On Saturday night, the Philadelphia Dance Company (PHILADANCO!), a company known, in its own words, for “breaking barriers and crossing cultural divides,” graced the Pfleeger stage. They delivered the astounding performance, How We Sustain, as part of the Marie Rader Series to Rowan students, faculty and staff, and community members.

“PHILADANCO!, after touring for over five decades around the world and having their home just a short distance from here before tonight, has never performed on this stage,” said Debbie Shapiro, Artistic Director of the Marie Rader Series.

Shapiro continued her introduction to the group, first by describing the audience as “the largest dance audience in the history of the Marie Rader Series.” Looking around, this much was clear. Almost every seat in Pfleeger Concert Hall was filled. 

Two weeks earlier, some of the PHILADANCO! company members took part in the Rowan Dance Festival, and then, just a day before their performance, some members gave a masterclass with Rowan students.

Opportunities like this, to see and potentially work with world-class performers, are a hallmark of the Marie Rader Series.

After delivering her introduction, Shapiro gave way to a spectacular performance, divided into two main acts, with one long 15-minute intermission and two short five-minute intermissions.

The first work was Seasons, a six-section set danced to a recomposition of Antonio Vivaldi’s work by Max Richter. Each section was based upon themes of the four seasons, discussed in interviews held leading up to the choreographing of the dances themselves.

On lights up, audience members saw silhouettes of dancers stark against a bright red background. Classical music began to play, setting off the first of many dances which highlighted grace, strength, and stamina.

The style of this section was one that carried over through the entirety of the performance. This was a style of ballet with contemporary and lyrical flair, combined with elements of hip-hop and other techniques of the African diaspora. 

Next up was a more avant-garde ballet entitled Gatekeepers. This set featured six dancers, each in different colored monochromatic two-piece suits. The dancers symbolize soldiers looking for the wounded as they make their way toward heaven.

The music for this segment was quite contemporary, evoking instrumentals in the R&B and Hip Hop worlds.

Between segments of ballet, dancers would power walk to and fro or stand and watch one another. Many moments felt intensely intimate, with some of the group just off to the side, watching, almost tapping into and out of the dance to join the watchers.

After Gatekeepers was a 15-minute intermission. At intermission, Destiny Figuereo, a sophomore here at Rowan double majoring in dance and elementary education spoke about her thoughts on the show so far.

“It’s great. I love being immersed in the arts and seeing black dancers on stage, seeing the culture represented here on campus. I feel like that’s not something that a lot of people see,” said Figuereo. “It’s a whole cultural mesh of music and lights and everything, and the dancers are so energetic [and] I feel like the audience feeds off that.” 

As a dance major, Figuereo found the performance inspiring. 

“People just see the finished product, but there’s so much that goes behind it, and as a dancer being put in that space and practicing, you realize that they put a lot of time in. So it’s very inspiring,” said Figuereo. “It makes me want to work harder.”

One intermission later, PHILADANCO! returned to the stage for their third set, This Place. This piece opened with a monologue from the one and only Dr. Maya Angelou, ending with the iconic quote, “Be a rainbow in somebody else’s cloud.”

This was a collage of movements choreographed to represent feelings of community. The opening movement seemed to center on the feeling of struggle, watched by many, with a gripping solo that appeared almost strenuous, fellow dancers off to the side.

Immediately after this vignette was another that encapsulated feelings of friendship and even sisterhood between the two girls. 

While This Place was a collection of dances just like these two, the finale ballet Somewhere Between Heaven and Earth was created in dedication to Debora Chase Hicks, who had a lifelong legacy of work with PHILADANCO!, and featured ethereal and technically complex dance and music. The final number ended with all dancers crouched, pointing upwards, as if to the heavens.

Their performance was a clear testament to the stamina and discipline of the people of PHILADANCO! and the skill and beauty they brought to the Pfleeger Concert Hall will not easily be forgotten. Enriching performances like theirs are what make the Marie Rader Series.

For more information about the Marie Rader Series, to see awesome performances like this, go to the Rowan College of Performing Arts web page under “Marie Rader Series.”

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