RECOMMENDED

As certain as there is eggnog and mistletoe, there is an annual production of Tchaikovsky’s best-known work. The Joffrey adorns the holiday confection with felicitous glitz and spectacle; bejeweled costumes, a children’s chorus, rapid-fire virtuosic solos (in the Land of Sweets scene) ornament the stage of the golden Auditorium Theatre—a plush visual gift wrap for one of the most famous pieces of classical music and dance ever set to stage. Featuring Robert Joffrey and Gerald Arpino’s elegant choreography, the Joffrey “Nutcracker” holds strong as a seasonal family treat and the gateway ballet for those who tend to run at the first sight of tutus and men in white tights; strap a giant rat king head on one of your principle dancers and all those fussy French moves seem a lot less stuffy. Sure, you’ve seen it a half-dozen times, but that doesn’t stop you from watching “It’s a Wonderful Life” every Christmas, or insisting your friends who haven’t do so immediately. Take the family, take someone who’s never seen a ballet, sit back and feel like a kid again. (Sharon Hoyer)

At the Auditorium Theatre, 50 E. Congress Pkway, (312)902-1500. December 18-28. $25-$100.

RECOMMENDED

If you haven’t yet seen this Chicago institution, the upcoming Winter Series at the Harris Theater is sure to be an appealing introduction to the most popular modern dance company in the city. The program includes two premieres: “One On One” by Hubbard Street’s artistic director Jim Vincent and “Walking Mad,” a highly publicized new work by Johann Inger set to Ravel’s “Bolero”—familiar, yet bold choice of material and one certainly well suited to the company’s crowd-pleasing, dramatic athleticism. Also on the program is the elegant, balletic “Strokes Through the Tail” by Marguerite Donlon and “The Set” by Lucas Crandall. (Sharon Hoyer)

At the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 E. Randolph, (312)334-7777. Wednesday, Dec 3-Sunday, Dec 7. $25-$86.

RECOMMENDED

The pristine, unabashed beauty of Lar Lubovitch’s choreography is on display in a series of affordable performances this weekend at the Harris Theater. The company is celebrating its fortieth anniversary with an accessible program of favorites—appropriate for a choreographer known for a certain populist camaraderie in his ensemble staging. A one-hour lunchtime performance on Friday costs less than your meal and features two works: “Concerto Six Twenty-Two” and a grand ensemble piece set to Dvorak serenades. Two performances will be held Saturday—a family matinee appropriate for ages six and up and an evening show that includes “Dvorak Serenades,” “Jangle”—a new piece set to Hungarian dances—and the award-winning “Men’s Stories.” (Sharon Hoyer)

At the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 E. Randolph. (312)334-7777. November 21 and 22. $5-$75.

RECOMMENDED

The distance in this case is measured with rigor, in potent, disciplined strokes. Two new pieces, each fueled by near uninterrupted momentum, stand in bold yet harmonious contrast. In Ashleigh Leite’s “I Live in Perfect,” limbs seem to reach beyond their physical limits to slice massive curves across the stage; straightened arms push aside the air or manipulate limbs of fellow dancers with an urgency evident on each face. Place this beside Molly Shanahan’s undulating, qi-driven “Stamina of Curiosity: Everywhen” and you have two poles of contemporary choreography: dancerly extension and precision of form versus profoundly organic, internally generated movement. Shanahan’s gorgeously personal choreography sits well on this company; rippling spines move from floor to the air to the backs of others on waves of palpable energy, bodies weaving intricate jungle patterns with orgasmic reverie. Conspicuous nods to Eastern forms (like when the cast holds warrior II pose in unison as though suddenly in yoga class) could easily fail but, thanks to the unflagging physical focus of the company, fit in the piece with convincing sincerity. The momentum is maintained with Shapiro and Smith’s spellbinding, sensuous and witty “To Have and to Hold,” which uses three parallel benches to play with shifting horizontal levels and chain reactions of cartwheels, log rolls and somersaults, reveling in the sheer joy of movement. (Sharon Hoyer)

At the Ruth Page Center for the Arts, 1016 N. Dearborn Pkwy. (773)506-8730. Fri & Sat. 8pm, Sun 2pm. $20. November 14-16.

