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Four people in a desert. On the left, a woman with black hair in a red dress sits, a dusty backpack at her feet. Next to her, a bearded man with short brown hair sits looking down, his hands on his knees. To his left is a second man, bald and bare from the waist up, with tattoos covering his left arm and his right arm missing his hand. To his left is a third man, standing, with one hand on his right hip. He is older than the rest, has a white beard, and wears a light blue shirt.
Photo: Quim Vives
  • Reviews, thINKpieces

Nothing But Dust

Brendan McCall

Mysticism and rave culture collide in Oliver Laxe’s latest film "Sirât"

Sage Ni'Ja Whitson, a queer transgender Black person with long black-brown locs faces the camera with a soft, powerful smile. They wear a round-brimmed brown hat, a triple-ringed silver septum piercing, and a black jacket. One hand with vein-like tattoos is held in a loose fist near their sternum, while the other is wrapped loosely around their stomach. They stand in front of a leafy green backdrop.
Photo: Ryan Landell
  • Book Reviews

In Visible Darkness: A Non-binary Book

ankita

Sage Ni’Ja Whitson builds Black trans portals into darkness.

At center stage, Baoyu, dressed in flowing white robes, leads a semicircle of female dancers dressed in pastel, Han-style costumes. The dancers extend one leg in high arabesque-like lines while holding delicate props such as fans and round silk fans, creating a symmetrical and airy composition reminiscent of classical Chinese painting. Behind them is a large golden backdrop textured like aged parchment. Red calligraphic Chinese characters are written across it, associated with the supernatural framework of the story. A circular opening in the center of the backdrop reveals a cool blue background, evoking the moon or an otherworldly portal. The stage lighting highlights the dancers’ flowing sleeves and soft colors—peach, pale green, yellow, and ivory—suggesting the youthful elegance of the family's girls.
Photo: The National Ballet of China
  • Reviews

The Willis in a Red Mansion?

Ziying Cui

The Challenge of Chinese Ballet

Two dancers wear black costumes, and the lighting is low and shadowy. One dancer lays face-up on the stage with arms softly outstretched to the sides and their chest lifted off the floor, legs bending at the knees. The other dancer sits, gazing downwards at them. Dancers: Sayer Mansfield, Marla Phelan
Photo: Tim Richardson
  • Reviews

Science and Dance in Creative Conversation

Jen George

Science in partnership with dance yields collaboration and contrasting forces.

nora chipaumire, a Black African woman takes the stage in 100% POP with her collaborator, Shamar Watt, a Black Jamaican man in a black Adidas tracksuit and red-green-yellow, Zimbabwe-flag-colored Nike shoes. As he runs through the frame upstage, backgrounded by a grungy, urban wall, chipaumire captures the camera’s focus as she jumps into the air, one knee tucked up to her chest, the other a foot off the ground. Wearing a ripped white shirt, black track pants, and all-white high tops, chipaumire gazes down at the ground while she leaps up, as if stomping her way back to Earth.
Photo: Ian Douglas
  • Interviews

The West Did Not Make Me

ankita

An Interview with nora chipaumire

Two white women with bright red hair pulled back loosely, wear black pants and tank tops and accentuate the curves of their waists, leaning into their hips and slightly covering their eyes with elbows bent at different angles. They are loosely connected by a thin, red thread and in the background there is a hill constructed of wooden blocks against a white wall. Completing the scene are red galoshes, two picture frames hung above the hill and a large new moon hung from the ceiling.
Photo: Shosh Isaacs
  • Reviews

Jack and Jill Trudge up the Hill

E. Wallis Cain Carbonell

"No one help me. I’m falling towards wholeness."

David Adrian Freeland Jr., wearing a blue sleeveless top and pants, and Morgan Lugo, wearing a red sleeveless top and pants, kneel facing each other on the red-lit stage. With closed eyes and tilted heads, they touch palms, one arm straight and the other bent by their cheeks.
Photo: Stephanie Berger
  • Reviews

A (Mostly) Moving Romeo & Juliet for Our Times

Caedra Scott-Flaherty

Benjamin Millepied’s Romeo & Juliet Suite uses dance, theater, and film to retell a timeless tale.

Performers Bria Bacon and Okwui Okpokwasili, both Black women wearing black, stand in the middle of a spinning structure at the center of the room, surrounded by a seated audience. The structure is round with a black bottom and reflective panels about 8 feet tall surrounding it. Through the spaces between the panels, Bacon and Okpokwasili are seen standing close together, facing each other. Becon's knees and arms are bent. Okpokwasili has a hand on Bacon's head and gazes above it.
Photo: Ava Pellor
  • Reviews

My Tongue is a Blade, is a Blade, is a Blade

Caedra Scott-Flaherty

Sweat Variant’s new durational work tests the limits of attention.

From left to right, dancers Dormeshia, Rachna Nivas, Rukhmani Mehta and Michelle Dorrance. They are in motion. Dormeshia and Dorrance wear white pants, thigh length white tunics, and tap shoes. Nivas and Mehta wear white leggings, long white dresses with golden details on the skirts and bodices. They have bands of bells around their ankles and are barefoot. The tap dancers have a quality of bending and sending energy into the floor. The Kathak dancers are lifted, arms raised, poised.
Photo: Richard Termine
  • Reviews

Joy in SPEAK

Emilee Lord

When Masters Converse

Green-toned book cover featuring the silhouette of a forest and leaping figure with the title “Ways to Move: Black Insurgent Grammars by Jonathan González” on the right, and poetic text on the left reading: “i want to be with you in the ways with you of vertigo seas,” “i want to be with you in the ways with you of smashing monuments,” and “i want to be with you in the ways with you of these lonely trees.”
Photo: Courtesy of Jonathan González and Ugly Duckling Presse
  • Book Reviews

On Language Learning

Emilee Lord

A reading of Ways to Move: Black Insurgent Grammars by Jonathan González