HUBBARD STREET DANCE CHICAGO CELEBRATES 35th ANNIVERSARY WITH A SEASON TO REMEMBER!

LANDMARK SEASON TO FEATURE A FULL-LENGTH WORLD PREMIERE BY ALEJANDRO CERRUDO, A GROUNDBREAKING COLLABORATION WITH ALONZO KING AND LINES BALLET, AND A COMPANY PREMIERE BY MATS EK

CHICAGO – April 9, 2012 – Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, led by Artistic Director Glenn Edgerton, announces its landmark 35th Anniversary Season, unveiling a year of premieres and audience favorites back by popular demand; the second annual danc(e)volve: New Works Festival at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago offering an intimate program of new works by promising choreographers; as well as touring and innovative collaborations with cultural partners in the city and around the country. The 2012-2013 season also marks Hubbard Street 2’s 15th Anniversary.

“For the main company’s 35th Anniversary and Hubbard Street 2’s 15th Anniversary Season I feel it is important to focus on our future of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago,” notes Hubbard Street Artistic Director Glenn Edgerton. “To celebrate this milestone, I have asked Resident Choreographer Alejandro Cerrudo to create a full evening work inspired by Marc Chagall’s America Windows. We have watched Alejandro develop as a choreographer, from Lickety-Split [2006] to his most recent success, Little mortal jump [2012]. I believe that Alejandro is the right choreographer to start this anniversary season –a momentous year in our history.”  Read the rest of this entry »

Joseph Kudra, photo by Jonathan Mackoff

RECOMMENDED

Gustavo Ramirez Sansano said he was interested in how a machismo culture, like that of his native Spain, is obsessed with the image of the free woman when he chose to adapt “Carmen” for Luna Negra Dance Theater. Sansano uses Bizet’s famous, hummable score (sans vocals), placing it to contemporary dance in a way that should make opera aficionados hear the music with new ears. Other lush elements of opera are present, too, reduced to a level of suggestion that supports the abstractions in the choreography without interfering with them. Grayscale costumes by fashion designer David Delfin and ingenious all-white set pieces by Luis Crespo establish scene and character in the midst of Sansano’s, quick, athletic choreography that blends ballet, modern, gestural movements and hints of pasodoble and flamenco. The mise-en-scene is inspired by Picasso, who inserted Carmen into more than 140 of his paintings. Read the rest of this entry »

Naci/Photo: Rosalie O'Connor

Three years ago Eduardo Vilaro stepped away from Luna Negra Dance Theater, the Chicago company he founded ten years before, to return to New York City and take the helm of Ballet Hispanico. Vilaro spent his childhood in New York and danced with Ballet Hispanico early in his career. This month he brings the company to Chicago to perform at the Dance Center of Columbia College, where he learned, taught and served as artist-in-residence.

Along with a new work by Vilaro, the program includes “Espiritu Vivo” by Ronald K. Brown, inspired by the intersections of African and Latino diasporas, “Naci” by Andrea Miller about Sephardic Jewish culture in Spain, and a piece on the greater human condition by the inimitable Annabelle Lopez Ochoa. I spoke with Vilaro via phone, catching him in New York between tours. Read the rest of this entry »

Almost forty years before John Woo had Nic Cage and John Travolta swapping mugs as a vehicle for on-screen suspense, Georges Franju originated the cinematic concept to far creepier (if less action-packed) effect. A brokenhearted plastic surgeon tries to restore his daughter’s mutilated face by kidnapping young women off the streets of Paris and stealing their identities the pre-digital way.