RECOMMENDED

The weekend festival of everything tap, sponsored by M.A.D.D. Rhythms, celebrates its fourth year with classes, panel discussions, lectures and performances from the best hoofers in Chicago. Instructors include Robert L. Reed, Reggio McLaughlin, Ernest “Brownie” Brown, Jumaane Taylor and the M.A.D.D. Rhythms crew. If you want to learn a paradiddle but never laced on a pair of tap shoes in your life, this is the weekend to try; dancers of all levels are welcome and the amassed talent is sure to be inspiring. (Sharon Hoyer)

At South Shore Cultural Center, 7059 S. South Shore Dr. (773)256-0149. Nov 14-16. $30 per class, $10 per performance, $300 all-weekend pass.

RECOMMENDED

In describing the mission of Deeply Rooted Dance Theater, Artistic Director Kevin Iega Jeff states, “once you are able to reflect on who you are in creation—no matter who you are—once you understand the value of yourself, you can then bring that value to the world.” The evening of repertory presented by Deeply Rooted this week at the Harris is just such a personal reflection—an overview of a celebrated world-class company that maintains strong investment in the local community.

The program “Hidden Treasures” starts with a suite that migrates through history and space, beginning with “Olowa,” a duet inspired by African ancestry, traveling through the middle passage in “The Dance We Dance” and into the civil-rights movement with two pieces—“Change is Gonna Come” by Krystal Hall Glass and an adagio by Jeff, along with associate director Gary Abbott, that celebrates the shared vision of civil-rights activists of all colors. The suite is followed by “Church of Nations,” a piece “inspired by a statement George Bush Senior made prior to going into the war in Iraq,” Jeff explains. “Bush said he had consulted his spiritual advisers and those advisers said it was alright for us to go to war. ‘Church of Nations’ poses the question: can we justify death and destruction in the name of God? Is it a religious issue or a political issue?” The first half of the program ends with “Surrender,” a hopeful vision of a world that has transcended poverty, violence and hate.

Act II returns to the local level with performances from two of the Deeply Rooted community ensembles—Mature Hot Women and an ensemble of professional-level, non-career dancers. Also featured is a personal reflection by Jeff on the death of his sister, who suffered a nervous breakdown and passed away in 1997.

“We as a society have a problem talking about mental illness without it having a sort of stigma,” Jeff says in describing “Naemah’s Room.” “I use her life as an anchor, but I also use other people I see in similar conditions to tell the story. ‘Naemah’s Room’ examines mental illness; it examines the abuse women suffer and even the abuse men suffer, in societal expectations and pressure to behave in a less-than-nurturing way.”

The evening closes with the upbeat “Heaven,” a high-energy, accessible work drawn from social dances around the world. “Heaven being a place we create through joy of being together,” Jeff says. “It’s an audience favorite, I think, because they can see themselves dancing in the piece.” (Sharon Hoyer)

At the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 East Randolph, (312)334-7777. Thursday, November 6.

RECOMMENDED

It has certainly been said that the avant-garde is dead, and the label has certainly been too often misused, but there are still those out there creating work that defies expectation and creates new rules.  Perhaps Trisha Brown is one of those people.  Since the 1960s, the beginning of this dancemaker’s career, she has embraced progress and led her company to the forefront of contemporary dance. The most exciting thing about the company’s upcoming engagement at The Dance Center of Columbia College is the opportunity to see examples of Ms. Brown’s rich and diverse dance history in one program.  “Four Decades of Dance”  will include works reaching back to 1971 for a study in gestural repetition called “Accumulation” to 2003’s aptly titled “PRESENT TENSE,” described as featuring “breathtaking lifts and raucous partnering that is distinctly Trisha Brown.”  But that’s not all folks.  How about a collaboration with artist Robert Rauschenberg accompanied by a local marching band playing outside the theater walls?  This show is going to be a wild ride.  Jump in and hang on. (William Scott)

At the Dance Center of Columbia College, 1306 S Michigan, (312)369-8300, October 23-25.

