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Thank you to everyone who attended Ebony, Beige and Bronze: The Philadelphia Show 2008. It is with your feedback and support that we have achieved so much. The performance was dedicated to our beloved secretary Takesha Epps, who recently passed away. She was an amazing human being and will be missed.

Every volunteer is a big volunteer in our eyes, so thank you Michael, Melanie, Peter and our new development consultant Karen Pressley—we are lucky to have you on board! Also merci to The Black Gay Men’s Leadership Council, Philadelphia Black Gay Pride and Sapphire Fund who teamed up with us for the first time to promote arts events during Philly Black Pride. And finally, thank all of you who came out for The LGBT People of Color Coalition’s first multi-cultural social at William Way Community Center on May 29, 2008. Building alliances within our community is one of our goals and SLJ is proud to be a part of this movement.

This year, SLJ received funding from the Delaware Valley Legacy Fund’s Racial Equity Initiative for capacity building, the Bartol Foundation to continue our work with The Attic Youth Center and The Philadelphia Cultural Fund for general operating expenses.

We are also proud to be a part of the New York dance season again this summer. The Thelma Hill Center for the Performing Arts commissioned a work for the Souls of Our Feet Dance Festival and New York City Parks Foundation is presenting us in Harlem. Details below.

SLJ On the Move…

May 15

Boston, MA: Fenway Health Care presented excerpts from SLJ’s Ebony, Beige and Bronze: The Philadelphia Show at the Roxbury Center for the Performing Arts

June 22

Brooklyn, NY: SLJ and abraham.in.motion performed in the Thelma Hill Performing Arts Center’s Souls of Our Feet - People of Color Dance Festival at 7pm at the Kumble Theater at the LIU Downtown Brooklyn Campus located at Flatbush and Dekalb Avenues. For more information on the Souls of Our Feet Festival, visit www.thelmahill.com.

July 26

Harlem, NY: City Parks Summer Stage presents SLJ and Sidra Bell Dance at the Jackie Robinson Band shell in Harlem near 145 and St. Nicholas at 3pm. For more information, visit www.cityparksfoundation.org.

SLJ Artistic Director Zane Booker On the Move…

July 5-13

Tampa, FL: Broadway Theater Project; www.broadwaytheatreproject.com.

July 14-18

West Chester, PA: Brandywine Ballet Summer Intensive; www.brandywineballet.com

July 16-17

Washington, DC: Howard University Intensive; www.howard.edu/collegefinearts/Dance

August 25-29

New York, NY: Peridance Workshop: In the Philadanco Tradition 11:30 am -1pm M-F; to register for the workshop please visit www.peridance.com.

Look out for premieres by Booker for two Philadelphia-based dance companies Danse4Nia in the fall 2008 at Freedom Theater, and The Philadelphia Dance Company (Philadanco) in the Spring 2009 at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts.

Hope you have a great summer and thank you for your continued support of SLJ!

Zane Booker Artistic Director The Smoke, Lilies and Jade Arts Initiative 1427 Spruce Street Philadelphia, PA 19102 215.823.6976 www.liliesandjade.org

Dance Raises Roof as Bodies and Spirits Fly

By Lisa Kraus For The Inquirer

If you like your dance virtuosic, spiritually uplifting and socially conscious, don't miss Philadanco, now at the Booker's In Between Time, a world premiere, highlights his ease with inventive partnering. Some mid-air shifts of direction evinced audible gasps of surprise. Set to brassy Chuck Mangione music, the piece is both well-ordered and heroic, with big buildups and subtler moments of walking or precarious but joyous balance.

Most striking on the program is the pairing of Beatty's historic masterwork with a new work by Harris, who might be seen as a contemporary equivalent. Beatty, formed under the tutelage of Katherine Dunham, embraced the movement of Africans in diaspora. Harris embraces movement coming from the streets; his mission is to honor hip-hop as an indigenous form of dance, distinct from its showbiz representation. Both artists grapple with issues of oppression and redemption, from Reconstruction times to today.

Philadelphia Experiment, a premiere, shows above all Harris's unquenchable appetite for movement. It's as if his innards won't let him stop rethinking a rhythm, finding a surprise slide, popping out or down, or slowly snaking around a wide hip circle. He plays his material out like a clever card shark, revealing just enough, then - wham! Gotcha. Unison groupings wash over the space, first hunkering low and understated, then getting brash and acrobatic as black-and-white videos of the Philly streets give way to saturated backdrop color.

Southern Landscape with the full company delivers movement of remarkable force and purity in a portrayal of post-Civil War former slaves. This reconstruction (initially in partnership with Bryn Mawr College and Temple University, with funding from Dance Advance), is now part of the NEA's American Masterpieces Dance Initiative. Its six sections, to spirituals and live vocal, include a jubilant "Ring Shout," with pliant feet and complex counter-rhythms, and the unforgettable "Mourners Bench," danced from way deep with stunning economy by Gary Jeter II.

Worth the ticket price alone is a raise-the-roof finale to what may be Aretha Franklin's most inspired singing ever, the hymn "Old Landmark" (not credited in the program). Beatty packs as much exuberance on the stage as it can possibly hold, with the women's frilly skirts flying in barrel turns and the assembly rising in split leaps to match Aretha's soaring vocals.