SHARP Dance Company presents Haven

Painting a dream

“Our home is kind of in South Philly,” artistic director Sharp-Nachsin told me. She sees the residency as a chance to connect with the community: students receive discounted tickets and Q&A sessions after the Saturday performances will give the audience a chance to get to know the dancers. The studio venue offers dance in a more intimate setting that makes up for what it lacks in lighting and projections of a theatrical performance with an up-close look at the dancers and the work.

The program includes two pieces that take us deeper into works Sharp-Nachsin sampled in November. I enjoyed the duet from Sharp-Nachsin’s Seven Windows so I was glad to hear that the company will be performing three more excerpts. “Seven Windows is a true story about my lead dancer, Sandra Davis,” Sharp-Nachsin explained. “She tragically lost her mom about 10 years ago and she came into rehearsal one day and she said, ‘I had a dream about my mom, and I asked her if she was in heaven and she said she hadn’t opened the seven windows yet.’”

Sharp-Nachsin believes in reincarnation and wondered if the dream related to the lives Davis’s mother had yet to live. So she asked if she could do a piece about it. She told five artists the story, and they each made an original painting inspired by it. Sharp-Nachsin took her own inspiration from the paintings; the three that reflect the sections in the performance appear in the program.

I loved the dance club vibe of Quiñones’s I Am Here, so I am looking forward to the full piece. Cotler, another frequent choreographer with the company (and former Koresh favorite), has been working on a collaboration with Sharp-Nachsin, titled Stories. Audiences will get a first-look at Cotler’s duet and can catch the full piece in September. A 2011 work from Kevin Ferguson and two short pieces will round out the program.