In choreography and in life, you might notice an old flame in passing one day and find that you’ve both matured. The spark reignites as you seize the opportunity to rediscover your connection and find more clarity and fulfillment than before. That is what Jessica Miller Tomlinson has done in her new work to be premiered at Harvest Chicago Contemporary Dance Festival on September 21st and 22nd. She gave us some insight into reigniting the flame on a decade past work. Read on to find out how it grew into a completely new piece from a deeper exploration of the same idea, plus more insights on being a Choreographer in Chicago. Here is what Jessica had to say:
Cerqua Rivera Dance Theater has been on a relentless build-up to their 2018 Fall Concert Series since last April. It's something they've been doing for years, a very carefully planned series of monthly presentations -- they call them Inside / Out --- that bring their audience, their performers, and the creators of their upcoming works together. The settings are informal but the results always informative, an engaging blend of discussion and performance. The last of the 2018 Inside / Out series takes place on Thursday, September 20th at 7pm at Chicago's Fine Arts Building, and it promises to be a great one. The subject is a new work called The Process Takes a Lifetime, an exceptionally rich and well-thought out story by choreographer Joshua Ishmon and --- in keeping with Cerqua Rivera's trademark practice of pairing great choreographers with great composers --- an original score by Pharez Whitted. Of course DancerMusic wanted to find out more, so we asked Joshua Ishmon if he would give us some insight into The Process Takes a Lifetime. Here's what he told us:
They say the best gifts are the ones you make yourself. The time, energy and thoughtfulness put into a handmade item is forever ingrained within it, making it truly unique. Here at DancerMusic, some of the best gift makers we know are the ones that create dance. These choreographers often spend countless hours in the studio creating movement, plus an ample amount of time researching and reflecting to refine what they make. No two creations are ever quite the same, and become more unique when you consider that no two performances of the same piece of choreography are identical. As
Dancers have the unique ability to take a piece of music and really show it to you. You may be thinking, how is that possible? Sound is a wave invisible to the naked eye, and even if you were to see that piece of music performed live, you would see the action that creates the sound, but not the sound itself. Here's where the dancer comes in. If a dancer were to create movement to your favorite song, chances are that dancer would pick up on the nuances in rhythm, accents in instrumentation, the subtle meaning behind the lyrics, and
One of the reasons that Hubbard Street Dance Chicago is known all over the world is because they perform all over the world. Just this summer, audiences in Mexico, Canada, and across the United State have seen them, but when it gets to be the middle of August, if you want to see Hubbard Street perform you have to come to Chicago, and it's been like that for twenty-seven years. Thats how long Hubbard Street Dance Chicago has been performing at Dance for Life -- since the first Dance for Life, and once again this year, they'll be at Dance for Life
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:
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.
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:
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