SeeChicagoDance: News and Reviews

Review: Akram Kahn Company: Bah by Sid Smith

Wed, 31 December 1969 19:00:00 -0500

Inarguably, London's Akram Khan is an engaging maker of movement. Just about all of the dance in "bahok," in performance through Sunday at the Museum of Contemporary Art, is intelligent and fresh, and some of it is spellbinding.

Close to the end of this 75-minute work, in what amounts to a climax, Khan and longtime collaborator, composer Nitin Sawhney, manage one of those rare apices marrying music and dance. Sawhney's seductive score, a rambling, intermittent symphony of noise and melody, reaches a soaring point in volume and beauty as the dancers lunge forward, at first, and then come to complete stillness in the sense that their feet stop moving. But their arms swing, like blades of a windmill, accelerating to near jet propulsion, repeating their circular gyrations as if kids gone mad on a playground. You are both moved at the artistic audacity and just slightly worried your own theater seat may take off in flight--there's that much energy.

Meanwhile, Khan's ensemble rearrangements, both before and after this stretch, are graced with a gossamer, minimalist design. As most of the dancers move in unison, one, two, or three break away into something else, but so beautifully dotted throughout the larger grouping, and so quickly changing, that you have to watch feverishly to follow them before giving up and surrendering to Khan's overall magic spell. As audience members, we're intrigued, then excited and finally rendered putty in his hands.

Unfortunately, "bahok," created in 2008, is better throughout in its dance than its dramaturgy. A fairly straightforward dance theater piece, it's set in a train station of the mind, its passengers a diverse hodgepodge of nationalities, its waiting area a Godot-like land of no exit and existential trap. In itself, that's trite now, going all the way back to such forgotten dramas as Sutton Vane's 1923 "Outward Bound," and Khan doesn't really do that much with it. The messages at the end meant as philosophical codas, broadcast on the computerized arrival-departure board that's part of the lean set, are too obvious: "Are you lost?" or "Where are you going?" And Khan relies on such shopworn emblems of sterile modern life as the cell phone. Moments of vaudeville intended as comic relief aren't that funny, as when, after a tower-of-Babel-like brouhaha, the cast goes in for a group hug, one loner left out to crawl around and atop the ensemble to try and force her way in. Second-rate Marx Brothers.

There is a moment of genuinely witty dance, when a somewhat short man, partnering a tall woman in a sequence of rough-hewn ballet, has to jump into the air to manage the classic position of a male partner holding the ballerina in place. There's also one intriguing dramatic sequence, wherein a woman and her Korean friend struggle to communicate with a customs official and each other, a sequence beautifully acted, funny, scary and apt--epitomizing the weariness and fright of traveling internationally today.

And, the disappointing dramatic tropes aside, "bahok" is flush with Khan's rightly respected mastery of choreography, performed here by a smart, daredevil and speedy company on tour. Khan employs classic grounded contemporary dance, tinged with bone-crushing danger and martial art stress, but often prettified paradoxically by the most delicate hand work. Right before or after you watch a dancer collapse painfully to the floor, the wrists will flick like grace notes, or, in the case of one especially liquid-like gentleman, the trunk will undulate with gorgeous serpentine silkiness.

Best of all, during the stretches of eminently viewable dance, Khan and company engage in a typical series of modern moves, backward runs and floor rolls among them, but with that inimitable drive and cohesion that marks truly compelling choreography. Plenty of contemporary choreographers employ the same moves. But it's rare talents, and Khan is assuredly one of them, who manage such a sequence so that, by the end of it, you feel not so much you've witnessed a string of unrelated moves as you've been grabbed unexpectedly and taken on a journey. For my money, Khan has no need of a traveler's setting to accomplish it.

News: March Newsletter

Wed, 31 December 1969 19:00:00 -0500

By Sid Smith:

March looms as a busy month, teeming with dance punch and variety, promising a wide sweep of styles and a healthy mix of noteworthy visitors and enterprising local projects.

First off, the New York-based Troika Ranch visits March 4-6, bringing "loopdiver," just finished after a two-year development, using motion capture and co-founder Mark Coniglio's Isadora software for a work combining movement and multimedia. The latter includes interwoven loops of pre-recorded movement, text and digital effects. It's part of the Dance Center's mini-series this season exploring dance, science and technology.

The following weekend is a busy one, a cornucopia of dance styles all by itself. Giordano Jazz Dance Chicago presents a retrospective March 12 and 13 at the Harris Theater, reviving some of its best works, including Ron DeJesus' "Prey," Davis Robertson's "Entropy" and Christopher Huggins' "Pyrokinesis." The Seldoms embark on perhaps the most important local outing for the troupe so far, a collaboration by artistic director Carrie Hanson and visual artist Fraser Taylor called "Marchland," showcased March 12-14 at the Museum of Contemporary Art.
The Core Project and Jayson Tisa Dance Company perform "TR[I]BES," a program uniting a diverse group of contemporary dance and movement artists, March 12 and 13 at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts. Meanwhile, one of the more long-reigning and popular ethnic folk ensembles, Ballet Folklorico de Mexico de Amalia Hernandez, returns March 13 and 14 to the Auditorium Theatre.

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago offers its spring line-up March 18-21 at the Harris, featuring the company premiere of Jiri Kylian's "27 ' 52"," newly named artistic associate Terence Marling's premiere entitled "At'em (Atem) Adam," resident choreographer Alejandro Cerrudo's "First Light" (for Hubbard Street 2) and a revival of Susan Marshall's ever-popular "Kiss."

