If you showed up for Monday morning ballet class mid-July with a lobster-red face and sunburned arms, Walter Camryn thought it was the height of humor to ask if you got “burned on your weak end.” 

Ah, the summer intensive!  It was a special time, when dancing all day long every day for six-weeks, and the blissful absence of distractions like school, often resulted in markedly accelerated progress, sometimes with extraordinary breakthroughs for serious dance students. 

There’s lots to like about “American Me,” Striding Lion Performance Group’s playful take on American cultural cliches.  Apple pie, baseball, and white picket fences, consumerism, obcession with beauty, and the maniacal pursuit of identity were all rides on the merry-go-round of Annie Arnoult Beserra’s choreographed discourse on everything from self-reliance to guns and violence, playing at Links Hall through April 27.

The third installment of “Vision, Faith, & Desire: Dancemakers Inspired by Martha Graham” is a site-specific experiment with noble aspirations. Co-produced by Winifred Haun & Dancers and the Pleasant Home Foundation, the program featured work by six choreographers performed simultaneously in different rooms of Historic Pleasant Home in Oak Park. Audience members, divided into groups, rotated from room to room to view each piece.  

We hope you enjoy Audience Architects' new series, "Dance is...what YOU make of it." REAL audience members share REAL opinions on watching dance.

"Dance Is...", is part of Engaging Dance Audiences, administered by Dance/USA and made possible with generous funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. This video series is part of a year long campaign called "Dance: A Moving Canvas" that seeks to build dance audiences and explore new exciting ways to view dance.

Moving Dialogs opened its second series focusing on specific cultural communities; in order to illuminate a global exchange of thoughts and concerns that utilized dance as the base of knowledge. April’s associate curator, dancer Kayla Harley shares her reflections on the dynamic conversation of Africa’s Shifting Beat at United Church of Hyde Park, Tuesday, April 1.

A ceremonial tone dominated River North Dance Chicago’s single performance at the Auditorium Theater April 12th, with strong performances that commanded the vast stage and projected all the way to the rafters of an enthusiastic packed house. Distinctive moments stood out in the mix of five works, three by company artistic director Frank Chaves and one each by Kevin Iega Jeff and Mauro Astolfi, but pervasive ritual themes and a preponderance of smoky lighting colored several pieces with a similar feel. 

What inspires a company with an in-house performance venue to present in a new space? A nice grant from the Met Life New Stages for Dance initiative doesn’t hurt, but the brain child behind most of the things that happen at The Chicago Moving Company (CMC) is Kay LaSota. This year’s Dance Shelter was presented down the street from CMC’s home at Hamlin Park Theater (HPT) in Stage 773’s Pro theater.