Philadanco celebrates its 55th anniversary with the choreography of some of its most frequent collaborators

In honor of Philadanco’s 55th anniversary, the company invited four choreographers who were consistent voices on its stage to come back. Founder and artistic adviser Joan Myers Brown and artistic director Kim Bears-Bailey asked them to revisit one of their pieces for the occasion or make a new one.

Milton Myers, who has worked with the troupe off and on since the mid-1980s, and Christopher Huggins opted to set existing works on the current generation of Danco dancers. Tommie-Waheed Evans and Ray Mercer chose to create new pieces.

All produced highly technical, athletic, often fast pieces that kept challenging the dancers, several of whom don’t even have down time during the program as they are in all four pieces.

» READ MORE: This Philadelphia institution opened a dance store to fill a void

Myers’ Echoes: (A Celebration of Alvin Ailey) opens the program. Choreographed in 2000 and set to the music of John Adams, it is the oldest piece on the program. The dancers are dressed in a rainbow of costumes and the piece is all clean lines and beautiful poses. Myers is a master of the Horton technique of modern dance, which Ailey embraced, and many of the steps and arm movements would be familiar to anyone who has seen an Ailey work.

The dancers looked slightly less comfortable (or perhaps less rehearsed) in this work than the others on the program, though, often hopping to complete a turn rather than staying on their toes.

Evans, a former dancer with Philadanco, chose the music of Philadelphia’s own Patti LaBelle for his world premiere piece, Promise Me You Won’t Call, performed in lovely blue costumes. Dancers appear and disappear from thick, wafting fog at the back of the stage. It is not a story ballet per se, but it has a theme of melancholy and longing. Sometimes two men partner each other. Other times a woman runs into a split jump and is caught by four men. The piece ends with a disappearing act that we can both see and wonder how it happened.

» READ MORE: Philadelphia Ballet’s 2025-26 season will include a new ‘Romeo & Juliet’ and a horror ballet

Mercer’s work is also a world premiere. The Dance You Dance, set to original music by his longtime collaborator Bongi Duma, is described in the program notes as a celebration of his 10 years of work with Philadanco. Danced in gray and red costumes, it is another impressive piece without a narrative but with vignettes that are open to interpretation. One is something of a duet for a man and a bench, which he sits on, leaps over, and uses to contemplate a problem. Another has a man doing superhumanly fast turns punctuated by little jumps.

If Philadanco has a signature piece, surely it is Huggins’ Enemy Behind the Gates, even though it was only made in 2002. Danced in sleek military-style costumes with a red lining and set to pulsating music by Steve Reich, it addresses how some can seem like they are our people, but they may actually be the enemy. It is a powerful, beautiful, ominous piece that is perhaps even more meaningful in 2025 than when Huggins first made it. Philadanco danced it beautifully.

Philadanco. 7:30 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday at the Perelman Theater at the Kimmel Center. $29-$49, 215-893-1999 or ensembleartsphilly.org