WHEN:
March 21-22, 2026
WHERE:
The Dance Complex
536 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139
Read Picture This Post Editor Amy Munice's
review of a workshop performance below
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This stand-up comic, Sara Juli, does more than stand at a mic and lob jokes at us. She’s clearly got the moves that got her, and us, to the American Dance Festival’s Scripps Studio performance space to watch her work in progress.
Pas de Bourrée, Pas de Bourrée, Pas de Bourrée… and one, two, three and Pas de Bourrée, Pas de Bourrée and… Juli may be struggling with the invisibility that greets any woman in midlife+, but Juli wants us to see that she’s still got the moves. She does! And later she’s also got the glittery dress and stilettos that shout- Hey, I’m still open for business.
Right from the gitgo, Juli shares that there is only one move that truly eludes her— the movement of the bowels. One audience member is prompted to shout out a question— Are you going to poop for us now?
Sometimes Juli sits and launches into what we might think of as chair-yoga-UNLEASHED— making patterns with her body like a kaleidoscope doodle but in keeping with the more frenetic snippets of Max Richter’s re-imagining of Vivaldi’s FOUR SEASONS. (Listen below)
Quicker than a hot flash, her storytelling moxie recounts her struggles with addiction— grapefruit juice addiction that is— then and now. And as if she worries we may lose her attention— which we have not— she brings out her bag of tricks, which are more dildos in more sizes and colors than most of us ever imagined could be found. Holding two bluish 6-inchers she squeals Twins!
How fun! We are five year olds telling poop jokes. We are pre-teens giggling about sex. We are instantly bonded with Juli, as her magnetic person pulls us in.
American Dance Festival Graduate Alexander Davis is the Second Act
Juli is one heckuva tough act to follow.
Her self-described mentee and one-time American Dance Festival student, Alexander Davis, had already shared with us how Juli had taught him how to keep dancing and have a life at the same time. By the end of his equally engaging performance you too might be thinking they are clearly cut from the same cloth.
Davis’ shtick, however, is to be the very first gay dancer/choreographer in American Dance Festival history. He shares that he is aware of the duty this status requires of him. (Cackles of laughter??) His dance then unfolds on the improvised catwalk that he has directed us to make with our chairs after Juli concluded her performance.
His is a dance to celebrate National Viagra Day, and to help him tell the story of how his Italian grandmother is actually the first dance teacher he had. And how another American Dance Festival Graduate somehow copyrighted the electric slide.
Like his buddy Sara Juli, Davis’ comic chops keeps us glued to his tale. The dance is more like seasoning of the main entrée, storytelling that makes us laugh.
We DO laugh, and laugh again.
File this duo act as FUN and HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
Find more Picture This Post dance reviews in the latest roundup — CHOREOGRAPHERS WE LOVE. Also, watch a short preview video here —
NB: Errata -- Proper spelling is BalletX (not Ballet X).
