Monica Cervantes/Photo: Cheryl Mann

RECOMMENDED

By ladies, about ladies, the newest program from Luna Negra features work by Latina (and one Latino) choreographers inspired by famous women through history. Artistic Director Gustavo Ramirez Sansano, now entering his junior year with the company, has introduced Chicago audiences to fantastic work by before-unseen-in-the-U.S. choreographers hailing from his native Spain. This show is no exception; Asun Noales, director of Otra Danza sets a new piece on Luna Negra inspired by the image of Juana la Loca, first queen of Spain, pregnant and following the casket of her young husband, the key to his coffin around her neck. Other pieces on the program include a full company work by Sansano and the revival of Michelle Manzanales’ piece inspired by four self-portraits of Frida Kahlo. (Sharon Hoyer)

At the Harris Theater, 205 East Randolph, (312)334-7777. October 1, 6:30pm. $25-$65.

Photo: George Ruhe

RECOMMENDED

The MCA is currently presenting a compelling retrospective on the forty-year artistic journey of Eiko and Koma—movement artists born in postwar Japan, trained by Butoh founders Tatsumi Hijkata and Kazuo Ohno, emigrated to the U.S. in the seventies, who create stark, intensely present work on subjects of nature and corporeality. Photography and documentation are on display in the gallery, and this weekend is the central stage performance component of the project. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Dan Merlo

By Sharon Hoyer

Most every artist does battle with the beasts of ego: anxiety, embarrassment, fear and, in the case of performers, awkwardness. Instead of fleeing or subduing them, Jonathan Meyer has chosen to take out the scalpel and better know his enemy. His three-part, yearlong Home series emerged as a courageous unpacking of the things that make Meyer uncomfortable as an artist, then abstracted to allow audiences interpretive space. In this final installment, Meyer performs solo, at times nude, in a dusty, sandy, 15,000-square-foot construction site in Pilsen, moving to a score by his collaborator Christopher Preissing. A quartet of female vocalists, a multi-track recording composed from field recordings and Meyer’s voice, and a murmuring, cheering, whispering Greek chorus create an aural atmosphere intended to heighten the experience of witnessing the performer alone—what Preissing and Meyer call a sound-movement opera. The audience is taken on a journey through the space, given license to stand and observe from the vantage point of their choice. I spoke with Meyer on the phone about this final installment, entitled “Whence.” Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: S. Truglio

RECOMMENDED

The highlight of August may have been the week of free performances by nationally renowned dance companies during Chicago Dancing Festival, but September belongs to The Other Dance Fest. Otherness being the smaller, Chicago-based modern and experimental companies/artists who often perform in intimate venues, warehouses, public spaces and park district buildings. And there’re a lot of them, all worth seeing.
This week’s lineup includes Peter Carpenter, Darrell Jones, Hedwig Dances, Lucky Plush, Raizel Performance and Other Fest hosts Chicago Moving Company. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Matthew Gregory Hollis

Lizzie Leopold begins our interview by saying, “part of the project was to demystify modern dance.” A moment later, she talked about the challenge of not only presenting, but watching process-based performance—the kind of repetition-based, non-narrative exploration that serves as the foundation of her new piece “une elephante”—and the trust required on the part of the choreographer to pull it off. The two statements might seem in opposition; isn’t slow-paced, story-less dancing the kind that scares away audiences out of fear either of being bored or of having to talk about it afterward? Read the rest of this entry »

Lauren Warnecke/ Photo: Savage Rose Photography

Enid Smith takes inspiration from oil paintings by Chicago artist Andrew Rauhauser for her new piece, entitled “Pier.” Rauhauser’s beautiful and quietly menacing series of paintings depicting ice formations, rocky outcroppings, steel grey waves and frozen pilings along the North Shore inspired Smith to create an interpretation of Chicago winter in late August—a chilly reminder of the season past and to come. Warnecke—Performing Arts Coordinator at the Menomonee Club for Boys and Girls and collaborator/grant writer for Synapse Arts—wrestles with definitions of artistic success in “Grind,” Read the rest of this entry »

Juba!

