The Philadelphia Matter - 1972/2020

The much anticipated in-person premiere of The Philadelphia Matter – 1972/2020 is finally here with a FREE outdoor screening!

FREE but donations are appreciated. Registration is not required but is also appreciated. Click here to register

In September 2020, celebrated choreographer, director, and writer David Gordon premiered his first new screen work in two decades with a “virtual” performance company of 30+ Philadelphia, New York, and artists in quarantine across the United States. Working remotely, they recorded video material on everything from iPhones to professional cameras. Gordon then dissected, assembled, and collaged this movement with visual scores and archival works. Designer and technician Jorge Cousineau displays his artistic prowess in a stunning blend of footage of David and his partners dancing through the decades, overlaid with text and narration of their stories, all playing amidst and alongside the contemporary cast performing their dances in the most unlikely and picturesque spots across the nation.

We were unable to celebrate together in-person last year due to the pandemic – but we are so pleased to announce that on Friday, July 16 and Saturday, July 17, 8-10p.m., we will finally be able to join together in the Christ Church Garden for a free outdoor screening of this extraordinary piece. Complimentary wine, beer, and snacks will be served.

Our first VIRTUAL PANEL takes place Saturday September 19th. Barbara Hogue, Executive Director of Christ Church Preservation Trust, will open a conversation with David Gordon and his production team around the process of creating The Philadelphia Matter - 1972/2020 with remote technology. 

FREE with rsvp: Click here for tickets

Panel will include: 

Wally Cardona (Associate Producer/ Performer) is a choreographer/dancer/teacher living in Brooklyn. His choreographic work has been presented in the Americas, Europe and Asia, and commissioned by Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Joyce Theater, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, The Kitchen, EMPAC and others. Awards include an inaugural Doris Duke Performing Artist Award; Asian Cultural Council Fellowship; John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship; NYFA Fellowship; Creative Capital; and a New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award. For 6 consecutive years, from 2012 to 2017, his project THE SET UP: ISLAND GHOST SLEEP PRINCESS TIME STORY SHOW was presented at the River to River Festival in New York City. The seven resulting works were co-created with Jennifer Lacey and seven master artists who have dedicated their lives to their respective dance traditions: I Nyoman Catra (Balinese Topeng), Proeung Chhieng (Cambodian), Junko Fisher (Okinawan), Saya Lei (Mandalay-style, classical Burmese), Jean-Christophe Paré (French baroque), Kapila Venu (Indian Kutiyattam) and Heni Winahyuningsih (Javanese refined). In 2018, as a part of MoMA’s Judson Dance Theater: The Work Is Never Done exhibit, Wally performed in David Gordon’s The Matter @ MOMA and Deborah Hay’s Ten. He is currently collaborating with Kapila Venu, based in Kerala, India, on a new duet.

Alyce Dissette (Producer) has worked as a producer for several decades with performing, visual, film and digital artists in a wide range of venues and projects from staff member in the Metropolitan Opera presentations department to former Executive Producer of the PBS national series, Alive from Off Center / Alive TV. She was Director of one of the first international digital art works competitions sponsored by Paul Allen, the Voyager Co., and WIRED magazine presented at Lincoln Center. She has served on the Board of Directors for Dance/USA, Alliance of Resident Theatres (ART) / New York and is currently on the ODC Dance Board. Artists she has worked with include: filmmakers Julie Dash, Carl Franklin, Mark Pellington: visual artist James Turrell, author Art Spiegelman, and in the performing arts Richard Alston, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Nona Hendryx, Philip Glass, John Kelly, Susan Marshall, Urban Bush Women, and Robert Wilson. She has been producing the work of David Gordon and Ain Gordon for more than 2 decades and working with David Gordon for 35 years.

Ed Fitzgerald (Associate Producer) has been associated with David Gordon and the Pick Up Performance Co(s) since 1991, primarily as Production Stage Manager.  As a stage manager, he has worked on Broadway (“Da”, A Little Family Business, The Tap Dance Kid, Carrie, The Violet Hour), off-Broadway (Manhattan Theatre Club, Tick, Tick … Boom!), in major regional theatres across the country, and internationally in London, Berlin, Avignon, Strasbourg, Singapore and Seoul. 

