Fringe Festival performance ‘Ashes and Iron’ captures Kensington’s heartbreak and resilience

In a converted warehouse along L Street, Daisie Cardona, 23, hoists a ladder to set up her aerial hoop in a black-and-cobalt blue padded room. 

With the hoop locked into the 15-foot-ceilings, Cardona grips the ring with both hands and throws her legs up, hooking her knees before swinging in a circle. She has been practicing almost every day for her first stage performance “Ashes and Iron” — a six-song aerial arts and spoken word show that details not only Kensington’s heartbreak but also its resilience. 

“Kensington struggles in ways that people on the outside can't quite comprehend," she said. "But it's also built up itself and built up a community in ways that you don't really see online or in person."

Her performance 'Ashes and Iron' is part of the 2025 Philadelphia Fringe Festival, presented by Cannonball Festival's Performances for Young Audiences Cohort. Festival marketing materials describe Cardona’s show as a “ powerful piece" that explores “themes of struggle, survival, and collective strength.”

The show is divided into six chapters, each of which captures the story of Kensington through poetry, dance and aerial performance. One chapter builds onto the next, from the complex trauma of addiction to examining generational scars and, later, to celebrating the way neighbors link up and rebuild to preserve their corner of Philadelphia. 

A longtime activist and storyteller, Cardona’s main motivation is to educate people who only see or hear the negative about Kensington. She wants the show to be what she called a “conversation starter” for kids and adults. 

Cardona was raised in Kensington, and has been by her mom’s side at trauma trainings, neighborhood clean-ups, city council meetings and outreach events since she was three years old. She has taken photos and written essays about her experiences, and these practices have shaped how she designed the show, she said.

She invited Kensington resident A’ala Rose, a 13-year-old dancer and Friends of McPherson board member, to help with choreography. Rose is one of two dancers who will be supporting Cardona. She will perform jazz and tap dance during several songs in the show, while also incorporating aerial silks and props. She first got involved in circus training through nonprofit Rebel Arts in Kensington’s Harrowgate neighborhood, which she said provides a space for people of color  to explore different theatrical forms.

A’ala, now a student at the Philadelphia Dance Company, said she is inspired by her grandmother Linda Atkins who is both her mentor and a former Philadanco dancer. Being in the show allows her to tell Kensington’s story through dance. 

“I feel that it’s good that we’re bringing awareness to it because there’s not a lot of people who know what’s really going on inside of Kensington,” A’ala said. “Really it’s not horrible at all.”

People outside of the Kensington community tend to misunderstand who the people are and what they hope for, A’ala said. Both she and Cardona have witnessed a neighborhood that stands together and steps in as needs emerge and evolve. 

“Sometimes people call Kensington this dystopian place, but I've lived a relatively good life here. My family and I have been through a lot, but my community has also stood there at almost every turn. And I wouldn't trade that for any giant house in the suburbs,” Cardona said.  

Illustrating her point, she shares: “We were in a couple of different domestic violence situations and my neighbors saved us both times. Kensington is a community, in every sense of the word.”

Cardona did not shy away from the tensions that exist, often underscored in headlines about city leadership’s new efforts to combat affordable housing and substance use crises. 

“For decades, Kensington has just been utterly neglected," she said. "The people out here and the residents have all been neglected."

To drive the point home, Cardona will read poems expressing her own reflections on the state of the neighborhood against a backdrop of portraits she has taken of the area. In one poem, she weaves in observations of addiction with symbolism, using the image of a weary girl marred and bloodied by thorns to represent Kensington. 

One stanza frames the crisis through the perspective of the fictitious little girl: 

“My people are hurting, and so am I. … When one of my people die so does a part of me.”

Neyda Rios, Daisie’s mom, attended a recent rehearsal. She became emotional as Cardona read, tears trickling down her cheeks. 

Rios is from Puerto Rico but her family moved to the city when she was three – the same age her daughter was at her first neighborhood outreach event. In 1995, Rios bought their home in Kensington. 

“To make sure that my kids had something,” she said, adding that she has been a block captain for as long as she’s been a resident. “We all care about each other. … I have a saying, ‘If I got rice, you got beans, and she got a cow, we all got food ‘cuz we are going to all eat.’”  

She and Cardona want to change the narrative about Kensington enclaves like Harrowgate. 

“Kensington takes care of Kensington. And that's what we want to show," Cardona said, noting that the neighborhood is about more than the poverty it's known for.

“It's part of who we are, but it's not the only part of who we are.”

Tickets are on sliding scale, $5-50, and can be purchased online.

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