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Dance Up Close ‘25, PHILADANCO!, and more
The month in Philly Dance: April 2025
Camille Bacon-Smith
Dance is bursting out all over this month, in performance spaces tucked away at churches and museums and renovated garages as well as theaters on the Avenue of the Arts. It’s like finding daisies popping up at the side of the road, stubbornly having their say about beauty and creativity and surviving. Always, surviving. In hard times, it’s important to remember that we have each other, celebrating art in all the unlikely places.
Kayliani Sood & Allison Smith: Jumper Cables
Wednesday April 2, and Thursday April 3, 2025, 7:00pm
Christ Church Neighborhood House Theater, 20 North American Street, Philadelphia
This season, the Philadelphia Dance Project’s midweek Dance Up Close series is focusing on collaborations. Dancers and choreographers will work together and invite a second collaboration to share the bill with them. Dancer-choreographers Kayliani Sood & Allison Smith open the series with Jumper Cables 2.0, a newly expanded duet that merges street and contemporary styles, with drummer Steve Perry on percussion. They have Invited Oreoluwa Badaki, Anna Martone, and Jonathan Van Arneman, with drummers Assumane Silla and Jonathan Delgado to share the bill with a performance of Seeds and Sounds, dance and music rooted in diaspora West African culture.
Carolyn Dorfman Dance’s Live Love Laugh
Sunday, April 6, 2025, 4:00pm
Bickford Theater at the Morris Museum, 6 Normandy Heights Road, Morristown, NJ
The Morris Museum presents contemporary dance company Carolyn Dorfman Dance in a retrospective program that includes the Echad (One), a work danced on and around a 120-pound aluminum wheel—among other pieces, including Divide and Conquer, a humorous look at a relationship before and after children, with a commissioned score by composer Joel Diamond.
Roger Lee Dance Company’s Bloom
Friday, April 18, and Saturday, April 19, 2025, 8:00pm
Pre-performance Art Show both nights from 7:30pm
Performance Garage, 1515 Brandywine, Street, Philadelphia
Roger Lee Dance Company returns to the Performance Garage with a family-friendly show that celebrates spring with founder and choreographer Lee’s interpretation of the flowers of the season. The show includes a pre-performance exhibit of Lee’s Bloom: A Solo Painting Exhibition.
PHILADANCO!’s Relentless Resident Visions!
Friday, April 25, 2025, 7:30pm
Saturday, April 26, 2025, 2:00pm and 7:30pm
Sunday, April 27, 2005, 2:00pm
Perelman Theater, 300 South Broad Street, Philadelphia
In April, PHILADANCO! is showcasing some of my favorites of their choreographers. I will watch anything Christopher Huggins puts on the stage, and Tommie-Waheed Evans is another choreographer I’ve had my eye on since he was a BalletX fellow. Ray Mercer and Milton Myers reach back into the rich history of the company. I expect to see their usual combination of heart-deep emotion and explosive energy.
Chloe Marie
Wednesday, April 30, 2025, and Thursday, May 1, 2025, 7:00pm
Christ Church Neighborhood House Theater, 20 North American Street, Philadelphia
Philadelphia Dance Project’s Dance Up Close returns for a second midweek show in April, featuring dancer and choreographer Chloe Marie, choreographing on local artists Alex Brazinski, Tammy Carrasco, Amalia Colón-Nava, Kayliani Sood, and others. Composer and performer Lee Clarke will be helping with the sound score and performing the music.
And also
Philadelphia Ballet’s Peter and the Wolf
Friday, April 4, 2025, 6:00pm
The Salvation Army Kroc Center, 1865 Harrison Ave, Camden, NJ
A new take on Peter and the Wolf Choreographed by Russell Ducker. Free performance with dance and puppetry.
Danse4Nia’s Digging In The Vault
Sunday, April 13, 2025, 6:30pm
Performance Garage, 1515 Brandywine, Street, Philadelphia
Danse4Nia presents its project-based dance company, Phoenix Dance, with works from past seasons.
Riverdance
Friday, April 18, 2025, 7:30pm
Saturday, April 19, 2025, 1:30pm and 7:30pm
Sunday, April 20, 2025, 1:30pm
The Miller Theater, 250 Broad Street, Philadelphia
Riverdance’s 30th anniversary of popularized Irish and international dance and music.
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