Waking up to a blanket of white reminds me of those years growing up in McHenry County, when more than one Halloween was spent going door to door and explaining the costumes under our hats, puffy coats and boots. The realization that fall is fleeting is one we face every year, but in the arts scene, November means fall—whatever the weather.

This year has probably been my most favorite year for dance in Chicago, mainly because a lot of it was happening down the street from my former South Shore neighborhood. The new Green Line Performing Arts Center, Sweetwater Foundation’s Thought Barn, Washington Park, Stony Island Arts Bank, Blanc Gallery, and so many other spaces were enlivened with dancers, musicians and artists based on the South and West sides of the city.

The silhouettes of two bodies fly and spiral amid green, stark light. I can hear heavy panting and flesh hitting the floor as the two women use each other’s bodies as leverage, sharing weight to complete the task of propelling through space. The dancers, Kara Brody and Amanda Maraist, negotiate time and space in a scribble of movement, sound and effort that is both tender and fierce.        

The weather was heavenly, the crisp fall day of sunshine and clear blue skies beaming its benevolence through the floor-to-ceiling windows into the studio on South Archer Avenue. It was as if the day had anointed Giordano Dance Chicago’s rehearsal run-through of its 57th season opener with the blessings of grace, harmony and an abiding faith in the power of dance to touch the essence of where we live within ourselves.

In “Between Gestures,” a festival that aims to cultivate a stronger connection between the Chicago dance community and European contemporary dance, eight French and German dancers and choreographers bring their work in styles ranging from voguing to butoh to venues across the city. The Dance Center at Columbia College Chicago presents Pol Pi on Oct 24 and Noé Soulier on Oct 25, two choreographers who transform the philosophies of 20th century postmodern and contemporary dancers through academic research and the adaptation of historical dance to present-day performance. 

Project Bound Dance had no problem filling Links Hall, even after a venue change when it appeared that Hamlin Park Fieldhouse would not be available during a pending strike. The strike didn’t end up happening, but this five-year-old company’s annual concert did. And while I thought "Notified" would have looked beautiful in Hamlin Park’s dark, moody space, it turns out Links Hall was the perfect venue.

The Joffrey Ballet continues its commitment to presenting narrative ballets with the Chicago premiere of British choreographer Cathy Marston’s “Jane Eyre” (2016), adapted from the 1847 romantic era novel by Charlotte Brontë, but re-imagined through the lens of 21st-century psychological fiction.

In a whirlwind of rehearsals happening over a few weeks, Banks Performance Project (BPP) prepares to bring Chicago’s Englewood and other South and West Side communities together in a celebration of dance and the neighborhoods they call home. 

One of the many guilty pleasures about Guilty Pleasures Cabaret’s “The Femme Fatale,” on view through Sunday at Stage 773, is the pure entertainment they bring to an evening. Harkening back to classic off-off-off Broadway cabarets during the golden age of musical theater—the kind you’d find in a gloriously seedy club in Chicago, for example—this company of dancers, singers, and exhibitionists of all kinds banded together in 2014 to yield to their corniest of dance and music obsessions.