93 stories by "Merilyn Jackson"
A former Philly railroad plant becomes the perfect home for Lithuanian opera Sun & Sea, which shines at this year's Fringe Festival. Merilyn Jackson reviews.
New Paradise Laboratories founder Whit MacLaughlin is back onstage for the first time since 1996, exploring the poem that might be his salvation in 707 Hazardous Moves. Merilyn Jackson revie…
There are as many different ways to review Love Unpunished as there are people who died on 9/11. But only the living can remember, and speak a little about the unspeakable. Merilyn Jackson r…
Manfred Fischbeck passed away on March 17, 2021, but his Philadelphia dance legacy lives on. Merilyn Jackson remembers.
With stages dark around the world, dance critic Merilyn Jackson remembers the path of her musical education, rooted in the sounds of Philadelphia.
Originally commissioned to be performed at the Guggenheim, this series of short dance films features BalletX artists finding their way on unexpected stages. Merilyn Jackson reviews.
Is style just something you recognize when you see it? Doug Varone and Dancers still have it in a special residency performance at Swarthmore, despite two decades of a changing ensemble. Mer…
Big Dance Theater takes on 17th-century diarist Samuel Pepys and contemporary parallels in the Philly Fringe's opening night production. Merilyn Jackson reviews.
Automatic Arts' SoLow Festival entry, 'All on 1,' brings four short performance works to the PII Gallery. Merilyn Jackson reviews.
Doug Varone and Dancers bring four worthy pieces to NextMove Dance at the Prince Theater. Merilyn Jackson reviews.
Pennsylvania Ballet's "Balanchine and Beyond" program dances the intricacies of poetry, ballet, and Trisha Brown's contemporary dance language.
The conceit of the collaboration is "a night of dance listening and organ watching." So, with the grand Fred J. Cooper Memorial Organ looming relâche above us, a smaller organ reigned on …
In "Show No Show" at FringeArts, dancers Gabrielle Revlock and Aleksandr "Sasha" Frolov perform physical theater, conveying the awkwardness and power struggles of collaborating with someone …
His ability to pull at both the comic and tragic sides of the Janus mask in a millisecond makes Ezralow's dances spellbinding.
This year, the Avenue of the Arts lives up to its name as never before. The Pennsylvania Ballet soars at the Merriam and Academy of Music with Ãngel Corella's first full season of program…
By Merilyn Jackson
For the Inquirer
The stellar Ballets Jazz de Montreal generously gives the spotlight to Mark Francis Caserta, dancing to his hometown audience with a luxuriantly sensu…
The voices of children reciting the pledge of allegiance float over Brent White's opening chords, resonating with Putty White's movement schema.
Nicolo Fonte: The Brooklyn native retired from dancing 15 years ago, once his now-international choreographic career began to soar. He last worked with BalletX in 2013, when he set Beautiful…
At the talkback, instead of predictable questions like how or when did you think of doing this duet, I'd have asked about the chalk circles. Were they geometric maps for them to follow or we…
The idea for the work came to the pair when Jacek Kaspszyk told them about a pianist who "was drunk or afraid and escaped through the bathroom window rather than attempt to play the concerti…
The night was a roller coaster of pain wrung out with joy, middle fingers upraised.
A new era for dance swept into Philadelphia with the opening night Wednesday of NextMove at Chestnut St. Prince Theater.
In 55 minutes of endurance, the dancers seem to be on invisible tracks. The legs open just a little wider, then more emphatically, as Adams' music builds to a thunderous crescendo and what a…
Strømgren's first name is pronounced 'you', though since he seems on the verge of becoming an honorary Philadelphian, I am tempted to call him 'Yo.' And why not? His invented languages ef…
In the spring, she revised Available Light at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, and Gehry, now 86, redesigned the set for the proscenium stage, making it portable for touring - w…
