Exhibition Opening: in case of fire, speak
YOU'RE INVITED!
ArtPhilly’s What Now: 2026 festival, in partnership with Penn Live Arts and The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation presents the world premiere of in case of fire, speak, a collaboration between the Martha Graham Dance Company and PHILADANCO!. The piece is choreographed by Tommie Waheed Evans, drawn, in part, from archival remnants of Graham’s 1938 work American Document.
The companion exhibition, curated by Ain Gordon and designed by Dr. Azsaneé Truss, is on view at the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Pennsylvania, March 19 through July 6, 2026.
Created in conjunction with the Martha Graham Dance Company’s 100th season, the exhibit frames the making of in case of fire, speak alongside rarely seen images from American Document, while exploring inherent legacies of this choreographic collaboration with PHILADANCO!.
This program is free and open to the public. Tickets to see the Martha Graham Dance Company at Penn Live Arts, including the world premier of in case of fire, speak can be found here.
Please join us in the Arts Lounge at the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on Thursday, March 19 at 6:00 p.m. for the first event of ArtPhilly's What Now: 2026 festival. The in case of fire, speak exhibition explores the two trailblazing founders of PHILADANCO! and the Martha Graham Dance Company.
Registration is requested but is not required to attend!
About the Exhibition
The companion exhibition to in case of fire, speak brings together an array of archival materials which inspired the upcoming performance. It traces the lineages of artistic experimentation and cultural intervention through the work of Martha Graham and Joan Myers Brown, two women who reshaped the possibilities of American dance from radically different vantage points. In its totality, the exhibition reflects how these women's work brings us to the moment in which PHILADANCO! co-Artistic Director and choreographer Tommie-Waheed Evans creates this exciting new work.
Drawing on historical documents, photographs, video, and design materials, the exhibition explores Graham’s 1938 masterwork American Document alongside PHILADANCO!’s more than fifty-year commitment to preserving and advancing the work of Black choreographers. In assembling these materials, the exhibition illuminates how questions of belonging and American identity have been staged, contested, and reimagined through movement across generations.
in case of fire, speak features archival material from both companies as well as elements from the creative process of Evans’s new performance, offering audiences a behind-the-scenes look at how history becomes choreography. The exhibition is curated by Ain Gordon, dramaturg for the performance, and designed by Azsaneé Truss, with support from the Sachs Program for Arts Innovation.
The exhibition is presented as part of Art Philly’s What Now: 2026 festival and accompanies the world-premiere performance of in case of fire, speak, co-commissioned by Penn Live Arts and created in collaboration with the Martha Graham Dance Company and PHILADANCO!. in case of fire, speak and its companion exhibition are also made possible through the generous support of the Hearthland Foundation. Together, the exhibition and performance invite visitors to reconsider Graham’s enduring question: “What is an American?”