Projects

Philadelphia Dance Projects supports contemporary dance through projects that encourage artists and audiences to more fully participate and engage in the experience and pursuit of dance as an evolving form. PDP achieves its mission by presenting stimulating performances, workshops, classes, a film series, and dialogs and forums for artists, aspiring artists, students and a broad-based audience. PDP constantly surveys the contemporary dance world, keeping a close eye on current trends in content and style, while actively engaging in and appreciating the depth of work being created today which plumbs dance precursors’ traditions.

PDP Presents

In 2009, Philadelphia Dance Projects launched Philadelphia Dance Projects Presents, a presenting series featuring dance performances, workshops and “Informances” by individual dance artists and companies. This new dance focused series is proving to be great success in presenting adventuresome contemporary dance in a broader local/global context.

Motion Pictures

Motion Pictures is a PDP presentation that explores how film and video serve as natural collaborative medium for dance, highlighting the power of image and motion in both. Over the years Motion Pictures has featured experimental and innovative shorts, documentaries, “moc”umentaries and animations. There have been documentaries about Pina Bausch, Maya Deren, Carmen Amaya, Geoffrey Holder and Carmen DeLavallade Mark Morris and the Paris Opera Ballet along with imaginative ground breaking work by Pooh Kaye, Hilary Harris and Lloyd Newson among many others.

Education Projects

For over 10 years PDP placed this ongoing educational project in high schools in Philadelphia providing students the opportunity to study contemporary dance techniques with some of Philadelphia’s best professional dancers and choreographers and to take field trips to see professional dance performances. For many young people it has been their first foray into dance, both through interaction with creative artists as well as attending a performance in a professional theater. Schools who have participated include Olney High School West, the Promise Academy at Martin Luther King, Jr, High School and the Philadelphia High School for Girls. Dance Artists who teach have included Clyde Evans, Jr., Alie Vidich, Tracy Vogt and LaMar Baylor among others.

Local Dance History Project

In 2010 Philadelphia Dance Projects initiated The Local Dance History Project which took an informative look at the development of contemporary dance in Philadelphia through the work of five dance and movement artists who were among the first to explore post modern, improvisation and performance genres in the city during the late 1970s and early 80s. In 1980, dancers Michael Biello and Dan Martin, Jano Cohen, PDP’s Terry Fox, and Ishmael Houston Jones were featured in Dance & Dancers, a sold-out presentation at the Harold Prince Theater at the Annenberg Center for Performing Arts. The five dancers reunited to reconstruct their work, which was performed by young Philadelphia dance artists at part of PDP Presents 2010. The Local Dance History Project is currently being planned to go online as a seed to start an online and interactive archive of Philadelphia dance artists and their history.

PHASE 2/Local Dance History Project  - an interactive website.

Philadelphia Dance Projects (PDP) seeks to develop a cultural/dance history project stemming from the work of independent dancers in Philadelphia beginning circa 1975-85. This initiative will build upon PDP’s successful Local Dance History Project of 2010.

We are working with Nicole Topich and Barbara Tait archive assistants, Stacey Mann of Night Kitchen Interactive and Margery Sly, Director Special Collections, Paley Library Temple University and artists to realize this special project. To date this project has been supported by the William Penn Foundation, the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage and the Dolfinger McMahon Foundation.

We want the site to be visually captivating, but also informative. Our mission is to affirm the presence of dance artists in the rich cultural history of Philadelphia’s recent past, present and future.

Our starting point is with the rise of individual dancer/choreographers/movement based performance artists in the mid-1970’s.

The LDHP survey is still open http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/D6NC6ZL

95% would like to see videos and artists’ statements, and 83% favor a timeline

This is what you said you’d like to see:

- Linking the artist to current work or artists who are working today…

- That could use a map-bridge, how people have moved on, talking about home when dance is your personal location, moving is not settling and dance is unsettling when it is good but how to live in that unsettled place for a lifetime…

- Showing similarities in styles. Showing how choreography today was influenced by that of this time. Ask choreographers, performers active today what of this period affected them the most. My mind is going blank, will think about this more.

- a monitored blog. Update notices. Continued notices of current dance events placed in context of past events.

- I think it would be great to have a space (maybe moderated) where people who might share that history but who aren’t officially a part of the project can write in their stories to contribute to the tapestry of the website. Maybe where they could also contribute photos.

- feature one work at a time with as much information about that work and open it up to an online dialogue.

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