Sarah Gladwin Camp (Project Manager) is a Philadelphia transplant specialized in building community and organizing large-scale performances. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in dance from Swarthmore College where she also studied linguistics and geology and holds a Professional Diploma in Dance Studies from Laban in London. From 2004-2014 she was Co-Artistic Director of Green Chair Dance Group, a collaborative dance-theatre company based in Philadelphia, which toured in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, and Poland. She is also the creator and director of ZoomDance: Action Adventure Story-Telling Dance programs for young kids. Sarah’s projects include Le Grand Continental and Le Super Grand Continental by Sylvain Émard Danse (2012 and 2018); Henry IV: Your Prince and Mine with Team Sunshine Performance Corporation and Shakespeare in Clark Park (2014); 100% Philadelphia with Rimini Protokoll (2014); Radio Silence live performance with Michael Rakowitz, a project of Mural Arts (2017); FringeA-Thon 12-hour marathon dance performance with FringeArts (2017 and 2018); Gala by Jérôme Bel, presented by FringeArts (2016 and 2018); In Plain Air, a collaboration between International Contemporary Ensemble and Christ Church Neighborhood House (2017-2018); Úumbal by Mariana Arteaga, presented by FringeArts (2019). And thoughtfully and joyfully raising a small human (2015-present).

Karen Graham (Associate Producer/ Performer) has worked with the Pick Up Performance Co(s) for many years as a performer and assistant to David Gordon. She has choreographed and produced work at Danspace Project, Movement Research at Judson Church and NYLA. She is the recipient of a New York Dance and Performance Award for Sustained Achievement.

Performers of The Philadelphia Matter - 1972/2020

Mehgan Abdel-Moneim

Mehgan Abdel-Moneim is a dance, performance and visual artist based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She earned her Bachelor's degree in Political Studies from Bard College, where she also studied dance technique and composition. While at Bard, she conducted qualitative research on the U.S. census and Middle Eastern and North African identity.

Mehgan has performed for Sheila Zagar, Rosy Simas Danse, Allison Pearce, Eric Ashleigh, MAC Cosmetics and 145 East, a fashion and media brand based in Kolkata, India. She has presented original pieces at The Secret City Art Revival, EDANCO 2019, HOT•BED and KYL/D’s 2020 InHale Performance Series. Mehgan currently works as an Administrative Assistant at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.
 

Megan Bridge

Megan Bridge is a dancer, choreographer, producer, and dance scholar based in Philadelphia. She is the co-director of Fidget, a platform for her collaborative work with composer, designer, and musicologist Peter Price. She is particularly interested in the historical lineages and discursive frameworks that situate her work, and her teaching and writing practices reflect this interest. Bridge is currently pursuing her MFA degree in dance at Temple University, with completion expected in December, 2020. 

As a professional dancer Bridge has worked with choreographers and companies such as Group Motion, Steve Paxton and Lisa Nelson, Jerome Bel, Willi Dorner, Lucinda Childs, David Gordon, Susan Rethorst, anonymous bodies, Headlong Dance Theater, and readySetGO, and has taken workshops with Deborah Hay, Xavier LeRoy, Miguel Gutierrez, and Jan Fabre. 

On tour, Bridge’s performances have taken her to New York, Vienna, Berlin, Bogotá, Plovdiv, Tbilisi, Rennes, Dresden, Dusseldorf, Warsaw, Kraków, Lublin, Bytom, Poznań, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Phoenix, Johannesburg, and Zurich. In 2013 she was named “Best of Philly” for stage performance by Philadelphia Magazine. 
 

Marie Brown

Marie Brown, originally from Jacksonville, Florida, moved to Philadelphia in 2005 after graduating from Radford University with a BFA in Dance.  While in Philadelphia, she had the honor to work with a variety of companies and independent artists such as Scrap Performance Group, Group Motion Dance Company, MacArthur Dance Project, StoneDepotDance Lab, Chisena Danza, Beau Hancock, Jodi Obeid, and Olive Prince Dance.  She returned to Philadelphia after graduating with an MFA in Dance Performance from The University of Iowa in 2014 and is most recently working with Chisena Danza and <Fidget>.  She is currently an adjunct professor at Temple University, Pilates instructor, and runs her own independent cleaning business. She is grateful to be participating in THE PHILADELPHIA MATTER/2020 project during a time that is uncertain for artists.
 

