Photo: Jack Vartoogian

In 1952, ballet dancer and choreographer Amalia Hernandez founded a small company dedicated to collecting and presenting traditional dances from across Mexico. Now, more than fifty years later, the Ballet Folklorico de Mexico de Amalia Hernandez has more than quadrupled its ranks and amassed a remarkable catalog of indigenous Mexican ceremonial, spiritual and celebratory folk dances, each awash in color and bursting with energy. In this, the centennial year of the Mexican revolution and bicentennial year of Mexican independence, the Ballet Folklorico is touring the U.S. with a special celebratory performance; voluminous dresses will swirl, Cuban heels will stomp, and Charros will leap in a program high on spectacle, featuring revivals of several pieces, some that haven’t been performed in fifteen years.

I asked Salvador Lopez, executive director of Ballet Folklorico and (grandson of the late Ms. Hernandez), about the challenges of presenting vernacular dances, culled from small villages and intended for participation over performance, in a grandiose setting like the Auditorium Theater. Read the rest of this entry »

Mauro Villanueva and Victoria Jaiani/Photo: Herbert Migdoll

RECOMMENDED

The Joffrey Ballet stays true to Sir Frederick Ashton’s definitive version of the world’s best-known fairy tale with plenty of frills and spectacle, including a life-sized pumpkin coach. The wicked stepsisters, played by men, lend a slapstick edge to the saccharine tale. Wendy Ellis Somes, a former dancer with the Royal Ballet, staged this production for the Joffrey, ensuring the piece, already familiar to the Joffrey, resonates with the grace and charm of the original, first produced in 1948, restaged in ‘65. Score by Prokofiev, splendorous sets—this one is for lovers of the classics. (Sharon Hoyer)

At the Auditorium Theatre, 50 E Congress Pkwy, (800)982-2787. February 17-28, $25-145.

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago's "Extremely Close"/Photo: Todd Rosenberg

By Brian Hieggelke

Dance exploded in the zeroes, fueled on by successful transitions at major establishments and the opening of significant new venues. Any consideration of dance in Chicago starts with our world-renowned homegrown company, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago (HSDC), which commenced the decade with the transition in its artistic leadership from Lou Conte, who’d founded the group in 1977 and built it into one of the city’s leading cultural exports, to Jim Vincent. Vincent didn’t miss a beat, building on Conte’s foundation, and greatly expanding the company’s formerly rather limited performance presence in its hometown by expanding to quarterly Chicago engagements, thanks in part to the opening of the perfectly sized Harris Theater for Music and Dance in November 2003. By 2008, HSDC had grown to a seven-million-dollar operating budget and Vincent himself was moving on, returning to the Nederlands Dans Theater, where he’d spent much of his career as a performer, passing the artistic reins at HSDC to his former associate, Glenn Edgerton.

Meanwhile, Chicago’s national reputation as a dance center was being augmented by its resuscitation of the esteemed Joffrey Ballet, which, in a state of financial crisis in the mid-nineties, had thrown something of a Hail Mary pass by departing the nation’s cultural capital of New York to see if it could make it in Chicago (it had long been extremely successful here on its tours, a tradition mirrored today by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, which sold a whopping 14,416 tickets to its annual engagement at the Auditorium Theatre in 2009). Make it here it did, and by the dawn of this decade, it had established itself as a pillar of Chicago’s cultural community, even becoming the subject of a Robert Altman film, “The Company,” in 2003. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

New York-based Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet is next on the docket of Auditorium Theatre’s International Dance Series and this is the one you have been waiting for. The relatively new company (founded in 2003)  comes to us under the artistic direction of former Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater member Benoit-Swan Pouffer and with a mission of acquiring and commissioning new works by the world’s most sought-after emerging creators of dance. Mission accomplished. Their repertoire reads like a starting lineup of the world’s best contemporary choreographers. Cedar Lake dancers are athletic and dexterous and specialize in integrating ballet into contemporary dance and a host of popular forms.  In Chicago, the program will include Crystal Pite’s “Ten Duets on a Theme of Rescue,” Didy Veldman’s “frame of view” and Jo Strømgren’s “Sunday, Again.”  You may have caught Pite’s “The Second Person” performed this summer by Nederlands Dans Theater. If you were lucky enough to see that transformational piece you know why dance fans are waiting for Cedar Lake with bated breath. (William Scott)

Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet performs November 14-15 at Auditorium Theatre, 50 East Congress, (800)982-ARTS (2787). $30-$65.

RECOMMENDED

Once again the Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University is prescribing Chicago a healthy dose of the dance medicine it needs and deserves. Over the past years the historic venue has shown a remarkable commitment to giving some of the world’s best dance companies Chicago premieres or bringing them back after long absences.  Kicking off its 120th-anniversary celebration, Auditorium Theatre brings the Miami City Ballet to our great city for the first time. Under Artistic Director Edward Villella, MCB has become one of the largest companies in the United States and has earned an international reputation for the breadth of a repertoire that stretches from classic to contemporary. Miami City Ballet will show off that dexterity with their Chicago program. Two works by Balanchine, Petipa’s “Black Swan Pas De Deux” and a signature dance by contemporary icon Twyla Tharp share the stage this weekend. (William Scott)

Miami City Ballet performs October 2-4 at Auditorium Theatre, 50 East Congress, (312)902-1500. $30-$89.

