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The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage

Dance Advance

Dance Advance seeks to contribute to the cultivation of an artistically dynamic environment for dance in Southeastern Pennsylvania, and has created this site in order to further the dialogue that connects all of us in the field of dance arts.

NEWS

Now on our website: "Capturing the Tone, Celebrating the Work," a conversation between choreographers Wendy Rogers and Sara Rudner. This article is located in the Publications & Research section of the Dance Advance website, under "Document(s)/ Dance Odyssey".


This conversation took place on September 29, 2007 at The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. Rogers and Rudner discussed their collaborative work from the 1970s, and ruminated on how the intersection of life and art gave value to their dancing identities.

"When I see people dancing and they’re realizing who they are, it’s like the best gift in the world."
—Sara Rudner, page 23

"I think what we both like is really stellar ways of not knowing what we’re doing."
—Wendy Rogers, page 4

Read the full article here.

The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage Announces 2012 Dance Advance Grant Recipients
Philadelphia, PA—The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage has awarded $812,000 through Dance Advance to 12 dance projects, representing seven individual artists, three dance companies, and two presenting organizations in the Philadelphia area. Two individual artists are first-time grantees; one is a first-time applicant. These projects demonstrate the Philadelphia dance community’s interest in revisiting seminal works by groundbreaking choreographers, commissioning new pieces that involve dynamic and potentially transformative collaborations between traditional and contemporary practitioners, and exploring social issues and cultural identity.

Dance Advance 2012 Press Release PDF >
Dance Advance 2012 Grantee Roster PDF >

Recent events: Philadelphia's first Flamenco Festival-March 19-April 1-produced by Pasión y Arte, a Philadelphia-based flamenco company

This two-week festival featured the world premiere of a new work by internationally renowned Spanish dancer and choreographer, Rosario Toledo. Cómplices is a group work that was commissioned for Pasión y Arte (PyA). Also on the program was the U.S. premiere of  Del primer paso, which was performed by Toledo's company from Spain. Performances featured live music by composer and guitarist Dani de Morón. Along with  performances, the festival includes several free events including a movie night, symposium, and master classes at area universities.  To find out more about festival events and to get tickets, click here.

To find out more about the PyA company and their process of learning this commissioned work with Toledo over the last several months, click here.
 

Recent events at Bryn Mawr College: Remounting of John Jasperse's Fort Blossom on February 24-26, preceded by a week-long residency of the Jasperse Company at the college

Fort Blossom, a challenging but gorgeous work, has only been performed four times previously. The central themes of Jasperse’s ongoing works are alive in this former “research piece.”

“The contrasts in Fort Blossom are dazzling: black and white, color and neutral tones, men and women, nakedness and body coverings, intimacy in bloom and tough, blocky structures. Fort Blossom is more austere than Excessories [Jasperse’s 1995 breakout work], but no less brave, no less exquisite.” Deborah Jowitt,—Village Voice

This production includes nudity and sexual content.

More about the John Jasperse Company's residency here

Two dance writing announcements:

1. Brenda Dixon Gottschild's book on PHILADANCO's founder, Joan Myers Brown and the Audacious Hope of the Black Ballerina: a Biohistory of American Performance, was released on January 3, 2012 by Palgrave Macmillan.


"Dixon Gottschild deftly uses Brown's career as the fulcrum to leverage an exploration of the connection between performance, society, and race—beginning with Brown's predecessors in the 1920s—and a concert dance tradition that has had no previous voice to tell its story from the inside out."(Excerpts from book description on Palgrave Macmillan website.)

Brenda Dixon Gottschild, Professor Emerita of Dance Studies at Temple University, received a 2011 grant from Dance Advance to support her research and publication of this book. You can find out more about her background and other publications at her website.

To learn more about this book and to order it online, click here.

2. Article about Danny Yung has been recently posted in Publications & Research, Document(s), Dance Odyssey, on the Dance Advance website.

This article consists of an interview of Danny Yung, Artistic Director of Zuni Icosahedron, by writer and arts specialist Suzanne Carbonneau. Bill Bissell, Director of Dance Advance, wrote the introduction to this interview.

"His [Yung's] notion that cultural policy is not something that comes from the top down, but is something artists should be creating from the ground up, was particularly relevant. He was seeing artists as agents for change." —Suzanne Carbonneau (excerpt from the interview)

Read the recently posted article here.

 

Two recently completed dance residences:

1. Peggy Baker

A.  Two weeks of master classes with Peggy Baker
November 28 to December 9, 2011

These classes will be offered daily from 10 a.m. to noon, to professionally committed dancers, free of charge, and pre-registration is necessary. For more information on the classes, click here.

B.  Free public showing of Work(s) on View²
December 9, 2011

This two-week residency period with Peggy Baker will end with an informal showing on December 9, entitled Work(s) on View² of choreographic sketches by Peggy Baker. Work(s) on View² will be performed by Philadelphia dancers Bethany Formica, Greg Holt, and Shannon Murphy.

For more information on the showing, click here.

Please reserve your spot for both events by contacting Lucy Warrington at Dance Advance: phone: 267.350.4970 or email lwarrington@pcah.us.

 

2. Lucinda Childs and Ty Boomershine

A. Three weeks of master classes with Ty Boomershine
October 24 to November 11, 2011

Ty Boomershine will offer three weeks of free, daily master classes in contemporary modern technique to Philadelphia-area dancers on Monday through Friday, October 24 to November 11, 2011.
For more information on the master classes, click here.

B. A showing of Interior Drama and Melody Excerpt choreographed by Lucinda Childs
November 11, 2011

 

These three weeks will culminate with a showing on November 11, entitled Work(s) on View, of two 1977 works by Lucinda Childs: Interior Drama and Melody Excerpt. This showing will be book-ended by introductory comments 1977: a year of some minimal importance in New York City and a post-performance conversation led by dance writer and critic Marcia B. Siegel. Work(s) on View will be performed by Philadelphia dancers Megan Bridge, Marie Brown, Bethany Formica, Nora Gibson, and Annie Wilson.

For more information on the showing, click here.  

 

The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage has released the Application Guidelines for the 2012 funding cycle of Dance Advance. Guidelines are available to download here.

The deadline for final applications for the 2012 Project Grant Cycle has now passed.
 

Above: Carmela Greco at the 2010 Latin Roots & Rhythms Festival presented by Raices Culturales Latinoamericanas, Inc. The second annual 2011 Latin Roots & Rhythms Festival will take place June 24–26, 2011 at the Settlement Music School on 416 Queen St in Philadelphia. Featured main stage performers are Kùlú Mèlé African Dance and Drum Ensemble, Pasión y Arte, Flamenco Olé, Casa de Venezuela, Raíces de Borinquen/Familia Rojas and KanKouran West African Dance Company. Both the 2010 and 2011 Latin Roots & Rhythms Festivals were made possible by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage through Dance Advance. Photo by Alejandro Garcia Jimenez.

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