As artists, the best way for dancers to express and work through something as close to home as body expectations is, of course, through dance. This is exactly what The Joffrey Ballet will be bringing to the stage at Dance for Life 2018 with Myles Thatcher's Body Of Your Dreams. DancerMusic caught up with choreographer Myles Thatcher to learn more about his work, as well as Joffrey Artists Derrick Agnoletti and Nicole Ciapponi to get perspectives on working with Myles and dancing this highly athletic work. Here's what they told us:
Among the many arts of the Art of Dance, freestyling is its own special world, but it includes just about every part of what makes dance an art. Great freestyle starts with having such a range of motion and technique and inspiration that you can present any of it at any moment. Although the creative decisions are made faster than even the fastest of movement, those are the same decisions and the same creativity that are always the essence of making a dance. So it's quite remarkable that at Dance For Life 2018, Chicago Dance Crash is there to freestyle -- which is almost unheard of for such a monumental production. Crash Artistic Director Jessica Deahr took some time to give us a little closer look at four moments from Chicago Dance Crash's very rich freestyle history in 4PHOTOS from Crash. Here we go:
When the average person thinks of Chicago, a few things hit the top of the list: the sports teams, the vibrant downtown scene and its iconic architecture... the wind (and for locals: confusing parking signs and that particular smell of the ‘L’). What does not immediately come to mind is the incredible array of outdoor spaces and field houses that make up the Chicago Park District. Chicagoans all over the city burst out of their winter hidey-holes to enjoy the fresh summer air and sunshine, and people from the world over come to the more well-known parks for events like
Nobody ever got the idea to become a dancer by reading the Encyclopedia of Easy Jobs. It's an exceptionally demanding profession, and one of its constantly recurring challenges is discovering and deciding where to even try to work. Side by side with the widely varied possibilities in Concert Dance is a parallel but largely separate universe: Commercial Dance, and that can be a wide world, in many different ways. DancerMusic spoke to Hedwig Dances' Crystal Gurrola, to find out about one kind of opportunity that a dancer may encounter -- accepting the opportunity to dance commercially overseas. Here's what Crystal told us about her time dancing in Japan.
JUBA! Masters of Tap and Percussive Dance is not one, but two dance concerts. Although both are presentations of some of the most gifted percussive dance artists you can see anywhere, and both will be an intoxicating mixture of sophisticated choreography and inspired improvisation, they're actually two completely different programs. We talked to Dani Borak, Chicago Human Rhythm Project's Artist in Residence, to find out more about JUBA!, and we couldn't have found a better person to ask. Here's what he told us:
Like many summer programs, Deeply Rooted's four-week summer intensive offers technique classes and gives participants the opportunity to learn, rehearse, and perform select pieces of DRDT repertory. But here's what makes this program special: in addition to technique and repertory, select summer scholarship awardees are invited for an additional two-week process prior to the intensive to participate in the creative process of up-and-coming choreographers. These choreographic works are then presented in the intensive's culminating performance in a feature called the Emerging Choreographers Showcase. In this way, DRDT's summer intensive also serves as a creative incubator for the selected choreographers. In conjunction with sharing a program with some of DRDT's most accomplished choreographers and most beloved works, the emerging choreographers are also given access to the many tools they need to reach their choreographic vision including rehearsal space, a cast of talented dancers, and administrative support. Recently, DancerMusic's Kristi Licera caught up with Emerging Choreographers’ Showcase Producing Director Joshua Ishmon to learn more about the showcase and the choreographers involved. Here's what Joshua told us:
How in the world would you do a PRE-View of Rhythm World, Chicago Human Rhythm Project's amazing annual festival of tap and percussive dance? If you've been to see us at DancerMusic before, you know that our PRE-Views are here to tell the world about events that are interesting, exciting, entertaining and cool, so that everybody can go see them and not miss them. Rhythm World is all of that for sure, so what's the problem? The problem is that Chicago Human Rhythm Project's Rhythm World is like the big, long, eighty-car freight train of cool, entertaining, interesting and exciting. So what did we do? We redesigned our PRE-View format to include a new SPEED ROUND of questions for CHRP's Founder and Director Lane Alexander. Here's what he told us:
Ask a dancer to jump, and they'll ask, "How high?" Chances are you will get a graceful, elegant leap. Ask a dancer to turn, and they'll ask, "How many times?" Ah, look at those lovely, effortless pirouettes. Now, ask that dancer to climb up a twenty-foot piece of fabric with the same grace and poise, and the most likely outcome is that dancer will say nothing, and all you will be staring at is one very, very skeptical and confused face. Unless, that is, that dancer happens to be one of the artists at Aerial Dance Chicago. These gravity defying
There can't be too many things in Dance more complicated, more challenging, or more promising than the collaboration between choreographer and composer. But there probably aren't too many people in Dance or Music better able to tell us about the mysteries of this process than Joe Cerqua. Cerqua is the Co-Founder of Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre, and at Cerqua Rivera, dance and music are richly and relentlessly interwoven in everything the Company even thinks about. We thought this would be perfect time to ask Joe to tell us about working with Sherry Zunker on "Between Us", which Cerqua Rivera will perform at Dance for Life 2018. Oh yeah, we also asked him to give us a quick look at the new piece he's working on with Monique Haley. Here's what he told us:
On Friday, June 29th, and again on Sunday, July 1, Thodos Dance Chicago and DanceWorks Chicago will present the very latest incarnation of a legendary dance event, NEW Dances. Audiences at Chicago's Ruth Page Center for the Arts will see a brand new dance company, specially formed for this performance, in works by six choreographers, specially made for NEW Dances. This year marks a new beginning, adding a present and a future to the story of New Dances. Two of the most influential, and most creatively community-aware professionals in Chicago dance -- Melissa Thodos and Julie Nakagawa -- decided last year to transition the New Dances event to a joint effort by DanceWorks Chicago and Thodos Dance Chicago. The performances feature new works by choreographers Shannon Alvis, Braeden Barnes, Katlin Michael Bourgeois, J’Sun Howard, Chris Johnson, and Anna Long. We asked both Melissa and Julie to let us in on a little more of this story, and here's what they told us: