Summing up Dances from the Underground in a brief preview seems a daunting task; the triple bill featuring The Seldoms, Peter Carpenter Performance Project, and Kate Corby & Dancers will show works in varying stages of development over two weekends at Links Hall.
“We can dance together; we are humans of the world!” says Cuba’s DanzAbierta resident choreographer Susana Pous, taking a break from her company’s joint rehearsal with Chicago’s Hedwig Dances. Dancing together is exactly what the two companies will be doing in their collaborative concert, “Trade Winds/Aires de Cambio,” (Air of Change) this Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 PM, October 9th-11th at the Dance Center of Columbia College.
Rebellious Teen Defies Father, Leaves Home; Debutante Engaged to Wealthy Bachelor; Priest Guilty of Sexual Misconduct, Torches Temple--They could be tabloid headlines, but in this case, surprise, they’re abbreviated synopses of Joffrey Ballet’s upcoming “Stories In Motion,” opening this Thursday night, September 18th at the Auditorium Theater and running only through Sunday, September 21st.
Stories are making a comeback on the dance scene, or reinventing themselves as post-post-modernism, take your pick. Throughout September and October, Chicago dance lovers have an absolutely tantalizing array of dance styles and companies to choose from, with a rip-roaring line-up that ranges from conventional story ballets to innovative collaborations, abstract dance tone-poems to jazz rhythms and tap dance narratives. Here are a just few of the many wonderful stories in dance coming our way this fall:
Walking into the Mayne Stage late night for a KTF (Keeper of the Floor) dance battle between company members and friends of Chicago Dance Crash (CDC), a number of realizations come to mind: 1) KTF is not a typical dance show, 2) Chicago Dance Crash is not a typical dance company, and 3) it’s possible to make people go crazy for dance. Host, judge, moderator, and lubricator Mattrick Swayze (with his darling Swayzettes) are a large part of what make the quarterly hootenanny work.
Dance as a vehicle for social change across the globe fuels The JOMBA! Initiative, blossoming this summer in its second year of a three-year collaboration between Chicago’s Deeply Rooted Dance Theater (DRDT) and South Africa’s Flatfoot Dance Company (FDC), in residence here for DRDT’s Summer Intensive (July 4-20).
By Sid Smith
The final installment of the Moving Canvas series will involve work embracing one of the most profound aspects of art--its literal reach to infinity.
Fairy tales are much more than stories for children, says Angelin Preljocaj, Artistic Director of Ballet Preljocaj, in a brief phone conversation with SeeChicagoDance. Preljocaj brings his Blanche Neige (Snow White) to the Harris Theater for Music and Dance May 2-4. The work is a modern take on the traditional grand story ballet after the classic Brothers Grimm tale of the beautiful girl with ebony skin and dark black hair.