"I close the computer shut and fold myself in half in just the same way, lowering into a sob."
- from the article Body to Body: Bo Burnham’s Inside, published on thINKingDANCE
"Dance studios are being forced to close in Philadelphia. As the economic toll of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to crash like a wave over the city’s artistic network, smaller organizations are being swept out to sea. In the dance field in the United States, where resources are scarce and the work is undervalued at the ‘best’ of times, I can’t say I’m surprised by this outcome. But it doesn’t make it any less heartbreaking to read another announcement from a dance studio that has sunk beneath the water."
- from the article The State of the Studio, published on thINKingDANCE
"I recently had the pleasure of corresponding with [Joan Myers] Brown and hearing her thoughts on moments past, present, and future."
- from the article Joan Myers Brown on 50 Years with Philadanco and Philly’s Future, published on thINKingDANCE
"Radical commitment is a radical yes is a radical no is a radical becoming is a radical undoing is a radical creation is a radical destruction. Commitment is born as soon as I want to leave."
- from the article Stagnating Fertility, published on Contact Quarterly Rolling Edition
"The piece still parses the notions of distance and closeness, ideas that are more tangible now than ever."
- from the article Piecing Together, published on thINKingDANCE
"When Babel (played by Ross Beschler) and Yezhov (a hulking Steven Rishard) are introduced in the darkness of a forest in the midst of the Russo-Polish War, their conversation centers on the gray areas of language. Is there a difference between an outright lie and a truth that has been slightly tampered with? Is fiction in the eye of the beholder? Is it benign?"
- from the article Truth, Lies, and Soviet Spies, published on thINKingDANCE
"Andromeda lives
Android Media
Do you believe in the future?"
- from the article The Future is Fallible, published on thINKingDANCE
"As Aleksandra Bożek-Muszyńska crept up the side staircase in The Iron Factory, she bobbed forward and back ever so slightly between robotic steps. It was near imperceptible; I only caught it because the silver fringe lining the seams of her pants waved in opposition, its shimmy betraying the movement. Her walk stuttered, hiccupped. A Polish pop song crooned."
- from the article Eastern Europeans in North Philadelphia, published on thINKingDANCE
"McBride’s spinning storm-surge is a creative embodiment of the twister; indeed, her choreography throughout the performance gives me much to chew on as a dance-turned-theater critic. Her dance score for the “Jitterbug” scene (the Wicked Witch has cursed Dorothy and friends by sending critters to bite them, forcing them to dance until collapsing) has the flavor of “The Evolution of Dance,” incorporating many styles and inciting laughter as our heroes grimace with exhaustion while cha-cha-ing."
- from the article An Inquiry of Oz, published on thINKingDANCE
"The dance is linear, geometric, often two-dimensional, and thrown into relief by the simple biketards; the movement of tunics seems like a stream running through an otherwise craggy rock bed."
- from the article Sculptural Lines Straight Out of Chi Town, published on thINKingDANCE
"Through the work, their primordial contorting evolved into a shared vocabulary; I caught dancers in the halls and rooms, on the ornate staircase, bucking up and down with their hands clasped in front of their knees."
- from the article The School for Temporary Liveness Misses the Mark, published on thINKingDANCE
"Luciano Rosso, one half of the Argentinean duo Un Poyo Rojo, prepares a balletic port de bras, foot forward en tendu, and wiggles his eyebrows at us. Knowing we expect a grand jump, he darts across the stage, arms held in position but legs akimbo, his neck bobbing forward (not unlike a rooster) with protuberant eyes. I laugh out loud, a rarity for me when viewing dance."
- from the article What’s So Funny?, published on thINKingDANCE
"It wasn’t until I was sitting on the toilet at Franky Bradley’s, peeing, that I noticed them screeching. ‘Shit,’ I blurted out, knowing I was the only one who tried to sneak in a bathroom trip despite the announcement that the show would be starting shortly. Now, cursing myself and my dogged need to hydrate, I was privy to the cast of Dumpster Dance for Garbage People’s pre-show vocal warm up."
- from the article Dance, But Make It “Trashion”, published on thINKingDANCE
"Hetherington’s smile and the lackadaisical swing of her arms misconstrue the fury of movement happening beneath her ankles."
- from the article The time of your life, published on Broad Street Review
"Despite the fact that the Fringe Festival is often the busiest time for some of Philadelphia’s dance community, the wide variety of dance performances over the three weeks in September gets sparse press coverage."
- from the article Fringe Festival Picks: Independently Produced Dance, published on thINKingDANCE
"As I rocket back to Philly on I-76, sun setting, I imagine the boundaries of the group composition expanding wider and wider."
- from the article The People Have Spoken: A Day of Compositional Improvisation in NYC, published on thINKingDANCE
"The characters dance the tender tango between embracing their identities and belongings, abandoning them in wild denial, and using them to get further in society (and, perhaps, away from home). The interior of the row home’s first floor is thick with a generational energy that has seeped into the walls; a physical manifestation of the family’s ‘stick-in-the-mud’ status."