Angela Ingersoll and Charissa Armon/Photo: Michael Brosilow

RECOMMENDED

It’s fitting that “The Mistress Cycle” takes the point-of-view of “the other woman,” a perspective usually overlooked in most romantic narratives, since it’s the first theatrical production watched from the stage of the spectacular Auditorium Theatre, and that’s an equally unusual vista. Set in a “black-box” seating a mere 200, it’s awe-inspiring to gaze out on the nearly 4,000 empty seats, and to take in Adler & Sullivan’s glorious space from a vantage usually reserved for performers. The show itself, the restaging of a 2007 production by suburban Apple Tree Theatre, is a pleasant if somewhat unchallenging night of music executed in its highest form. Crafted as a one-act song cycle, rather than a dramatically staged musical, Jenny Giering (music) and Beth Blatt (lyrics) are onto something reasonably fresh and economical here, with five actors gliding around a small performance space transformed into a cabaret-style nightclub and singing their stories. Some strange juxtapositions lurk below the surface, though. The recurring throughline of characters who “love outside the lines” without apology, with its strong feminist currents, gets undermined by such constructions as having the eroticist and serial lover Anais Nin (played with vixenish vigor by Angela Ingersoll in the standout performance amongst a sturdy cast) take center stage with the song “Papa,” which blames the unconventionality of her life, so unabashed in its writings, on the bathetic notion that she was just working out daddy issues. Read the rest of this entry »

Angela Ingersoll/Photo: Michael Brosilow

By William Scott

With the outbreak of infidelity that seems to be infesting American culture right now, from political indiscretions like those of the South Carolina governor, to pop-culture milestones like the split-up of Jon and Kate, one perspective seems to get left out more often than not—the perspective of the mistress. That all changes when Apple Tree Theatre mounts its first production in Chicago’s Loop, which is actually a remount of the North Shore theater’s 2007 Jeff-nominated “The Mistress Cycle,” this time on the stage of the historic Auditorium Theatre, for the first time transformed into an intimate black-box-style theater. Read the rest of this entry »

Victoria Jaiani and Fabrice Calmels/Photo: Cheryl Mann

RECOMMENDED

As the winds grow warmer and trees burst into flower, the Joffrey season closes on an appropriately romantic note; the Spring Program is comprised of four works about love—a theme broad enough to leave room for a diverse program and one I hope will exploit the versatility of the Joffrey dancers as successfully as their previous performance (in which the company seamlessly shifted between a minimalist acrobatic pas de trois based on Calder mobiles, the reconstruction of Nijinsky’s riot-inducing “Le Sacre du Printemps” and a blithe, lighthearted number by Gerald Arpino, former artistic director of the Joffrey). The tribute to Arpino—who passed away last year—continues with an uncharacteristically somber piece: “Ronde d’Anges,” about the parting of lovers at death. The celebration of the Ballet Russe centennial concludes with “Les Noces,” an ensemble piece choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska, Vaslav Nijinsky’s sister. Also on the program is “Valses Poeticos,” a tender duet originally choreographed by Helgi Tomasson (AD of the phenomenal San Francisco Ballet) for Ashley Wheater, Arpino’s capable successor. The headlining piece is the Joffrey premiere of Christopher Wheeldon’s work set to the score of the musical “Carousel.” (Sharon Hoyer)

At the Auditorium Theater, 50 E. Congress Pkwy, (312)902-1500. May 1-3 and 8-10. $25-$145.

Here’s the press release from The Auditorium Theatre:

THE AUDITORIUM THEATRE OF ROOSEVELT UNIVERSITY
ANNOUNCES 2009-2010 DANCE SERIES
AND CELEBRATES THE THEATRE’S 120TH ANNIVERSARY

World-Class Lineup Includes Performances by Miami City Ballet,
Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, Ballet Folklórico de México de Amalia Hernández and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

CHICAGO — Brett Batterson, executive director of the Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University (ATRU), today announced the Auditorium Theatre’s 2009-2010 Dance Series. ATRU’s season opens with the thrilling Miami City Ballet performing a program of masterworks by George Balanchine and Twyla Tharp.  Additional highlights include the daring and athletic Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet under the artistic direction of Benoit-Swan Pouffer; and the elaborate and vividly colorful Ballet Folklórico de México de Amalia Hernández.  The series also includes the return of Chicago favorite Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, celebrating Judith Jamison’s 20th Anniversary as the company’s artistic director. Rounding out the season is The Tchaikovsky Ballet’s “The Sleeping Beauty.”  Read the rest of this entry »

“There was such a great energy in the theater; the performance was so magical,” Antonio Douthit says about dancing for President Barack Obama and his family earlier this year.   The young dancer from St. Louis has been with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT) for five seasons now and from the time he signed his contract he has been living dream moments like this one.

AAADT is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary through 2009.  Since its inception, the company has become one of the most recognizable names in American dance. A U.S. Congressional resolution recently recognized the institution as a vital “American Cultural Ambassador to the World.” Barbie  even got into the action this year with the first doll inspired by a dance company. Generations of young people, specifically young African Americans like Douthit, have grown up with the solitary dream of one day joining the company of modern dancers known for their strength , athleticism and grace. Read the rest of this entry »