The Breaks

Recipient

Grant Year 2006

Grant Amount $54,000

Status Completed

Updated May 30, 2023

The Painted Bride Art Center engaged poet, dancer, and playwright Marc Bamuthi Joseph in a series of workshops with Philadelphia-area dance companies, including Montazh Performing Arts Company, Olive Prince Dance, and TaniaIsaacDance. Bamuthi Joseph’s residency in Philadelphia led to the creation of the break/s, a hip-hop dance work featuring live music by beatboxer Tommy Shepherd and percussionist DJ Excess that incorporates storytelling through personal narratives and diary entries. the break/s received its world premiered in 2008 at the Walker Art Center, and went on to tour nationally to venues including The Kennedy Center, Spoleto Festival, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, REDCAT, and others.

Recipient

Painted Bride Art Center

As a presenting arts organization, the Painted Bride offers a wide range of work—from the cutting edge to that which is simply new to Philadelphia—in music, dance, spoken word, and theater. Located in Old City in a building that glitters with one of Isaiah Zagar's mirrored mosaics, the Bride's Center-supported work includes Bill T. Jones' Body Against Body, which revisited and showcased the groundbreaking choreography of Jones and his late collaborator and partner, Arnie Zane; Skins & Songs, which featured new collaborative compositions from the Spoken Hand Percussion Orchestra and Philip Hamilton's Voices, an a cappella and vocal percussion group; a commission of a new play, If She Stood, from three-time Obie Award-winning writer, director, and actor Ain Gordon; and the 20-month Re-Place-ing Philadelphia project, which used art as a lens for viewing the city and its history.

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