On April 28, Visceral Dance Chicago celebrated ten years of dancemaking with “SPRINGTEN,” performed at the Harris Theatre, where the company made a splash during their inaugural season. Artistic Director Nick Pupillo has spent those years expanding his company and his enterprise. As owner of a sleek dance studio—also named “Visceral,”—he has now upgraded to an even sleeker one in Avondale. My favorite part, the back studio converts into a state-of-the-art black box theater named after legendary Chicago dance writer, Ann Barzel.

Alonzo King LINES Ballet’s “Deep River” (2022) dazzled Chicago audiences in an all-too-brief return to Harris Theater (May 5-6). The epic work launched the company’s 40th Anniversary season in its home-town premiere in San Francisco.

Conceived and created during the Pandemic, in collaboration with composer/musician Jason Moran and vocalist Lisa Fischer, “Deep River” soars along a highway to the heavens, taking us on a journey from chaos and despair to revelation and deliverance.

In the opening scenes of my dance film, Lost Dreamer, the protagonist is seen running through the woods. She is both distraught and determined. When I was writing the script and creating the film, I always imagined her running away from something. When the film was shown at the March 15, 2023 meeting of See Chicago Dance’s Screendance Club, an attendee noted that she thought the protagonist was running toward something.

Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble’s “The Wasteland”(2001) journeys along the road from enslavement to freedom, from exile to deliverance toward redemption in a metaphoric Promised Land.

The multi-week run of this newly-revised (2023) version, opened last Friday at their home base, Ebenezer Lutheran Church on Foster Avenue, and will run through May 20th.

Chicago Repertory Ballet’s “Vibrant Vibrations” has been in production since before the pandemic and got nixed at the last second in March of 2020. Far from deterred, Artistic Director Wade Schaaf overcame adversity with a mixed rep program featuring four world premieres, each choreographed by Schaaf, with lighting designs by Jacob Snodgrass and Margaret Nelson performed at the Studebaker Theatre on April 27-30.

Kathak dance originated two-thousand years ago in the temples of Northern India and is known for the way artists tell stories using expressive eye, hand and upper body movements while clothed in elaborate, colorful costumes. What sets it apart from other Indian and South Asian dance forms is the treatment of rhythm, with dancers beating out extremely complex patterns with different parts of their bare feet, augmented by bells, called ghungrus, strapped to their ankles.