In these hard economic times in theater and dance artists have to be inventive about ways to create buzz and otherwise see what works on the public stage.

Published on November 1, 2007 - 12:00am

Write on Dance

WRITE ON DANCE : JOURNAL V2

DANCE IN 2-D
edited by Lisa Kraus

For this edition of Write On Dance we wanted to tie in with PDP’s Motion Pictures series, the annual presentation of award-winning dance films and work by area videographers, and so invited the participation of makers and presenters of dance in 2D. Deirdre Towers, artistic director of the Dance Films Association, which partners with PDP in presenting Motion Pictures, is represented here in excerpts from a conversation with Lisa Kraus. Kim Arrow, on the Dance Faculty at Swarthmore College, weaves video with performance in his Quasimodo in the Outback. He offers a provocative essay examining the degrees of separation from live performance that video allows. And Tobin Rothlein, video artist, is co-artistic director of Miro Dance Theatre, along with Amanda Miller. Their mission involves creating “multi-media works which continually exhibit the integration of dance with video.” Tobin kept a web-log during a recent intensive period of work in Europe and graciously consented to let us reprint one “day in the life.”

Published on October 1, 2007 - 12:00am

Write on Dance

Dancing Elsewhere… Philly Dance Artists Abroad - Volume 1

Philly to Paris Opera Ballet and Back

By Lisa Kraus

A recent Inquirer article equated Philadelphia with Paris and the Ben Franklin Parkway with the Champs Elysées. A stretch, I thought. But then, standing at Logan Circle and looking up the stately Parkway toward the Art Museum is not so unlike standing at the foot of the Boulevard de l’Opéra and looking up toward Palais Garnier, architect Charles Garnier’s Opera building. You know immediately you’re staring at a venerable cultural institution, rich in tradition and artistic gems.

Published on September 10, 2007 - 12:00am

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December 2009

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Dance Talk: Q&A with Chris Yon

Dance Talk: Q&A with curator Terry Fox

Philadelphia Dance Projects Presents 2010 is just a few months away!

TWO FACES, Review of Brigitta Herman's Physiognomy Of The Spirit by Steve Antinoff

WRITE ON DANCE : JOURNAL V4

Write on Dance: Journal V3

WRITE ON DANCE : JOURNAL V2

Dancing Elsewhere… Philly Dance Artists Abroad - Volume 1

Philly to Paris Opera Ballet and Back

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Philly to Paris Opera Ballet and Back