The Tchaikovsky Ballet Theatre visits the Paramount Theatre in Aurora March 18 with a varied program including selections from "Swan Lake," "The Nutcracker" and "The Sleeping Beauty." Two days later, the troupe plays downtown March 20 and 21 at the Auditorium, presenting its version of the stellar full-length "The Sleeping Beauty," a rare chance to see one of the art's most challenging works.

Britain's Wayne McGregor and Random Dance visit the Dance Center March 18-20 with "Entity," a full-evening work based on months of research with various experts on psychology, cognitive science, linguistics, neurosciences and robotics. Thodos Dance Chicago performs a program including its "Fosse Trilogy" March 19 at the McAninch Arts Center of the College of Dupage in Glen Ellyn.
And no excuses to miss this one: The Chicago Dance Crash presents "The Prodigy Series" for a nice long run March 19-27 at the Ruth Page center. The series is aptly named, teaming up the Dance Crash with a different up-and-coming Chicago troupe each night.
The Chicago Tap Theatre returns with a novel program, "LoveTaps," its first tap-story show in which the audience helps determine the outcome, selecting which characters will wind up in pairs, leading to a different show each night. The production runs March 19-28 at the Theatre Building.

Links Hall plans a full month of activities, including a "collision_theory" entry called "Spooky Action" March 8, three weekends of performances on "Dirt: Land/Use" March 5-21 and a "Vernal Equinox Celebration" with Shu Shubat, Ollie Seay and others March 19-21.
One of the most eagerly anticipated visits of the annual dance calendar occurs March 24-28 when the Alvin Ailey Amercan Dance Theater visits the Auditorium, marking Judith Jamison's 20th year as artistic director. The varied programs, each featuring Ailey's classic "Revelations," also includes on Saturday a retrospective entitled "Best of 20 Years."

And Luna Negra Dance Theater marks the year of Mexico March 27 at the Harris with a program celebrating that country's cultural richness, with works including Eduardo Vilaro's "Quinceanera," Edgar Zendejas' "Plight," and the world premiere of Michelle Manzanales' "Frida!"

News: ABT: Principal Casting For Swan Lake and One-Night Only All-American Celebration at Civic Opera House

Wed, 31 December 1969 19:00:00 -0500

Program part of ABT 70th Anniversary Celebration; Tickets on sale NOW!

CHICAGO - Principal casting has been announced for the full-length classical story ballet, Swan Lake, presented by American Ballet Theatre (ABT), America's National Ballet Company®, at the Civic Opera House, 20 N. Wacker Drive, in seven performances only, April 15 - 18, 2010. The company’s Chicago engagement, the first since 2008, opens with an All-American repertory program featuring works by Jerome Robbins, Paul Taylor and Twyla Tharp, Wednesday evening, April 14, 2010.

Swan Lake, presented in four acts, is the tragic tale of Odette, the beautiful Swan Queen who is imprisoned under the spell of the evil sorcerer von Rothbart. Swan Lake is considered the ultimate power struggle between good and evil, paired with the promise of everlasting love.

The principal roles of Odette/Odile and Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake will be danced in Chicago Thursday-Sunday, April 15-18 by: Paloma Herrera and Ethan Stiefel (Opening Night, Thursday, April 15 at 7:30 p.m.); Michele Wiles and Cory Stearns (in his debut as Prince Siegfried, Friday, April 16 at 2:00 p.m.); Gillian Murphy and Jose Manuel Carreño (Friday, April 16 at 7:30 p.m.); Julie Kent and Marcelo Gomes (Saturday, April 17 at 2:00 p.m.); Veronika Part and Roberto Bolle (Bolle makes his Chicago debut, Saturday, April 17 at 7:30 p.m.); Irina Dvorovenko and Maxim Beloserkovsky (Sunday, April 18 at 1:00 p.m.); and Michele Wiles and Cory Stearns (Sunday, April 18 at 5:30 p.m.).
(more)

This production of Swan Lake, choreographed by ABT Artistic Director Kevin McKenzie, after Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, was first staged by American Ballet Theatre in 2000, and features scenery and costumes by Zack Brown and lighting by Duane Schuler. Swan Lake will be accompanied by a live orchestra performing Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky’s most admired score.

ABT will open its Spring 2010 Chicago engagement with a one-night-only All-American Celebration highlighting choreographers Jerome Robbins, Paul Taylor and Twyla Tharp, Wednesday, April 14 a 7:30 p.m. The mixed repertory program will feature the Chicago Premiere of Tharp’s The Brahms-Haydn Variations (2000), a ballet for thirty dancers featuring music from Johannes Brahms’ Variations on a Theme by Haydn for Orchestra. Principal casting for The Brahms-Haydn Variations includes Gillian Murphy, Jose Manuel Carreño, Julie Kent, Sascha Radetsky, Michele Wiles, Cory Stearns, Hee Seo, Gennadi Saveliev, Sarah Lane, and Carlos Lopez. Also on the bill, Paul Taylor’s Company B (1991), a lively and nostalgic work featuring songs by the Andrews Sisters; and Jerome Robbins’ first ballet, Fancy Free (1944), set to the music of Leonard Bernstein and telling the story of three sailors and the two girls they meet on a hot summer night in New York during World War II. The three sailors will be danced by Daniil Simkin, Carlos Lopez, and Sascha Radetsky. Notably, Simkin and Radetsky will be making their debuts in these roles, and this performance marks Simkin’s first in Chicago.

