Arpino Centennial Celebration

This year marks the 100th birthday of Gerald Arpino, one of the 20th century's most influential artists. As the culminating event in a multiyear salute to this extraordinary choreographer and co-founder/director of The Joffrey Ballet, The Gerald Arpino Foundation announces the Chicago Centennial Celebration featuring ballet companies from across the country performing the choreographer’s works on one stage. Performances take place September 23 and 24, 2023 at the Auditorium Theatre. For more information, visit: www.arpinofoundation.org. 

Giordano’s Diamond Anniversary sparkles with full circle moments

Mar 29, 2023 | By Vicki Crain
 
Many Asian cultures celebrate turning 60 as a full life, a new life, or a return to the year of birth. In America, it symbolizes seniority. All are true for Giordano Dance Chicago (GDC) as the company wraps up its milestone 60th anniversary season with two performances of “Celebrate Giordano!” this weekend at the Harris Theater. It also marks the final performances of two powerhouse GDC female dancers Ashley Downs and Katie Rafferty. 
 

Illinois Creative Recovery Grant

Calling all creatives!

Thanks to advocacy efforts by a statewide coalition led by Arts Alliance Illinois, the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) will distribute a historic $50 million in grant money to assist businesses, nonprofit organizations, and sole proprietors in the creative sector that have struggled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bold New Directions for Hubbard Street’s MCA Season

Mar 27, 2023 | By Lynn Colburn Shapiro

Hubbard Street Artistic Director Linda-Denise Fisher-Harrell has come full circle in a whirlwind career that began as a dancer in Lou Conte’s original Hubbard Street Dance Company. She went on to an illustrious thirteen years in Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre as heiress apparent to all of the roles that international star Judith Jamison had danced, and which Ailey had created for her.

New works by company artists premier in Winifred Haun & Dancers “First Draft: new works by Chicago dancemakers”

Mar 22, 2023 | By Tristan Bruns

 

Winifred Haun & Dancers’ began their 2023 season with “First Draft: new works by Chicago dancemakers,” which ran March 3-5 at Links Hall. Company members Julia Schaeffer, Amanda “Mandy” Milligan and Assistant Artistic Director Summer Smith presented work alongside guest choreographers Lonny Joseph Gordon, Mariah Eastman, Sarita Smith Childs, and Silvita Diaz Brown.

Superbloom & The Bloom Ball

Superbloom

Celebrating its 20th Anniversary Season, The Seldoms is joined by Chicago’s popular music duo, Finom, for the premiere of Superbloom, a multi-media dance work about radical beauty, wildness and wildflowers. Featuring the company’s bold, athletic physicality with spectacular costuming and animation, this hyper-visual work stages the fantastic color of this rare wildflower phenomenon. Superbloom aims for splendor as a mirror of the sublime beauty of the natural world and posits awe as a mode of reconnecting to nature, and to one another. 

Joffrey’s “Winning Works” wins the day for dancers, choreographers, and audiences

Mar 15, 2023 | By Tristan Bruns

 

The Joffrey Ballet will once again present the “Winning Works” choreography competition and performance beginning March 16 at the Museum of Contemporary Arts. The competition is a call for ALAANA artists— African, Latinx, Asian, Arab and Native America—to submit work to be performed by the Joffrey Academy Trainees and Studio Company, set to a commissioned score by a composer/collaborator.