PHILADANCO! is Explosive! in its spring series

Community in the time of diaspora

Before the dancers take to the stage, I had a chance to chat with George and Dao. Dao said that he’s changing more than the title of his piece. Roked was like a first draft about life and dancing, but he knew he had to go deeper. There is still joy, he said, but the dance takes on the diaspora and grief as well. Dao was born in Vietnam, and he says, “my history seeps into my work as a Vietnamese person.” So his movement is influenced by his foundation in Western forms of ballet and contemporary, but also street and club dancing he grew up with and his heritage. “The Vietnamese community, the movement, lives in the body,” he said.

For Without Witness, Dao wants to show what it means to be a part of the diaspora. He had to research his own past, he said, because his parents wouldn’t talk about it, and he discovered the hardship they survived that made communication so difficult in the Vietnamese community. He sees his work as an attempt to bridge that silence and heal the disconnect. It’s a love letter, he said, to all his communities: the Vietnamese community he grew up in, and his dance and gay communities.

Healing and community are at the heart of George’s Temple Without Prayer as well. His 2025 work, Missing Fruit, was inspired by his experience watching the Black Lives Matter movement from afar: “I was very safe in Europe, and I kept thinking about my friends, my family, my community.” Temple Without Prayer, he says, continues that exploration with an awareness of where we are today in the country.

“Everyone wants to have hope.” George said, and he wants the audience to think about what it means to be hopeful in a community with strong religious ties when “We’re seeing in real time how religion has transitioned into something very, very toxic. And we are saying no, we don’t believe in that thing, but we believe in this thing.” George said that the work reflects how the community is being pushed to forget who they are, but it “reminds us that our bodies remain temples of memory, joy, and resilience.”

Rounding out an evening of community, Nicole Clarke-Springer says that she brings spiritual grounding, legacy, and community to her process. Her Passing Through Stillness explores a creative awakening “where instinct, discipline, and spirit converge.”

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