{"id":203254,"date":"2025-09-05T21:01:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T21:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/203254\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T21:01:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T21:01:09","slug":"philly-fringe-revives-a-solo-dance-from-25-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/203254\/","title":{"rendered":"Philly Fringe revives a solo dance from 25 years ago"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in the 1990s, Harris\u2019s provocative work was known to antagonize audiences. He recalls massive walkouts during his performances, and even police being called.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love making people uncomfortable,\u201d said Harris.<\/p>\n

While still provocative, he says he has somewhat mellowed over time.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things that was on my mind originally was how to do this without scaring people,\u201d he said. \u201cHip-hop is the carrot. Everyone\u2019s interested, and now they\u2019re stuck in their seats. You\u2019re going to see some flipping and some of what you think is hip-hop, but I\u2019m also going to throw something in there that\u2019s going to make you feel uncomfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since that original dance in 2000, Bridge has built her artistic practice as a choreographer, teacher, writer and founder of Fidget<\/a>, a space in Kensington for experimental performance. She has also become a mother of two.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if I really understood misogyny and racism when I was 19 years old,\u201d she said. \u201cOur culture is talking about these things a lot more readily. As a 46-year-old woman, I\u2019ve experienced these things in my life in ways that I had never seen when I was a teenager.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first thing Bridge and Harris did when they started working together again was perform the original seven-minute \u201cHuman Lies\u201d and see how it fit 25 years later.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo see what resonated in her body, and what didn\u2019t,\u201d Harris said. \u201cWhat changed. Over time, it\u2019s like, \u2018Oh, this is what I thought.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ChoreographerChoreographer Rennie Harris and dancer Megan Bridge teamed up to create \u201dBeautiful Human Lies: Chapter 4\u201d for the 2025 Fringe Festival in Philadelphia (Emma Lee\/WHYY)<\/p>\n

For Bridge, putting her 46-year-old body through the paces of her former 19-year-old self was \u201creally satisfying.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am a far better dancer than I was 25 years ago,\u201d she said. \u201cThere is an understanding in the dance world that we are at the peak of our career and our physicality when we\u2019re in our 20s. In real time, I have learned that that\u2019s not at all the case. Maybe certain things like joint health was different 25 years ago, but I\u2019m far stronger. I\u2019m more flexible. I have a lot more body awareness. I have a lot better stamina.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Harris, returning to \u201cBeautiful Human Lies\u201d allowed him to inject it with some of the self-awareness he has developed over the decades. His explorations of racism and injustice through dance have turned internal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re addressing these things from the external point of view, like: \u2018I wish those people would get it together, or the Great Pumpkin in the pumpkin patch, why did we put this person here?\u2019\u201d he said, referring to President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no sense of self-reflection,\u201d he said. \u201cI lose my temper quickly. I get jealous. I\u2019m emotional. I take things personal. I\u2019m insecure. If we work on those things, then those things would then radiate out to the people around, will attract those same people, then so on and so on. Thus creating better humans.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBeautiful Human Lies: Chapter 4\u201d<\/a> will be performed at the Drake Theatre, 302 S. Hicks Street, in Center City, September 6 \u2013 8. Preceding the performance on Saturday, September 6, will be a discussion between Rennie Harris and dance writer Brenda Dixon Gottschild.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back in the 1990s, Harris\u2019s provocative work was known to antagonize audiences. He recalls massive walkouts during his…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":203255,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,10929,55147,1448,2830,1311,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-203254","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-dance","10":"tag-growing-golden-aging-with-purpose","11":"tag-pa","12":"tag-pennsylvania","13":"tag-philadelphia","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-united-states-of-america","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115153710944225015","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203254\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}