Not a subject one might imagine as a muse for a tap show, but Mark Yonally, artistic director of Chicago Tap Theatre, was inspired by just that, creating an evening-length stage adaptation of the French horror film “Les Yeux Sans Visage” told through rhythm both verbal and tapped. Read the rest of this entry »

Osipova Hallberg/Photo: Gene Schiavone

RECOMMENDED

Perhaps the only dance company in the world so famous it can be recognized by its initials alone, ABT visits Chicago for the first time in seventeen years to perform the iconic 1840 story ballet “Giselle.” The massive company boasts sixteen principals, over a dozen soloists and a corps (practically an army) of sixty technically superb dancers. With a rotating cast of leads, one could have an entirely different experience at each of the five Auditorium Theatre performances. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Gadi Dagon

RECOMMENDED

Without fail, Batsheva elicits breathy wows from audiences worldwide—not for acrobatics or acts of contortion, but for a superhuman precision in phrases that slow down and speed up in a way that’s hard to grasp. You can almost feel the people in the surrounding seats rubbing their eyes and blinking with disbelief. Ohad Naharin, the visionary director of Batsheva, developed his own movement awareness approach, dubbed Gaga, that’s anchored in refining the dancer’s presence within the moment and a notion of there being “plenty of time.” Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Todd Rosenberg

RECOMMENDED

Rare is the artist who can produce thoughtful, rigorously crafted work on a regular timetable. Alejandro Cerrudo has proven to be one of those gifted individuals in his tenure as Hubbard Street’s resident choreographer, turning out movement gems of stunning clarity and beauty year after year. “Little Mortal Jump,” a premiere on this program, is his tenth in three years. Granted, he’s been given a remarkable resource—the Hubbard Street dancers—and has epic plans for their considerable talent this fall…but more on that later. This program also includes reprises of two works that premiered last year: a lovely neoclassical piece by Alonzo King, artistic director of LINES Ballet; and hypercool “Too Beaucoup” by Sharon Eyal, house choreographer for Batsheva Dance Company (performing down the street the same weekend). Read the rest of this entry »

THE AUDITORIUM THEATRE OF ROOSEVELT UNIVERSITY ANNOUNCES 2012 – 2013 SEASON

World-Class Dance Takes Center Stage with an Eclectic Lineup Including Ballet Folklórico de México, Royal Winnipeg Ballet, River North Dance Chicago with Chicago Jazz Philharmonic, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Eisenhower Dance Ensemble and the Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg

Music Fills the Auditorium’s Legendary Theatre with Susan Werner, Michael Feinstein and Jeff Lindberg’s Chicago Jazz Orchestra and the Annual Production of “Too Hot to Handel: The Jazz Gospel Messiah”

CHICAGO, IL — Executive Director of The Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University (ATRU) Brett Batterson announces the Auditorium Theatre’s 2012-2013 season featuring six world-class dance productions, an annual favorite and musical treats for Chicago audiences. In keeping with its commitment to showcase and celebrate the diverse talents and cultural treasures of the local, regional and international creative landscape, the Auditorium will present a treasure trove of spectacular performances all season long. Subscription packages and group tickets go on sale May 1, 2012 by calling (312) 431-2357. Visit www.auditoriumtheatre.org for more information.  Read the rest of this entry »

Aggression, territoriality and myths of masculinity emerged as central themes when Synapse Arts founder Rachel Damon, independent performance artist Erica Mott and the all-female dance collective the Space/Movement Project applied to share a bill at the Dance Center of Columbia College. The venue, either consciously or sub-, no doubt influenced the subject matter: the Dance Center is a big step for all three Chicago-based companies. Watching Damon rehearse one of her quartet numbers in a small third-floor studio in Wicker Park, I got an inkling of the challenges a choreographer faces when they create movement in a space one-fifth the size of their performance environment.

Our post-rehearsal conversation became about more intimate spaces. “I’m fascinated by territory as a human and martial artist,” Damon tells me. “You learn in that training about the red zone, the personal space between people.” She leans toward me, her face about six inches from mine. “This is a little less comfortable if we don’t know each other than…” she sits back to a socially acceptable two-foot remove, “that. Your brain responds to that space in one of two ways—you can go down the intimate track where I trust this person or you can go down the defensive track. The intimate track is a lot more cognitive-based and the defensive track has a lot more to do with back-brain, my lizard sense going off. That’s where the churning comes from: stirring up the space.” Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Gorman Cook Photography

The Giordano spring program includes six works spanning twenty years of repertory, including “Jolt,” a rhythmically playful premiere by Artistic Associate Autumn Eckman and Sherry Zunker’s 1990 “The Man That Got Away.” Read the rest of this entry »