Dance is drawing the guys

Clyde Evans Jr., director of Philly-based Chosen Dance Company, was succinct when asked whether the rise of hip-hop dance has removed some of the stigma once associated with men becoming dancers.

"Yes," was his entire reply.

But as Terry Fox, curator of the DanceBOOM! Festival, pointed out, hip-hop is hardly the only style of dance where male choreographers and dancers are making interesting work. Her decision to focus the first of the festival's three weeks on a program called "Men Dancing" arose naturally out of the work she was seeing.

Of course, male dancing may be somewhat less unusual in Philly, where plenty of guys not usually inclined to sequins and feathers don them once a year to ring in the New Year. Still, Fox hesitated to recognize a movement in the increased activity.

"I don't know that it's a trend," she said, "but sometimes things just surface in the community. It's just out there. It's happening. That's how that program came together."

The "Men Dancing" program features four programs on the Wilma's stage, along with street performances prior to curtain by the Kingsessing Morris Men, who continue a centuries-old English jig tradition.

Besides Evans' Chosen Dance Company, the program includes choreographer Keith Thompson's danceTactics, Philadanco's Tommie-Waheed Evans, and former Philadelphian Lionel Popkin (now L.A.-based) performing a solo piece.

Evans pointed out that while many of the leading innovators of modern dance have been female, hip-hop dance, especially breaking, was created by male crews and has remained a male-dominated form.

"Of course there are women who do it as well, but not like the males do. We haven't seen anyone that's been that well-rounded because it requires so much upper body strength and so much awareness of how to balance your body, and women are just built differently than we are."

The "Men Dancing" program excited Evans because it gave him license "to present this movement in its entirety.

"It's so testosterone driven, so we're getting a chance to bust out with all our male prowess." *

- Shaun Brady