Archive for April 21st, 2010

GERMAINE ACOGNY

Author: admin

Apr 21

Posted on Thu, Feb. 11, 2010

Exploring African roots and branches

By Merilyn Jackson

For The Inquirer

‘It’s a dream that has become a reality,” Senegalese choreographer Germaine Acogny said of the creation of Les écailles de la mémoire (“The Scales of Memory”). The work took the United States by storm during a 2008 tour that culminated at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, where Acogny’s all-male, Senegal-based Compagnie Jant-Bi and Brooklyn’s Urban Bush Women danced its visceral Afro-European choreography.

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Philadelphia Dance Projects

Author: admin

Apr 21

JACQUES-JEAN TIZIOU / www.jjtiziou.net
Artists in the Local Dance History Project: (top row, from left) Jano Cohen, William Robinson, Gregory Holt, Ishmael Houston-Jones, and Terry Fox; (bottom, from left) Heather Murphy, John Luna, Alie Vidich, Dan Martin, and Michael Biello. Reconstructed works are being performed by today’s dancers in the project’s two weekend programs.
Posted on Tue, Mar. 2, 2010

The old, the new, moving together

By Merilyn Jackson

For The Inquirer

This year’s installment of Philadelphia Dance Projects Presents opened Friday night with part one of the Local Dance History Project/Next Up series, tracking the city’s dance past into the future – what was, who was, what will be, and who will be dancing it.

In a preshow video at the Performance Garage, Philadelphia Dance Projects executive director Terry Fox said, “It’s important that dancers be remembered as part of the landscape of this city,” and what followed painted small pictures of that landscape.

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International Association of Blacks in Dance

Author: admin

Apr 21

Everybody dance!

By Merilyn Jackson

For The Inquirer

Although deep into work with the Philadelphia Dance Company and her own dance school, Joan Myers Brown saw a problem that she could not ignore.

Back then, in 1988, Brown also served on the board of Dance/USA (a national service organization based in Washington, D.C.). She noticed that such dance organizations were not interested in audiences of color, and they really did not want modern dance, preferring to focus on major ballet companies.

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Philadelphia Dance Projects Presents

Author: admin

Apr 21

Posted on Mon, Mar. 8, 2010

Dances from the past and the present

By Merilyn Jackson

For The Inquirer

Philadelphia Dance Projects Presents’ second weekend at the Performance Garage provided some unexpected links between dance in the past and the present. The director of the PDP, Terry Fox, once was a key independent choreographer on Philadelphia’s modern dance scene. She showed two of her video “fillers” made with David Rosenberg for WHYY in 1980. In the first, “Pounding the Pavement,” Fox demonstrates a simple set of movements, turning her head right to left, rocking from the ball of the foot to the heel. She is standing at the corner of Kensington and Allegheny Avenues, and it doesn’t seem much like dance until you see nearby pedestrians doing it. Very catchy. Very cheeky. READ FULL STORY

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Well again, a dancer embraced life and art

Author: admin

Apr 21

SHARON GEKOSKI-KIMMEL / Staff Photographer

Christine Taylor , left, rehearses “Significant Soil.” Jeanne Ruddy, at left in right photo, who premiered the dance 10 years ago, demonstrates the use of the coil for Taylor and Janet Pilla (right), who will perform it for the anniversary run at the Wilma Theater.

As she endured treatment for breast cancer 13 years ago, dancer/choreographer Jeanne Ruddy read T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land. But as she recovered, it was his Four Quartets that gave her solace, particularly the end of the third section, “The Dry Salvages”: We, content at the last/ If our temporal reversion nourish/ (Not too far from the yew-tree)/ The life of significant soil.

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Kun-Yang Lin/Dancers do the detail work at the Bride

Author: admin

Apr 21

Posted on Sat, Mar. 20, 2010

Kun-Yang Lin/Dancers do the detail work at the Bride

By Merilyn Jackson

For The Inquirer

Kun-Yang Lin/Dancers opened their second engagement at the Painted Bride Thursday night, once again to a sellout crowd. Not surprising as this small company, in just a few years since its move from New York, is at the pinnacle of Philadelphia’s outstanding dance community.

The program, called Autumn Skin: Journey of East/West, introduced two very different-looking works married by the choreography and spirit emblematic of artistic director Kun-Yang Lin.

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Blending East and West styles of dance

Author: admin

Apr 21

Amanda Miller (left) and Viji Rao in “How Am I Not Myself,” a new work by Miller’s Miro Dance Theatre that had its U.S. premiere over the weekend at the Painted Bride.
Posted on Mon, Feb. 1, 2010

Blending East and West styles of dance

By Merilyn Jackson

For The Inquirer

Globally, there have to be as many forms of dance as there are varieties of flowers. In India, for example, two classics are Kathak and Bharatanatyam; in the West, ballet and modern. Viji Rao, who dances classical Bharatanatyam, and Amanda Miller, a former ballerina who incorporates modern dance into the choreography of her Miro Dance Theater, recently collaborated on a performance piece. After touring India last month, How Am I Not Myself had its American premiere over the weekend at the Painted Bride.

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River North Dance Chicago 2010 Review

Author: admin

Apr 21

Posted on Sat, Jan. 16, 2010

Chicago dancers, Philly ties

By Merilyn Jackson

For The Inquirer

There are reasons the 20-year-old River North Chicago Dance Company has a large Philadelphia following and draws appreciative audiences whenever it appears here, as it did Thursday at the Annenberg Center. Several members have local ties: Artistic director Frank Chaves trained and danced here in the ’80s in the jazz-dance company Waves; Monique Haley, who performs this weekend in several pieces, including a work of her own, is a Philly native and University of the Arts grad; and well-known UArts teacher Jae Hoon Lim, a principal dancer with Koresh Dance Company, formerly danced with River North.

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Philadanco marks 40 years with a standout program

Author: admin

Apr 21

Posted on Sat, Apr. 17, 2010

By Merilyn Jackson

For The Inquirer

We often speak of Philadelphia treasures, and Joan Myers Brown has been one of the city’s most valuable assets for the last 40 years. Forty years!

As founder and artistic director of Philadanco – the Philadelphia Dance Company – her reach here and around the world has won her fond acclaim, including this year’s Philadelphia Award. Thursday’s 40th-anniversary opening performance at the Kimmel Center’s Perelman Theater portended nothing but more smooth sailing for this helmswoman and her brilliant company.

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