During this most unusual fall dance season, the Dance Center has offered an innovative array of virtual public programming called the “Dance Buffet.” For the series' season finale of special events, burlesque artist and inaugural 2020 Rebuild Foundation dance artist-in-residence Jenn Freeman (a.k.a. Po'Chop) debuted the latest edition—the 24th—of her archival digital project called “The Brown Pages,” which lives on her website.

If anyone is looking for an escape at home—and I assume we all are as we look towards another 30 days of a stay-at-home advisory—I highly recommend attending the Bridge Dance Festival’s latest showcase of captivating dance films. The festival, co-hosted by Asian Improv Arts Midwest and Links Hall and curated by Rika Lin, features works by four global dancemakers. In an hour-and-a-half, we are both literally and metaphorically transported around the world. 

The South Chicago Dance Festival puts legs on the words “cultural diplomacy,” reaching across cultures, ideologies and movement idioms to celebrate the unifying spirit of dance.

The second annual festival, offered virtually this year due to the pandemic, is hosted by the South Chicago Dance Theatre, presenting top professional and student dance companies from Chicago’s South Side in five days of master classes, seminars, and performances beginning Tuesday, and culminating Nov. 21 with a gala concert dance showcase.

This Friday, Chicago Dance Crash releases “The Last First: A Pandemic Dance Documentary,” the company’s answer to a halted 2020 season.  The 50-minute film is a combination of new works by in-house and guest choreographers, a behind the scenes look at their post-quarantine rehearsal process and intimate interviews with members of the Crash Performance Ensemble.  For 24 hours, fans and newcomers will be able to stream the company’s documentation of what life was like for them without the dance and each other, and their recent reunion as they returned to the studio.

Much will be said about Jenn Freeman (A.K.A. Po’Chop) and her latest works, “Litany” and “The Brown Pages.” Paying homage to humble praise dance beginnings and dipped in the brilliance of burlesque, Freeman delivers a two-part, multi-disciplinary experience through the mediums of dance on film and a digital "blogzine." Freeman, a master in the art of seduction, delays gratification with titrated film releases over the course of the fall.

What better time to dive headlong into the weirdness of witchcraft than Halloween, which capitalizes on weird. And what better dance event to celebrate it than Nejla Yatkin’s “The Other Witch,” her solo multi-media performance work, presented virtually and sponsored by a grant from Chicago Dancemakers Forum’s Lab Award. Produced in collaboration with The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago’s “Dance Buffet” series, “The Other Witch” aired in three installments over three weekends, concluding Friday.
 

When 

Sink or swim appears to be the mantra of several Chicago dance organizations who are pressing ahead with planned expansions despite a global pandemic that continues to cripple the performing arts.

On Thursday, more than 120,000 Americans were diagnosed with COVID-19. It was the worst day yet for the pandemic, far exceeding the previous record for new infections, which was set Wednesday. On Friday, we broke that record again. A mysterious, incurable disease is ravaging this country. From the upper echelons of the government, there is distraction and denial, at best.