RECOMMENDED

The pulse of tapping feet will thunder from buildings downtown for a fortnight as hundreds of percussive dancers gather for the annual Rhythm World festival, hosted by the Chicago Human Rhythm Project. Week one is a series of intensive residencies at the Fine Arts Building for youth and professional dancers from across the country. Next week features workshops and master classes during the day and public performances in the evenings. Each program is different, giving you just a few angles on a multifaceted American art form; hoofers and jazz musicians riff together at Jazz Showcase on August 1; August 2 is a by-donation informal student and faculty showcase at the Harold Washington Library; and three formal performances at the MCA—featuring virtuosos in their twenties, visiting masters from Canada, and Chicago ensembles respectively—wrap up the festival. (Sharon Hoyer)

Public performances at Jazz Showcase, the Harold Washington Library and the MCA Stage, August 1-6. For tickets to MCA performances call (312)397-4010. Visit chicagotap.org for more info.

Photo: John Sisson, Jr.

RECOMMENDED

Choreographer and sculptor Ginger Krebs has a restless intellect; speaking about her work, ideas tumble over rapid-fire, each thought shooting out a web of tendrils to new ideas; you feel as though she is mapping for you the interconnectivity of all things in the world and our relationship to them. Her newest work—the product of a DanceBridge residency last fall—has a similar sense of abundance. “Myth and Continent” starts by asking how, as we increasingly experience the world as a series of flat images, does that affect our relationships with our bodies and each other. From there, Krebs and her five collaborators consider the diminution of physical space and expansion of virtual space, our relationship with and demarcation of the earth (the title comes from a category of lawn ornament), and how space/time conceptions are shaped by manmade products like GPS. The density of ideas is leavened with humor and the genuine tenderness the performers have for one another. (Sharon Hoyer)

At the Hamlin Park Fieldhouse, 3035 North Hoyne. July 22, 28 and 29, 7:30pm. $12 at the door.

"Raven"/Photo: Anna Lee Campbell

A large canvas curtain pressed with black feathers cordons off a section of clean white gallery space. Holes are rent throughout the curtain, inviting visitors to step close and peer through. What they see is a large nest—or perhaps island—of earth, twigs and feathers and strewn atop the angular limbs of artists Eiko and Koma. The viewer may enter the dimly lit space behind the curtain and witness the quiet drama of the two naked bodies, reclined but activated, moving constantly though near-imperceptibly, in a silent dance that evokes meditations on death and the eternal.

The performance is entitled “Naked: a living installation” and comes to the MCA as part of a touring retrospective on the career of Japanese-born, New York-based dance artists Eiko and Koma. The couple has been creating work about subjects that, as they put it, matter to them (and indeed matter to us all) for forty years. Trained by Kazuo Ohno, one of the two founders of the slow, detailed, bleak and infinitely rich dance style butoh, Eiko and Koma draw attention to our perceptions of time and space and our physical places within them. “Naked,” as the full title suggests, is a durational piece, performed nonstop during museum hours. Visitors may sit and watch the piece evolve for as long as they please—an invitation to notice more, to experience the intimacy of the space, to become more absorbed in the moment. Read the rest of this entry »

The education-focused Dance Foundation returns from a tour of Italy to perform “New Beginnings”—a new piece by founder/artistic director Robin Fisher, set and recently staged in Rome. TDF pro company filmed their Rome engagement and the footage will provide a backdrop to the one-night-only show at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts. Now almost twenty years old, the heart and soul of The Dance Foundation is its education component, providing scholarships to Chicago-area kids and allowing them to take up to seven hours of class per week at the Fisher Dance Center gratis: a pricey education for young aspiring dancers. Some members of the company are former scholarship recipients; others come from the greater dance community. This program is a tale of inspiration and affirmation, in concert with the mission of the organization. (Sharon Hoyer)

At the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie, 9501 Skokie Boulevard, (847)920-9121. Friday, June 17.