Tickets for American Ballet Theatre's All-American Celebration, April 14, and Swan Lake, April 15-18, are on sale now and range in price from $20 - $125. Tickets can be purchased by calling 1-800-982-2787; visiting the Civic Opera House box office; or online at www.ticketmaster.com.

Swan Lake is generously underwritten by The Rosh Foundation. Company B is generously supported by a gift from Marjorie S. Isaac in honor of ABT Artistic Director Kevin McKenzie. Fancy Free is generously underwritten by an endowed gift from Avery and Andrew F. Barth, in honor of Laima and Rudolf Barth.

Saks Fifth Avenue is a Sponsor of American Ballet Theatre's Costume Fund, J.P. Morgan is the Leading Corporate Sponsor of Make a Ballet, American Airlines is the Official Airline of ABT, LVMH Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessey Inc. is the Official Sponsor of ABT II, and Northern Trust is the Leading Corporate Sponsor of the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School. Additional support is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Recovery Act, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

For more information on American Ballet Theatre's 2010 spring program at the Civic Opera House, April 14-18, 2010, please visit www.abt.org.

Review: Joffrey Ballet's "Cinderella" by Laura Molzahn

Wed, 31 December 1969 19:00:00 -0500

By Laura Molzahn:

What's wonderful about Sir Frederick Ashton's sunny "Cinderella" is his heroine's independence; the few men in the ballet are singularly beside the point. Cinderella's father is kindly but weak, and her prince has no more character than the broomstick she dances with in the kitchen. But Cinderella herself knows her value from the get-go.

The Joffrey --- which holds exclusive rights to perform Ashton’s 1948 three-act story ballet --- stages "Cinderella" for the second time only (the first was in 2006, the piece's U.S. premiere), and it is delicious. Running through February 28 at the Auditorium Theatre, it's well danced and theatrically nuanced under the direction of Wendy Ellis Somes and beautifully tricked out with David Walker's vintage sets and costumes, which the Joffrey acquired four years ago. The Chicago Sinfonietta, conducted by Scott Peck, treats Prokofiev’s sometimes angular, sometimes lissome score with great feeling and sensitivity.

Ashton's remixing of standard versions of the fairytale makes this a grrl-power kind of dance. For the libretto, he relied on Charles Perrault's popular 1697 account --- with some significant changes, like eliminating the evil stepmom. This renders the first act a bit odd: the father, a grown man of sound mind, is completely cowed by the silly stepsisters in Ashton’s comic take on the story, embracing and reassuring his daughter only when they’re not looking. Nice guy, but a wimp.

Ashton also borrowed a few features from the 19th-century version of the fairytale by the Brothers Grimm, in which Cinderella's birth mother speaks from the grave through a hazel tree her daughter plants there. Ashton doesn’t go so far as to have Cinderella’s dead mother talk to her, but his heroine does hang her mother’s portrait on the chimney and place a votary candle on the hearth of the cavernous kitchen. Though we never meet the mother, she is literally a light, a beacon, for the oppressed Cinderella.

Who isn't all that oppressed in Ashton's ballet. In the Brothers Grimm tale, Cinderella is weepy, crying at every turn. Consistently described as good, sweet, and patient, she's also good, sweet, and patient in the ballet --- but seldom weepy. Instead Cinderella immediately reveals an innate self-confidence, especially in her dancing.

For Ashton, the stepsisters' moral failings are part and parcel of their excessive, clumsy movement, played for laughs: their moves are as frilly and overdone as their frou-frou costumes, with lots of gesticulating, wobbly running, and flapping of arms. Pulling out all the stops, Ashton prods them into stumbles, collisions, and Three Stooges-style pranks. At the height of one such scene in the first act, Cinderella steps in and --- with a single decisive gesture, spreading her arms wide --- brings everyone to a halt, just as the old hag/fairy godmother makes her entrance.

Those expansive arms are characteristic of Cinderella's first- and third-act solos in the kitchen, when her spirit transcends her circumstances. Her steps are quick and dainty but completely sure, the solid base for a fluid, expressive upper body. When everyone leaves for the ball, she regards the closed door a little sadly, then makes a flippant "so what?" gesture and executes a sky-high extension facing the audience, releasing it only to stab her toe shoe into the floor defiantly, once, twice, right on the music. On opening night, Victoria Jaiani played the role with the right mix of taut strength and easy freedom, self-effacement and self-assurance.

In Ashton's fairytale, all the women are strong and all the men are good-looking. Well, the prince at least. Despite his money and station, he doesn’t confer power on Cinderella --- he recognizes it. The closest any man gets to power in this "Cinderella" is the jester/emcee at the second-act ball (a highly athletic role well danced by a mischievous Derrick Agnoletti). And he's pretty androgynous. His female counterpart in the first act, the fairy godmother, grounds Cinderella in the natural world (another feature lifted from the Brothers Grimm fairytale), then provides the carriage, horses, gown. But the grace and force that Cinderella unveils at the ball are all her own.

What a novelty: plenty of powerful women while none are evil. Even the wicked stepsisters are men in drag (the hilariously foolish David Gombert and Michael Smith). Ashton --- who used to dance the shy younger stepsister himself --- lavished attention on these two, the bossy older sister and her slightly more demure sibling, the Laurel and Hardy of dance. But it’s a sign of this ballet’s gentle spirit that, when the stepsisters are banished at the end, they half tiptoe/half march offstage hand in hand. Even villains catch a break in Ashton’s generous, forgiving vision.

