ThINKingDANCE

ThINKingDANCE thINKingDANCE is a place where ideas thrive, where editors and writers engage one another in transfo

Help sustain thINKingDANCE into 2022 and join our Giving Circle on Grapevine! https://www.grapevine.org/giving-circle/OLWs44x/thINKingDANCE-Giving-Circle


thINKingDANCE is a collective of independent writers who produce media about dance in its broadest sense. Founded in 2011, we publish a digital journal focused on the Philadelphia area. Our mission is to:

- Meaningfully contribute to the creat

ive ecosystem by marking the presence of dance and movement-based arts
-Innovate and foster the practice of dance writing in traditional and experimental forms
-Work to dismantle dance criticism's status as a gatekeeper by engaging performing artists and writers who have historically been sidelined

We pursue these goals by training together through peer-critique sessions, with guest educators, and a two-tiered editing process. thINKingDANCE is a place where ideas thrive, where editors and writers engage one another in transformative dialogue, and where we imagine a more just dance media landscape.

FROM THE ARCHIVE ✨“Here and gone and here and gone…”In this 2013 essay, Annie Wilson reflects on a workshop with Deborah...
05/28/2026

FROM THE ARCHIVE ✨

“Here and gone and here and gone…”

In this 2013 essay, Annie Wilson reflects on a workshop with Deborah Hay that unfolded alongside the 2012 election, personal grief, and the impossible task of staying fully present in a body moving through the world.

Part memoir, part meditation on dance practice, the piece traces how choreography can become a way of asking questions rather than finding answers — how attention itself becomes political, spiritual, and deeply human.

Read from the archive:
buff.ly/IvqoI0D

✨ We’re thrilled to announce the next Write Back Atcha series with thINKingDANCE, in collaboration with ArtPhilly’s What...
05/25/2026

✨ We’re thrilled to announce the next Write Back Atcha series with thINKingDANCE, in collaboration with ArtPhilly’s What Now: 2026 festival.

From May 27 – July 2, join thINKingDANCE writers after select festival performances for Write Back Atcha — part post-show conversation, part mini writing workshop, and an invitation to put your experience into words.

Together, we’ll reflect, respond, and explore language for what dance does, stirs, and makes possible. Participants will have the chance to contribute to a crowd-sourced review published on thINKingDANCE.

📍 Select performances across Philadelphia
🗓 The first one in the series is on May 30th!
✍️ No writing experience needed — just curiosity and your perspective.

Come watch. Stay to write. Help shape the conversation around dance in Philly.

Learn more + see the full schedule at the link in the bio

In Megan Mizanty´s newest interview with choreographer Matthew Steffens, they talk about some of the personal toll and c...
05/22/2026

In Megan Mizanty´s newest interview with choreographer Matthew Steffens, they talk about some of the personal toll and creative process in turning the Epstein Files into a site-specific dance performance in Washington, DC.

To read "The Epstein Files and Redacted Bodies," please go here:
https://buff.ly/UscC74f

Photo: Courtesy of The First Amendment Troop

Image description: A dark teal border on the left and bottom edges of a white rectangle. In the center, an image: In a close up photograph, ten dancers in spaghetti-strap leotards lean in, their eyes covered by a sheer black cloth. The middle dancer, closest to the camera, is mid-scream. Behind the dancer is the newly engraved building signage reading “The Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Center.” Some words are covered by the dancers’ heads. In the lower-left corner of the post, in dark teal and black, a lowercase t and uppercase D, the logo for Thinking Dance. Above the image are blue letters that read “The Epstein Files and Redacted Bodies” and below the image are blue letters that read by Megan Mizanty.

In this series of interviews, E. Wallis Cain Carbonell shares some of the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of the dan...
05/21/2026

In this series of interviews, E. Wallis Cain Carbonell shares some of the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of the dancers after completing their final performances with Kun-Yang Lin/Dancers.

To read "Afterglow: The Dancers of KYL/D Take a Final Bow" :
https://buff.ly/4zME3Qw

Photo: Mike Hurwitz

Image Description: A dark teal border on the left and bottom edges of a white rectangle. In the center, an image: A group of shadowy-figured dancers in red kneel in profile. They reach their fingers toward a moody, red light in the upper right hand corner. The whole scene is bathed in haze. In the lower-left corner of the post, in dark teal and black, a lowercase t and uppercase D, the logo for Thinking Dance. Above the image are blue letters that read “Afterglow: The Dancers of KYL/D Take a Final Bow” and below the image are blue letters that read by E. Wallis Cain Carbonell.

In "Scats off the Score," Nadia Ureña reviews the latest piece by Putty Dance Project, which looks at the music of Franc...
05/21/2026

In "Scats off the Score," Nadia Ureña reviews the latest piece by Putty Dance Project, which looks at the music of Francis Johnson as a way into examining America´s complicated history of race and art.

To read the review: https://buff.ly/SyPKeZH

Photo: Jano Cohen

Image description: A dark teal border on the left and bottom edges of a white rectangle. In the center, an image: A group of five dancers, three women and two men, form a circle around a female soloist. The soloist, wearing a vibrant pink vest over a black top paired with light blue, wide-legged pants, moves exuberantly with her arms out akimbo while standing on her left toes with her right leg out to the side. A live five piece jazz band, including a piano, drums, a bass trumpet, and trombone, is visible behind the dancers upstage. A projection on the brick wall in the back displays a collage of sheet music and colonial artwork of a scene from a pub. In the lower-left corner of the post, in dark teal and black, a lowercase t and uppercase D, the logo for Thinking Dance. Above the image are blue letters that read “Scats off the Score” and below the image are blue letters that read by Nadia Ureña.