Sanchel Brown

Sanchel is a performer,choreographer, and actress originally from Baltimore, MD. She has been based in Philadelphia for the past five years forging forward as an independent artist in multiple projects, performances, and workshops. She currently teaches her original "Afro-Club" dance class weekly at Urban Movement Arts; this class is a cross combination between Baltimore Club and Traditional West African dance forms. Performance highlights include Davido’s Coming to America Concert, let I’m Move You, and Urban Bush Women (Apprentice). She has also served as choreographer on Yale Dramat’s Dreamgirls 2017 and The Color Purple Regional Premiere (Barrymore Nominated for Outstanding Movement). In 2017 she produced "Ode to Black Wombman" and in 2019 "Home to Homeland" and “Wheelz of Life” in collaboration with India Hyman.
 

Eun Jung Choi

Eun Jung Choi, featured as one of Dance Magazine’s 25 to Watch in 2012, is a movement artist/choreographer who has been working professionally for the past 24 years in the United States, Mexico, and Korea. Between 1996 and 2009, she worked with Sean Curran Co., Limon Dance Co., Allyson Green Dance, Risa Jaroslow and Dancers and other independent choreographers in New York City while creating her own work and presenting multiple times at Dance Space Project and other venues. Since 2008, she has been Artistic Co-Director of Da·Da·Dance Project, a duet repertory dance theater and performed works created by Melanie Stewart, Gerald Casel, Erick Montes, Luke Gutgsell, Helena Franzén (Sweden) and two artistic directors: Guillermo Ortega Tanus and herself. She has taught at the NC Governor’s School, North Carolina School of the Arts, the Center of Choreographic Investigation, Mexico, Movimiento Escénico, La Cantera, Temple University, Bryn Mawr College, Rowan University and many more. In addition to her career in dance, Eun Jung was an interdisciplinary video/interactive installation artist and graphic designer. Her video works have been presented at various theaters, galleries and commercial venues/parties in both Mexico and the United States. Additionally, she practices several healing modalities including Myofascial Release, Thai Massage and others.  
 

Amalia Colón-Nava

Amalia Colón-Nava, is an artist, choreographer, videographer, dancer and recently farmer based in Philadelphia, PA. She received her BFA in Dance from The University of The Arts in May 2017. As a freelance artist she has a variety of experience ranging from participating in long-term projects with movement artists Lily Kind and Curt Haworth to collaborations with photographers and musicians such as John Singletary, Tim Motzer, and Saleka Night.  She enjoys bringing dance to her communities, which she has done with Fringe Arts Community Dance Projects (Le Super Grand Continental) and Pop-Up Playgrounds and Performance (a project she devised and directed with the support of Perphorm).  She enjoys traveling and has worked and studied in various parts of the U.S. and internationally in France, Denmark, Canada, and Belgium.  She has pursued education in somatic practice and anatomical research, under the tutelage of Shannon Murphy (Franklin Method), Erik Erikson, Sylvie Fortin (Feldenkris), and Olive Bieringa (BMC Educator).
 

Sydney Donovan

Sydney Donovan is a graduate of the University of The Arts. In May of 2019 she received her BFA under the direction of Donna Faye Burchfield in the school of dance. Sydney started dancing at the age of two in New Jersey and then moved her training to Philadelphia by becoming a member of the Koresh Youth Ensemble at age thirteen. Sydney studied Franklin Method under the mentorship of Shannon Murphy for the past nine years. She has also studied the movement language of Gaga under Batsheva Dance Company at the first ever program at Jacob’s Pillow led by Bret Easterling and Ohad Naharin. She then continued her Gaga training at the company’s home studio in Tel Aviv, Israel. While in Israel she also studied with Noa Wertheim and Vertigo Dance Company in their Eco-Village. Back in the states Sydney has trained with Gallim Dance Company, Bobbi Jene Smith, Annie Rigney, Kun-Yang Lin/Dancers, Koresh Dance Company, Troy Ogilive, and Ami Shulman. She has performed works by Bobbi Jene Smith, Doug Varone, Sidra Bell, Paul Matteson, Zoe Scofield, Milton Meyers, and Jesse Zaritt . Sydney has performed with the Philadelphia Opera in Turandot choreographed by Renaud Doucet and Semele choreographed by Gustavo Ramirez Sansano. She is currently working with Paul Matteson, David Gordon, and is artistic director of Hillary Pearson’s movement company: Wear Your Feelings. Sydney is also teaching contemporary at The University of Pennsylvania and BalletX.
 