- from the article The Lotus in the Mud, published on thINKingDANCE
"Another work may have attempted to conquer the warehouse, to resist being swallowed by its magnitude; worse, another work may have ignored it entirely, creating a piece that needed four walls and a floor and nothing more. Yet here, Lawrence’s work communes directly with the space; its strength arises from its acknowledgement of both the physical and energetic states present. JUNKSPACE moves deftly about the building with deference to and camaraderie with the warehouse; all that it once contained and all it has yet to."
- from the article Tilting Space in an Abandoned Warehouse: Tori Lawrence + Co., published on thINKingDANCE
"Still, they were not yet living in the movement. They had control over the shapes their bodies made, but were still so focused on those shapes that they didn’t yet dance with assuredness or depth. It’s a subtle thing. I don’t see this as a shortcoming of their prowess as dancers; this is not something you train into. Sense of self comes only with time."
- from the article Ballet on the beat, published on Broad Street Review
"To my admittedly untrained eye, the flamenco presented a variety of dualities for the dancers to wield at whim: strong and soft, swift and slinking, vulnerable and voracious. The slower moments in the series of duets and trios that followed were not moments of pause or rest but felt weighted with tension and anticipation, like the slow ascent up the slope of a rollercoaster."
- from the article Welcome to flamenco, published on Broad Street Review
"The combination of the intimate, in-the-round theater and Kesserack’s benevolent delivery of Wilson’s powerful truths permits audience members to engage audibly with the work in a manner that resembles call and response. Folks giggle and guffaw, vigorously nod, let out audible ‘mmhmms’ and ‘yeahs.’ The fourth wall is porous. The space feels comfortable, somewhere between presentation and sermon."
- from the article “An Everyday Man’s Prophet:” August Wilson at the Arden, published on thINKingDANCE
"Writing about four duets by people who have known each other for about a week feels like putting up scaffolding and calling it home. But Mira Treatman’s construction process in her Philly Theatre Week rendition of Duets by Strangers might be just as fruitful to watch as a finished product."
- from the article New Shows and Duos, published on Broad Street Review
"I accept that Graham's works may not stand the Bechdel Test of time when under the contemporary feminist lens, and perhaps in their historical context they may have been considered more groundbreaking. Yet, I still take issue with this modern staging. Although Diversion of Angels begins and ends with Ben Schultz holding his hand behind Natasha M. Diamond-Walker's head, as if coronating a regal woman with a crown, it is ultimately still the man's hand."
- from the article Words on Martha’s Museum, published on thINKingDANCE
"It was an oddly hilarious sight. The gravity of it, the seriousness, the ceremony of it all, contrasted with something I’d written — the loss of one of my favorite pairs of jeans. It felt silly, this meeting of the sacred and the mundane, and that remained a common theme throughout Canuso’s work, which made up the majority of the evening."
- from the article All cabaret, little catharsis, published on Broad Street Review
"Indeed, when the piece finds moments of pause, they are breathtaking. The entire group sits on the floor, just past the pillar in the middle of Mascher’s space, lifting up and gently passing along a procumbent Svoboda. Grieger and Vawter, towards the end of a duet, sit on their knees and observe the musicians for a few seconds, maybe a minute, before drifting offstage in conclusion of the work."
- from the article Coalescing in Context: Movement Sound Experiment at Mascher, published on thINKingDANCE
"Evenings like fidget’s Process Project make me believe that the real innovation, the coming-up-to-the-edge experimentation in postmodern dance, is not happening on stage in theaters but in the quiet corners of Philadelphia."
- from the article Rendering the Now: Process Project with fidget, published on thINKingDANCE
"I don’t need to see Jessica Lang Dance because I’ve seen the glossing over of complexity and the harshness of reality in contemporary dance all too often. Despite numerous awards and accolades, including a Bessie Award and commissions from Jacob’s Pillow and The Joyce Theater, I found the work to be pre-digested to the point of blandness and baldly obvious."
- from the article I don’t need to see Jessica Lang Dance, published on thINKingDANCE
"I found the moments of synchronicity and pattern a respite amidst the frenzy. In one such moment, performer Curt Haworth lay on his back with his legs bent, kicking off the floor and waving through his spine, legs landing on the hardwood in a thump that fell into sync with other dancers’ insistent drum beats. Later, the performers left the stage after piling disparate items onto an air mattress, leaving us to take in the concocted tableau, minus moving bodies."
- from the article Endurance, Chaos, and the Rigor of Attention, published on thINKingDANCE
"To move and create sound with an ensemble, to improvise with the collective intention of composing, is to place oneself in the midst of opposing forces, holding both with equality. There is no practice to perform; the practice is the thing. "
- from the article A Love Letter from the Field, published on thINKingDANCE
"‘I’ve realized that I have one dance in me and there’s not much dance in that dance.’"
