Two Choreographers Are Among the Recipients of 2019 Pew Center Grants

October 21, 2019

Philadelphia’s Pew Center for Arts & Heritage announced its 2019 grantees Monday evening, and the list included a couple of familiar names: Dinita Clark and David Gordon.

Clark has been named the recipient of a Pew Fellowship, worth $75,000. Formerly known as Princess Di, the choreographer co-founded Just Sole! Street Dance Theater in 2011 with her husband, and caught our eye in 2014 as a standout with Rennie Harris Puremovement. Recognizing her multifaceted practice, the Center wrote, “Through her work as a choreographer, performer, and teacher, Clark engages the vocabularies of hip-hop culture and street dance and centers women within the dance form.”

A Project Grant has been awarded to Christ Church Preservation Trust for Gordon’s upcoming THE PHILADELPHIA MATTER/2020. Connecting live performances happening simultaneously in Philadelphia and New York City via video stream, the work marks the newest iteration of Gordon’s 1972 The Matter. Filled with references to the choreographer’s previous works, it has been updated and reimagined periodically since its premiere, most recently at NYC’s Museum of Modern Art as part of the museum’s “Judson Dance Theater: The Work Is Never Done” exhibition. Given his interest in “archiveography,” it’s exactly the sort of project we expect from Gordon, who will receive a Dance Magazine Award alongside his partner, Valda Setterfield, this December.

A man with salt-and-pepper hair and mustache smiles crookedly at the camera as he points with both hands to his eyes, framed by dark, round glasses.
David Gordon

Andrew Eccles, Courtesy Cultural Counsel