By Sharon Hoyer

Born in Algiers to a French mother and Algerian father, now living in Toulouse and creating tribal-infused contemporary choreography for dancers from Francophone African countries, Heddy Maalem is something of a post-colonialist scholar’s wet dream. Critical theorists should be braining each other with their dissertations at the chance to deconstruct Maalem’s stark investigations of race and identity. In 2000, Maalem presented “Black Spring,” the first evening-length piece in a trilogy about the brutality of war and Western perspectives of African bodies. The series culminates with a new interpretation of Stravinsky’s “Le Sacre du Printemps” or “The Rite of Spring,” showing this weekend at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Maalem cast fourteen dancers from Mali, Benin, Nigeria, Togo, Mozambique, Senegal and Martinique—all trained in contemporary dance as well as the traditional dances of their home countries. Maalem himself was a boxer and martial artist before discovering dance in his late twenties. The truculent movements of his scantily, if vibrantly clad cast presents a tangle of complications—often uncomfortable ones—which Maalem has no interest in unraveling.

“I think that in the relationships we have with others it is important to be able to distinguish what disturbs our vision rather than trying to shed light on absolutely everything,” Maalem said in an interview at the premiere of “Le Sacre du Printemps” in 2005. “I find that extremely dangerous.”

For better or worse, Maalem fearlessly treads into ambiguous, disturbing realms. “Le Sacre du Printemps” is set in Lagos, Nigeria, a megalopolis where Maalem became aware of “something extremely vital” in death—“a brilliance [that] overwhelms us with despair.” Beauty and horror meet in the choreography; Maalem compares a gesture by dancer Nathalie Rinaldi to both the exhaustion experienced by endurance athletes—“le petit moment du faiblesse”—and the movements of Rwandans fatigued by the repetitive task of slaughtering their fellow countrymen with machetes.

These images of violence in Africa spring from the imagination of a white French-Algerian and are embodied by scantily clad African dancers. Maalem states that the piece is not “a question about a black body but a human one,” yet there’s a lot of squirm-inducing, decadent-Orient-in-the-refined-Occident-gaze material here, particularly when placed in a relatively highbrow venue like the MCA. It’s only appropriate that Maalem should further complicate matters by choosing the classical European score about pagan ritual so innovative and controversial it incited at riot at its 1913 premiere.

While Maalem’s “Le Sacre du Printemps” may not have prompted any chair throwing as of yet, it has been met with a fair share of critical ambivalence. In Dance Magazine, Eva Yaa Asantewaa rhetorically ponders the artist’s intent: “To inflame? To defuse? To subvert?” The most accurate response this query would probably be “all three”; Maalem is clearly not interested in drawing any tidy conclusions about race and colonialism. Despair, loss, brutality, mob mentality and sexual violence hang heavy over the stomping, writhing, thunderous choreography, broken by moments of tenderness, but finally resulting in human sacrifice.

When talking about his position as a white choreographer working with a black cast, Maalem quotes the poet Francois Villon: “’in my country, naked as a worm, but costumed as a president, nothing is sure but uncertainty, I seem to win everything, but lose all.’

“Maybe these pieces, ‘Black Spring’ and ‘The Rite of Spring’ are on that wavelength,” Maalem continues. “They have the same irreconcilability so I apply myself knowing perhaps it is a battle I have already lost attempting to connect something which was not disconnected, but demolished with an axe.”

At the Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 East Chicago, (312)397-4010. October 17 & 18 at 7:30pm and October 19 at 3pm. $20-$25.

