Another program will feature groups whose roots are in African dance - among them, the Chuck Davis African American Dance Ensemble, and Dinizulu. Other companies are expressly American in their blackness, while still others have a sensibility that is as much postmodern as it is black. Urban Bush Women, which opens Dance Black America on Jan. 24 at the Bride, is one of America's foremost dance groups of any color.
Philadanco, which celebrates its 25th anniversary in 1995, will participate in the festival in the closing performance on Jan. 28 at the Merriam Theater.
Local black dance groups will play a large role in the autumn segment of a new series called City Dances. Spirit of Sankofa, a group that specializes in West African dance and music, and Rennie Harris/Pure Movement, whose base is hip-hop street dance, will perform Sept. 22 to 24. They will be joined by Body Language Dance Company. Two other of Philadelphia's leading black troupes will dance in the third and final installment of City Dances, Oct. 20 to 22. They are the jazzy, high-octane Leja Dance Theater and Ibeji Performing Arts Company, where kids join their elders in dances of Africa and the Caribbean. Group Motion Company and Koresh Dance Company, who will perform Oct. 6 to 8, will round out the City Dances series.
Many ballet fans say The Nutcracker, even a version with choreography by George Balanchine, doesn't cut it as a ballet. But perhaps by December, when the Pennsylvania Ballet's production opens at the Academy of Music, audiences will be so ballet-starved that they'll feel differently about the holiday classic.
