Philadanco is a solid company, and the repertory for its sojourn north this year features solid choreographers, with strong ties to the troupe: Christopher Huggins, Thang Dao, Tommie-Waheed Evans. But the big reason to catch the show is Rennie Harris. Harris is best known for taking hip-hop out of battle mode to mine its inherent drama. The 62-year old choreographer achieves this rare feat through his chosen music, which extends the hip-hop he grew up with backwards and forwards in time. He hears in boogaloo or soul, house or trap, both its public face and internal conflict; he limns its character with a novelist’s precision and scope. For this Philadelphia commission, the North Philly native heads into hip-hop prehistory, to Philadelphia International Records, whose aptly named single “Sound of Philadelphia” you’ll recognize as a Soul Train intro, so smooth that, if not for the horns, it would be disco. —Apollinaire Scherr