Dancer Music
  • About
  • Contact
  • About
  • Contact
4PHOTOSChoreography and Concert DanceDancerMusic ExclusiveJazz and BluesMusic

4PHOTOS: Cerqua Rivera’s Fall Series with Executive Director Catherine Painter

October 24, 2018 October 24, 2018 Kristi Licera

A major contributor to success in life is the ability to consistently make the right choices (easier said than done!). It’s especially difficult when the success of others relies on those choices, and even more troublesome when you consider that every choice made creates a ripple that will inevitably effect the variety and outcome of new opportunities. When you are a dance company, that ripple extends not only to each audience member at a performance, but further to the presenters and employees at the theater, the community surrounding the theater, and to the dance and arts community at large. When you are Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre, those ripples often feel more like a series of waves.

Now on the cusp of their twentieth anniversary season, CRDT’s success is due largely in part to the consistently strong choices of Artistic Director and Co-founder Wilfredo Rivera. As from the beginning, Wilfredo’s passion, creativity, and commitment to artistic collaboration continue to lead the company to new performance venues, new audiences, and new creative projects that push the boundaries of both the individual artist and the ensemble as a whole.

Behind the scenes, there is another person integral to the success and growth of Cerqua Rivera – Executive Director Catherine Painter. For the last five years, Catherine has worked alongside the artistic team at CRDT to ensure that their unique mixture of dance and live music can reach as many communities as possible. The work and thought she has put behind each and every choice for Cerqua Rivera culminated last year in the company’s first ever three-venue tour of Chicago. This year’s Fall Concert Series placed CRDT back to the same three venues: the series opened in Evanston, traveled down to Lakeview, and will soon close in Hyde Park. The big difference is the program has already made a much bigger splash than in the previous season, and there’s still one performance to go.

DancerMusic’s Kristi Licera caught up with Catherine to learn more about Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre and the choices they continue to make that create the enriching experience the Fall Concert Series offers their audiences. Here’s what Catherine told us:

________________________________________

…both musicians and dancers need to be active participants – giving and responding.

Having a jazz band as well as a dance ensemble is a defining characteristic of Cerqua Rivera. It takes a certain type of musician. The band is made up of fine jazz musicians comfortable with improvising, with learning music that evolves over the course of the year and with interacting with composers who might be playing right alongside them. In performance, they must do more than watch our Music Director and stay on track musically. The dancers drive and respond to the tempo and mood, and both musicians and dancers need to be active participants – giving and responding. Often the musicians bring their instruments into the dance space and you can see the back and forth quite literally. Our musicians also have to be game to perform in lots of different spaces, whether it’s a theater setting for a concert or a small dance studio for an Inside/Out (preview) event. The Cerqua Rivera band can roll with all this and make it look easy.

— Catherine Painter

…even when membership evolves year to year the dance ensemble is recognizably Cerqua Rivera.

Every year, our dance ensemble includes some returning members and some new ones. It is amazing to see them gel into a cohesive whole over the course of the season. Our Co-founder and Artistic Director Wilfredo Rivera fosters their individual contributions as well as their collective energy. This year was both unique and typical. In addition to our 2018 new work, we revived a piece to perform at Dance for Life. The dancers also learned work from our repertoire for school and community programs. I think it really speaks to Wilfredo’s leadership and the kind of dancers he recruits that all of this works so well, and that even when membership evolves year to year the dance ensemble is recognizably Cerqua Rivera.

— Catherine Painter

I think this is what draws audiences in. They can feel the bonds among our artists and they feel welcomed into the experience because of that.

The community and the collaborative environment of Cerqua Rivera is really unique. For the past four years, we’ve shared it over the season in our Inside/Out programming and it’s clear in our fall concert series too. It’s more than dancers performing to the music the band plays or the band simply playing a score. At times it feels like a trust fall, with one of our artists performing a segment of music or dance knowing that a fellow artist will be joining in. Not every artist would be comfortable in that vulnerable position, but ours are. And instead of looking like a tightrope act, it strikes me as a gathering, growing chorus. I think this is what draws audiences in. They can feel the bonds among our artists and they feel welcomed into the experience because of that.

— Catherine Painter

A theater full of interested, responsive people creates this pinball effect – with the artists’ and audience’s energy bouncing off and building off one another.

A big change for the company in the past few years has been where we’ve chosen to perform. Every year we select Inside/Out and concert locations that suit our audiences and our art work. It’s not just about what we can afford to rent. That sort of one-sided relationship doesn’t work for us – perhaps not surprisingly given how central collaboration and community are at Cerqua Rivera. We partner with organizations to bring something new to their audiences, to reach different audiences in different parts of the city, and to bring our friends and fans together with people who’ve never experienced Cerqua Rivera before. So far – if I can brag for a second – this year’s fall concert series is a great example. We’ve had full houses at both Studio5 in Evanston and Links Hall in west Lakeview. A theater full of interested, responsive people creates this pinball effect – with the artists’ and audience’s energy bouncing off and building off one another. It’s been just electric.

