September launches the Fall season with a breath of fresh air, festivals, series, and opportunities to experience innovative dance in ways you may never have imagined possible.
HIGHLIGHTS:
When August yawns into a summer lull, and we sigh that the last of our long, lazy days and sunny beach weather are coming to an end all too soon, take heart. Two major Chicago summer dance events are poised to reinvigorate the season and recharge your dance battery!
Hanna Brictson and Dancers
The story of Cinderella warms the hearts of children and their parents in just about every culture across the globe, with its tale of oppression and triumphant reward gratifying our hope that goodness, and true love, can overcome adversity.
Chicago Dance breezes into June with summer fare for everyone, with lots of don’t miss events, from the avant garde Pivot Arts Festival (June 3-10) to a free performance of Chicago’s top percussive dance companies in The Grand Finale of Stomping Grounds at Millennium Park’s Pritzker Pavillion (June 7). Hubbard Street’s Season 40 concludes with a full-length evening of Ohad Naharin’s “Minus 16” at the Harris (June 7-10).
Chicago Dance sails into May with dance happenings around every corner of the city. Take advantage of the many free and low-cost events like open studios, lecture demonstrations, and open rehearsals listed on our calendar.
Chicago Dance Month officially kicks off March 27th for a month-long bonanza of great dance events, ticket deals, workshops, and free concerts. Chicago’s annual April celebration of dance is the perfect time to explore the rich variety of styles and creative partnerships at work in the Chicago dance community, making our city one of the nation’s most exciting dance centers.
In 1972, dancer and choreographer Harvard Vallance hitchhiked to Chicago to work on George McGovern’s campaign. He wasn’t dancing then; he was working as an orderly at Weiss hospital, and was turned off by the idea of being sick through the summer. “So I quit!” said Vallance in a post-rehearsal interview with See Chicago Dance. He began taking dance classes with Shirley Mordine, Nana Shineflug and Joel Hall, among others, and met Lin Shook shortly after.
March has diabolically conspired to taunt Chicago Dance audiences with a choice they simply cannot make! Two of our city’s most dazzling companies—Giordano Dance Chicago and Hubbard Street—perform at the same time on the same dates a mere grand jeté down Michigan Avenue from each other, March 23rd and 24th. What to do when faced with such a dilemma? Follow baseball’s wisdom, of course, and in the famous words of Yogi Berra, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it!” In other words, DON’T CHOOSE! Do whatever it takes and SEE THEM BOTH!
As a kid, Doug Varone loved MGM musicals. He was a young tapper, and he idolized Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire. What most intrigued Varone about them was “how they could move from being an incredible dancer to just a person,” moving in the every day ways that real people move.