PHILADANCO’s distinctive brand of charisma will be on display at the Joyce Theater, July 29-August 2, when the company that has won the hearts of audiences and critics alike since it was founded in 1970 comes back to New York. PHILADANCO has been among the most influential forces in American concert dance, and the tradition continues.
During a recent conversation with the Amsterdam News, founder and Artistic Advisor Joan Myers Brown says the company of talented 18 dynamic dancers, with Kim Bears Bailey as co-artistic director, will be bringing an exciting program to the Joyce. “We’re presenting four ballets, including two premieres. There’s the world premiere of a work by one of the most influential voices in street dance and hip hop theater, the celebrated choreographer Rennie Harris who has created “TO PHILLY…LOVE, RENNIE.” It’s a work inspired by the soulful energy of The Sound of Philadelphia, the enduring music of Kenneth Gamble, Thom Bell, and Leon Huff. The dance celebrates this amazing city, its neighborhoods, its resilience, its history, and its people with Rennie’s special way of blending street dance traditions with jazz, soul, funk, and contemporary movement. It’s the kind of love letter to Philly and an affirmation of that Philly soul that has that special Rennie Harris umph. The company is really excited about it.”
But, judging from Brown, there is plenty of excitement in the works being presented at the Joyce to go around as she describes the rest of the upcoming program. There’s the New York premiere of “Promise Me You Won’t Call” by Tommie-Waheed Evans which is an intimate exploration of love, memory, and longing. Set to the unforgettable voice of Patti LaBelle, including “If Only You Knew” and “Love, Need and Want You,” it features an immersive sound design by Uwazi Zamani, with which Evans creates an emotionally charged landscape where vulnerability and virtuosity exist side by side. The work reveals the quiet heartbreak and profound beauty found in human connection, separation, and renewal, and Evans, whose works deal with social injustice, spirituality, and human passion, says, “Promise is part of a larger work which will celebrate the music of the Philadelphia International Records.”
PHILADANCO’S program opens with the New York premiere of “Without Witness” by acclaimed Vietnamese choreographer Thang Dao. Quietly mesmerizing and philosophically rich, the work traces a journey from inherited constraint toward embodied freedom. Through breath, rhythm, and deeply attentive physicality, Dao creates a meditation on liberation that invites audiences into movement as an act of listening rather than declaration.
Then, last but by no means least, completing the program is a work that Myers Brown says folks have been clamoring for, so back by popular demand is the 25th anniversary of Christopher Huggins’ landmark work that he created for PHILADANCO back in 2001 — Enemy Behind the Gates. Set to the driving score of Steve Reich, this celebrated work was created in response to the aftermath of September 11 and remains strikingly relevant today. With blistering athleticism, razor-sharp precision, and relentless momentum, Huggins examines fear, conflict, and resilience through a physical language that exemplifies PHILADANCO!’s defining repertory aesthetic.
Myers Brown is quick to remind any and everyone that seeing PHILADANCO is not only being treated to a dynamic performance by some of the most talented young dancers around today, but invariably one also has an opportunity to see dancers who represent an amazing legacy. She is quick to say that for decades, PHILADANCO has launched the careers of many of today’s leading talent. Ticking off the names of folks whose careers PHILADANCO helped launch, Myers Brown says, “This is the company’s 56th year and my school, which is the foundation of PHILADANCO, started 10 years before the company. A lot of people have come through PHILADANCO, including the Joyce Theatre’s Danni Gee who danced with us before going to the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Dance Theatre of Harlem’s Artistic Director Robert Garland, who I had since he was 17 years old, Lee Daniels, what’s that boy’s name, Leslie Odom Jr. who rose to fame in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway hit “Hamilton,” Ailey dancers Deborah Manning and the late pioneer Debora Chase-Hicks, and of course our current Co-Artistic Director Kim Bears-Bailey. And the list of choreographers who’ve worked with PHILADANCO is equally impressive as she ticks off names like Talley Beatty, Walter Nicks, Ron K. Brown, Camille Brown. All of them have been here, so if you want to see the future of dance, especially Black dance, come to PHILADANCO.”
