From down under comes dance thunder.

Australia's Chunky Move is a company that feasts on theatrical invention and high tech special effects. Their witty high-concept full length works are full of characters and plot and integrates special effects and props into the choreography. In 2008, Chunky Move received Best Dance Work for Glow and Best Visual or Physical Theatre Production for Mortal Engine at the Live Performance Australia Helpmann Awards. In Connected, Chunky Move's newest work and a Philadelphia premiere, Artistic director Gideon Obarzanek teams up with California artist Reuben Margolin and the focus shifts from digital technology to mechanics. Margolin has designed a startling kinetic sculpture, constructed from wood, re-cycled plastic, paper and steel which appears as weightless waveforms for the athletic dancers to twist and hurl through space. Beginning with simple movements and hundreds of tiny pieces, the dancers construct the sculpture in real performance time.

Each performance will include a conversation with Artistic Director Gideon Obarzanek, to share insights and illuminate the creative process behind CONNECTED.

"Now Australia's biggest and most successful contemporary dance export"
2008 EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL

"Strongly conceived and arrestingly choreographed and designed physical theatre."
THE TIMES

"Astonishing virtuosity. And very funny"
LA MARSAILLAISE

What can you expect when hip hop meets ballet? A whole new aesthetic with eye-popping appeal. These polar opposites have been embodied in Victor Quijada, artistic director of Rubberbandance Group (RBDG). As a hip hop master in Los Angeles, he went to the High School of Performing Arts, where he had his first dance class, morphing a number of years later as a principal dancer for Les Grands Ballets Canadiens and touring with Twyla Tharp. Tights at 8, "doo-rag" at midnight. He ends up creating a fusion of both styles and a dance company to realize that vision. The excitement of dancing hip hop with the partnering, lifts, and line of ballet makes for a new language of movement and a refreshing new look. Audiences may recall RBDG's Philly debut when they danced an explosive hip-hop interpretation to Prokofiev's "Romeo and Juliet," leaving audiences cheering. RBDG will perform Quijada's 2011 work, Gravity of Center based on a nomadic tribe who interweave, fight, crave and hustle just to survive, imagined through the raw physicality of hip hop. Quijada collaborates on this Philadelphia premiere production with Yan Lee Chan, lighting designer and Jasper Gahunia composer.

"An authentic, serious new voice in dance, Victor Quijada has created an exciting seemingly improbable fusion of hip-hop, ballet and modern dance... "the energy and virtuosity of street dancing and married it to the formal structures of concert dance."
Los Angeles Times

"You've heard of the Renaissance man. Quijada is the renaissance dancer. Quijada is pro in all worlds."
The Gazette Montréal

"Like a brilliant mad scientist of dance, Victor Quijada has mixed forms and styles and emerged with a gorgeous hybrid of hip-hop, contemporary dance and ballet that transcends its parts to become something entirely new."
Timesunion.com

Dubbed the "queen of avant-garde" back in the early 1990's, when she crossed the boundaries of contemporary dance with shock tactics and notorious antics, Marie Chouinard, now twenty-two years later, is simply the "queen of Canadian Dance." She will revisit another time of scandal with her renditions of the "Rite of Spring" and "L'Apres-midi d'um faune," both works inspired by Nijinsky's choreography. The company will also perform "24 Chopin Preludes," in touch with the music and the feelings it evokes, such as chastity, passion, introspection, ardor or rebellion. Chouinard's compelling imagery on stage creates a theatrical tension that sustains and demands your attention. Although her works may be perceived as provocations, they are better viewed as pathways towards freedom and compassion, where humor is possible and Eros omnipresent. Best to leave the young ones at home. Chouinard was awarded the Quebec's Prix Denise Pelletier and is a fixture on the world stages.

"These (24 Preludes by Chopin and Le Cri du monde) are two extremely accomplished pieces - products of a fully matured choreographic imagination."
Deborah Jowitt, The Village Voice, NY 2003

"In 24 Preludes by Chopin and Le Cri du monde, (...) Ms. Chouinard takes her creativity onto an impressive and higher formal level."
Anna Kisselgoff, The New York Times, 2003

"The inventiveness is inexhaustible..."
Nadine Meisner, The Independent, London, 2002

"Contemporary dance at his best, THE GOLDEN MEAN (LIVE) was funny, outrageous, rude, theatrical, and gorgeous to look at it. The kind of performance that made [me] put down [my] pen within the first few minutes: [I] didn't want to miss a thing. [I] felt like experiencing an event rather than watching a performance. Marie Chouinard breaks boundaries...
Kevin Griffin, The Vancouver Sun, 20

During the past few years, we have been visited by MOMIX's delightful and energetic visions of the Moon in Lunar Sea, the desert in Opus Cactus nature in Botanica and sports in Baseball. Now they return with reMIX, featuring classic MOMIX material that's been refurbished and resurrected to the delight of one and all. They bring so much humor and beauty to the stage that each visit is cherished and remembered for its visual fantasy and stunning physicality.