Bethany Formica

Bethany Formica is a dancer, educator, choreographer and artisan. Bethany graduated with a BFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University in 1994. Since then has worked with several New York City based companies including Sean Curran and Company, Pearson/Widrig DanceTheatre, The Kevin Wynn Collection, Michael Foley, Martha Bowers Dance Theatre and with Philadelphia-based companies such as Boan Danz Action, Megan Mazarick, Nichole Canuso Dance Company, Melanie Stewart Dance Theatre, and Dada von Bzdülöw Theatre in Poland. Bethany has received fellowships from the Independence Foundation (2012) and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts for Choreography (2008), and several professional development grants from The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage through Dance Advance. Her work has been presented in Philadelphia, NYC, and in Italy, Poland, Bulgaria and England. She currently teaches modern dance technique at Swarthmore College and Bryn Mawr College and is the owner of Sawdust Siren, creating wood-centric art.
 

Beau Hancock

Beau Hancock is a Philadelphia-based artist educator. A graduate of Temple University (MFA) and the University of Kansas (BA), he began his career performing with Ben Munisteri, Douglas Dunn, and Merián Soto, among others. His teaching has taken him across the globe, most recently as a guest at the SPAN Dance Academy in Lagos, Nigeria and the International Dance Day Festival in Byblos, Lebanon. He has created dances for Rowan University, Franklin & Marshall College, Georgian Court University, and Drexel University (as an Ellen Forman Memorial Award recipient). In 2017, he joined the Stockton University Performing Arts faculty as an Assistant Professor of Dance.
 

Nile Harris

Nile Harris is a performance artist, director, and curator. His work has been presented at the Palais de Tokyo, The Watermill Center, Dixon Place, Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance,Secret Project Robot and Movement Research at Judson Church. He has recently been developing a triptych of performance works entitled ‘The Rise and Fall of the Huxtable Family’ that investigates the blurring of American black identity in mass media and syndicated television and its roots in minstrelsy with support of the Dance Your Future: Artist and Mentor Collaborative Residency produced by Pepatián and Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, the Abrons Arts Center’s AIRspace Studio Residency, and the Brooklyn Arts Exchange Space Grant.He has worked extensively with various artists including Jaamil Olawale Kosoko, 600 HIGHWAYMEN, Bill Shannon, Robert Wilson, Nia Witherspoon, Malcolm Betts X, and Miles Greenberg in venues including New York Live Arts, Museum of Modern Art, Tanz im August, The Walker Art Center, EMPAC, Danspace Project, Stanford Live, Dublin Theatre Festival, and MESS Festival. He has performed in Broadway and Off-Broadway productions including ‘The Inheritance’ and ‘Occupied Territories’.
 

Justin Jain

Justin Jain is an Actor, Director, Teacher, and Wilma HotHouse Company member, previously appearing in Dance Nation, THERE, and Romeo & Juliet, among many others at The Wilma. Recent stage credits include Shakespeare in Love (People's Light), Man of God (InterAct), This is The Week That Is (1812 Productions), and Broccoli, Roosevelt, & Mr. House! (FringeArts) with his Barrymore nominated alt-comedy theatre company, The Berserker Residents (www.berserkerresidents.com). Additionally, Mr. Jain has performed Off-Broadway and with many regional theaters including: Arden Theatre Company, Lantern Theatre, Azuka, FringeArts, Shakespeare in Clark Park, McCarter Theatre, Theatre Horizon, Passage Theatre, Milwaukee Rep, The Assembly in Edinburgh, ASU Gammage, and Ars Nova NYC, among others. Justin recently won the 2019 Barrymore for Outstanding Performance in a Play for his work in The Great Leap (InterAct). Upcoming: Heroes of the Fourth Turning with The Wilma Theatre. 
 

Shayla-Vie Jenkins

Shayla-Vie Jenkins is a performer, teacher, and maker based in Philadelphia. Jenkins spent a decade performing with Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company and serves as a teaching artist and répétiteur. She has worked with many incredible artists most recently including Ni’Ja Whitson, Yvonne Rainer, Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born. She is an Assistant Professor in the School of Dance at The University of the Arts. 
 

