WHYSEEART Partners with local theater and dance performers to create archival material. News in visual forms have been the main influence for the “Lucid Age.” Which is focused on marketing, branding, photography, and videography. Influences which have questioned the boundaries around our social circles.
Beginning in 2020, penn Arts Live brought the Martha Graham Dance Company and launched a virtual season through the COVID-19 Lock Down. It is our starting point for many reasons.
The function of a modern art form that would become an avant-garde movement. It also was a way for new designs to bridge the arts visually and conceptually for performance art. Now, marks the beginning of digital designs for modern dance.
Next Move Dance
Artistic Director, Randy Swartz, brought international recognized dance companies to Philadelphia. Originally called, The Dance Affiliates, it began in 2015 and it’s premiere of Doug Varone and Dancers in 2016 was my introduction to this phenomenal contribution to Philadelphia’s cultural capital and visibility on a national scale. I was just getting started, and I would always hold my breath as I passed by Mr. Swartz. I saw him to his seat occasionally for the Philadelphia Orchestra, as an usher at The Kimmel Center. Mr.Swartz started by presenting dance series at the Wilma in 1970, and another Dance Celebration Series at the Annenberg Center in 1983.
The study of Movement: Theater into Dance
It all started with the collaboration of interviewing the artist, and getting to know the artists. The inspiration for the dance artist, Anita Gavino, showed a connection to immigration, and her lineage to the Philippines. These meetings led to large scale paintings for an art exhibition for the First Friday Philadelphia, Old City Art Loop in 2016, “OUTBOUND” presented by Spoke Magazine ( Le Migre: Lets Run, Sold at Auction at the Delaware College of Art and Design, an Alumni Exhibition in 2017).
From then on, I started meeting more artists in the dance, and theater community. Like, choreographer, Kun-Yang Lin, and at the Koresh Artist Showcase in Rittenhouse Square I was introduced to Pamela Hetherington of Take it Away Dance ( Now, Sound Space Performing Arts Studio, located at 1501 N. 31st Street Brewery Town Philadelphia).
Art journalism is a leading Contemporary art form. The goal in mind is: to draw more and more artists into the scene. The main influence was the audience reviews on The Dance-Enthusiast Dance Journal, where features some of the new digital designs for modern dance.
Audience Reviews allowed for my approach to art journalism to connect with a platform that reflects the dance world involving artists, critics, and audiences from many different backgrounds. I utilized my time, learning graphic design, editing from sketches and design new compositions for audience reviews. Graphic arts opens up new possibilities for communicating a performance. Continuing to sketch in theaters, and writing about the artists acknowledges the bridge for art and culture.
An early collaborator was, Asya Zlatina, (Artist House/ Zlatina and Dancers), a young choreographer which invited sketching into its rehearsals. This idea of working in the dance studio was a new idea that allowed for closer observations of the process, and idea of an artist’s repertoire.
This foundation into dance theater ignited by by story telling, with “dance play,” improvisation, and transformation.
An emphasis on learning new forms, and languages with drawing observational sketches. The research showed depth about the programs, and presented eclectic art forms. During this time, from 2016-2018. I was a liberal arts student at University of Pennsylvania.
The community felt welcoming to this resourceful, and knowledgeable curiosity in the form of reviews. As a part of this creative economy sector that met some of the organizations working in the field. It is simply a familiarity that grows out of exposing so many different styles, genres, fashions, and volumes performed on stage by the names of artists that make the fabric of the creative community in Philadelphia and beyond.
Talking to Pamela Hetherington, at the Sound Space Performing Arts Studio in 2020, about the history of tap dance, and percussion dance gave an understanding of a whole movement from Jazz clubs to the explosion of Modern Dance. An immense amount of imagination and hard work factors into the network of this art form performed by marginal communities and diasporic exchange through the exchange of steps by well known tappers. Bethlehem Robertson was in-network with Hetherington while producing Tyler and Timmons (2021). It is through these in-network connections that we hope to continue to thrive as a growing dance community in Philadelphia.