Wilmington s Eastside - The Big Quarterly and a Black Wall Street in a segregated city delawarebusinessnow.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from delawarebusinessnow.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
WHYY
By
Members of BalletX perform in THAW by Francesca Harper. (Courtesy of BalletX)
Francesca Harper has fared better than most during the pandemic. The contemporary dance choreographer has more than 20 years of experience creating dance for the camera, so when performing arts companies started scrambling to figure out how to pivot into a virtual space, Harper’s phone started lighting up.
“I feel fortunate that during this time – a lot of presenters and choreographers were nervous. I received six commissions,” she said. “People were reaching out to me.”
One of those who called was Christine Cox, executive and artistic director of BalletX, a prominent contemporary dance company based in Philadelphia, asking Harper to create a short dance film for the company. This weekend, BalletX will premiere Harper’s “THAW” as part of its online-streaming subscription service, BalletX Beyond.
By
A photograph of Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Washington, D.C. 1915. Photo by Addison Scurlock. (Courtesy of University of Delaware Library, Museums, and Press, Special Collections & Museums, Alice Dunbar-Nelson Papers)
The Rosenbach Library and Museum in Philadelphia is elevating a little-known Black Victorian-era writer and activist, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, with an exhibition of her life and work.
“I Am an American!” was planned for the museum’s exhibition space in its Rittenhouse Square building. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the exhibit is instead entirely online. Given Rosenbach’s plethora of rare books and manuscripts, the exhibit features digital scans of books, manuscripts, letters, pamphlets, fliers, poems and journals of the Black literary scene circa 1920.