We stood in the lobby, 15 minutes past start time, with no program and no hint at what was about to happen, waiting. Then the doors opened and a full Links Hall whitebox audience sat waiting, classic hold music acting as the cherry on top of the early ‘90s office setting before us. Ten minutes went by and the music stopped, the audience quiet and readily waiting.

In came more hold music.

Chicago is known for its people and the way in which we create our own communities, make things out of nothing, our ingenuity and innovation. Chicago’s dance community has a long history of creating its own spaces where artists can experiment and commune together.

Summers in Chicago are all about getting outdoors, having fun in the sun and eating food on a stick. In the past decade, the number of chances to see dance in the summer has grown enormously, and in June especially, there’s an abundance of performances – indoors and outside – that might captivate your summer soul.  

A life in the arts often means there’s an inevitability of being pulled in many directions. Take even a cursory glance at a recent report, “Mapping the Dance Landscape in Chicagoland”– a joint effort between See Chicago Dance, Candid, and Sustain Arts – and it’s clear that a majority of Chicago’s dancers and dancemakers are overworked and underpaid.

Pygmalion meets Grotowski in Boris Eifman’s “The Pygmalion Effect,” receiving its North American premiere at Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre this weekend.

The Eifman Ballet of St.Petersburg, Russia, established in 1977, first graced the Auditorium stage in 2000, and has appeared there biannually since 2009.

This year marked several milestone anniversaries for some of the most important and influential voices, companies and organizations in Chicago’s dance community. Among them, Red Clay Dance—an Afro-contemporary dance company founded by dancer/choreographer Vershawn Sanders-Ward, celebrates 10 years of “creating, performing and teaching dances of the African Diaspora” on the South side of Chicago.