Review: River North Chicago Dance Company Valentine's Weekend Engagement by Sid Smith

Wed, 31 December 1969 19:00:00 -0500

By Sid Smith:

Choreographer Robert Battle seems blessed with a limitless talent to entertain. The man who gave River North Chicago Dance Company "Train" is back with two more works, a new one called "Three" and a solo, "Ella," first performed earlier by his own troupe.

Both are irresistible and, like "Train," decidedly inimitable. Though it boasts one noteworthy solo, "Train" involves a modest-sized ensemble and a nod to choral imagery. Solos and trios are about something else, a more intimate artistry, and it's here that Battle maybe shows off his innovation, quirkiness and originality best, zeroing in for tight body shots that are the choreographic equivalent of a close-up. He injects both pieces with an almost infinite amount of gestures and modest, short-lived motions that are speedy and crammed, just this side of frenetic. These are feasts of detail, yet each work is distinct from the other.

"Ella" demands this approach by definition. Here Battle attempts the nearly impossible: Charging a dancer with illustrating, dipping inside and replicating the quicksilver wonderland and finesse of Ella Fitzgerald's scat. Vocalists, of course, are challenged to duplicate the great Fitzgerald's skills; dancers, you'd think, wouldn't stand a chance.

And yet Battle and River North's amazing Lauren Kias do just that. The score is a track called "Airmail Special," a scat amalgamating various songs, phrases and notes, and Kias echoes the vocals with an elaborate catalogue including spinning forearms, swoops, cartwheel-like exercises and one spectacular collapse to the floor. No single gesture or trope seems to last for more than a second, so that Kias is rapidly changing, just like Fitzgerald's vocals, few of the images repeated.

With a cagey sense of stagecraft and no small knack for design, Battle makes it possible by alternating the fast, dart-like echoes of the changing notes with slow, more languorous pauses and lilts, built-in retards to give Kias a chance to catch her breath. At one point, two male dancers, goofily attired, cross the rear of the stage, another reprieve for Kias and part of Battle's disarming use of humor to pull this off. Kias herself, while delivering a technical knockout, also manages a light, subdued rakishness, nothing cloying or overly solicitous, but an oh-what-the-heck air that serves both the dance and the spirit of the tribute to Fitzgerald.

"Three," Battle's new work for the troupe, somewhat takes up a similar mission in another direction. Here the music is a seamless mix of various percussive strains from the likes of Eleventh Hour, Art of Noise and Taiko Drums. The soundtrack is pounding, aggressive, like "Train," yet impish and delectable, too, an inviting serenade of techno-noise. The three men are mostly in two separate clusters--Michael Gross and Ricky Ruiz are paired, alternating with Christian Denice, who performs in solo. For all the sophistication, the movement both here and in "Ella" has a carefree, casual, pop and streetwise vocabulary--sass, hip-hop and even one miniature quote of the limbo in "Three" are part of Battle's arsenal. But it shifts so rapidly and so smoothly that the effect is more tour de force than eclectic list. Battle is also witty more than he's outright funny, which is a terrific strength. There's a guiding intelligence that make "Three" not just appealing, but audaciously clever. Almost off-handedly, the dancers find themselves standing on their heads. The tiny, embedded structures minutely ape and illustrate the pulses of the percussive score, whether it's a back and forth tug of war between Ruiz and Gross, or a mock superior strut from Denice. The finale is a carefully wrought bit of geometry whereby the united trio break up again: The Gross-Ruiz combo shoot Denice away, as if he's cannonball to their cannon.

Lauri Stallings' "Suppose" is a bit of a disappointment. Like Battle's "Three," it is redolent with offbeat, alien-like gestures set to a disturbing, other worldy score mixing Deadbeat and Gustavo Santaolalla. Some of the quirks and frenzied spasms for the seven dancers are interesting, as are some elements of the design and Stallings' shifting use of combinations. But "Suppose" somehow doesn't add up or come together, more a finely tuned exercise--or maybe a work in progress.

The engagement, which plays through Saturday at the Harris Theater, 205 E. Randolph Dr. (312-334-7777), includes revivals of Sherry Zunker's "Evolution of a Dream," Monique Haley's "Uhuru" and Frank Chaves' "Tuscan Rift," "Sentir em Nos (Even for Us)" and "Forbidden Boundaries."

Review: KOOSIL-JA/DANCEKUMIKO "BLOCKS OF CONTINUALITY/BODY, IMAGE AND ALGORITHM" by Laura Molzahn

Wed, 31 December 1969 19:00:00 -0500

By Laura Molzahn:

If you think the title is daunting, you should see the 75-minute work. Choreographer-director Koosil-ja has created an experience that challenges the ears, the eyes, the mind, and the heart. Her philosophical discussion of the project makes it no clearer; she says, for example, that she wants to "perceive body and movement algorithmically. I want to know about the body from a molecular level...and wash off all politics and stigma."

Problem is, a lot else gets washed off too. There's no doubting the seriousness and discipline of "Blocks of Continuality/Body, Image and Algorithm," running through Saturday, February 6, at the Dance Center of Columbia College. But Koosil-ja's whole enterprise---which involves the dancer "entering another body" through technological means so that she can become "free and pure" --- seems misguided. For me reality lies in the mess, in the individual, in the here and now, not in "underlying principles" or abstractions.

