Joshua Manculich's new work "Scenic Route" will be part of DanceWorks Chicago's "DanceFlight" at Chicago's Ruth Page Center for the Arts, and of course we wanted to hear more about what went into making the work. Here's what Joshua told us:
Hedwig Dances brings together choreographers Rigoberto Saura and Taimy Ramos in "SEA LEVEL: Above and Below". We asked these rising choreographers about Saura's "The Flowering Mechanism" and Ramos' "A Flor de Piel", and here's what they told us:
Gavin Sutherland is the Music Director of English National Ballet, and he's a master of an invisible art. He knows how a dancer moves to sound, and how to keep the sounds that come from an orchestra of musicians moving perfectly with a stage full of dancers. He knows every part in detail, and he knows how to make each of them part of all of the others. DancerMusic wanted to learn more about all of this --- about the complex choreography of collaborations that are the heart of Gavin Sutherland's art. So we asked him if he would give us a look inside the art of bringing music to dance, and here's what he told us:
Each year, a dozen or more companies of young dancers gather to present the annual benefit Dance for Life's Next Generation, and in twenty five years it has come to be known not only as a showcase for imaginative and talented young artists, but even more as an iconic collaboration of good will. We asked Diane Rawlinson to tell us more about this widely anticipated event, which takes place this year on March 3rd at 5pm at Wheeling High School's Sang Theatre. Here's what she told us:
Teaching is everything, it's the future and the past. Each moment is a pivot in time, where what has been experienced becomes a guiding light for experiences not yet encountered. Teaching is more than just an important part of Dance, it's part of every process in Dance, and it's an art that Ethan Kirschbaum has studied carefully. We asked Ethan about why he loves teaching, how he understands the art of teaching, what he hopes for in teaching, and what he's learned about teaching dance. Here's what he told us:
Although nobody talks about it very much, courage is an important part of dance. It takes courage to go on stage and perform of course, but it also takes courage to keep facing the reality of imperfection, a reality that in some ways becomes more vivid the more you find the courage to improve. Then there are even more intimidating, more difficult challenges, some of them very frightening, and that's when you need courage just to keep going. Paige Fraser has always done that and more. When she was awarded a Princess Grace Award, when she was named by Dance Magazine to their prestigious 25 to Watch, and all of the other times that her work has been so widely admired, many people might have thought that it was because of her exceptional gifts as a performer, and of course it was. But the only reason anyone ever got to see Paige Fraser's always-impressive performances is because she kept going, even when anyone with less courage might have given up. Fraser has begun to turn more of her attention to choreography, and her latest work is a twenty-five minute piece entitled ASCENSION for Northwestern University. We wanted to hear more from Paige about her work as a choreographer, and especially about ASCENSION, so we asked her to give us an idea of what we'll see in March at Northwestern's Josephine Louis Theater. Here's what she told us:
If you go to see Trinity Irish Dance Company at Chicago's Auditorim Theatre (on Saturday, February 2nd at 7:30pm), you may very well be enchanted by the riveting visual pageant of intricately imagined movement, and you may be mesmerized by the complex rhythmic score. But if you've read any of the things people have said about this company, you might not be entirely surprised; their performances from New York to Tokyo and a lot of places in between get big time respect. What is more likely to surprise you is how unique, how completely in its own space this exceptionally creative performance is. Mark Howard is the founder and Artistic Director of Trinity Irish Dance Company, and the process, patience, and unending possibilities for inspiration that have become Trinity Irish Dance Company were something that we wanted to learn much more about, so we asked him. Here's what he told us:
Community is important. When people pay attention to what community is, what it can be, and who it is exactly that they're talking about, it can also be a dynamic, inspiring, unpredictable wellspring of creativity. Especially in dance. The Big Muddy Dance Company is quite a community in and of itself, but in their performance on Saturday, January 26 at St. Louis' Grandel Theatre of their "Home Grown" program, Big Muddy is reaching out to an even wider community, and we wanted to hear more about it. We asked Artistic Director Brian Enos and Executive Director Erin Warner Prange about "Home Grown", and here's what they told us:
Dance is often an exploration of personal understanding. The wordless intensity of carefully designed movement offers a uniquely rich canvas for vision, and for innervision. This focused consciousness, this awareness of the complex interactions of personal understanding, infuses the entire process of dance. This vision, this exploration, is a continuous component of imagining movement, practicing movement, co-ordinating and performing the movement design we call choreography. On Friday, January 11 and on Saturday, January 12, cocodaco Dance Project will present a performance of three works, all choreographed by Artistic Director David Maurice, that display many of the different dimensions of this exploration of personal understanding. The program is entitled Statement Enclosed and the audiences at The North Shore Center For the Performing Arts will see three new works, Dope Diamond, Okinawa Beast, and a giddy whisper. We asked David about what he discovered and what he's created in making these three works, and here's what he told us:
Darryl Joseph is an independent producer with an intricately careful sense of how to put beats together. Originally from New York and now living in Chicago, his solo tracks are often sparse and electronic, and always elegantly designed. He's found himself more and more in demand as more and more people have heard his work, not only as a sought-after collaborator for vocalists, but also for choreographers. His gift for enthusiastic collaboration as much as for composition has led to recent projects with Stephanie Martinez, Christopher Huggins, Nick Pupillo, and now with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago Choreographic Fellow Rena Butler. We asked Darryl about a lot of different things --- composing for dance, working with Rena Butler, what's up next for him, and more -- and here's what he told us.