"MOMIX dazzles with undefinable grace, personality."
New Orleans Times-Picayune

"If contemporary dance has a Renaissance man, it must be Moses Pendleton."
Toronto Star

"They are inspired vaudevillians, creating slapstick, science fiction and improvisational surprise. Such quick, bright explosions of theatricality are delightful tricks and crowd pleasers. They give the MOMIX program a charge of amusement and excitement absent for many years from modern dance. Their audience floats out on a dizzying high of pleasure."
Chicago Tribune

"This zany group got off to a rip-roaring start as a packed house clamored for more."
The New York Times

"The beauty of MOMIX's ideas is partly in their simplicity, partly in their acknowledgment of rhythm, humor, sex and amazing grace of the human body."
San Fransisco Bay Guardian

Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal in reality features neither ballet nor jazz dance. They are however from Montréal, and they have managed to commission some of the best currently working choreographers to create a repertoire that is spot on with an "au currant" sophistication that is compelling, because in part they have also attracted dancers of extraordinary talent to perform the work. They are a fusion of styles, polished technique matched with dedication for consistent outstanding programming. Their diverse repertoire features some of the world most brilliant contemporary choreographers today such as Crystal Pite (Vancouver), Rodrigo Pederneiras (Brazilian company Grupo Corpo), Mauro Bigonzetti (The Italian company Aterballeto) Aszure Barton (New York) and Annabelle Lopez Ochoa (Amsterdam). Avec de telles signatures à son répertoire, BJM croit à un enrichissement mutuel qui repose autant sur l'ouverture à l'autre que sur la diversité des styles. Under the direction of Louis Robitaille, LBJM remains one of Canada's preeminent dance troupes on the international scene.

"The company looks like runway-sleek with polished moves that would put Kate Moss to shame. Seriously, these dancers have the energy of a tsunami with stamina to spare."
Los Angeles Times

"It was an evening of bright, witty dances that were easy to like, vibrantly performed by a troupe that doesn't so much dazzle you with its technical prowess (though it has that) as charm you with its vivid personality."

Welcome to the strange and fantastic world of Inbal Pinto and Avashalom Pollak. We bring you the Philadelphia premiere of "Oyster," not so much a dance, but a foray into an alternative universe populated by an array of bizarre characters seemingly gathered from a Fellini film and a Cirque du Soleil show. Performers and dancers in doll-like make-up, spiky blonde wigs, and tutus alternately become puppets or puppeteers – in one delightful scene, a girl in a bouffant dress becomes a ringing bell. The eclectic score spans opera (Pagliacci), tango (Piazzolla), Harry James, Yma Sumac and Tuvan throat singers. Oyster won the Israel Theater Academy Award. Pollak and Pinto's unique movement encompasses ballet, contemporary, mime and acrobatics. The costumes, lighting, and props conspire to engage you in a surrealistic escapade exposing the foibles, humor, and cruelty of the human condition. Dance theatre at its best.

"Exquisite and sensational, ingenious and ironic, fabulous, funny, and quite gloriously unique."
Irish Independent.

"Clever and imaginative..."
New York Times

"Part surreal vaudeville, part circus, and part toy store after midnight that's Oyster"

"We applaud for the wit, the cleverness and the odd beauty."
Village Voice

"Oyster is a pearl of a dance, a gift from the sea of the imagination... Oyster seems in a class by itself with all the makings of a masterwork. It delivers something oddly pleasing – something to turn over and over in the mind and the imagination."
Herald Sun

Brazilian dancers seem to move like no one else and that hip swinging, martial arts Capoeira exuberance is evident in DanceBrazil, a company that fuses Brazilian culture, contemporary dance and live music, resulting in an ecstatic celebration for all who attend. Recent works such as Fluxo & Refluxo celebrates the roots of African culture growing deep within Brazilian culture or Banguela, a work built on the spiritual preparation that capoeiristas (martial arts dancers) undertake before a roda (a circular formation.) DanceBrazil, under the direction of Jelon Vieira, wows audiences worldwide with its colorful costumes, acrobatic virtuosity and soul-stirring rhythms.

"DanceBrazil rolled through town with its crowd-pleasing style of high-octane, high-flying, pelvis swiveling choreography. And let's not forget the revealing costumes; the phrase "six-pack abs" doesn't begin to do these justice."
New York Times

"Unabashed display of bravado"
New York Times

"Graceful choreography and energetic acrobatics."

"That sense of danger added to the thrill of a DanceBrazil concert that was a display of impressive muscle control, fluid rhythms and propulsive bodies hurling across the stage."
Minneapolis Star Tribune

"There can't be much anywhere to match the strength, the flexibility, speed and idiomatic allure of the dancers and musicians of DanceBrazil."
The Washington Post

It is hard to ignore the appeal of theatrical international ballroom and its effects on popular culture. Just check out the phenomenon of Dancing with the Stars. For years these talented artists competed to be the best before a relatively small audience of enthusiastic fans until television came along. This community of internationally recognized champion dancers have been brought together to create a magical evening of romance, sexy sultry forge into Latin and Tango rhythm along with the frantic energy of swing. This international dance sensation showcases ten intoxicating champions including Jonathan Robert and Anna Trebunskaya, a couple well known on Dancing with the Stars. The show is directed by world renowned coach and judge Tarliat Tarsinov, a former champion holding 20 World and European titles who choreographed for Dancing with the Stars and America's Ballroom Challenge.

As audience members, each performance concludes with a dance lesson in the lobby. Pre-show will feature local talent showing and strutting their stuff.

"Prove audiences are hungry for more..." Explore Dance

"...the audience applauded wildly throughout..." Explore Dance