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.

Here’s the press release from Harris Theater:

HARRIS THEATER FOR MUSIC AND DANCE LAUNCHES FALL 2011 SEASON, PACKED WITH PREMIERES AND DEBUTS BY THE CITY’S MOST ACCLAIMED MUSIC AND DANCE ORGANIZATIONS AND WORLD-RENOWNED ARTISTS AND ENSEMBLES

Highlights of the Harris’ eighth season include the final Chicago appearances of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company; the Harris Theater debuts of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and Eroica Trio; the return of the nationally acclaimed Sphinx Virtuosi; and a solo performance by Broadway’s original Dreamgirl Jennifer Holliday

The Harris Theater is pleased to announce that UBS is serving as the 2011-2012 Season Sponsor. Read the rest of this entry »

DV&D, Lux/Photo: Phil Knott

In just five years, the Chicago Dancing Festival has grown from a one-night showcase at the Pritzker Pavilion to a five-day multi-venue event encompassing performance, film and lecture. Like Lollapalooza, Dancing Festival tickets are snapped up shortly after they’re released. One difference being that, instead of $190 a pop, it’s all free.

Celebrated New York choreographer and Chicago native Lar Lubovitch along with dancer Jay Franke curate programs that include renowned companies from across the country, giving us the unique opportunity to see Martha Graham’s, Merce Cunningham’s and Mr. Lubovitch’s companies all in the same evening. I spoke with Jay Franke about the birth, growth and future of the festival.

How did you conceive of the festival?

Lar and I danced together at Hubbard Street and I danced in his company in New York later. We both felt there was a need for a dance festival in Chicago. We felt if we were able to give an audience access to the best that was out there, we would attract and grow a new audience for dance. We had our eye on the Pritzker—it’s a very grand performance space and democratic. We had 8,500 people show up to our first performance, so we felt we had an overnight hit on our hands. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s the press release from Harris Theatre:

PARIS OPERA BALLET LAUNCHES AMERICAN TOUR WITH FIRST EVER CHICAGO PERFORMANCES ACCOMPANIED BY GRANT PARK ORCHESTRA;

MERCE CUNNINGHAM DANCE COMPANY MAKES FINAL CHICAGO APPEARANCES WITH LEGACY TOUR;

CHAMBER MUSIC SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER KICKS OFF FIRST CHICAGO BASED PERFORMANCE SERIES;

HARRIS DEBUTS BY GRAMMY AWARD-WINNING EROICA TRIO AND VIENNA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA—LED BY METROPOLITAN OPERA PRINCIPAL GUEST CONDUCTOR FABIO LUISI;

LES BALLETS TROCKADERO DE MONTE CARLO BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND;

MOREHOUSE COLLEGE GLEE CLUB CELEBRATES 100TH ANNIVERSARY;

AND MUCH MORE IN GROUNDBREAKING
2011-2012 HARRIS THEATER PRESENTS SEASON

PLUS THE AFFORDABLE AND ACCESSIBLE FAMILY SERIES AND
POPULAR LUNCHTIME EAT TO THE BEAT SERIES RETURN Read the rest of this entry »

Jirí Kylián's 27'52"

RECOMMENDED

Hubbard Street unofficially begins a multi-year collaboration with San Francisco-based LINES Ballet, performing as the highlight of this program LINES founder Alonzo King’s “Following the Subtle Current Upstream.” The coming year will bring joint presentations between the two companies (made possible by a sizable Joyce Foundation grant), but this show is all Hubbard Street, featuring popular repertory work like “27’52”” by Jiri Kylian—a hyper-smart piece with phrases that ripple through dancers bodies from slow-mo to fast-forward as quick as your internet-2.0-shortened attention span can grasp, reminiscent of breakdancing and CGI-heightened action flicks. Also on the program is “Untouched” by Aszure Barton, a piece built for Hubbard Street on personal work with each dancer and inspired by the Spanish dancers in the company. (Sharon Hoyer)

At the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 East Randolph, (312)850-9744. May 19-May 22. $25-$94.

