AMERICA UNFINISHED To Conclude Penn Live Arts 2025–26 Season
Performances take place at the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts.
Penn Live Arts (PLA) will present the iconic Martha Graham Dance Company (MGDC), celebrating a century of Graham's groundbreaking and uniquely American dance style, in performances May 29-30 at the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. The ensemble performs the world premiere of in case of fire, speak, choreographed by Tommie-Waheed Evans, for which the company will be joined by dancers from PHILADANCO! in case of fire, speak is a co-commission of Penn Live Arts and ArtPhilly that opens the What Now: 2026 Festival. MGDC is a featured artist in PLA's America Unfinished season. For tickets and information, visit PennLiveArts.org.
The MGDC program also features the Philadelphia premieres of Frontier, a tribute to the vision and independence of the pioneer woman, and Hope Boykin's En Masse, a 2025 work set to a recently rediscovered piece of music by Leonard Bernstein as well as excerpts from his MASS. Night Journey, offering a different perspective on the Greek myth of Oedipus, completes the program.
“Our 2025-26 season is marking America's 250th birthday with an array of artists, premieres and commissions that reflect the enormous range of perspectives, cultures and lived experiences that define our country,” said PLA Executive and Artistic Director Christopher Gruits. “Martha Graham Dance Company is the perfect representation of this, as they have shaped American artistry and pioneered innovation for over 100 years. The company's collaboration with PHILADANCO! carries on that tradition and underscores a meaningful connection to Philadelphia.”
in case of fire, speak is choreographer Tommie Waheed-Evans' response to Martha Graham's groundbreaking 1938 work, American Document. It marks the first collaboration between the Martha Graham Dance Company and PHILADANCO! and recalls Graham's essential question, "What is an American?" Framed by the sonic design of Uwazi Zamani, dancers from both companies come together on stage in a piece that invites audiences to imagine what an American voice could be at this moment in history. Using archival material alongside new musical composition, writing, and visual design to put the historic work in a contemporary context, Evans views the convergence between two very different dance styles as almost like creating a new language.
MGDC and PHILADANCO! are seminal to the canon of American concert dance: Martha Graham through her groundbreaking choreography and continuing legacy; and PHILADANCO! for its commitment to a repertory that, since its founding in 1970 by Joan Myers Brown, has been a creative archive of transformational African-American choreographers. Both companies remain immersed in their foundational ideas while inviting and embracing new perspectives in contemporary exploration by choreographers of this moment.
A companion exhibition, presented by Penn Live Arts and ArtPhilly in partnership with The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation, is on view at the Annenberg Center through July 3, 2026. Curated by dramaturg Ain Gordon and designed by Dr. Azsaneé Truss, the exhibition in case of fire, speak frames the making of the collaborative performance alongside rarely seen images from American Document. Drawing on historical documents, photographs, video, and design materials, the exhibition explores Graham's masterwork alongside Philadelphia dance company PHILADANCO!'s decades-long commitment to preserving and advancing the work of Black artists.
Tommie-Waheed Evans' in case of fire, speak is a co-commission of Penn Live Arts and ArtPhilly as part of the What Now: 2026 Festival. These performances are made possible with support from the Penn Live Arts Accelerator Program. The 2025-26 season dance series is co-sponsored by Arthur Kaplan, C'67 and Duane Perry alongside Lynn Jerath, W'95 and Kunal Jerath.
Videos