Preview

“Zafiro Flamenco” swaps drama and steamy sensuality for celebratory light-heartedness in Ensemble Español Spanish Dance Theater's first live, in-person concert since COVID-19 restrictions shut down all public performances a year and a half ago. The festival launches the Ensemble’s postponed 45th anniversary season in a hybrid program June 18-20 at North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie. The Saturday night concert will be both live and live-streamed.

The South Side Chicago Arts Center (SSCAC) has long been a place of exhibition, incubation and connection to African American art and artists through educational and artistic programs, exhibitions, talks, tours, and more. Founded in 1940, the SSCAC is a Chicago historic landmark and is the oldest African American art center in the U.S., featuring works from some of its founding members alongside new commissions by up-and-coming artists. Unfortunately, due to Coronavirus, the center is closed to the public and is only open for limited public engagements.

A deluge of dance is upon us in Chicago. As restrictions on live performance are increasingly relaxed, the flood gates are newly open and the performing arts, determined as ever, are springing back to life.

Chicago Dance Month is an annual celebration and amplification of Chicago’s diverse dance scene. Established in 2013, Chicago Dance Month, typically in April, draws attention to the wealth of local productions that takes place each spring after national tours of big companies like American Ballet Theatre and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater roll through town in late winter. 

Artists have to make art to thrive. It’s that simple, because if you don’t, the creative muscle atrophies, or worse. If you’re an artist and you can’t make art, your soul tends to sputter and cough and gasp for breath, just to stay alive. This is especially true, both literally and figuratively, for dance artists, for whom the physical danger, isolation and restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic have been especially tough.

Traducción al español encontrada aquí. Spanish translation found here.

English translation found here. Traducción en inglés encontrada aquí.

This weekend the 2021 Co-MISSION Festival of New Works opens featuring seven local artists with a variety of backgrounds. Presented by Links Hall, the virtual performances span two weekends and cover multiple genres including performance art, puppetry, installation, performance as social practice, and of course, dance. All performances are pre-recorded to be streamed on YouTube. Two panel discussions with Co-MISSION artists and other Chicago creators will also be streamed via Zoom, as well as a choreographic workshop/class led by Taimy Ramos Velazquez.

Beginning Friday, the Chicago Inclusive Dance Festival (CIDF) is excited to host its third gathering of movement-related activities for dancers of all abilities. The free, open-to-the public, multi-day event features something for all dance lovers: movement workshops, dance films by two local companies, a day of family-oriented events, a keynote address and an animated film screening. This year will be the first time the festival is online-only due to pandemic restrictions, but that isn’t diminishing the content or enthusiasm of its coordinators or participants.

This Friday, Loyola University Chicago’s dance program celebrates the graduating senior class through the annual “Dance Senior Showcase.” This year, the performance highlights the changed artists who are taking the stage after a year and a half of the pandemic, and it features one ensemble work and six solos performed by each of the graduating dance majors—all prerecorded and streamed on Zoom.

Composer Amanda Harberg wrote “Hall of Ghosts” in 2020, a piece for solo piccolo created as an elegy to the collective loss of the pandemic, particularly in the performing arts. Premiering Thursday on CSOtv, “Hall of Ghosts” stars Chicago Symphony Orchestra piccoloist Jennifer Gunn and dancer Alyssa Allen of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. 

The streamable dance film, part of CSO Sessions Episode 16, is available through April 23 with additional selections by Gabrieli and Bach.