Let's have a parade
This week's dispatch will be a short one as I am home sick in bed instead of gallivanting about town seeing shows. 😢 Let me live vicariously through you and tell me what you're seeing and what you think about it!
New FringeArts leadership
If you are in Philly and reading this newsletter, you likely already know this news, but I have the joy of sharing that Nell Bang-Jensen is incoming CEO and Producing Director at FringeArts. Nell is such a brilliant and thoughtful leader; the hiring committee could not have made a better choice. If the Eagles won the Super Bowl, the city would throw a parade, and that feels like the appropriate response to this development as well. Fantastic news for the city, for the arts scene, and for Fringe. Ticker tape in the streets!
National Dance Project and National Theater Project come to a close
On a more ominous note, the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) announced that two crucial national programs devoted to helping performance work tour, National Theater Project (NTP) and the National Dance Project (NDP), would be ending, or at least morphing into something very different. (You can read the statement from NEFA here.) Both programs were wildly competitive (and likely to be even more so heading into their final cycle), but also extremely helpful for artists and presenters invested in moving work around.
The shift comes due to a shift in priorities from The Mellon Foundation. The foundation deserves kudos for funding these important programs for decades, but wow, what a loss if that's the end and what's left is just a void. And the NEFA staff have been some of the most wonderful funders I've ever worked with: dedicated, flexible, committed to artists and presenters, and always understanding of circumstances on the ground. I hope that they continue to have a broad platform for these ways of working. Curious to see what develops in this space...
Dance history spotlight
If you're in New York, The Kitchen has a video exhibit up that sounds fascinating and features a 1980 work from Susan Rethorst, as well as Andy de Groat and Elizabeth Streb. "In December of 1980, Susan Rethorst brought The Life of the Wasp, a dance piece for sixteen women, to The Kitchen. Playing on Doris Humphrey’s dance piece titled The Life of the Bee (1929) and on the socioeconomic label “W.A.S.P.", Rethorst created a commentary on commerce and community." The featured works were part of Dancing in the Kitchen, "a set of performances that hosted one choreographer a month who performed a new work across three or four evenings at The Kitchen." Hope I get to check this out before it comes down.
Sisterly Affection
For today's moment of Philadelphia appreciation, I bring you this window lizard. I did not witness him with my own eyes, only on the internet, but to do so is definitely now on my list of life goals.
More about me and where I'm coming from can be found on the 'about' page. If you are still sorting out your Philadelphia Fringe plans, previous posts have offered some Fringe guides, both for visitors from out of town and for Philadelphians. Forward along to the performance lover(s) in your life.