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.

Representing the truths of Chicago while carrying forth the manifold stories of the African Diaspora, The Chicago Black Dance Legacy Project returns this weekend March 25th and 26th with “Sans Pareil” at the Logan Center for the Arts.

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.

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.

German/American duo FLOCK (Alice Klock and Florian Lochner) continue to impress audiences around the world with their brand of dance, fluid and interconnected partnering, superb technique and introspective storytelling. This Spring, Flock returns to Chicago to present new work with an expanded roster of dancers.

From March 8-12, the historic Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre presents three programs at the Auditorium Theatre, featuring the Chicago debuts of “Are You in Your Feelings” by Kyle Abraham and “In A Sentimental Mood” by Jamar Roberts, fan favorites like Paul Taylor’s “Duet” and Twyla Tharp’s “Roy’s Joys,” and classic company repertory by Alvin Ailey, including “The River” (1970), “Cry” (1971), “Night Creatures (1974) and “Survivors” (1986), a collaborative work with Mary Barnett and Ailey’s signature work, “Revelations” (1960).

I could come up with about a hundred stories for Project Bound Dance’s abstract piece “If It’s Stuck, Shake It Loose, performed on Feb. 17 at the Northside event space, Color Club. PBD’s directors, Ashley Deran and Emily Loar, led their company of six dancers—Stacy DeMorrow, Kathryn Hetrick, Isabella Limosnero, Ali Lorenz, Sarah Morimoto and Loar—in a display of solid technique, acute attention to rhythm and set to an ambient acoustic and electronic rock soundtrack, with lighting design by Smooch Medina.

On Wednesday, January 25th, I was so fortunate to moderate the first Screendance  Club of 2023 highlighting Talia Koylass and her 2018 dance film, The Good Christian.  The film is a meditation on Black women, Black spirituality, and the church explored  through three vignettes performed by a trio of Black women dancers shot in a gorgeous  south side Chicago church. Each section of the film is distinct in its color,  cinematography, costume, and choreography to a mix of serene, pensive music and  punctuated Kendrick Lamar songs.