Jungeun Kim

Jungeun Kim (J.e.) is a choreographer, dancer and digital media designer.  Her works have been shown around the US, Europe and Asia including the Korean Cultural Center, Taubman Museum of Art, Movement Research at Judson Church, and Torino Esposizioni.  She has worked with artists such as Sarah Skaggs, Thomas DeFrantz/SLIPPAGE, Susan Rethorst, Helen Simoneau Danse and Jane Comfort & Co. She has participated in a number of interdisciplinary collaborations with musicians and visual artists and has been a guest artist at Drexel University, Dickinson College, the American Dance Festival, Hollins University, and The Modern Dance Promotion of Korea.  

A member of the faculty at the University of the Arts’s School of Dance and UArts Pre-College Summer Institute, she holds a MFA in Dance and MALS in Visual and Performing Arts from Hollins University.  J.e. hails from Seoul, South Korea.  She has been focusing on community-based art projects that can become resources for those in need.  
 

Megan Mazarick 

Megan Mazarick is a choreographer, performer, and teacher. She earned her BFA in dance from UNCG and an MFA in choreography from Temple University.  Her work has been presented internationally (Singapore, Bulgaria, Egypt, Poland, Australia, and Hungary) and throughout the USA (Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Minneapolis, New York City, New Jersey, North Carolina, West Virginia, etc.). She often works collaboratively and curated a dance community class program for nEW Festival (a Philadelphia-based dance festival) for 4 years and was co-director of the festival from 2010-2012.  In 2015 she co-produced By Chance Festival at Rawabet Theater in Cairo, Egypt.  She has received an Independence Fellowship, an Ellen Forman Award, LiveArts LAB Fellowship, Susan Hess residency, and a Graduate Assistant Scholarship from Temple University.  Her choreography has been supported by the US Embassy in Singapore, the US Embassy in Bulgaria, and the US Embassy in Egypt.  As a performer she has worked with Susan Rethorst, Keith Thompson, Marianela Boan, Merian Soto, Anonymous Bodies, Black Box Dance Theater, and members of Lower Left. Megan has taught technique, improvisation, and composition classes at studios, festivals, and universities around the globe.  She currently teaches dance as an Assistant Professor at Georgian Court University.
 

Lucas A Mikan

Hi I’m Lucas Mikan I’m from CT and I love to dance. My favorite style is hip hop and I attend Temple university as a dance major. 
 

Rhonda Moore

Rhonda Moore is a dancer, choreographer, performance artist, and educator. A member of the very first Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company (1983), Moore’s introit into the dance world began as a 2nd grader, accessing after-school ballet classes held by local ballet Mistress Ann Marder in the just-emptied-of-students classrooms of her Mt. Vernon, NY elementary school. The 5th grade brought along with it studies in Katherine Dunham technique with former Dunham company member Floretta Rush, this time in the school gym. The relationship blossomed into a tutelage, collaboration, and friendship, with Moore performing throughout the tri-state area with Rush’s NY-based Akosua Afro-Haitian Dance & Drum Troupe for the next decade. 

After a stint at the University of Chicago and four years of immersion in movement and theater studies at SUNY Purchase Moore hit the streets of New York, taking classes as a scholarship student at the Ailey studios, rarely auditioning (”Hate it!”) and then joining Jamie Cunningham’s ACME Dance Company (1980) and performing with many artists involved in the making and shaping of the city’s then “downtown” dance scene. 

“I like what I like” adroitly explains the motley list of some of the people who have graced Rhonda’s artistic trajectory: Louis Johnson, Vinnette Carroll, Susan Dibble, David Gordon, Douglas Dunn, Kevin Wynn, Reggie Workman, Max Roach, Maurizio Zanolli, Hua Hua Zhang and other crafters and experimentalists of the 70s and 80s, many still making work today. More recently Moore has lent her talents as choreographer, coordinator, staging and movement consultant to the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, The Mural Arts Program of Philadelphia, the Stockton Barthol Foundation and Temple, Drexel, Cabrini, and Rosemont Universities in the construction of both professional dancer-based and all-inclusive community dance projects. 
 

Guillermo Ortega

Guillermo Ortega Tanus (Dance Artist-Educator-Lighting Designer). is a Mexican artist who lives and works in Philadelphia, PA, United States. Together with Eun Jung Choi he co-directs Da·Da·Dance Project (US-Mexico), a duet repertory company that has been presented at International venues and Festivals in Korea, Unites States, and Mexico.  The company has performed the choreographic work of Melanie Stewart, Elise Knudson, Helena Franzén, Luke Gutgsell, Gerald Casel, Erick Montes, Eun Jung Choi and Guillermo's work.

