Welcome!
Pentacle is delighted to have you joining us to bring dance from afar to Philadelphia! This evening of performance will showcase the works of five exciting choreographers in Pentacle’s Administrative Support Program. Enjoy a collection of introspective dance works, all derived from personal experience while being relatable, thought-provoking, and expertly crafted.
Pentacle's Administrative Support Program (ASP) allows performing artists to build more sustainable organizational operations and marketplace identities. ASP members are enhancing their infrastructure, and therefore increasing their performance capacity, by actively taking part in a program that elevates how their businesses are operated. Presenting work through Pentacle's programing is one way that these artists spearhead their performance opportunities.
Select an artist below to jump to their program notes:
Freespace Dance
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.
Choreographer: Donna Scro Samori
Performers: Lindsey Garnhart, Emma Gentile, Juliet Goswell, Emily Ingersoll,Alfonse Napolitano, and Melina Soriano
Music by: Mina, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Uh Uh, Otello Profazio, Federico Albanese, and Giovanni Fusco
About Freespace Dance
Freespace Dance is renowned for creating emotionally driven work with a bold, athletic signature style. Artistic Director, Donna Scro Samori, is a former principal dancer with the Nikolais/Louis Dance Company and a founding member of Sean Curran Company. Her work has been applauded as having a humanistic quality that “goes straight to the heart.” FSD has performed nationally and internationally, and is at the forefront of modern dance education in New Jersey. FSD has received grants from Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, New Jersey State Council on the Arts, The Hyde and Watson Foundation,The New Jersey Cultural Trust and The American Music Center/New Music USA.
www.freespacedance.com
Facebook: Freespace Dance Company
Instagram: @freespacedance
Ariel Rivka Dance
Microvids (excerpts)
This work 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.
Choreographer: Ariel Grossman
Performers: Amy Ashley, Abriona Cherry, and Casie O'Kane
Composer: Stefania de Kenessey
Costume Designer: Carmen Maria Martinez
About Ariel Rivka Dance
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.
www.arielrivkadance.com
Facebook: Ariel Rivka Dance
Instagram: @arielrivkadance
The Moving Architects
O my soul
This work combines live dance and film to explore the visceral dichotomies we experience in life: tension and release, speed and stillness, exertion and recuperation, and being alone and together. The title references biblical laments uttered during times of trial. The driving sound score and interactive props enrich the meaningful and contradictory movement language.
Dance Film
Dancer, Choreographer, Videographer, Editor: Erin Carlisle Norton
Additional Videographer support: Michael and Miles Norton
Music: "Wings 3" by Michael Wall
Performance
Choreographer: Erin Carlisle Norton in collaboration with the dancers
Dancers: Emily Cicio and Kelly Guerrero
Music: “dug in” by Frank Bretschneider and Taylor Deupree, “Get in the Car” by Travis Lake
Special thanks to IN 7 - Experimental Video Art Residency at Gardenship and Monira Foundation Performance Residency at MANA Contemporary.
About The Moving Architects
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, including projects in KY, NC, MN, and WA in 2023. 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 popular dance interview podcast Movers & Shapers: A Dance Podcast.
www.themovingarchitects.org
Instagram: @themovingarchitects
Facebook: The Moving Architects
MILKLEAF
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.
Choreographer: Charlotte Griffin
Dancer/Collaborator: Waeli Wang
Composer: Milica Paranosic
Lighting Designer: Nita Mendoza
Cinematographer: Grant Speich
Video Design for Stage: Omar Ramos
Scenic Design: Szu-Feng Chen
Scenic Construction: Geronimo Guzman
Costume Design: Kaylynn Sutton
About MILKLEAF
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.
www.milkleaf.org
Instagram: @milkleafproductions
Facebook: Milkleaf
Sonia Plumb Dance Company
Presenting Vitruvian Man/Woman (Dance of da Vinci 2.0), Penelope’s Home Video #1, Garden of Statues and Washed Up (Penelope’s Odyssey) and SWARM (The Sound of Migration/work-in-progress)
This evening’s presentation offers a taste of SPDC's repertory created over the past three years, with a focus on Penelope’s Odyssey – a full-length dance inspired by the women in Homer’s: The Odyssey, reimagined for contemporary times when women’s voices are still often stifled.
Choreographer: Sonia Plumb
Performers: Eliza Frye, Oceana Hinds-Zemanian, Sarah McCarthy, Robbie Weatherington, and Jei Yoo
Technical Director and Lighting Designer: Craig Gehr
Music: Michael Wall, Jeph Vanger, Rising Appalachia
Video Editor: Maria Piva, Video Director: Ryan Glista
Costume Designer Penelope’s Odyssey: Michele Sansone
About Sonia Plumb Dance Company
Sonia Plumb grew up in rural Vermont and migrated to Connecticut to attend Trinity College. She founded Sonia Plumb Dance Company with the mission: through the lens of innovative modern dance – awaken, enrich, and educate communities to diverse perspectives of our world. Since forming SPDC in 1991 she has collaborated with composers, visual and digital artists, actors, puppeteers, poets and educators regionally, nationally and internationally. SPDC is known for reaching beyond the arts community with a diverse repertoire that often reflects upon larger societal issues. Ms. Plumb is a National Artist Teaching Fellow, and has thrice received the Connecticut Office of the Arts Fellowship for Artistic Excellence.
soniaplumbdance.org / IG: @soniaplumbdance / FB: Sonia Plumb Dance Company
www.soniaplumbdance.org
Facebook: Sonia Plumb Dance Company
Instagram: @soniaplumbdance
Pentacle’s Administrative Support Program (ASP) is supported, in part, by public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Pentacle receives private support for ASP from the Howard Gilman Foundation, The Jerome Robbins Foundation, and the Harkness Foundation for Dance.