This Summer, Dance Place continues to welcome audiences back into our theater, SAFELY.
Our in person ticketed performances and events include work by Artist in Residence (AIR) Tariq Darrell O’Meally, haus of bambi, Spring Youth Performance Showcase, Abby Z & the New Utility, a weekend of events for DanceAfrica DC, renowned choreographers – Gesel Mason, and Vanessa Sanchez that culminates our EMBARK season. Get ready for a Summer filled with dance and community! All in person ticketed events continue to be on a sliding scale to ensure that all members of our community can access our programs.
Dance Place strives to ensure a safe and healthy environment for its staff and patrons. Click here for our current COVID-19 policies.
Tariq Darrell O’Meally
May 7
Indoor Ticketed Performance at Dance Place
Join Artist in Residence Tariq Darrell O’Meally for a one night invitation to his Performance Lab. There will be a small gathering to share thoughts and have conversations about the Performance Lab.
haus of bambi: Pantheon
May 12
In-person event at Capo Deli
Pantheon is an invocation, through performance, of the drag deities of DC nightlife. Held at Capo in Shaw, the work brings audiences into the club to witness and participate in its rite. It is an evening of self-mythology and ceremony through which the artists construct, explore, and assert their own queer divinity.
Dance Africa 2022
May 31 – June 4
RAIN DATE – June 5
Outdoor Ticketed Performance at CUA
Join us for a week of dance, music, and tradition during our 34th annual DanceAfrica, DC festival; Together Again: Celebrating Life, Love, Unity, and Hope! Celebrate the spirit of the African Diaspora with master classes, oral histories, and both virtual and in-person performances. Hosted by Griot Mama Sylvia Soumah, DanceAfrica, DC 2022 is guaranteed to inspire, invigorate, educate, and entertain.
Spring Youth Performance Showcase
June 9-10
Online Performance at Dance Place
Join us as we celebrate the work of our youth from Dance Place’s various educational programs. In this two-night virtual performance event, the showcase will include performances from our Junior Staff students, Dance Place Youth Performing Company, Kids on the Move students, and additional students involved in our educational programs.
Abby Z & the New Utility
June 25-26
Indoor Ticketed Performance at Dance Place
RADIOACTIVE PRACTICE (2020) This evening length work brings together a mosaic group of movers working to confront and redefine expectations in various movement traditions, including hip-hop, modern dance, West African, tap, synchronized swimming, and ice skating. The collaborative cast of movers draw from an arsenal of physical possibility as they shatter assumptions of established forms and test the group’s own physical and mental limits; they embody the amalgam of contemporary living, chock full of cultural collisions, misunderstandings, a desire for logic, and being hard-wired to survive. Working with Senegalese dance artist Momar Ndiaye as dramaturge, Zbikowski and crew have created a genre-bending performance that challenges audiences to reconsider, if not completely abandon, their preconceptions of dance.
Original score Raphael Xavier reflects a collision of genres, drawing inspiration from hip-hop, punk, metal, and no wave. The cast features Alexa Bender, Serena Chang, Indya Childs, Roobi Gaskins, Alex Gossen, Gabrielle Loren, Fiona Lundie, Jennifer Meckley, Benjamin Roach, and Meghann Trago
Gesel Mason: Yes, And
July 16-17
Outdoor Ticketed Performance at Hillwood
Yes, And is a collection of performance experiments that place an expanded vision of Black womanhood at the center of its creative process. It takes an iterative approach to performance informed by the creative expertise and lived experiences of Black women (cisgender, transgender, and gender non-conforming.) Yes, And asks: “Who would you be and what would you do if, as a Black woman, you had nothing to worry about? What would you create and how might you be in community with others?” These questions catalyze a methodology of undoing and re-imagining that offers participants and witnesses the freedom “to find” and to “be found” from this recalibrated place.
Manifesting as virtual and/or live public engagement “chapters” or events that are unique and remixed to each location, the project invites us to inhabit inspired realities that reclaim the past, transform the present and dream new futures into being. The result is a work that is both: YES, an unapologetic celebration of Black sisterhood, AND, a complex investigation of issues that impact of Black women and our communities. The project is supported by the National Performance Network and New England Foundation for the Arts.
Vanessa Sanchez
August 13-14
Indoor Ticketed Performance at Dance Place
Pachuquísmo portrays the female experiences of the 1940’s Zoot Suit Riot era through tap dance, Mexican zapateado, live Jazz music, traditional Son Jarocho (from Veracruz, Mexico) and archival video. With a 9-person, all-female cast donning full zoot suits, the performance challenges gender roles and pulls the narrative of the Zoot Suit Riots out of the male-centered context. A multi-disciplinary show, Pachuquísmo explores history, culture, and rhythm through the lens of the Mexican American pachucas that American society tried to overlook. Funded by NEFA National Dance Production Grant.
Camp
August 18-19
Outdoor Performance at Dance Place
More information coming soon…
*Tickets for ticketed indoor performances will go on-sale to the public on Monday, April 4th, 2022.
Our donors and members have shown us incredible support through quite a challenging year! All donors who have contributed $250 or more at 12pm on Monday, March 28th will receive passcode access.
Email boxofficemanager@danceplace.org if you have any questions.