He has danced for numerous companies and artists in both Mexico and the US including UX Onodanza (Mexico), David Gordon’s Pick Up Performance Co. (NY), Risa Jaroslow and Dancers (NY), Group Motion, Nicole Canuso (Phila), and many others. He holds a BFA in contemporary dance from the “Escuela National de Danza Clásica y Contemporanea” as well as a MFA from Temple University. Currently, he is an adjunct professor at Rowan University.  Guillermo is also a licensed massage therapist in PA.
 

Rebecca Patek

Rebecca Patek is a choreographer and performance artist creating work that utilizes elements of dance, theater and comedy.  Patek is a Greater New York Artist 2015-16 and a 2014 Brooklyn Arts Exchange Space Grant recipient.  She is a inaugural recipient of The Award as well as a 2014 Queer Art Mentorship Fellow. Patek has been an Artist in Residence at Movement Research, Atlantic Center for the Arts and at New York Live Arts as part of Fresh Tracks Performance and Residency Program. Her work has been presented at MoMa PS1, Impulstanz Vienna (winner of the Prix Jardin D’Europe Fan Award 2014), The Kitchen, The Museum of Arts and Design, The Chocolate Factory Theater, Abrons Art Center, 92nd Street Y, and Movement Research at Judson Church, among many other venues. She is co-founder of Mascher Space Cooperative in Philadelphia.
 

Dawn Pratson

Dawn Pratson is a dancer, musician (flute, piano, percussion), choreographer and educator with a background in creative arts in therapy. She earned her BA in music and dance from the University of Hartford/Hartt School of Music and her master’s degree in Creative Arts in Therapy from Hahnemann Medical College, now Drexel University. She also earned a license in Dalcroze Eurhythmics.

From 1983-2003 Dawn had an active career in performance, teaching and arts in therapy in and around Boston, MA.  She was a member of the children’s theater troupe “Music Alive” from 1998-2002 and founded and directed a women’s a cappella ensemble called ‘LEVEN, from 1991-2003. During that time, she created and directed several, evening-long performances of her choreographic, music and collaborative works.    

Since moving to Philadelphia in 2003 she has performed with Workshop for Potential Movement, Nicole Bindler, Leah Stein, Tara Rynders, Pamela Heatherington, Choral Arts Society, the Anna Crusis Women’s Choir and currently plays with pianist Barbara Golden and violist Soo Kyong Kim.  She is a Resident Artist at Mascher Space Cooperative. She was the founding music teacher at the Folk Arts-Cultural Treasures Charter School where she taught from 2005-20015. Since 2019 she has been a volunteer musician with Musicians On Call, playing music at the bedside of patients in medical care facilities.

For more info: Dawnpratson.com
 

Lauren Putty White

Lauren Putty White, received her BFA from University of the Arts in 2005 along with the Choreography Prize and Outstanding Performance in Modern Dance award.   She has toured internationally with world –renowned companies Parsons and PHILADANCO, as well as performed locally with Waheed Works and Dawn Bazemore Dance Project. Lauren has choreographed for companies and schools such as Ballet X , Grace Dance Theatre, Bryn Mawr College and Drexel University; as well as taught at University of the Arts , Stockton University and Temple University. White also has done guest artist residencies at Mercy High School and Carver Center for Arts and Technology in Baltimore, MD, and has taught for AileyCamp Baltimore.  In 2012 Lauren founded Putty Dance Project, a collaborative company with her musician husband, producing socially conscious critically acclaimed works. Putty Dance has presented at the Kimmel Center, Philadelphia, PA, the K Dance Yes Invitational, Richmond, VA, the American Dance Guild Festival, NY, NY, That Which Connects Dance Festival in Camden, NJ and Baltimore Dance Invitational.  Lauren recently received her MFA in Dance from Montclair State University.
 