Here's what happens in a nutshell: In the first three-quarters of the piece, three dancers enact a series of solos, duets, and trios while watching banks of screens displaying still and moving images of the human body. These change regularly. Using a process Koosil-ja calls "live processing," the dancers copy and integrate the motions they see on the screens.

Meanwhile the four banks, one on each edge of the performing area, create a private domain for the performers, and the audience is outside, watching: voyeurs. Clearly Koosil-ja is evoking the overload of imagery and information that digital media enable --- "Blocks of Continuality" is like a six-ring circus. Straining to see the screen images, small and distant, I tried to connect them with the live dancers, then thought: why? But looking only at the dancers made me curious about their sources, and my eyes wandered back to the screens. It's the same restless search enacted every day as people struggle to wring every last bit of information from the Internet.

Koosil-ja's abstracting approach produces a denatured body language garnered from anonymous, culturally diverse sources presented in short visual bursts without syntax. Yet at its best it can evoke something, have some human character through Koosil-ja's direction or from the performances of mercurial dancers Melissa Guerrero, Ava Heller, and Elise Knudson. Despite Koosil-ja's aim to create "a new networked body made of real and virtual," for me they were always distinct. Dancers are a cooperative bunch, and watching them watch their screens, I found their intense concentration on the deluge of images intensely human and moving.

Most affecting is the final section of the first part. In a danced diminuendo, a soloist slowly reduces the scope of her movements until all we can see are tiny inflections of the body: slight shifts in weight, a wrist rotated, flicking eyes. She begins to mutter words keyed to her motions: "nod," "palm," "elbow," "move to the side," "hold the center." Her minimalism, perhaps the pared-down effect of mental exhaustion, sharply contrasts with the rapidly shifting excesses of the images onscreen. The music is quiet, a song without words by Koosil-ja and Geoff Gersh that blends with the dancer's muttering, creating a sense of peace and intimacy.

By contrast much of the rest of the score, by Koosil-ja and Geoff Matters, is at best electronic wallpaper and at worst, aural torture. Then, for the piece's final 15 or 20 minutes, the music is --- well, both amazing and monotonous. Gersh is hooked up to a device, designed and engineered by Stephan Moore, that uses brain waves to activate a sound installation: meditating in a chair downstage, Gersh produces alpha waves that translate into a two-note percussive phrase like a heartbeat at irregular intervals, interrupting the machine's loud buzzing.

The whole fleet of tech wizards involved in "Blocks of Continuality" is especially crucial to the second and final part. Each dancer is outfitted with sensors that use Wii technology to translate live movement to digital animations projected on large screens, one for each dancer. This finale is initially impressive, the images chilling in the nightmarish stories they seem to tell and in their eerie video-game movement, both familiarly human and skin-crawlingly alien. But the imagery, going on too long and evolving with excruciating slowness, comes to seem mere gimmickry while the live dancers, still moving to their video screens in the dark onstage, almost disappear. I hated to see them go.

By the end, Koosil-ja has literally made her dancers the "open conduit" for information she aims to achieve: they're processing human movement from the small screens and passing it on, through the sensors, to the big screens and the animated human beings. Sure, it's cool. But all the philosophizing in the world can't make me see a point beyond that.

Review: The Dance COLEctive "Meet Me There" by Laura Molzahn

Wed, 31 December 1969 19:00:00 -0500

By Laura Molzahn:

Three generations of women come face-to-face in the Dance COLEctive's winter program, "Meet Me There,” continuing through Saturday, January 30, at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts. Most of the time these women are looking at themselves, not out of vanity but in the hope of self-discovery.

Artistic director Margi Cole has worked almost exclusively with female dancers since she started the company in 1996. And as a lecturer at the Dance Center of Columbia College, she must know a whole younger generation of mostly female dancers there. Meanwhile Cole’s mentor and former teacher, Shirley Mordine, has contributed a reconstruction of her 1974 “Three Women” to the program.

Cole occupies the middle ground between twentysomethings and sixtysomethings, and that queasy sense of being in-between permeates the new "IMe," which she created with Jeff Hancock. This thoughtful, well-structured dance for ten comes to no conclusions, instead wallowing in the slipperiness of identity and the easy entrapments of self-love masquerading as self-knowledge.

A response to self-definition in the digital age, "IMe" recognizes and even embraces the communities that spring up on sites like Facebook, where people --- especially young people --- assert themselves, express themselves, and in effect try out different roles. But some of the text in "IMe," written by Cole and Hancock, acknowledges the deceptive, confusing side of Internet communication, the potential to obscure identity, adopt false personas, and discover, to your horror, your doppelganger.

Like the Internet, "IMe" is a po-mo jumble. There's music, the sound of dripping or running water, voiceovers and texts delivered live, and above all, reflective surfaces: a tall Mylar "mirror" upstage, hand-held mirrors, mirrors sewn into costumes. A rectangular mirror being constructed from ragged bits of Mylar by a woman downstage also suggests a computer screen --- but the woman is seated on a classical-looking pedestal. In fact ancient mythology grabs more of the stage than the Internet: like Narcissus, the dancers avidly study their own reflections, even lying on their stomachs and smiling into small round mirrors like pools. One section suggests the way Echo stalked Narcissus by repeating his cries: in something like the Marco Polo pool game, a confused crowd of dancers rushes toward whichever person is calling out "I" or "me."

