A new, evening-length solo dance performance conjures a dissonant dialogue around identity, transformation, and privilege.

In 1999, rising hip-hop artist Rennie Harris created a 7-minute solo dance for Megan Bridge’s student thesis concert at SUNY Purchase. A mashup of street dance and modern dance, including a recorded conversation between the two artists, the work had its professional debut in 2000’s Philadelphia Fringe Festival. 

Using the original solo as a seed, Beautiful Human Lies: Chapter 4  takes one white woman’s story and embeds it in layers of media images, unfolding a spectacle that lives in the tension between personal and community healing and a violent, oppressive culture. 

This project explores the many ways that artistic collaboration can profoundly mark the passage of time, and how we break and remake ourselves to cobble together a coherent self.

Project scholar and writer: Brenda Dixon Gottschild

SUPPORT
A project of Fidget, made possible by the generosity of Fidget’s donors with additional support from University of Colorado, Boulder, Ensemble Arts Philly at The Kimmel Center, FringeArts, and two creative residencies with American Dance Asylum.

Co-producers
Judith Tannenbaum
Karol M. Wasylyshyn
Rosanne Sarkissian

Photo: Carolyn Stanish