- from the article Sean Thomas Boyt on Performing the Hustle, published on thINKingDANCE
"Trevor William Fayle’s Blake pads lightly around the stage with the timidity of a bunny; his gestures are soft, yet quick. When Jess finally convinces Blake to show her his scars from that night and make out with her during a swirling thunderstorm on the same golf course where the original event occurred, I find myself cringing at the thought of Blake’s internal experience at that moment (indeed, we never find out what that was). Yet, I’m unclear whether I was supposed to read that pivotal moment as deeply irresponsible towards the young man’s state of mind or as a grand romantic gesture."
- from the article Between the Sacred, Profane, and Mundane, published on thINKingDANCE
"Can an artistic body of work stand on its own, independent of the creator? And, if not, whom do we rely on for the distinction between art and artist? If the artist insists the work is apolitical, yet critics (and thereafter, history) remember it as a work of activism, which is it?"
- from the article When activism is involuntary: a conversation between Deanna Haggag and Bill T. Jones, published on thINKingDANCE
"Huot’s work is chest-heavingly honest; she steadies a leg that trembles as she dances, then the other, then a hand. The movement is lyrical and sweet, and her lavender skirt billows around her and across her shins, as she rolls down to the floor and swings a leg to the side."
- from the article Absolution in the Witness, in the First Breath, published on thINKingDANCE
"As Allen’s title suggests, and without giving too much away, the perception of events and responses as separate instances may be inadequate. There is no beginning or end; there is only a dancer moving another along and the way two bodies fit together when one sits on the other’s knee, side by side."
- from the article Everything at once, adjacent to you, published on thINKingDANCE
"The power in Portraits does not lie in the moments of visual symmetry between the dancers and the art works. Stein’s choreography is more intelligent than merely arranging the bodies in the same way they are painted on display. Rather, I find deep complexity in their journey to such synchronicity, if it is even reached at all."
- from the article The Art of the Subtle Reveal, published on thINKingDANCE
"One movement leads directly into the next without a seam, perfectly placed so a leg swinging around means being where a head lands, and where the body curls to be trundled onto a lap, and where one thing is another is another is another."
- from the article Infinite Unfolding, published on thINKingDANCE
"Thomas Choinacky is lanky as hell and I love the gawky intricacies of his movement; he stands, for example, with his hands positioned on his hips as if they were stuffed in pockets, but instead are merely lain atop his pants. I sense that kind of ‘heldness’ in his body that people get when they know they are being watched, and it’s not bad. It’s just honest. He’s looked each of us in the eye, after all."
- from the article The Embodied Blueprints, Or How Time and Space Are Malleable If You Make Them, published on thINKingDANCE
"The very second the dance ends, the exact moment the last of the trio leaves, my fellow spectators swarm the room, frenzied in what felt to me like an attempt to clear the unsettled energy, to dissipate the weight."
- from the article Giving Form to the Invisible: Graffito Works at PAFA, published on thINKingDANCE
"When she answers questions afterwards, flapping her hands in gesture, I want her wrists to be thicker, less frail."
- from the article Yvonne, the Giant; Yvonne So Small, published on thINKingDANCE
"In terms of emotional depth or nuance, I'm watching the equivalent of corn flakes: bland, simple, spoon-fed."
- from the article Hell hath no fury like a pedestrian scorned, published on thINKingDANCE
"The transitions between scenes are thick and viscous, like molasses dripping down an hourglass. I am totally aware when the dance is passing through one; they feel slow and nurtured and unhurried. It is a dance of mild idiosyncrasy, enhanced by the dancers’ subtle balance between logicality and lunacy.."
- from the article The Pleasing, Profound, and Peculiarity of 4pm, published on thINKingDANCE
"Stoyanova is pulling on flesh-colored tights over her legs and her head, blurring the lines of her pubic hair and breasts. After wading into the pool of Mylar with tender ease, she grabs several handfuls and stuffs them madly under her “skin.” The first few, balled up and packed together, form pregnant-looking polyps on her arms and legs. Others hang off of her body like layers of tulle or scales. Stoyanova looks like a neo-metal monster and a futuristic Renaissance queen at the same time."
- from the article The Madonna Resilient, published on thINKingDANCE
"Her embodied commitment is exquisite. Not quite pausing, yet not smoothly combing through each movement, Vecino lives the thousands of tiny existences of every gesture."
- from the article Emblembody, published on thINKingDANCE
"I've been having the 'money talk' with many different people in my life for a while now. I've asked my friends how they make ends meet without selling their souls. I've asked them what they do to make a livable amount, yet have enough 'free time' for rehearsals, projects, workshops, etc. I've asked them how they do their taxes."
- from the article My Life in Pennies, published as a part of a week of content on CurateThis
"I went home and shaved my legs. I'm not sure what that means yet."
- from the review My body, and other questions I had for Annie Wilson, published on thINKingDANCE
"The music swells, or maybe it's you, with your chest rising and you're pulling your sweater overhead."
- from the review Oh and Anne Teresa, published on thINKingDANCE
"They are robust, they are flushed, they are the first time I held hands with a boy, they are overripe."
- from the review To delight and to rot, published on thINKingDANCE