After last night’s rocket-fueled “Made In Chicago” performance at the Auditorium Theatre you may be wondering where you can get ahold of the mega-vitamins that nourish Giordano Dance Chicago. 

Entering Stage 773 last weekend, audience members found books dangling from The Thrust’s ceiling and piled high in a book nook upstage right. We are seated on three of four sides, tightly packed and close to the stage. Modeled after the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books popular in the 1980s and ‘90s, Matter Dance’s 10th anniversary concert called “Page Turner” presented audiences with this-or-that choices throughout the evening.

The rockin’ stompin’ syncopated beat of the Chicago Rhythm Fest audience, clapping hands, stomping feet, and chanting “Weee--got Rhy--thm!” literally shook the rafters of the Auditorium Theatre last Saturday night for the culmination of the Chicago Human Rhythm Project’s “Stomping Grounds.”  

For the second year, Kristina Isabelle brings work to the Mundelein Center on Loyola University Chicago’s gorgeous lakeside campus for a two-night engagement in the Pivot Arts Festival: a ten day, multi-arts, multi-venue festival taking place on the city’s far north side.

For as long as Chicago Moving Company has been around (nearly 45 years), there’s at least one annual performance that gives most people an opportunity to think about something new, something strange, something entirely off the beaten path.

I’m speaking of Dance Shelter, the company’s regular smorgasbord of performances that showcases a slew of burgeoning talent and provides the occasional platform for established artists to try out fresh material. With that come at least two guarantees: nothing is ever conventional and everything has the potential to reach beyond its limitations.

Tune into June!  This month, the official herald of summer breathes its balmy spirit of fun and frolic into the heart of Chicago Dance. 

HIGHLIGHTS:

Extroversion versus introversion and experimentation are at the core of the immersive, world premiere performances of Under(cover) dubbed “a moveable episode of dance, sound, light and space.” The brainchild of Robyn Mineko Williams brings together original music, lighting, dance and projections in an interactive environment.

A quietly understated miracle has been taking place every day for the past seven years in a not-so-quiet corner of 17 N. State Street, under the exacting eyes of Ballet Chicago Artistic Director Daniel Duell and his wife, Associate Artistic Director Patricia Blair.  (The company, established in 1987, moved to its current location in 2009.) 

The 2015 death of Paul Christiano affected so many parts of Chicago’s dance community, but few companies were hit harder than Nomi Dance Company, where Christiano was a dancer and trusted advisor to Artistic Director Laura Kariotis. While Nomi’s production last fall showed some signs of this loss, the company’s spring show, Reminiscence (a one-nighter May 14 at the Athenaeum), demonstrated strength, resilience, and growth. How fitting that the program was dedicated to Christiano, a man whose strength and resilience were continually challenged.