PHILADANCO, the award-winning Black dance company known for its dazzling performers and exciting choreographers, takes the stage at New York’s Joyce Theater from February 6–10 with a program of works highlighting four emerging choreographers.
The Joyce program is titled “Intangible,” evoking the quality that makes PHILADANCO programs so special and leaves critics invariably showering performances with superlatives. This current program features Christopher Rudd’s “Mating Season”; Nijawwon K. Matthews’s “From Dystopia to Our Declaration”; Ray Mercer’s “Balance of Power”; and Tommie-Waheed Evans’s “Somewhere Between Heaven and Earth,” made in collaboration with the PHILADANCO dancers.
These artists join an impressive roster of talent nurtured by PHILADANCO’s founder Joan Myers Brown—talent that includes former Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre’s dancer-turned-choreographer Hope Boykin, Milton Myers, Rennie Harris, Ron K. Brown, and Christopher Huggins, and current PHILADANCO Artistic Director dancer Kim Bears-Bailey, who was a company member back in 1990 when PHILADANCO made its New York debut.
“You know I’m always interested in introducing young emerging Black choreographers because doors don’t open for them as easily as they should. I took Ron K. Brown to the Joyce Theatre first,” Myers Brown said during a recent interview.
“We’ve been going to the Joyce since the 1990s,” she said, noting that “2018 was our last time there” before the COVID pandemic.” The company, now in its 54th season, is also famous for its troupe of well-trained and polished performers who have also gone on to perform with The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Martha Graham Company, and others. Brown is also not shy about bragging about dancers who have trained at her Philadelphia-based school and cut their teeth by performing with her critically acclaimed company, saying, “Over 29 former PHILADANCO-trained dancers have gone on to enjoy long-term careers with Ailey and other companies.”
During this Joyce season, PHILADANCO audiences can expect an exciting program thanks to both its dancers and choreographers. Matthews, an internationally acclaimed director, choreographer, educator, and dancer, is the founding artistic director of the XY Dance Project, a pre-professional company. He was selected as the Director’s Choice for the 2019 Dallas Black Dance Theatre season. Matthews has performed in the films “In the Heights” and “Black Nativity.” His concert career highlights include legacy works by Donald McKayle, George Faison, Otis Sallid, Milton Myers, Kevin Iega Jeff, Gary Abbott, and Christopher Huggins, and companies such as PHILADANCO, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, and Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company. A faculty member of Broadway Dance Center and the Joffrey Ballet School, Matthews was featured in the October 2016 issue of Dance Teacher.
Rudd’s choreography work is informed by his experiences as a queer Black man in dance and blends contemporary dance, circus, and theatricality to speak to relevant issues. The Jamaican-born choreographer created the groundbreaking works “Touché” and “Lifted” for the American Ballet Theatre. He has also created works for the Alvin Ailey School, Duke University, and UNC School of the Arts and received residencies from CUNY Dance Initiative, Vendetta Mathea’s La Manufacture, Tofte Lake Center, Kaatsbaan, and STREB. A 2019 Guggenheim Choreography Fellow, Rudd was the inaugural New Victory LabWorks Launch Artist and currently is a resident artist for BAM and Chelsea Factory. He was named one of 2023’s “Six to Watch” by American Theater Magazine. As founder of RudduR Dance, he is a two-time U.S. State Department Exchange Alumnus, having presented his works in Canada, France, Trinidad & Tobago, Burkina Faso, Ecuador, and Italy. Rudd’s performing career includes the Carolina Ballet, Les Grands Ballet Canadiens de Montréal, and Cirque Du Soleil.
Omaha native Mercer has set works on PHILADANCO, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, New Jersey Ballet, Dallas Black Dance Theatre, Ballet Pensacola, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, and DRA (Dancers Responding to AIDS), and has been commissioned to choreograph a work for the Smithsonian Museum. He has performed with Deeply Rooted Dance Theater and as a guest artist with the Boston Ballet, and is currently in the Broadway production of The Lion King. Mercer is resident choreographer for the Ailey/Fordham BFA Program. His achievements include five-time winner of Broadway’s Gypsy of the Year Award for best onstage performance, a 2012 Joffrey Ballet Choreographers of Color Award, and a Pensacola Ballet Choreographers Award. He was recently acknowledged for his choreography in the New York Times, Chicago Sun-Times, and Movement Magazine.
Guggenheim Fellow Evans’s work explores Blackness, spirituality, queerness, and liberation. His training began with Karen McDonald; he won an Ailey School fellowship and received an MFA in choreography from Jacksonville University. A former company member of the Lula Washington Dance Theater, Complexions, and PHILADANCO, Evans has created works for BalletX, Dallas Black, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, and Ballet Memphis. His awards include Resident Fellow at the Center for Ballet and the Arts, Princess Grace Award in Choreography, and Joffrey Ballet Winning Works. He is an assistant professor at the University of the Arts and Artist in Residence at PHILADANCO.
PHILADANCO breezes into the Joyce Theatre with performances on Tuesday, February 6, and Wednesday, February 7, at 7:30 p.m.; Thursday, February 8, and Friday, February 9, at 8 p.m.; and Saturday, February 10, at 2 p.m. (family matinee) and 8 p.m.
For more info, visit www.joyce.org/performances/55//philadanco.