A year-end round-up before Fringe

Plus a pet peeve and institutional fails

I know it’s not actually the end of the year, but we’re about to be inundated with Philly Fringe shows (hooray!) and before there’s a whole new slate of works to think about, I wanted spend a little time with what I’ve seen this year so far. The next couple of weeks will have Fringe recommendations.

2024 is the first time I’ve been able to successfully keep a record of everything I’ve been seeing, just jotting down each show in a list in my trusty paper calendar. I’ve seen about 75 performances so far this year, which seems like… a lot? Arguably too many? Slash what am I doing with my life besides seeing shows? But nonetheless, I pulled out a dozen highlights below.

Masters at the top of their game

I feel so lucky to have shared some space with Senegalese icon of African dance Germaine Acogny and Irish dancer Jean Butler, who brought What We Hold to the Irish Arts Center in New York. Acogny’s duet with Pina Bausch dancer Malou Airaudo, common ground[s], seen at Charleston’s Gaillard Center, had me swimming in delight, as did the exuberant finale of What We Hold, all generations, audience and performers, in a happy blur.

Youngsters

I was weeping in my seat at the Masterman High School production of Beauty and the Beast and by the end I was a firm believer in nepo babies. I had gone with a friend to see her daughter (both of whose parents are professional dancers), and I feel quite sure I will never witness a finer Lumiere. The fork costumes worn by a few members of the gigantic cast and the very strong intermission snack game were extra layers of delight. Meg Foley’s Communion on a hot night on the back patio of the Headlong studios also had me thinking about parents and community, as we passed around rocks and the voice of Meg’s oldest child echoed in the air.

Classics with new life

I was just astonished at a program from Philadelphia Ballet that combined Twyla Tharp’s In the Upper Room, an Ailey work I hadn’t seen before, The River, and Forsythe’s In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated. An embarrassment of riches and the dancers shone in all of them. Similarly, if I were trying to convince someone to fall in love with dance, I can’t imagine a more persuasive night than the one Paul Taylor Dance Company did at the 92nd St. Y. Narrated with extreme charm by Alan Cumming, the company crafted a narrative between Seven New Dances (1957) (infamously reviewed by Louis Horst with a blank spot due to the supposed lack of dance) and company trademark Esplanade (1975), tracing the strands that could be seen in both. 

Jolt of euphoria

Doesn’t sound right to feel euphoric after a piece called Grief Hotel, by Liza Birkenmeier and directed by Tara Ahmadinejad, produced by Clubbed Thumb, but wow, seeing grief and sadness and loneliness articulately so crisply, but also with buoyancy, was so deeply satisfying. And Miguel Gutierrez’ "Power of the Bounce" workshop (a launch for the River to River festival), in which we all learned the dance he made for Le Tigre’s Deceptacon, was such an antidote to summertime sadness and a balm for summertime rage that we did energetically shift something in New York's financial district that late afternoon. We did, I felt it. 

Social dance watering holes

There were back to back delights at Christ Church Neighborhood House in Philly in June with Lily Kind's I've got a tape I wanna play, presented by Philadelphia Dance Projects, and The Re-emancipation of Social Dance, a project from dance artist Raja Feather Kelly and poet Yolanda Wisher, presented by Intercultural Journeys (project podcast still available). Both nights had a permeable wall between audience and performers, with a sense that it could shift at any moment and we'd all be dancing, a blessed sense of playfulness, acknowledgement of crediting and lineages, and blissfully strong A/C.

Coming back for more

I have rarely had a show grab me by the scruff of my neck and demand my complete attention the way that Penelope did at Joe’s Pub. With the title role transcendently portrayed by Grace McLean, this original musical by Alex Bechtel, directed by Eva Steinmetz, made me feel that I knew myself better afterwards. (It also had me believing that Grace McLean and I are close personal friends through my viewership, but I think the former is actually real.) I can’t wait to get it in my ears again when it comes to Theatre Horizon next year. Likewise, I’ll be a repeat visitor to Netta Yerushalmy’s Movement after seeing it at the American Dance Festival. Coming to NYU Skirball in November (mere days before the election, yikes), this sly and stunning piece celebrates the wisdom, stories, and various trainings held in each cast member’s body. A deeply pleasurable and celebratory brain-tickler.

And a few from the inside

I also got to experience a lot of events through my various jobs. I’m not an official staff person at Inis Nua Theatre but I hang out there a bunch and their production of Sonya Kelly’s Once Upon a Bridge, directed by Brett Robinson, has stayed with me with a quiet force. Works & Process did a ton of events but a personal standout was a lecture and demonstration with choreographer Durante Verzola, currently teaching at Miami City Ballet. It’s so exciting to see new talent on the rise and I am fully subscribed for anything Durante does in the future. And when I think about summer, I will think about seeing Kayla Hamilton and Kate Speer’s work PlaceHolder on Governor’s Island as part of River to River festival; a model for how meditation, reflection, and connecting with other audience members can live inside a work.

A pet peeve

I do not like surveys. I don’t like how they are everywhere in my inbox, everybody trying to collect my thoughts for free and then not do anything with them. At least enter me in a drawing for a gift certificate! But I do like Rue Landau, Philly’s first out LGBTQ+ city councilperson. And I do like some of the questions in her newly released artist survey, like “If there was one thing the city of Philadelphia could do to support you as an artist, what would it be?” (for me: Bring back some brilliant reincarnation of Dance/UP, our dance service organization killed by funding priority shifts.) So my like for Rue will probably outweigh my dislike of surveys. If you are an artist in Philly and less of a curmudgeon to start with, you should probably fill it out too. I do hope she shares the results with all of us.

I clicked so fast

On this UArts closure article in Philadelphia Magazine ("The Inside Story of the University of the Arts’s Stunning Collapse" by David Murrell), but still felt unsatisfied. This quote really packs a punch:

The day of the announcement, State Rep. Ben Waxman, whose district includes UArts, received a call from [UArts president Kerry Walk] informing him of the news. “I think she was surprised, almost, at how angry I was and how upset I was,” says Waxman, who tried and failed to get additional information from her. “And then at the end of the call she was like, ‘Well, I guess we’re gonna have a lot of questions to answer, huh?’”

Hopefully yes! Answer some questions, Kerry Walk!

And more questions for Dallas Black Dance Theater (a $4M+ organization), which just fired all of their dancers in apparent retaliation for their union organizing, and put out a statement that included the following sketchiness.

“Unfortunately, we recently discovered that our dancers engaged in conduct that fails to align with DBDT’s standard of performing at the highest level of artistic excellence and violates several of DBDT’s policies.”

Were they not performing well? What policies were violated? You’re going to fire the …entire company? Apparently yes, and then advertise for auditions at the same time. AGMA (American Guild of Musical Artists) has put together a letter to the leadership urging them to cancel the auditions and re-hire their dancers. Absolutely.