Shantala Shivalingappa has been described as “a child of the East and the West,” having been born in Madras and raised in Paris. The revered Indian dancer has championed Kuchipudi, a classical dance that dates back to the 15th century, while showing a penchant for more contemporary experiments: a 2012 performance at the Joyce Theater drew water from the wells of Pina Bausch and the Butoh master Ushio Amagatsu. Shivalingappa recently joined forces with the Memphis jooker Lil’ Buck for a hair-raising duet at the Vail International Dance Festival.

By Lynn Shapiro

Don’t be fooled by the blush of youth, in abundance on stage at the Museum of Contemporary Art this past weekend in Joffrey Academy of Dance’s “Winning Works: Choreographers of Color.”  

The young dancers of the Academy’s Trainee and Studio Company programs, 42 in all, representing 10 U.S. states and 9 foreign countries, are poised on the cusp of professional careers.  Their youthful zeal accompanies impressive precision and unfaltering technical command of their material, with forays into real artistry surfacing here and there. 

By Lauren Warnecke

The Chicago debut of Denver-based Evolving Doors Dance, directed by wife-wife team Angie Simmons and Amy Shelley, accompanied RE|Dance Group’s spring concert last weekend at Links Hall. Evolving Doors opened the evening with “Relative Weight & Tiny Surrenders,” and this title seems highly appropriate despite Shelley’s sound score featuring recorded musings (assumed to be the dancers’ voices) on identity, politics, natural disaster, and war. The charged text, however, was matched neither by its musical accompaniment nor Simmons’ choreographic choices.

By Lynn Colburn Shapiro

When native Chicagoan Vernard J. Gilmore first saw Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater performing in his hometown, he said, “I need to be there!” Gilmore saw himself, and the world in which he lived, in the characters portrayed onstage, and he dreamed of one day becoming a member of the company.  Today, as he anticipates returning to dance at the Auditorium Theatre in the company’s annual Chicago engagement,  he has been living that dream for twenty years.

By Lauren Warnecke

The month of March is roaring into Chicago with a lion’s share of great dance, both home-grown and visiting companies, in genres ranging from traditional to experimental, jazz, ballet, modern, tap, folk-dance-inspired, interdisciplinary, and multi-media.