A subtle humor runs through "IMe" and disrupts the lingering threat of navel gazing. You can hear that comic edge in two letters, also referring to Narcissus and, in this case, his unrequited self-love: the first is adoring and addressed to "you," the second dismissive and addressed to "me." And you can see it in lighting designer Jacob Snodgrass's opening --- a portentous path of light to the upstage mirror --- and in the small, redundant photograph of each dancer printed on her T-shirt, courtesy of costume designer Atalee Judy.

In "Three Women," Mordine looks at female identity at three ages: the free child, the young woman discovering her sexuality, and the older woman. A reconstruction of the score includes unidentified voices and snatches of historic folk recordings, which give the piece a populist feel, a sense of well-worn, immutable archetypes. This 36-year-old trio feels both fresh and timeless, thanks in part to strong dancing by Cole, Molly Grimm-Leasure, and Maggie Koller.

The anxiety of "IMe," the sense of continual search for an anchor in a too-fluid world, is foreign to "Three Women." Instead these dancers have the solidity of sculpture --- though they're far from stolid. When they enter, arms around each other's backs, they're like children or beasts from a fairy tale, like the Wild Things in Maurice Sendak’s famous book. They enjoy the noise their feet make, slapping the ground with their full weight, and they clap their hands and snap their fingers to provide their own music. Solos at the end convey the different ages of woman, and the final one for the older woman (originally performed by Mordine and here by Cole) is by far the most powerful, a statement of potency and self-effacement, resignation and violent feeling.

In contrast to the other two pieces, Cole's world premiere octet, "Taking Hold," feels tenuous and unfinished. Though it has some of the evening's most intricate and emotionally laden interactions, they take place in isolated scenes without context or a sense of development. The piece originated with the idea of collecting, but except for a slight edge of obsessive acquisitiveness, you can’t tell that. There are seeds here, and good ones, but they need to be planted in more solid, fertile ground.

News: February Newsletter

Wed, 31 December 1969 19:00:00 -0500

By Sid Smith:

Talk about valentines. The weather may stay frightful, but February offers more than 15 dance attractions, and that's just a warm-up before the spring onslaught arrives in March and April.

The shortest month will prove to be a tall order for anyone trying to see it all, including bigtime classics (the Joffrey Ballet's "Cinderella"), important returns (the Akram Khan Company at the Museum of Contemporary Art), alluring experiments (Koosil-ja/danceKUMIKO at the Dance Center of Columbia College) and the highly original (DanceWorks Chicago's "Dance Bytes.")

The Dance Center hosts Koosil-ja Feb. 4-6, launching a brief series on science, technology and dance--about as timely as a series can get, when you consider all the rapid techno changes of our time. Koosil-ja, despite its exotic name, is actually New York City-based, brainchild of dancer-choreographer Koosil-ja Hwang, whose "Blocks of Continuality/Body, Image, and Algorithm"--a high-tech mouthful in its title alone--uses dance and live camera work to tell three stories "simulating the coexistence of the digital and flesh worlds."

Links Hall, the dance venue that never sleeps, offers its first engagement of the month, "Triptych Tongues," with work by Lisa Biggs, Misty DeBerry and Ni'Ja Whitson Feb. 5-7, with "Rates of Reaction," a collision_theory improvisation, led by Lisa Gonzales, Feb. 8.

Less than a week later, River North Chicago Dance Company returns Feb. 12 and 13 to the Harris Theater for its annual Valentine's Day-timed visit, unveiling new works by two terrific American choreographers. Robert Battle, who gave the troupe its runaway hit, "Train," is creating "Three," a trio, while Lauri Stallings, former Hubbard Street Dance Chicago dancer and now fulltime choreographer and creator of River North's "ahimsa," will provide a new work entitled "Suppose." 50% off through SeeChicagoDance&Save!

A lot of guys out there would be wise to surprise their partners with dance tickets, and River North's not the only weekend treat. Touting the promise of "less culture, more romance," the feisty Chicago Dance Crash takes over "Duets for My Valentine" Feb. 13 at the Park West. $22 Tickets with code MYLOVE through SeeChicagoDance&Save!

And for the more participatory inclined, Ballroom Dance Chicago is offering lessons in Latin and other romantic ballroom dances, along with food and drink, Feb. 13 at 4043 N. Ravenswood Av., Suite 105.

That takes us midway through the month, but through less than a third of the offerings. The second half of February sizzles. Spectacularly, the Joffrey revives "Cinderella," its masterful mounting of Frederick Ashton's scrumptious, loving and utterly delightful classic, replete with fine ballet and two stepsisters hilariously en travesti. The work plays Feb. 17-28 at the Auditorium Theatre and is not to be missed.

DanceWorks Chicago plans two outings this month. Its "Dance Bytes," designed to provide behind-the-scenes insights and reveal aspects of the artistic journey, arrives Feb. 17 at the Harold Washington Library, a free event, while the "Eat to the Beat" venture returns Feb. 23 to the Harris, a program that has invited a variety of sound artists and musicians to work up an accompaniment for Alex Ketley's "If Ever (an Ocean) Relinquished," available for viewing on line beforehand, for a score to be unveiled at the lunchtime performance.

