Arts Service Organization Presents Female-Led Companies at Philadelphia's Performance Garage

Dance advocacy organization Pentacle will bring the work of five female-led companies to Philadelphia's renowned home for dance, the Performance Garage. For two nights, modern and contemporary dance from both coasts convene to tell a diverse array of stories: Go on a journey to mythical lands, confront barriers and isolation in poetic duets, and be enthralled by aerial spectacle of light, movement, and projection.

Experience the dimensions of the human condition in thought-provoking and expertly crafted dance works by Ariel Rivka Dance, Freespace Dance, MILKLEAF, The Moving Architects, and Sonia Plumb Dance Company. These companies are part of Pentacle's Administrative Support Program, which provides direct administrative services and performance opportunities for artists.

Pentacle Presents: Dance in Philadelphia

June 16 & 17, 2023
7pm EST, In-Person
Performance Garage

About the Companies

Ariel Rivka Dance presenting Microvids (excerpt)

Microvids plays with the barrier between the audience and dancers while offering a series of stories that juxtapose the mundane with the beautiful uncertainty of everyday life. It is inspired by 19 solo piano movements composed by Stefania de Kenessey during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ariel Rivka Dance (ARD)’s mission is to champion female creatives through original choreography, commissioned music, and educational programming. ARD has been presented worldwide, including NJPAC, BAM Fisher, and Hann Sahne Theatre, TR. In 2023 ARD’s 15th Season is presented by NYU Tisch and will tour France and Italy. Collaborations include Taylor 2, Konverjans, and Heidi Latsky Dance. ARD has received grants from Mid Atlantic Arts, Nathan Cummings Foundation, Jersey City Council of the Arts, and New Jersey State Council on the Arts. Website / Instagram / Facebook

 Freespace Dance presenting La Lotta

La Lotta; to be in conflict with. This work explores the different parts of ourselves that may be in conflict with one another. When parts are free, the Self can conduct, choreograph, and create the life we desire. La Lotta is an abstract exploration of parts in conflict and freedom. 

Donna Scro Samori is the Artistic Director of Freespace Dance. She was a member of the Nikolais and Murray Louis Dance Company and a founding member of the Sean Curran Company. She has performed at some of the most prestigious venues, including The Paris Opera House, Theatre de la Ville, the American Dance Festival, Jacob’s Pillow, Joyce Theater, The New Victory Theater, Central Park SummerStage, Symphony Space, and Lincoln Center Out of Doors. Donna is currently on the dance faculty at Montclair State University. Website / Instagram / Facebook

 MILKLEAF presenting Nostalgia’s Window

Dancing light and shadow tether a solitary figure to ancestors at once familiar and distant. Peering through the window of nostalgia, the dancer marks her memory of forgetting. Within the fire of her isolation, matrilineal tendrils unfold. Lucent. Vivid. Flashing.

MILKLEAF endeavors to celebrate the art of dance through multimedia collaborations. Charlotte Griffin is a dancemaker interested in the vulnerability and power of the human form in live and digitally mediated performance. In 2020, she founded MILKLEAF to support interdisciplinary collaborations that center dance within a broad aesthetic and technological field. She has created contemporary works for The Cambrians, American Dance Festival, BJM Danse, ArcDanz, Springboard Danse Montreal, and more. As an educator, Charlotte aims to generate nourishing artistic praxis for the next generation.

 The Moving Architects presenting O my soul

O my soul explores isolation and connection, endurance and resilience, through the performers' interconnected lives, the title referencing biblical laments during times of trial. The narratives play out through dichotomies of tension and release, incorporating interactive props and projections.

The Moving Architects (TMA), under Artistic Director Erin Carlisle Norton, is a NJ/NYC dance company that has performed, taught, and toured internationally and across the U.S. Creating dance works that use feminist narratives and ideologies that are deeply explored through collaborative processes, among her accolades, Norton has received two Fellowships in Choreography from the NJ State Council on the Arts. TMA produces the dance interview podcast Movers & Shapers: A Dance.

Sonia Plumb Dance Company presenting excerpts from Dance of da Vinci, The Sound of Migration, and Penelope's Odyssey

Watch muscles fire and flare in Vitruvian Man/Woman lifted from Leonardo's notebooks. Dive deep underwater with Odysseus as he awakens from his nightmare landing in Penelope's Odyssey. Become immersed in THE SWARM from The Sound of Migration. Audience participation encouraged.

Sonia Plumb Dance has traversed New England, NYC and beyond since 1991, collaborating with composers, visual and digital artists, actors, puppeteers, poets and educators regionally, nationally and internationally. SPD is known for reaching beyond the arts community with a diverse repertoire that often reflects upon larger societal issues with the vision of creating a transformative perspective the world. Ms. Plumb is a National Artist Teaching Fellow, and has thrice received the Connecticut Office of the Arts Fellowship for Artistic Excellence.

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