RECOMMENDED

Raise your hand. Who out there knows anything about Persian dance? I’m sure a few hands went up but not many. The Dance Center at Columbia College thinks it is time for that to change. One of the few bearers of Persian dance outside of Iran where women’s dancing is banned in public, Banafsheh Sayyad and the work of her company NAMAH, aims to express the power of ancient mysticism through a combination of hypnotic trance and directed movement. Sayyad’s dance language traverses culture, weaving together the ethereal qualities of Persian dance with the physically charged and intuitive power of her own contemporary style. NAMAH’s program of solos and ensemble work will be accompanied live by ZARBANG, a four-member Iranian percussion and woodwind ensemble. In a time when a presidential candidate’s middle name gives people a reason not to vote for him,  we could all benefit from getting outside our bubble and sharing an experience that proves different can be beautiful. (William Scott)

At The Dance Center of Columbia College, 1306 S. Michigan, (312)369-6600, October 16-18.

By Sharon Hoyer

This time last year, Ashley Wheater took the helm of the Joffrey Ballet, filling the formidable shoes of Gerald Arpino, who co-founded the company alongside Robert Joffrey more than fifty years ago. This, the first season under Mr. Wheater’s direction, is both a Romantic tribute to the masters who have directly influenced the Joffrey and a look into the future of Chicago’s premiere classical ballet company.

During a particularly hectic week with a ballet master sick and twelve days till opening night, Wheater took time during his lunch break to chat with me about the upcoming fall program at the Auditorium Theatre—as well as his personal experience as the third artistic director of the Joffrey Ballet.

“The company has worked so hard,” Wheater says between bites. “I think they’ve really improved; there’s a different quality to the work. And that was my goal, to show them another way of doing things. I feel the company is deepening and expanding in its talent and performance ability.”

Part of the growth can be attributed to fresh material. The fall program features the world premiere of “Age of Innocence—a nostalgic work by rising star Edwaard Liang, former soloist with the New York City Ballet. Inspired by the novels of Jane Austen and set to music by Philip Glass and Thomas Newman, Liang’s piece investigates the sensations and emotions roused by an empty ballroom.

“Ed is a very talented young choreographer,” Wheater says. “I wanted to bring him here because there hasn’t been a lot of new work choreographed on the company. I feel the choreographic process for both dancer and choreographer is so important because it deepens the understanding of the company. They get to explore the quality of their movement.”

Also new to the company is renowned master Jerome Robbins’ classical piece “In the Night.” Set to the Chopin Nocturnes, the piece is a series of pas de deux that explore three permutations of love and is, in the words of Wheater, one of Robbins’ most sublime pieces of classical ballet. The Joffrey is the first company granted a new production of the work.

The program opens with a tribute to the founder of the company: a revival of “Postcards” by Robert Joffrey—the first performance of the piece in twenty years. It is a fittingly romantic work, set to the music of Erik Satie and evoking images of Paris in the early 1900s. While there is a sweet nostalgia to the fall program, the overall theme of the year is forward momentum; the 08-09 season is entitled “Time to Move!”

“This is such a new beginning for this company,” Wheater tells me. “There’s a lot of excitement, a lot of energy, a lot of opportunity. We’ve moved into a new building,” referring to the new Joffrey Tower on Randolph. “We have a fantastic team in place. Christopher Conway took over as executive director last year and we make a great team; he’s done so much to move the company forward in an administrative position.”

Ashley Wheater has deep roots with the Joffrey—he danced with the company years ago, when he moved United States from Australia. Wheater has spent the last nineteen years with the celebrated San Francisco Ballet. Of his return to the Joffrey and his relationship with American ballet, Wheater says, “Chicago is, to me, a great, great city. To be a part of the cultural scene in Chicago, I feel a huge responsibility.”

When I ask what he’s learned from his first year working with the company, Wheater says without pause, “A lot. I had known Jerry Arpino because he brought me to America from Australia. But what I think is so special about Chicago and the people of Chicago—and the executive board, and the women’s board—there are so many amazing people in this city who love the Joffrey. So many people who’ve committed so much time and talent and energy. And all the dancers who’ve been in this company and kept it going and kept giving it the quality of dancing that people have come to expect. I realize how much everyone has put in and I’m really grateful.

It’s a really stunning program,” he adds. “I encourage anyone who is curious about dance and ballet to come out and have a look.”

At the Auditorium Theatre, 50 East Congress, (312)902-1500. October 15-26.