The sparkling and one-of-a-kind ensemble, Jump Rhythm Jazz Project, performers unique for their scat-like onstage accompaniment and jazzy sound effects, is celebrating its 20th-anniversary season and playing a gig Feb. 18-20 at the Dance Center. Founder/artistic head Billy Siegenfeld will provide two premieres, "You Do Not Have to Be Good" and "Why Gershwin?" The latter inimitably includes not just words and music from the great Gershwin brothers, but James Brown strains as well. Why not Gershwin and Brown?

The Dance Crash is back Feb. 19 with its Keeper of the Floor Championship improvisational showdown, entering its fourth year and on view at the Lakeshore Theatre. This "KTF XVIII" installment is slugged "Bootleg Battle Royale."

The acclaimed Kalapriya Dance troupe of classical Indian work presents "Rasa: Heart and Soul" Feb. 19 and 26 at the Hamlin Park Fieldhouse Theatre at 3035 N. Hoyne St. In what's shaping up to be a busy and fruitful weekend, Winifred Haun revives her well-received full-length, "Promise," inspired by John Steinbeck's "East of Eden," Feb. 20 and 21 at the Cheney Mansion in Oak Park, performed by her Winifred Haun & Dancers.

The Najwa Dance Corps, devoted to the many eras and styles of African-American dance, presents a concert including "Dance-A-Licious" and the popular "Fire Dance Ritual" Feb. 20 at the Bruce K. Hayden Center for the Performing Arts of Malcolm X College, 1900 W. Van Buren St.

Meanwhile, the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, which wowed so many of us awhile back at the Harris, returns to our area for a concert Feb. 21 at the McAninch Arts Center of the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn. 25% off through SeeChicagoDance&Save!

That same night, Ailey II, the second company of the renowned Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, makes a stop at the Paramount Theatre in Aurora. 25% off with code CHIDANCE through SeeChicagoDance&Save!

February fades with one of the most anticipated events of the year, the return of the phenomenal Akram Khan and company Feb. 26-28 to the MCA. This time, the troupe presents "bahok," named for the Bengali word for carrier, a piece about the way "the body carries national identity and a sense of belonging." If they have any of the fire of their last visit, this one's required viewing.

Also, celebrating its 70th anniversary, the South Side Community Art Center presents the Columbia City Ballet in William Starrett's "Off the Wall & Onto the Stage: Dancing the Art of Jonathan Green," a work that translates 22 paintings by Green to the concert world of dance, music and fine art, all the while telling a story of the Gullah culture of African-Americans hailing from the low country of South Carolina, Georgia and the Sea Islands. The production plays Feb. 27 at the Harris.

Review: CLOUD GATE DANCE THEATRE OF TAIWAN "MOON WATER" by Laura Molzahn

Wed, 31 December 1969 19:00:00 -0500

By Laura Molzahn:

The words used to describe the body-ankle, nape, forearm, small of the back-are like well-worn, much-loved stones to me. But even when combined with muscular verbs, they are completely inadequate to describe what the body does, how it moves not as a collection of parts but as an integrated whole.

Clambering over the disjunct between language and the moving body is something I attempt all the time. But "Moon Water," which Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan will reprise Saturday night at the Harris Theater, has left me in a sorry spot for a writer: nearly speechless. How to put clumsy words to this irreducible experience of the ineffable?

My husband fell asleep. Two or three times, he said. But for once that didn't make me mad. Ten years ago, watching a performance of Merce Cunningham's "Biped," I struggled to keep from dozing off. But when my eyes flew open â?? which fortunately they did at times-I felt not just awake but reborn, both tranquil and bedazzled by what I saw onstage. It seemed miraculous.

Cloud Gate artistic director Lin Hwai-Min is the Eastern version of Merce Cunningham. Like the West's dead darling, he articulates the body at every conceivable joint-and adds a few we havenâ??t heard of. But where Cunningham's choreography is all awkward angles, Lin debones his dancers, except for the rare cocked elbow or toe, like a trigger on the rifle of the leg.

And like Cunningham, I think, Lin aims for contemplation, even meditation, both for his dancers and for his watchers. Thatâ??s why sleep is no shame: It is meditation's sibling. It is an honorable response to such a work.

Lin bases the movement in tai chi and sets it to selections from Bach's Six Suites for Solo Cello. These selections differ, but many of them sound like breathing as the bow moves back and forth over the strings. The sound moves the same way the body does in tai chi, with an ebb and flow that's unpredictable, intuitive, organic, responsive to the inner and outer worlds.

I can see how the 70-minute "Moon Water" might be perceived as monotonous, amorphous, but it has a strong structure, a skeleton that moves the piece from here to there almost imperceptibly, hidden under the slow transformations of the movement, the flesh. Each of its eight sections is devoted to a discrete piece of the Bach music and separated from the others by short periods of silence. Yet Lin also knits them together, with entrances that transgress on the previous section and exits that linger.

In general "Moon Water" expands and contracts but with a gradual enlargement of scope and interaction. Touching-or rather, not touching-is a motif. The second section, a male-female duet, creates the illusion of touching and suggests the impulse to touch, but it's not until a trio in the fifth section that any man lifts or moves a woman about the stage. And in the sixth section, a quartet for two couples, men and women purposefully wrap their fingers around each other's forearms or join hands. There are no embraces or caresses, but then "Moon Water" isn't about romance.

