The month of June kicks off a summer of Chicago dance with neighborhood festivals, company seasons, and single events, with dance styles ranging from contemporary to jazz and tap, multi-disciplinary to culturally-specific, musical theater to hip-hop. Check out our highlights, and try something new in June!
JUNE HIGHLIGHTS:
The Last Link
“My life is an open pamphlet.” Bob Fosse
We all know Bob Fosse was a Chicago boy, a Northsider born and bred; and we claim him as our own. There aren’t many people around town who knew him before he was “Bob Fosse.” But there is still one last DIRECT link to Bob. This link grew up with him and knew him better than anyone else, his vaudeville partner, Charles Grass. Both born in 1927 during the last Roar of the Roaring 20s, Bob would have been 90 in a few weeks and Charles will be 90 in December.
Keep It Moving
My mother used to say I came out of the womb dancing. George Benson’s ‘This Masquerade’ is the first pop song I can vividly remember bopping around the house to when I was a toddler. Growing up in an intellectually stimulating, artistically inclined household, and witnessing music’s enchanting effect on my parents, influenced the effect music had on my love for dance, creative movement, and embodied storytelling.
(Continuing in our series, "Write-On Dance: Our Readers Write")
By Hannah Brooks-Motl and Ingrid Becker
Rekha Iyer
Dancing In A Daze
Ashley Goos
Throughout the month of April, in celebration of Chicago Dance Month, SeeChicagoDance is publishing personal essays and stories about all aspects of dance submitted by our readers. This is the first of several that have crossed our threshold. If you have a story to tell, a personal essay about any aspect of dance, a rant or a rave to share, it's not too late. Send submissions to editor@seechicagodance.com. For details and submission guidelines, see Audience Architects Community News. --LCS
Chicago Tap Theatre’s brand of foreign policy did more for U. S. international relations in its one night at the Athenaeum Theater Saturday than the U.S. State Department has accomplished in the past two months. If only they knew!
There is enough wonderful dance happening in Chicago to keep you on your toes almost every night throughout the month of March. Local and touring companies from out of town grace stages small and large throughout the city. The town is fairly bursting with new, creative collaborations between choreographers, dancers, musicians, filmmakers, videographers, actors, poets and more.
AUGUST HIGHLIGHTS:
August rallies the Chicago dance community in two of the year’s most inspiring cultural events: “Dance For Life” and “The Chicago Dancing Festival,” each one a stunning effort of its founders, Chicago-born dance artists with vision, purpose, and dedication that overflows with heart, soul, and some of the best choreography and dancing on the continent.