Here’s the press release from The Dance COLEctive:

THE DANCE COLECTIVE COLLABORATES DURING 2009–10 SEASON

Partnerships Include Choreographer Jeff Hancock, Friends of Chicago River, Other Dance Fest

CHICAGO—In the spirit of partnership, The Dance COLEctive (TDC), under the direction of award-winning choreographer and teacher Margi Cole, will create work and perform through a series of collaborations throughout its 2009–10 season.

TDC opens the fall season by participating in The Other Dance Festival September 24 and 25 at Hamlin Park Fieldhouse, 3035 N. Hoyne. Joining other local companies, TDC will preview an excerpt from a new collaborative piece by Margi Cole and choreographer Jeff Hancock, which will have its official premiere in January. For information on The Other Dance Festival, visit brownpapertickets.com.

This fall, TDC is partnering with Friends of the Chicago River to create a site-specific work in conjunction with the Flatwater Classic, an annual canoe and kayak race that aims to expose people to the Chicago River and its need for assistance. This year’s event takes place Sunday, October 4 beginning at 10 a.m. TDC will use themes of water, movement, racing and community as jumping off points to create work the company will perform along the race route. Race participants, spectators and the general public will be able to view segments of the work throughout the day. For information, visit chicagoriver.org.

“By bringing contemporary dance into public spaces, The Dance COLEctive allows people who might not otherwise experience this art form to do so in a non-threatening setting, where they don’t have to be quiet, they can choose to watch as little or as much as they want, and they don’t have to pay for the experience,” said Cole.  “This experience opens the audience’s perception of how to watch dance by demonstrating that dance can occur anywhere and that it is possible to experience a performance without sitting in a theatre.”

TDC’s primary annual concert series takes place January 28–30 at 8 p.m. at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts, 1012 N. Dearborn. The program will include a reconstruction of Shirley Mordine’s Three Women and two world premieres by Margi Cole, one a collaborative work with choreographer Jeff Hancock that explores the “Me/I” generation. Questions of personal boundary and identity as related to electronic connectivity and how it shapes and defines our relationships to each other, ourselves and how present we are in the world are central to the inquiry Cole, Hancock and the dancers are exploring through a range of dynamic vocabulary, text, video and carefully constructed chaotic/improvised environments.

The season concludes in May with an “emerging works” concert May 21–23 at Links Hall, 3435 N. Sheffield, which will showcase new works, including those created by company members through the choreographic mentoring process.

Margi Cole formed The Dance COLEctive in 1996 to challenge assumptions about how dance is presented, through the use of cutting-edge choreography, innovative collaborations and inspired, creative, site-specific works. In the past 12 years, TDC has contributed to the support of 16 choreographers, 47 dancers and 54 collaborating artists, many of them Illinois artists. TDC produces its own concerts and participates in multi-artist festivals such as The Other Dance Festival, Dance Chicago, Estrogen Fest, Stockyards Women’s Theatre Festival and the Next Dance Festival. Self-produced concerts have taken place at The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, Harold Washington Library Theater, Northwestern University, Ruth Page Center and Links Hall. TDC features site-specific work as a part of its annual repertoire, having participated in the Illinois State Fair, Chicago’s Millennium Project and Looptopia, Chicago Symphony Center Day of Music and more. The company conducts one or two residencies annually, with past hosts including Beloit College, Knox College, Illinois Wesleyan University, Huntsville Community Ballet and a variety of studios and schools in Alabama and Tennessee. Last spring, the company conducted an 18-day southeastern U.S. tour supported by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Artistic Director Margi Cole has received recognition for her contribution to the field of modern dance through awards including the Illinois Arts Council’s Individual Artist Fellowship, a Chicago Dancemakers Forum grant and the American Marshall Memorial Fellowship, which selects leaders in their respective fields to represent the United States on a month-long tour of European countries.

The Dance COLEctive’s 2009–10 season is supported by The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, Illinois Arts Council, The Alphawood Foundation, The Arts Work Fund for Organizational Development, Chicago Community Trust, a CityArts 1 Program Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and many generous individuals.

For information about TDC, visit dancecolective.com or call 773-604-8452.