Ensemble Espanol Spanish Dance Theatre/Photo: DeanPaul

RECOMMENDED

Bright colors and Latin rhythms come to the fore in this autumn’s Global Rhythms program, with performances by Ensemble Español Spanish Dance Theater and the Mexican Folkloric Dance Company of Chicago. The latter will be accompanied live by Sones de Mexico during the Sunday performance. Step Afrika! also returns with new pieces exploring the multifaceted world of stepping—the high-energy, rhythmic stomp-clap-and-shout form that came out of African-American fraternities and sororities in the early twentieth century. Read the rest of this entry »

Merce Cunningham

RECOMMENDED

Dance in the twentieth century was redefined by Merce Cunningham. During his immensely prolific, seventy-year career, Cunningham created hundreds of dances and “events” that approached choreography, collaboration and the relationship between movement and music in a way never before seen. He actively choreographed and mentored his company until his death in 2009 at the age of ninety. The Legacy Tour is the company’s farewell performance; the Cunningham Dance Foundation is preparing to close, handing over a massive body of work to a preservation trust established by Cunningham. Read the rest of this entry »

Liz Lerman Dance Exchange performing "The Matter of Origins"/Photo: Jaclyn Borowski.

By Sharon Hoyer

The terms investigation, exploration and research show up a lot in artist statements and program notes these days, but few artists use the words as comprehensively as Liz Lerman, former artistic director of the DC-based Dance Exchange. Lerman’s enthusiastic curiosity has led her to collaborate with numerous minds in the fields of science and academics as well as the arts, creating performances around topics as diverse as genetics, immigration, death, spirituality, Reaganomics, the Nuremberg Trials and the Underground Railroad. Lerman’s talent for uncovering how specialized fields intersect in dance springs from a very direct inclusiveness in her work that takes in the five generations of dancers represented in Dance Exchange and, particularly in the case of “The Matter of Origins” (playing as part of the Chicago Humanities Festival), her audiences.

“The Matter of Origins” explores physics and human theories about the beginning of time in two acts: the first is a traditional stage performance that includes massive projections of images like Marie Curie’s lab and the Large Hadron Collider at CERN; the second is a tea party with chocolate cake (Lerman got Edith Warner’s recipe, the woman who served lunch to J. Robert Oppenheimer and the scientists at Los Alamos while they were developing the nuclear bomb). The audience sits at round tables with local scientists and “provocateurs,” who help guide the conversation. Read the rest of this entry »

Jessica Wolfram

RECOMMENDED

The centerpiece of River North’s fall program is Daniel Ezralow’s taut, gritty, high-octane “SUPER STRAIGHT is coming down,” a fifteen-minute piece inspired by a series of terse photos by Robert Longo entitled “Men in Cities.” The social pressure cooker of urban existence is given shape by ramrod limbs, whirling partnering and an industrial score by Dutch composer Thom Willems.

Frank Chaves, River North’s Artistic Director, was in the original cast (the piece was first set on Hubbard Street in 1989) and with the help of Sandi Cooksey, another original cast member, set it on his company. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Sheryl Mann

By Sharon Hoyer

As Julia Rhoads, director of Lucky Plush Productions, points out, marriage is not a popular subject for dances… or many other performance arts for that matter. The ambivalent states of trust and doubt, of taking on a new identity for oneself and for the world outside the marriage and of lifetime romantic fidelity are a lot harder to explore in a two-hour performance with any kind of depth or sensitivity than the purer emotions of, say, infatuation, grief, aggression or joy. Read the rest of this entry »

"Water Stains on the Wall"/ Photo: LIU Chen-hsiang

RECOMMENDED

A slanted stage clad in white is the blank page upon which choreographer Lin Hwai-min draws strokes of remarkable beauty. His brushes: the lithe, razor-thin, flawlessly controlled bodies of the Cloud Gate Theatre dancers. The title comes from a conversation between two Chinese calligraphy masters of the Tang Dynasty—one who takes inspiration from dramatic summer clouds, the other from water stains on the wall. Read the rest of this entry »

Devin Buchanan and Ashley Lauren Smith in “Alloy.” /Photo: Gorman Cook Photography

RECOMMENDED

When commissioned by Nan Giordano to create a new work for her company, Kiesha Lalama took inspiration from the dancers—including some new faces like Devin Buchanan, fresh off performing with Alvin Ailey in New York. Lalama likes to choreograph with the performers in mind, and this piece, entitled “Alegria” (“joy” in Spanish), capitalizes on the individual athletic talents of the ten company members in series of trios and duets. Read the rest of this entry »

By Sharon Hoyer

The young king of England takes his troops into France and, against great odds, is victorious. Esteemed choreographer, director and writer David Gordon, founder of New York-based Pick Up Performance Co(s), compressed the Bard’s five-act history play into an hour-long show using original choreography and his own meta-chorus character, who provides commentary on Shakespeare and our own time. Gordon also mined the recent history of “Henry V” to retell the tale of prince Hal; “Dancing Henry Five” uses iconic recordings of Shakespeare’s text as performed by Laurence Olivier and Christopher Plummer, along with William Walton’s soundtrack from the 1944 film.

Why did you revive “Dancing Henry Five” now? Read the rest of this entry »

Victoria Jaiani and Miguel Angel Blanco/Photo: Sandro

RECOMMENDED

Yuri Possokhov, former principal dancer in the Bolshoi Ballet, borrows heavily from the famous choreography by Marius Petipa in his own rendering of the ingenious gentleman’s tale, but makes the title character the focal point and point of view, relegating the romance between Kitri and Basilio to the sidelines.

Puppetry and projection aid in representing the world through the mad knight’s eyes: Wendall Harrington, whose work created the illusion of sixteenth century Venetian architecture in last year’s “Othello,” projects Don Quixote’s illusory world on transparent scrims, cloaking the tangible with the dazzling light of the imaginary. Read the rest of this entry »

Ana Lopez in "Arcangelo"/Photo: Todd Rosenberg

RECOMMENDED

With a world premiere by Twyla Tharp and the cover of the current issue of Dance Magazine, all eyes are on Hubbard Street. And well they should be. The company and its leadership have, season after season, demonstrated an unparalleled balance of versatility, virtuosity and imagination, all presented in an appealing package of audience-friendliness.

This imaginative thinking was at play when artistic director Glenn Edgerton invited Tharp to step away from musical theater and revisit her roots in contemporary choreography—a harkening back to the nineties when some of her most inventive work was first placed on Hubbard Street dancers. The resultant piece, set to keyboard sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti, will have the attendant flash of not only the Tharp name, but of brightly patterned costumes from designer Norma Kamali’s fall 2011 collection as well. Read the rest of this entry »