It was like the olden days when we saw so many little companies form in Philadelphia, always a hot bed for smallish bites of sheer genius. The days when PEW, Philadelphia Foundation, and a handful of lesser funders actually gave genius just enough money to shine.
I’m reminded of Headlong Dance Company, the Pink Hair Ladies, Moxie, and long before that, Group Motion from Berlin in 1968, and eventually Hellmut Gottschild’s breakaway company ZeroMoving Dance.
A host of dancers like Terry Fox, running in circles around the Painted Bride stage, had by the ‘70s introduced us all to contemporary dance, contact-improv,release technique (movement initiated from the bones and joints, as opposed to the diaphragm or feet,)and many other dance languages. Fox left to curate dance at St. Marks in New York and then came back to Philly to oversee Dance at the Bride. But for the last 25 years, she’s run Philadelphia Dance Projects, with an office at Philadanco’s West Philly studios. Save for annual residencies at the Performance Garage where Megan Mazarick takes next year, and Megan Bridge’s <fidget>, it’s one of the few remaining laboratories for dance in the region.
I attended just two of PDP’s performances this year. Lily Kind took the season finale to sold out, chatty houses each night. The series, all held in Christ Church’s cozy black box theater, was aptly named Dance Up Close.
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