Dance
Ponder this: The letter P initiates the names of several Philly venues that are presenting some of the best in local dance this spring. From popping to pliés, the Kimmel Center's Perelman Theater will host new works by Rennie Harris Puremovement and Philadanco. The Painted Bride is the scene of four outstanding events. At Jeanne Ruddy Dance Company's Performance Garage, Ruddy stages her own home season in April with guest choreographer Martha Clarke and, sooner, Philadelphia Dance Projects' series.
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Ponder this: The letter P initiates the names of several Philly venues that are presenting some of the best in local dance this spring. From popping to pliés, the Kimmel Center's Perelman Theater will host new works by Rennie Harris Puremovement and Philadanco. The Painted Bride is the scene of four outstanding events. At Jeanne Ruddy Dance Company's Performance Garage, Ruddy stages her own home season in April with guest choreographer Martha Clarke and, sooner, Philadelphia Dance Projects' series.
Of course, there are other letters, other venues, and other pleasures looming. Here are some of our choices.
- Merilyn Jackson
and Ellen Dunkel
The Painted Bride The Bride's best season in years begins Feb. 6-7 with Kun-Yang Lin/Dancers. In its spiffy new Ninth Street studio, the re-formed ensemble mixes dancers from the original New York company - Jillian Harris and Jennifer Rose - with well-known Philly movers cqJumatatu Poe, Scott McPheeters and Olive Prince. Called A-U-M (Hindu mantra for meditation) the evening includes a Lin world premiere of the same name.
March 12-14 brings Group Motion with new works featuring Megan Bridge's A Shadow in the Aeolian Palace with music and video by Peter Price. April 3-4 opens with Gesel Mason's No Boundaries, pieces by leading African American choreographers. The season ends April 30-May 2 with Tania Isaac, Marianela Boán and Gabri Christa playing on the Caribbean vibes of their home islands in Landscape on Hold. (215-925-9914 or www.paintedbride.org)- Merilyn Jackson
Philadelphia Dance Projects Terry Fox, executive director of the 12-year-old dance presenter PDP, has scheduled a fine array of classes, workshops and performances for this '09 series.
Starting off the full performances, at the Performance Garage, will be Headlong Dance Theater and Keely Garfield Dance Feb. 6-7. Headlong's trio of dancer/choreographers show two world premieres - Amy Smith's Universal Humanoids and Andrew Simonet's The Future of the Future. Garfield's company gives two of the London-born choreographer's works their local premieres - Limerence and First Attempt. Also at the Garage: Zane Booker's Human Mysteries and, from Minneapolis, Matthew Janczewski's Plastic Language Feb. 13–14.
The series winds up at Temple with the SCUBA National Touring Network for Dance Feb. 27-28, including 2008 Pew Fellow Charles Anderson, San Francisco's Shinichi Iova-Koga, and the Seattle-based trio Beth Graczyk, Corrie Befort and Angelina Baldoz. (215-546-2552 or www.philadanceprojects.org.) - M.J.
The Pennsylvania Ballet always offers audience favorites with a new ballet or two mixed in. This season the mixing starts Feb. 11-15, with a Valentine's Day suite of romantic dances labeled "Love & Longing" - Peter Martins' Fearful Symmetries and Twyla Tharp's Nine Sinatra Songs, plus a world premiere, Requiem for a Rose, by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa to Schubert.
"Tango With Style" themesis the theme of the May 6-10 run. New to Pennsylvania Ballet are Five Tangos, with choreography by Hans van Manen and music by tango master Astor Piazzolla, and Martins' Barber Violin Concerto, plus a not-yet-announced world premiere from the ballet's choreographer in residence, Matthew Neenan. (215-893-1999 or www.paballet.org) - Ellen Dunkel
Rennie Harris Puremovement moves in at the Perelman Feb. 20-21, with the world premiere of his sci-fi-inflected 100NakedLocks. (215-893-1999 or www.kimmelcenter.org) - M.J.
Ballet Boyz Michael Nunn and William Trevitt, the choreographers and company directors, are from the same Royal Ballet generation as Christopher Wheeldon. Their March 17-18 Annenberg Center performances are part of the company's Greatest Hits Tour and include work by several top young choreographers. (215-898-3900 or www.annenbergcenter.org)
- E.D.
Jeanne Ruddy premieres The Lark April 16-19 and 23-25, but guest choreographer Martha Clarke has given no hint of what sort of piece she's devising for the company. Clarke, a founder of Pilobolus, relaunched her 1984 Garden of Earthly Delights in New York in November to raves; it continues through March 1. Though Ruddy's studio is not equipped for Clarke's often-airborne choreography, expect the high-flown atmosphere to get pretty thin. Take a deep breath upon entering. (215-569-4060 or www.ruddydance.org) - M.J.
Riverdance Irish step dancing went mainstream in 1995, when this show was spun off from a 1994 intermission act of the Eurovision Song Contest. Since then, it's danced all over the globe. Now making its farewell tour, Riverdance will be at the Academy of Music March 31-April 5. (215-893-1999 or www.kimmelcenter.org)
- E.D.
BalletX The April 4-11 spring series of the Matthew Neenan-Christine Cox modern ballet company includes an audience favorite, Neenan's Wonder Why, and two world premieres - Cox's The Striped Hat and a not-yet-announced piece by Edwaardcq Liang, formerly of New York City Ballet and now performing in Wheeldon's Morphoses company. 215-546-7824 or www.balletx.org.
- E.D.
Philadanco April 30-May 3 at the Perelman will see Philadanco wheeling out four world premieres, including another new work by Zane Booker. (215-893-1999 or www.kimmelcenter.org) - M.J.
Movin' Out
Brenda and Eddie will still be going steady when Twyla Tharp's 2002 dance musical to songs by Billy Joel hits the Academy of Music May 15-17. Expect Tharp's cast to include only the best from the ballet and modern-dance worlds, and the strongest musical-theater performers. (215-893-1999 or www.kimmelcenter.org)- E.D.