Gabrielle Revlock

Gabrielle Revlock is a performer and dance-maker whose work often depicts complicated but relatable interpersonal relationships using a vocabulary that embraces pedestrian movement, abstracted by degrees. Described by the press as inventive, mesmerizing, and a gifted comedian, Revlock has performed in Japan, Netherlands, Singapore, Hungary, India, Russia, across the USA. Her work has been supported by the Independence Foundation, Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, a LAB Fellowship through FringeArts, PA Council on the Arts, SCUBA National Touring Network for Dance, Puffin Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, American Dance Abroad and the US Department of State. In 2018 she was named  ‘Newcomer of the Year’ by tanz, the German  journal of ballet, dance, and performance. In 2019 she was an Institute Fellow with the experimental theater company, Target Margin.  As a dancer, she has performed for Lucinda Childs, jumatatu m. poe, Meg Foley, Susan Rethorst, Leah Stein, Christopher Williams, Vicky Shick, Bill Young, and is a company member with Jane Comfort. Revlock is the creator of Restorative Contact, a mindful touch-based empathy practice as well as a practitioner and teacher of contact improvisation and experimental hooping.  She created the online video “So You Think You Can’t Understand Contemporary Dance?,” a two-minute conversation with her favorite five-year-old which has 20.6K views and is the co-founder of The Apocalypse Singles Club, a group for people looking for love, sex, romance, flirtation, camaraderie and support during the global pandemic. More at GabrielleRevlock.com
 

Nick Schwasman

Nick Schwasman is a theater artist based in Philadelphia, PA. He holds a BFA from The University of the Arts, as well as a graduate certificate from The University of the Arts/Pig Iron School. He is a co-founder/co-director of Drip Symphony, a local experimental performance company, and serves on the board of Plays & Players Theatre. Most recently, Nick was an apprentice at the Lantern Theater Company. He has worked with Pig Iron Theatre Company, Lightning Rod Special, Brian Sanders’ JUNK, Arden Theater Company, The Renegade Company, and The Lantern Theater Company. (DripSymphony.org)
 

Margot Electra Steinberg

Margot Electra Steinberg is a Philadelphia-based dancer, choreographer, improviser, contact dancer, and teacher. She currently teaches movement at PlayArts, Philly InMovement, and in Philadelphia Public Schools through Koresh Kids Dance. Margot has performed in works by Donald McKayle, Sharon Vazanna, Noa Eshkol, and Randall Anthony-Smith, and has performed for The Naked Stark, Leah Stein Dance Company, Vervet Dance, Lyons & Tigers, Meredith Stapleton, Paige Phillips, Mira Treatman, Sean Thomas Boyt, and more. Margot's recent solo work has explored intimacy, care, sensuality, and consent through moving and improvising with objects.
 

Katie Vickers

Katie Vickers is an American artist, a graduate of PARTS (2014) and of The Ohio State University (2010). She has danced for and with Daniel Linehan (USA), Albert Quesada (SP), Martin Nachbar (GE), Benjamin Vandewalle (BE), Vera Tussing (GE), Rósa Omarsdóttir (IS), Kendell Geers (ZA), Thierry de May (BE) and as a guest artist for the Cullberg Ballet’s ‘Figure a Sea’, choreographed by Deborah Hay. She has conducted workshops internationally, and spearheaded the Mercersburg Academy Summer Program for Dance and Theatre in the USA as well as Practicing Performance at The Ohio State University and Philadelphia.

Her own work and research spans through a variety of interests yet their common ground is to question the use of the body to find the unfamiliar in the familiar. She has created several works in different collaborative constellations such as Slogan for Modern Times (2015), 5 Seasons (2016), and We Will Have Had Darker Futures (2017). These pieces have been performed and premiered in the festival Bouge B in deSingel and have been supported by institutions such as Dommelhof TAKT, Vooruit, School Van Gaasbeek, STUK, wpZimmer, Uferstudios, Schloss Bröllin, MDT Stockholm, Swedish Arts Council, CCBerchem, among others. 

 In Spring 2018, she choreographed ‘Tribute’ for the amateur group Degenoten in Belgium and recently finished ‘The home of Dance’, a research project on alternative spaces for performances, rethinking the theatre home (supported by Flanders government). She is currently on tour with Albert Quesada in the production Flamingos and studying for her MFA at University of the Arts in Philadelphia. 

November Ward

I am an LA native who moved to Philadelphia to start a new world of wonder. For the majority of my life, I’ve been surrounded by artists who have exposed me to new possibilities and have furthered my thinking for new creations. I hope to gain even more life changing experiences, evolve as a human being, and learn from those around me. I want to interact with other artists with the same degree of passion for their craft, and continue to develop artistically, which will allow me to evolve as a well-rounded artist, and hopefully even make a name for myself. My biggest goal is to share my ideas with others through my art and to have people respect me for my creativity which may even spark an interest in the arts in someone else. On my career path in pursuing my goals as a contemporary dancer and future choreographer I'd also like to make my passion for film photography a suitable career for myself as well.
 