— Catherine Painter

________________________________________

Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre’s 2018 Fall Concert Series concludes October 27, 2018 at 7:30 pm in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood at the Reva & David Logan Center for the Arts (University of Chicago, 915 E 60th St, Chicago, IL 60637).

Tickets available online from UChicago Arts or at www.cerquarivera.org/tickets.

________________________________________

PHOTO CREDITS and Artist IDs (Top to Bottom): All photographs courtesy of Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre by Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth • Kristen Vasilakos in “Sin Fronteras” • CRDT Composer and Musician Pharez Whitted (Foreground) and Musician Julie Wood (Background) • Dancers (L to R) Rachel Spies, Shelby Moran, Joe Musiel, and Sara Schroerlucke in “American Catracho Part 3” with members of the CRDT jazz band • Choreographer Monique Haley with the CRDT dance ensemble and musicians • Dancers (L to R) Briana Arthur and Kristen Vasilakos in “The Process Takes a Lifetime”

 

4PHOTOSCerqua Rivera Dance Theatrechicagochicago danceChicago Dance CommunitychoreographyConcert DanceContemporary DancedanceDance PhotographyFeaturedHyde ParkJazzJazz DanceJazz MusicReva and David Logan Center for the ArtsWilfredo Rivera
Kristi LiceraOctober 24, 2018
Kristi Licera

Kristi Licera

Kristi Licera is DancerMusic's Dance Editor. A professional dancer based out of Chicago, IL, she began her dance training at age 8 in her hometown, Rancho Cucamonga, Kristi graduated Summa Cum Laude with a BA in Dance from California State University, Fullerton. Upon graduation, she joined Keshet Dance Company (Albuquerque, NM). Since relocating to Chicago, Kristi has had the honor of performing works with Thodos Dance Chicago, Noumenon Dance Ensemble, South Chicago Dance Theater, Movement Revolution Dance Company, and has worked with a number of independent artists. Kristi actively teaches youth and adult dance classes throughout the Chicagoland area and is a company artist with Chicago Dance Crash.

Here's more ...

4PHOTOS: Twenty Years of New Dances, With Jeff Hancock, Joshua Manculich and Amy Wilkinson

October 24, 2018 October 24, 2018

5 Questions With Composer David Jennings About Music, the Art of Collaboration and L-Theory Collective

October 24, 2018 October 24, 2018

A Dancer’s Quarantine: Finding Hope and Moving Forward with Kristi Licera

October 24, 2018 October 24, 2018

Featured Stories

4PHOTOS: Twenty Years of New Dances, With Jeff Hancock, Joshua Manculich and Amy Wilkinson

June 18, 2020 June 19, 2020

5 Questions With Composer David Jennings About Music, the Art of Collaboration and L-Theory Collective

June 10, 2020 June 10, 2020

A Dancer’s Quarantine: Finding Hope and Moving Forward with Kristi Licera

May 11, 2020 October 13, 2020

More Stories About Dance and Choreography

4PHOTOS: Twenty Years of New Dances, With Jeff Hancock, Joshua Manculich and Amy Wilkinson

June 18, 2020 June 19, 2020

5 Questions With Composer David Jennings About Music, the Art of Collaboration and L-Theory Collective

June 10, 2020 June 10, 2020

A Dancer’s Quarantine: Finding Hope and Moving Forward with Kristi Licera

May 11, 2020 October 13, 2020

The Real Story: Movement Revolution Dance Crew presents “Opposites Attract” with Artistic Director Monte Rezell

March 10, 2020 March 10, 2020

The Real Story: Hedwig Dances’ Founding Artistic Director Jan Bartoszek on “LIGHT PLAY”

March 10, 2020 March 10, 2020

More Stories About Music

5 Questions With Composer David Jennings About Music, the Art of Collaboration and L-Theory Collective

June 10, 2020 June 10, 2020

The Real Story: Trinity Irish Dance Company at The Auditorium Theatre with Chelsea Hoy

February 24, 2020 February 25, 2020

INSIDE: Zachary Whittenburg on “Floor Show”—a production inspired by the sound and vision of David Bowie

February 11, 2020 February 25, 2020
The Big Muddy Dance Company (Photo Courtesy of The Big Muddy Dance Company)

The Real Story: Inside The Big Muddy Dance Company’s “Beat Ballads” With Choreographer Shannon Alvis

January 21, 2020 January 21, 2020

5 Questions With Wilfredo Rivera About America, Americans and Cerqua Rivera’s 20th

September 20, 2019 September 30, 2019

#FINDINGMUSIC

If you're looking for music from artists you might not know (but just might love), look here. If you're looking for music for your next Choreography project, that's here too.

Just click on whatever style you want to listen to, and you'll be #FindingMusic in no time.

HOUSE & TRANCE
BEATS
COOL ROCK
COUNTRY
CLASSICAL & SOUNDTRACK
JAZZ & BLUES
THROWBACKS

Copyright 2010-2019 DancerMusic