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The art and dance scene can be highly competitive, with team-ups being relegated superheroes in action movies. But in a post-pandemic world the stakes are higher and the cost of producing work is more precarious than ever. Some dancers have started to band together, choosing to work together to overcome the obstacles of an ever-shifting arts landscape.

The phrase “the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice” has taken on different meanings since the first recorded use in the late 19th century. At once a term of affection, more recently the phrase has become a metaphor for how slavery in the United States has affected Black communities, the metaphorical fruit that grew from numerous African ethnicities being forced together through inequality, discrimination and oppression.

John Neumeier’s surrealist psychological take on Hans Christian Andersen’s classic tale, “The Little Mermaid,” written in 1836, pays close attention to the 19th-century author’s cosmology. “Be careful what you wish for” could easily be the subtitle for both cautionary tales.

Grounded, erky-jerky movements with cave-like crawling are not the typical description you would use when describing a ballet performance. And yet, this is precisely the goal. Ballet 5:8 is not your average or typical dance company.  Rooted in faith, led by a Latina woman and intentionally collaborating with women designers who prioritize sustainability, Ballet 5:8 is unwavering in their eleventh season with their unique vision to ensure ballet is fresh, functional and accessible to everyone. 

From April 27-30, Chicago Repertory Ballet begins their 2023 season with “Vibrant Variations” at the Studebaker Theatre with four new world premieres. The performance features a “mixed-red” show, a stylistically diverse program of multiple shorter works–generally 3 or 4 pieces, each around 15-30 minutes in length, which would ordinarily contain work by different choreographers. What is different about this mixed rep show is that each work is choreographed and directed by the company’s founder and Artistic Director, Wade Schaaf!

Hubbard Street Artistic Director Linda-Denise Fisher-Harrell has come full circle in a whirlwind career that began as a dancer in Lou Conte’s original Hubbard Street Dance Company. She went on to an illustrious thirteen years in Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre as heiress apparent to all of the roles that international star Judith Jamison had danced, and which Ailey had created for her.

Representing the truths of Chicago while carrying forth the manifold stories of the African Diaspora, The Chicago Black Dance Legacy Project returns this weekend March 25th and 26th with “Sans Pareil” at the Logan Center for the Arts.

The Joffrey Ballet will once again present the “Winning Works” choreography competition and performance beginning March 16 at the Museum of Contemporary Arts. The competition is a call for ALAANA artists— African, Latinx, Asian, Arab and Native America—to submit work to be performed by the Joffrey Academy Trainees and Studio Company, set to a commissioned score by a composer/collaborator.