Three solos punctuate the piece. "Moon Water" opens with a powerful male solo-but not in the usual macho sense. Instead Tsai Ming-yuan uses his man's body to move like a woman, in undulating collapses like a ribbon falling to the floor in slow motion. The fourth section is a female solo, to me the most anomalous part of the piece. Chou Chang-ning is a surprisingly regal, almost confrontational presence â?? and she swims upstream, exiting quickly stage left when everyone else has exited stage right in a slow, relentless procession.

The third solo, the seventh section, was for me the evening's miracle. Set to the prelude of Bach's Suite No. 4, the most moving selection on the program, it isolates dancer Huang Pei-hua in a golden pool of light so bright that it bounces off parts of her body and slams into our eyes. The energy concentrated in her movement, the music, and the light fills this section with a drama foreign to the rest of the piece, especially when she slips out of the light and her face is in shadow.

The final section returns us to a quiet place, the quietest place in "Moon Water" despite the size of the scene, which includes 15 dancers, and the grandeur of the scenic design. Lighting designer Chang Tsan-tao paints every section with simultaneous subtlety and power, transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary and back again. And set designer Austin Wang has created an environment of astounding beauty, especially in the last section, when multiple mirrors and dripping, splashing, and silent water unite clouds and pools, sky and earth.

News: Preview: Interview with Terence Marling, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago Artsitic Associate and Rehearsal Director

Wed, 31 December 1969 19:00:00 -0500

By Sid Smith:

"Dancers are my people," Terence Marling says, bluntly and persuasively. "They're who I've been surrounded by since I was a kid. They're who I feel most comfortable with. I hope that I'm open and honest and that that's what it takes. I do see amazing work going on around me right now, and my intention at least is to get the best dance on stage here in Chicago that we possibly can."

Since joining Hubbard Street Dance Chicago in 2006, Marling has very much been a factor in the best dance in the city. His smooth, suave style and noteworthy athletic ability made for fiery solo moments, while he was also a sensitive, supporting partner, whether more typically matched with a woman, a la Penny Saunders in Lar Lubovitch's "Cryptoglyph," or with Kevin Shannon, for whom he provided a combative foil in Doug Varone's "The Constant Shift of Pulse." Blessed with matinee-idol looks and a build more typical of a halfback, Marling has been one of the more charismatic talents of the last four years.

But Marling gave what may well be a farewell performance in December, and this month he assumed new duties as Hubbard artistic associate and rehearsal director. Though a tad young to retire--he turns 34 this week--Marling, who has been studying dance or dancing for the past 28 years, is ready for new frontiers.

"I didn't want to show any decline on stage, I didn't want to feel bad or that my work was suffering," he says. "And that's inevitable. There's a constant wearing out as you age. And I'd done an incredible amount of performing. There comes a point where you realize you've got a lot of information to share. I want to give back."

Marling will be heading straight into the choreographic headwinds right away. A veteran of Hubbard's "Inside/Out" and other choreographic programs, he'll unveil "At'em (Atem) Adam" in a preview this Saturday when Hubbard performs at Governors State University in south suburban University Park. The piece will get its official premiere at Hubbard's next Harris Theater engagement in March.

"The music is all over the place," he says of the score that includes Billie Holiday, Edgar Meyer, Luciano Berio, Ella Fitzgerald and Moon Dog. "Up and at'em is a common phrase, but, until I was 32, I always heard the phrase as 'Up and Adam," he adds by way of explaining the work's triple homonym title. Atem is a German term for "breath," in part reflecting several years he spent dancing in that country.

"You take a breath when you say it, and I guess part of what I want the piece to feel like is that pleasure of an exhale, of a relief. I'm trying to give the dancers a lot of freedom, to keep it an enjoyable experience. So much dance has become hard, heavy and dark. This piece has a dark edge, but it's not particularly heavy."

Marling grew up in the Chicago area, his time split between the city and Wilmette. His mother, an avid dancer herself, urged his older brother to take class, but it was Marling, at age 6, who took to the art and never left. He credits the late Larry Long as one of a number of crucial Chicago teachers. At 18, he joined the Pittsburgh Ballet Theater, where he danced roles in "Don Quixote" and Glen Tetley's "Le Sacre du Printemps," but he's unusually frank on the limitations he felt made him a better fit with modern dance.

"Classical dance is increasingly about extremes, extremes of line and turnout and arch," he says. "Some bodies just can't do it all, and I have limited rotation and limited arches. I'd look in the mirror and think, 'I just can't do that to perfection.'" While with Pittsburgh, Marling met his wife, Lauren Schultz, a dancer who has since retired and now works for the Art Institute of Chicago.

In 2003, Marling went to Germany to work with Kevin O'Day and Dominique Dumais and the Nationaltheater Mannheim.
"But one place I always considered I'd end up is here at Hubbard," he says. "Because of the repertoire and the amount of creativity that goes into it."

He's joining the administration at a tricky time. Jim Vincent, who hired him, is gone, taking such lights as Jamy Meek and Shannon Alvis with him, while Glenn Edgerton is just beginning his stint as new artistic director. Budget issues have reduced the troupe's size this season to only 16, down from a high of more than 20. Marling, not surprisingly, sees challenges fraught with possibility, opportunity and excitement.

"Everyone is pulling their weight, everyone is picking up more work, like you have to do in a tough economy," he says. "We're working on something like 10 pieces in February. Sure, I'd love to have more dancers, but we're all pushing as hard as we can to move forward, and, while our numbers are low at the moment, hopefully, we'll fix that."