Jacinta Yelland

Jacinta Yelland is an Australian physical theatre performer and creator based in Philadelphia, USA. Jacinta has collaborated with companies across Australia and America including Almanac Dance Circus Theatre, Tribe of Fools, Quintessence Theatre Group, Philadelphia Asian Performing Artists, Visual Expressions, Zen Zen Zo Physical Theatre, Elbow Room Productions, and RealTV. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Devised Performance from The University of the Arts led by award-winning Pig Iron Theatre Company, a Bachelor of Creative Industries: Drama from Queensland University of Technology, has completed the Zen Zen Zo Physical Theatre Company Internship and was supported by Arts Queensland to study at École Philippe Gaulier, Paris. Her projects have been supported by Australia Council for the Arts, Arts Queensland, Network of Ensemble Theaters, and American Australian Association. 

For Immediate Release

July 31, 2020

DAVID GORDON’S THE PHILADELPHIA MATTER - 1972/2020, A 60-MINUTE, REMOTELY CONSTRUCTED VIDEO WORK, PREMIERES ONLINE SEPTEMBER 10 – OCTOBER 4
AS PART OF THE PHILADELPHIA FRINGE FESTIVAL

Christ Church Neighborhood House Commissioned The Philadelphia Matter - 1972/2020 and Is Producing It in Collaboration with Pick Up Performance Co(s). Major Support Has Been Provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage

Gordon Addresses Our Moment of Physical Distancing with the Ever-Growing Legacy of His Work

David Gordon’s The Philadelphia Matter - 1972/2020 will premiere on September 10, the opening day of the 2020 Philadelphia Fringe Festival, and will stream on the Christ Church Neighborhood House website through the end of the festival on October 4. It further evolves the legacy of Gordon’s The Matter works (first presented in 1972, and most recently reconceived for MoMA in 2018) and brings the choreographer’s trademark blurring of everyday life and performance—as well as his self-reflexive integration of process into presentation—into the present, with all its creative obstacles and potentials. The work, made with video collaborator and editor Jorge Cousineau, features more than 30+ Philadelphia performers in addition to Wally Cardona and Pick Up Performance Co(s) members Karen Graham and Valda Setterfield.

Since Gordon began conceiving a performance work to premiere at the Christ Church Neighborhood House over a year ago, the process has drastically shifted. While the project was originally intended to connect performers dancing in both Philadelphia and Manhattan—accompanied by a live-stream of their fellow dancers in the other city—Gordon determined to start anew in response to the pandemic. 

“I am used to the fact that whatever the plan is it may have to be part of a bigger plan than yours,” says Gordon. He cites as examples the sudden incorporation of turning into his dances (from beginning to work with Dean Moss, who it turned out was exemplary at triple pirouettes); to the dance Chair, made for his wife and lifelong collaborator Valda Setterfield to dance after suffering injuries in a car accident; to his 1962 solo Mannequin Dance, which figured into the original The Matter and which Gordon made to shortly after coming from the hospital to visit his wife and their newborn son, Ain.

“I don't start by saying ‘I'm going to make this,’” he explains. “I learned very early on that that was not very useful because I then had to fight what developed. After 50 years, I still don't know what it is I'm making until it begins to assert itself as something. At which point I either panic and throw out everything I've done and start again—or I start to support the thing that seems to have started growing.”

The remote collaborating process began in June responding to over 100 audition online submissions: Gordon sent potential Philadelphia performers “Song and Dance,” a solo from the 1979 version of The Matter. (“Song and Dance” was part of the only section of that performance—much of which considered and emulated Eadweard Muybridge’s photography and its impact on our perceptions of motion— that resembled dance; further slyly subverting audience expectations, the traditionally-dance component occurred solely during intermission.)

Auditionees were encouraged to film themselves making what they thought Gordon would want to see based on it—for as Gordon proudly admits, he does not yet know what he wants to see. “I asked them to please show me the space they might be going to work in their house; I've asked them to be aware of the quality of the image they're sending me. I am going to be finding out what they do, how they do it, and why they are doing it,” says Gordon, whose works often integrate video and text as they lay bare the means by which they were made.