In this book review by Megan Mizanty, she discusses new ways of examining hierarchies of power within a classroom settin...
05/20/2026

In this book review by Megan Mizanty, she discusses new ways of examining hierarchies of power within a classroom setting through Nicole Perry´s "Care-full Creativity in Theatre and Dance Education."

To read her review "Reckoning with Power in the Classroom," please go here: https://buff.ly/zgnw9Ov

Photo: Amy Mahon

Image Description: A dark teal border on the left and bottom edges of a white rectangle. In the center, an image: Nicole Perry, the author of "Care-full Creativity in Theatre and Dance Education," smiles directly into the camera. She has wavy brown hair and wears a sleeveless white top. In the lower-left corner of the post, in dark teal and black, a lowercase t and uppercase D, the logo for Thinking Dance. Above the image are blue letters that read “Reckoning with Power in the Classroom” and below the image are blue letters that read by Megan Mizanty.

In this latest review by Brendan McCall, there is a discussion on "Hesperides" by Douglas Dunn + Dancers, which utilizes...
05/20/2026

In this latest review by Brendan McCall, there is a discussion on "Hesperides" by Douglas Dunn + Dancers, which utilizes classical dance vocabulary within a post-modern compositional framework.

You can read the full article, "Douglas Dunn´s Post-Modern Pastoral," here: https://buff.ly/1Px4Wgl

Photo: Jacob Burckhardt

Image Description: A dark teal border on the left and bottom edges of a white rectangle. In the center, an image: Eight dancers pose within a brightly-lit room, each wearing colorful costumes and with painted pillars around them evoking ancient Greece. Four of them sit or recline along the wall upstage, wearing flowers in their hair and adorned in tulle skirts. In front of them are two women in profile, balanced on the balls of their feet and extending their right arms as they look up. Facing them and to the right, two more dancers stand with their bent thighs wide apart, their curved arms away from their sides like warriors. On the wall upstage of all of them is a tranquil video image of two waterfalls. In the lower-left corner of the post, in dark teal and black, a lowercase t and uppercase D, the logo for Thinking Dance. Above the image are blue letters that read “Douglas Dunn’s Post-modern Pastoral” and below the image are blue letters that read by Brendan McCall.

FROM THE ARCHIVE ✨What happens when the container breaks?In this 2016 review, Anna Drozdowski reflects on Meg Foley’s Ac...
05/14/2026

FROM THE ARCHIVE ✨

What happens when the container breaks?

In this 2016 review, Anna Drozdowski reflects on Meg Foley’s Action is Primary, tracing the friction between installation and live performance, score and spontaneity, structure and rupture.

A performance that lingers “beyond the evening, beyond the website.”

https://buff.ly/27GThpU

Image Description: A white and light blue square with a dark blue border on the left and bottom edges. In the lower-left corner, the logo for Thinking Dance is in black typewriter font, with a lowercase t and an uppercase D. In white and black underlined letters, the posts read From The Archive, The container and the contained May 24, 2016 by Anna Drozdowski. In the Center of the square is a small image of a dancer balanced on one foot, both hands flying up and wide. She is behind a row of chairs with people facing away from her.

Ballet Hispánico’s Mujeres: Women in Motion gathers four choreographic voices in a vivid meditation on movement across t...
05/14/2026

Ballet Hispánico’s Mujeres: Women in Motion gathers four choreographic voices in a vivid meditation on movement across the Latine diaspora—where tradition bends toward experimentation, and identity emerges through rhythm, memory, and collective force.

In her latest review, Caedra Scott-Flaherty reflects on a program that honors women not only as makers of dance, but as shapers of its language—revealing how each work carves its own vocabulary of resistance, celebration, and becoming.

Read Mujeres in Motion on thINKingDANCE:
https://thinkingdance.net/articles/2026/05/07/mujeres-in-motion/

Photo: Steven Pisano - Courtesy of Ballet Hispánico New York

Image Description: A dark teal border on the left and bottom edges of a white rectangle. In the center, an image: Three dancers, two men and one woman, stand on a stage covered in bright autumn leaves. The background is black. They stand in a wide stance, holding thick black rolls over their heads. The man on the left, in gray pants and a t-shirt, looks up at the roll. The brunette woman wearing green pants and a brown tunic stares directly out. The man on the right, dressed in a red suit and white dress shirt, also looks straight forward. In the lower-left corner of the post, in dark teal and black, a lowercase t and uppercase D, the logo for Thinking Dance. Above the image are blue letters that read Mujeres in Motion and below the image are blue letters that read by Ceadra Scott-Flaherty.

“Through the editorial process and mentorship, I was able to deepen my engagement with my work in a meaningful way.” ✨On...
05/06/2026

“Through the editorial process and mentorship, I was able to deepen my engagement with my work in a meaningful way.” ✨

One of this year's first Emerging Writer Fellows reflects that the fellowship and mentorship it provided helped create a space to go deeper.

Rooted in care, curiosity, and collaboration, the Emerging Writers Fellowship supports artists in exploring how writing and movement intersect—where reflection becomes connection, and response becomes part of the work itself.

Here’s to building spaces where dance lives on through language, dialogue, and shared experience. 💬

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