Photo: John Kane

Imitation is the foundation of childhood play. As soon as we humans gain mastery of our limbs we begin to mimic the movements of the other humans and animals we encounter. As imagination develops that mimicry becomes transformation (Mom! I’m not Sharon, I’m a sea otter. Watch this!); our heroes are people that have the physical capabilities of animals or are endowed with superhuman strength or the ability to change shape. The gymnasts, dancers and acrobats in Pilobolus seem to possess all of the above and use them to create eye-popping displays of transformation. Pilobolus isn’t all AP charades, but it’s the shadow theater and skeleton-defying transmogrifications that made them a household name; remember the 2007 Oscars, when they tumbled together behind a scrim to form waddling penguins, the James Bond gun and the shoe on the Devil Wears Prada poster? A higher-brow example is the TED performance of “Symbiosis” in which the dancers appear to locomote via pseudopodia, flowing together and apart like paramecium in courtship before evolving into more complex life forms. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Cheryl Mann

“Movement comes from individual people’s qualities. What are we picking out and reinforcing that one person did naturally?” Glenn Edgerton, artistic director of Hubbard Street, is talking about the process of staging repertory work—specifically Jiri Kylian’s sensuous, iconic “Petite Mort,” a personally resonant piece for Edgerton, who was a member of Nederlands Dans Theater when Kylian first choreographed it. “In 1991 it was very raw, even in technique. Over the years it has become more codified. It’s a very sought-after piece and every time it’s presented with a new company it becomes more exact. Now it has its own technique. It’s fun to analyze to the nth degree what our old colleagues did naturally…we were just young dancers doing what we do. And it’s great fun to realize it was an important time in Kylian’s development.” Read the rest of this entry »

Diabolus in Musica/Photo: Dorothee Senet

RECOMMENDED

Taiko drummers, steppers, drill teams, hoofers and a French medieval vocal ensemble tag team testing the joists in the Harris floor Thanksgiving weekend in four performances by nine-plus local and international companies that love banging out a beat. At least twice a year CHRP director Lane Alexander recruits companies from around the world to perform alongside multicultural American rhythmic ensembles like the Miyumi Project, Step Afrika! and Be the Groove. The Chicago premiere at this Global Rhythms is the aforementioned French ensemble Diabolus in Musica, performing thirteenth-century trouveres written by women. If you’ve been to a CHRP performance, you know that the organization has done more than put on a plethora of foot-stomping shows over the decades, it has nurtured generations of dancers and built a massive, vocally appreciative family of percussive artists. With groups like the South Shore Drill Team performing, whoops, shout-outs and good vibes are sure to fill the air. Anyone who has ever been unable to resist bobbing their head or tapping their feet to a tune should see this show. With 50 percent of ticket proceeds benefiting more than fifty Chicago non-profits, you might want to catch more than one. (Sharon Hoyer)

At the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 East Randolph, (312)334-7777. November 26-28, $15-$55.

Lizzie MacKenzie in "Forbidden Boundaries"/Photo: Erika Dufour

RECOMMENDED

True to form, River North hits us with everything they’ve got for a weekend at the Harris: a five-buck “Eat to the Beat” lunchtime show on Friday, a family matinee Saturday afternoon and a packed program of favorites at prime time. The grown-up show includes a piece by Deeply Rooted’s Kevin Iega Jeff, rhythmic powerhouse “Three” by Robert Battle and two of artistic director Frank Chaves’ more popular works. The real jump-out-of-your-seat fun is to be had at the 1pm “Street Beat—Dance through the Decades” matinee: a montage of the evolution of jazz and the popular dances it inspired, from the Charleston to hip-hop, complete with period-appropriate costumes. It’s sure to be eye-popping confectionery for anyone who eats musical theater like cotton candy. And let’s face it, we all do. (Sharon Hoyer)

At the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 East Randolph, (312)334-7777. Eat to the Beat performance November 12 at noon, $5. Street Beat matinee performance November 13 at 1pm. Fall Engagement November 13 at 8pm.

Photo: Eduardo Patino

Eduardo Vilaro once told me that, as a Cuban-born American whose parents immigrated to New York when he was very young and who had spent most of his adult life in Chicago, he never developed a sense of home. As a young dancer in New York, Vilaro performed with the iconic Ballet Hispanico; in Chicago he founded his own company, Luna Negra Dance Theater—building a home in a new city. In 2010, after fourteen years in Chicago, Vilaro returned to New York as artistic director of Ballet Hispanico, experiencing a sort of homecoming of the itinerant. I talked to him about Ballet Hispanico’s upcoming performance at the Harris and the transition back to a new New York via phone.

“It’s certainly changed a lot in the fourteen years I’ve been away. It’s interesting to see how the mayors have worked to take back the public spaces. There’s a lot of Chicago in New York now. On 34th Street, a little kiosk where you can buy sandwiches and sit down… I mean, for me, growing up in the eighties…really? No.” Read the rest of this entry »