NIC Kay performs at the Dorchester Art + Housing Collaborative during Elevate Chicago Dance. Photo by Zachary Whittenburg.

Brian Brooks sees movement from an uncommon perspective, and his Harris Theater premiere this week takes an especially uncommon view of falling. “It makes one’s head twist, the undoing of things,” he says in a recent phone interview with seechicagodance. “Prelude” takes on the reversal of energy flow, “retracing the points of initiation,” and exploring how the act of undoing manifests itself physically and psychologically through movement. With un-falling, “the physics is not intuitive.”

Chicago is a great place to love dance, and 2017 has given us plenty to love. Our major repertory companies continue to dazzle with world-class dancers in every genre, and programming that challenges and entertains. More and more, smaller companies are combining forces with musicians, visual artists and actors with new and creative interdisciplinary ventures that push the boundaries of dance theater. Tap, jazz, and hip-hop fuse with ballet and contemporary dance to expand the range of popular idioms into the concert dance realm.

Make your 2018 New Year’s resolution to SEE MORE DANCE! Dance in Chicago is thriving, with exciting  seasons on the horizon from our own major resident companies, including Hubbard Street, The Joffrey Ballet, Giordano Dance Chicago, Visceral Dance Chicago, and Deeply Rooted Dance Theater.  The Dance Center of Columbia College, The Auditorium Theatre,  The Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Harris Theater bring illustrious out-of-town guests, including Mikhail Baryshnikov, Alvin Ailey, American Ballet Theatre, Claire Cunningham and Jess Curtis, and Brian Brooks.

Spirits were bright last Sunday at Skokie’s North Shore Center for the Performing Arts as Chicago Tap Theatre treated a packed house of moms, dads, grandparents, and loads of kids from tots to teens to a fun holiday frolic.  

If you weren’t quite ready to shift gears into Christmas glee, “Tidings of Tap,” CTT’s annual holiday bash, made sure no one escaped without a smile, a hallmark of the tap company’s esprit. 

Gutsy, brash, and intent on standing convention on its ear, Twyla Tharp started her illustrious career as a choreographer in 1965 with “Tank Dive,” a full 7 minutes of dance as minimal as movement gets, standing in second position relevé for the entirety of the pop song, “Downtown.”  

This past Friday night, Tharp stood behind a podium on the Museum of Contemporary Art stage, impish in her slouchy jeans and sneakers, characteristic oversized glasses halfway down her nose and shaggy mop of now white hair, and launched into “Minimalism and Me.”

Crystal Pite’s one-woman show celebrating Hubbard Street’s 40th anniversary season blew out all the candles, and then some (December 7-10, Harris Theater).

The three-piece, curated program gave Chicago audiences a first-time viewing of the full-length “A Picture of You Falling” (2008), and an in-depth exposure to this dance maker’s curious process and unique choreographic voice with “The Other You,” (2010) and “Grace Engine” (2011). 

Much of Esoteric Dance Project (EDP)’s evening at Hamlin Park Fieldhouse is about numbers. Under the title “Ten,” this group’s tenth production across seven seasons highlights six dancers in three works, all premieres, sewed together for a cool 60 minutes of dancing.