Fringe favorite Tangle Movement Arts celebrates five years with ‘RetroAct’

Tangle Movement Arts, an interdisciplinary “aerial dance theater” troupe focusing on the queer and female experience, is celebrating its fifth year with RetroAct. The show, featuring an all-women cast of 10, is a dance/theater mix including spoken word, acrobatics, and airborne arts like trapeze and aerial silks.

RetroAct will re-stage some of the company’s work from the last few years, including “simmering duets, intricate balancing acts, a celebration of campy drag traditions, and a suspended-in-air meditation on the passage of time.” The pieces will utilize the whole Christ Church Neighborhood House stage like few groups can, with artists occupying the floor, ceiling, and everywhere in between.

“We're proud of five years of Philadelphia-based circus arts highlighting diverse examples of female strength, and connections between women. Tangle aims to push the boundaries of what you expect to see in a circus show,” says founder Lauren Rile Smith.

RetroAct is coming to the Christ Church Neighborhood House, 20 N. American Street, at 8pm on March 17 and 18, and at 3pm and 8pm on March 19. Tickets ($15-20) are available online.