A major move for dance in Philadelphia

After 32 years, the party is over for Dance Celebration, the popular series of dance concerts presented at West Philadelphia's Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. The series and name will be retired as of Monday.

The decision arose from the diverging artistic visions of co-presenters Dance Affiliates and the Annenberg Center, said F. Randolph Swartz, artistic director of Dance Affiliates, and Michael J. Rose, managing director of the Annenberg. But there is a happy result: Each organization will go ahead with its own series as Dance Affiliates moves to Center City.

"It was definitely a mutual decision to end the Dance Celebration program that we've been presenting for 32 years together and go in our own directions," Rose said, "to focus on our own identities."

"We take up a lot of space at the Annenberg," Swartz said. "They have a particular desire to do world programming [which they've pursued outside the Dance Celebration umbrella]. That gets a little confusing. 'Do I have a subscription for that?' "

Swartz also said money was a concern, if not the primary one. "Long term, you could see costs were going to increase," he said. "Ticket prices, not so much."

Over the years, Dance Celebration presented 200 dance companies and solo artists in more than 1,500 performances, from international favorites to rising newcomers.

Dance Affiliates will move to the Prince Theater at 1412 Chestnut St. with a new series called NextMove, derived from its 1987-2003 Next Move Festival. Its first season, opening in October, will feature companies familiar to Dance Celebration audiences - Complexions Contemporary Ballet, Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal, Limon Dance Company, and Bodytraffic. New to audiences will be Dorrance Dance, a Bessie Award-winning tap company; Ezralow Dance, directed by Daniel Ezralow, choreographer of Broadway's Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, the Sochi Winter Olympics, and Philadanco; and Compagnie Hervé Koubi from Algeria.

The Annenberg will continue with a program it launched last year, Annenberg Center Live, presenting Dance Theater of Harlem, Ballet Hispanico, Urban Bush Women, River North Chicago, and others still to be announced.

"It doesn't make sense for us to do programming that we haven't had experience in" during this first year of going solo, Rose said. But at some point, the plan is to present dance that is "rich and deep, culturally diverse, culturally specific."

NextMove means a big change for visiting companies, but "there's a great deal of loyalty and commitment" to Dance Affiliates, Swartz said. "We've commissioned work. We've done residencies. . . . The number of independent dance presenters in the United States has dwindled to under 20 from three to four times that when I first started. Presenting dance is expensive and it's hard work, but it's well worth it."

Moving to the Prince means far fewer seats for each performance - 450 rather than the Annenberg's 950. But NextMove will add two performances for each run, on Wednesdays and Sundays, catching up a bit. Overall, it will offer 2,700 seats to Dance Celebration's 3,600.

The bottom line will not look so different, Swartz said. "Our budget last year was $1.4 million. Our budget for this next year will be somewhat slightly less than that, because you need less people to run the Prince." The theater was dark for months before being bought in March by the Philadelphia Film Society, which has said it hoped to keep rental rates low.

The benefit to the audience is a more intimate theater - "they're really all orchestra seats" - and more opportunities for residencies and pre- and post-performance chats.

"We will collaborate with our friends up in New York," Swartz said, "meaning specifically the Joyce" Theater, one of Manhattan's premiere dance spaces. "The programming is very parallel."

The Annenberg, meanwhile, is looking to become more like New York's Lincoln Center, with dance, theater, music, and children's programming, a diversity of offerings "pretty much like the University of Pennsylvania," the Annenberg's home, Rose said.

Swartz said he liked the sense of being downtown at the Prince - and, indeed, it's the first time in years out-of-town companies will regularly perform in Center City, which currently is the performance home to the Pennsylvania Ballet, BalletX, Philadanco, and Koresh. "We're hoping that down the road, other dance companies will start to see the Prince as a mecca for dance," Swartz said.