How are you going to celebrate May Day this Friday, May 1st? With traditions across many cultures dating back to ancient Rome, you have all kinds of wild options. Go crazy dancing around a Maypole, if you can find one, or clog with friends in a Morris Dance across the Chicago River. You could trip the light fantastic delivering baskets of flowers and candy to your neighbors, or toast Flora the Roman goddess of flowers with May wine and cake. Or, you could head on over to Block 37 for Audience Architects’ Chicago Dance Month Dance Takeover (4-7 PM), featuring three dance stages, thirteen different Chicago dance companies, and a special raffle drawing. You can still ENTER TO WIN (no purchase necessary) with our Chicago Dance Month giveaway! There’s still time to enter. PRIZES INCLUDE:
- A "Spanish Night Out" with two tickets to the Ensemble Español American Spanish Dance and Music Festival and a $100 gift card to Tapas Barcelona
- A "Downtown Dance Night" with two tickets to Giordano Dance Chicago's Fall 2015 Performance and $100 Gift Certificate to Primebar
- A GoPro Camera
- A Household membership to the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
- A two-night stay at The Palmer House A Hilton Hotel
(Click HERE for more details.)
You can also celebrate May 1st by exploring any number of concert dance performances, beginning with “Rituals of Abundance for Lean Times #14: Curious Reinventions” by Peter Carpenter and Margo Cole. Check out their “unorthodox compositional styles, high velocity dancing, and irreverent theatricality” at the DCA Storefront Theatre.
Red Clay presents “riflekSHens in 6,” a full-length Afro-contemporary work by company artistic director Vershawn Ward at the Beverly Arts Center.
The Joffrey Ballet continues through May 3rd with “New Works,” including boy-wonder Justin Peck’s brilliant geometric, “In Creases” to music by Philip Glass, at the Cadillac Palace.
Cerqua Rivera premieres three innovative dance and music collaborations with “Inside Out” at Stage 773. This interactive program incorporates audience participation.
Elements Ballet Company showcases multi-faceted talents of company members in “Elemental Components” at Visceral Dance Studio.
Columbia College Dance Center launches student performances, continuing through May 14th.
All of these on May 1st alone! Way to kick up your heels!
May continues to be a merry month for dance in Chicago, with two international touring ballet companies visiting our city. The Scottish Ballet brings its adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ play, “A Streetcar Named Desire” to the Harris May 7-8, and The Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg brings the American premiere of Boris Eifman’s full-length story ballet, “Up & Down,” set to a jazz score, at the Auditorium Theatre May 8-10.
Natya Dance Theatre presents family-friendly stories of Hindu gods and goddesses in “Explorations of Tradition: Narratives from Mythology of India,” May 2nd at Indian Boundary Park. Also, on May 10th, Natya presents renowned dancer Urmila Sathyanarayan and Group in “The Lotus of Prem” at North Central College.
Ayodele Drum and Dance celebrates the strength of the daughters, mothers, nurturers and warriors May 8-9 at Logan Center for the Arts in “HerStory to Tell,” of the women who “when tested by the trials of life, bathe in the waters of Yemanja and come through triumphant...shining.”
The Chicago Moving Company produces six risk-taking choreographers in “Dance Shelter” May 7-8 at the Hamlin Park Fieldhouse Theater, including a reinterpretation of the late Nana Shineflug’s iconic “The Women” by the CMC. Premieres include new works by CMC artists in residence Rachel Bunting and Ayako Kato (in collaboration with Bryan Saner) and premieres by Lydia Feuerhelm, Joanna Furnans, and Christopher Knowlton.
May 13th marks the 25th anniversary of The Chicago Human Rhythm Project in the Auditorium Theatre’s “Made In Chicago” series, as CHRP re-imagines its inaugural concert with many of Chicago’s finest tap and percussive dance companies, including CHRP’s resident company BAM, Trinity Irish Dance Company, Muntu Dance Theatre, Ensemble Espagñol, and the Mexican Dance Ensemble.
“You’re So Stubborn” presented by DCASE at the Storefront theater May 15-17, is a sardonic dance theater piece about deception, based on true stories of performers and audience members.
Hedwig Dances celebrates its 30th anniversary May 15-16 at the Athenaeum Theatre with “One Grand Dance,” select iconic works from Artistic Director Jan Bartoszek’s repertory, and a company premiere by company dancer Edson Cabrera.
The Salt Creek Ballet showcases its “Sleeping Beuaty: Aurora’s Wedding” plus the world premiere of company director Ilya Kozadayaev’s “Capricco Espagnol” and Eddy Ocampo’s “MOZheart” on May 16 at McAninch Arts Center of the College of DuPage.
Nomi Dance Company highlights works by former River North dancers Monique Haley and Stephanie Martinez, Giordano Dance Chicago’s Joshua Blake Carter, and Nomi’s own Katie Carey in “Spring Affair,” Nomi’s annual fundraiser May 23rd at the Athenaeum Theatre.
Dance Chance continues its monthly informal showings with audience participation at the Lou Conte Dance Studio May 29th.
Dropshift Dance offers “Imposter/Contained” at Links Hall May 29-31.
Kate Jablonski presents a night of dancing, deception, and death In “Confidential” on May 29th at Mr. Boddy’s Loft.
Last, but certainly not least, Ballet Chicago concludes a breathtaking month of spectacular dance with “Illuminate” in two performances May 30th at the Harris. Included in the program are Balanchine’s jazzy “Who Cares?” and his sumptuous “Tchaikovsky Pas De Deux,” resident choreographer Ted Syemour’s “A Pulse Stolen” and Danzon!” and the return of company artistic director Daniel Duell’s “Concerto in A Minor.”
For details and tickets, go to SeeChicagoDance.com's “Upcoming Events.”
--Lynn Colburn Shapiro, editor