It began with a dance.

On August 19 at the Humboldt Park Boat House, a young couple stepped onto a makeshift dance floor, performing a short but engaging piece of choreography by independent artist Rocky Quinones. Quinones’ fusion—a blend of traditional Bachata meshed with the urban flare of streetwise hip hop—sparked the dialogue for Audience Architect’s Moving Dialogs: “Nuestros Bailes e Identidades” (“Our Dances and Identities”), a discussion about culture, race and individuality through the lens of Latino folkloric and contemporary dance.

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. 

Cerqua Rivera artistic director Wilfredo Rivera’s Recuerdos - Para Mi Familia (premiere) captures the essence of what this collaboration of dancers, musicians, and visual artists does best, but not nearly enough as yet. With a versatile ensemble of eight outstanding musicians on stage and savvy projection design technicians, the company is poised to pioneer something very special.  

26 cast and crew members, 3 weddings, 42 blackouts, 16 fouette turns, and one Elvis.

Matt Lyle’s The Boxer, presented by Kacie Smith and Ahmad Simmons’ Pursuit Productions over the last four weekends in the Athenaeum’s studio theater, is a great many things. It’s theater presented like a live silent film. It’s side-splitting physical comedy set to brilliant musical accompaniment. It’s a journey into the past, with subtle hints of the present mixed in. Yes, The Boxer is a great many things, but it is NOT a dance show.

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:    

It’s not often audiences get to experience a single concert with the scope of choreography and superb performing that The Chicago Dancing Festival  brings to the city each summer. And it’s free!

Wednesday night’s opening, the first of three concerts that took place through Saturday, gave us an evolution of dance in America. 

The excitement swept across Michigan Avenue for blocks in both directions as streams of festive concert-goers flocked to the Auditorium Theater for “Dance For Life,” the single most important Chicago dance event of the year.

Now in its 23rd year of raising funds for The AIDS Foundation of Chicago, The Dancers’ Fund, Making A Daily Effort, and Agape Missions, NFP, “Dance For Life,” like no other performing arts event in the city, demonstrates the extraordinary spirit and solidarity of Chicago’s dance community.