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Choreographic collaborations
Philadelphia Dance Projects presents Dance Up Close: Seeds and Sounds and Jumper Cables
Camille Bacon-Smith
This season, Philadelphia Dance Projects’s Dance Up Close series invites performers to think about collaborations in their own work and to invite a second group to share the spotlight. The series opener on Wednesday, April 2, was Philly all the way, and a strong start. Kayliani Sood and Allison Smith headlined the evening with Jumper Cables, but first we saw Seeds and Sounds by their invited guests, Oreoluwa Badaki, Anna Martone, and Jonathan Van Arneman, with drummer and dancer Anssumane Silla.
The seeds of a dance
As we entered the performance area at the Christ Church Neighborhood House, we stepped over a red cloth draped across a white mat covered in what appeared to be graffiti in black. The four dancers, in loose white trousers and open shirt jackets over red lapa skirts (by designer Nicole G. Young), entered with shoulders bent, their steps wide and arms swinging to a driving African beat. Silla peeled off for the djembe drum in the corner, and the three other dancers wrapped themselves in that long red cloth, spinning close and tangling together before dancing apart again.
Badaki’s Seed and Sound arose out of her interest in embodied storytelling and urban agricultural practices. Her doctoral dissertation, a written text and a dance film, centered on her ethnographic work with students of color who were interning in urban agriculture and food literacy. So it was not surprising to see the dance act out the holding of seeds close to the heart and preparing the soil for the seed, backs bent and arms swaying as they brushed the ground with their hands. At times, the light dropped shadows on the dancers that looked like foliage, or graffiti, or both in a way that blended the urban and agricultural.
The dancers were exuberant, moving from West African, with low backs and wide, high knees, and footwork like barefoot tap—Arneman shone in the footwork—to contemporary, and even social, dancing. It was enjoyable throughout, but the whole performance seemed to come to attention when Silla joined the dancers. Every movement was sure and graceful, as if he had been born dancing. (He began at age 11 in his home in Guinea-Bissau, so that is close to the truth.) The other three dancers seemed to fall under the spell of his excellence, and the performance became that much richer. The dance ended with the audience (many of whom were dancers themselves) on their feet, snaking across the stage area and dancing in the center of the floor.
Jumper Cables
In an evening of collaboration, Sood and Smith brought in drummer Steve Perry to provide the percussion accompaniment. The two dancers combined street and house dance, including a breaking battle with some impressive aerial twists. But I liked the moments best when they were showing their strength. Sood ran across the basketball court-sized performance space and leaped into Smith’s arms for a sideways lift, and, in case I didn’t believe that was possible the first time, they did it again. In a shaft of light across an otherwise darkened stage, Smith carried Sood on her back the length of the floor. Sometimes, it felt a lot like watching a couple of women at the gym, breathing hard and sweating freely like that was the point of the exercise, dropping to the floor for pushups or just lying there to catch a well-deserved breath.
Lighting designer Devante Evans deserves a shout-out here. Whether reflecting shadows on the dancers of Seed and Sound or creating a dramatic shaft of light for Jumper Cables, he heightened the mood of the dances he lit.
If you missed the show, you can watch a recording via PDP’s YouTube channel, and the series will continue with new performances on Wednesday, April 30, and Thursday, May 1.
What, When, Where
Jumper Cables; choreography by Kayliani Sood and Allison Smith. Seed and Sound; choreography by Oreoluwa Badaki, Anna Martone, and Jonathan Van Arneman. Philadelphia Dance Projects. $15. April 2-3, 2025, at Christ Church Neighborhood House, 20 N American Street, Philadelphia. (215) 546-2552 or philadanceprojects.org.
Accessibility
Christ Church Neighborhood House is a wheelchair-accessible venue; however, the cobblestones outside the entrance may be difficult for some to navigate.
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