Ashley Deran founded A. Deran Photography in 2011 with a focus on dance concert events and dance publicity. Since then, she has photographed for companies including Chicago Dance Crash, The Seldoms, Chicago Repertory Ballet, Inaside Chicago Dance, Chicago Dance History Project, Salty Lark Dance Company, The Chicago Fringe Festival, Columbia College, and Western Michigan University. It is also worth mentioning that Ashley is an established dance artist in Chicago and is the Co-Director of Project Bound Dance. Her keen eye both inside the studio and behind the camera lens, as well as the ability to direct a dancer in both circumstances, produce sharp, expressive images that any dancer would love to have. In this 4PHOTOS, Ashley takes us through the four images that every dancer should have in their portfolio, plus the do's and don'ts on how to get them. Here's a pro's advice on how to put your best foot (and face) forward:
Charlie Cutler is emblematic of many of the secret ingredients in the Crash recipe. Like the Company he cofounded, he knows the art from the inside, but can always see it clearly from the outside. That way, the road stays open in both directions. A fifteen year progression of careful, thoughtful artists have found a place to imagine in detail, and create in multi-dimensions. For those same fifteen years, audiences have found a place to see what those artists created in a context that never forgets what it looks like and feels like from the audience. Here are 4PHOTOS from the past and future story of Chicago Dance Crash ---
You might recognize the face above from your television. That's right -- Chantelle Mrowka most recently graced screens across America as part of the dance company, Diavolo - finalists on this past season America's Got Talent. In the midst of Chantelle's jam packed touring and performance schedule, DancerMusic's Kristi Licera got a chance to ask her about moving across the country, Diavolo, her advice on bouncing back from injuries, and more. Check out what Chantelle had to say, and keep your eye out for her on stages across the US!
Mark Hackman doesn't really need an introduction, all you would have to say is "He's the Producing Director of Chicago Dance Crash, one of Crash's founders", and that should do it. There's actually a lot more to that story, but it will have to wait, because in this one we're handing the mic to Mark, and with no further introduction, here are 4PHOTOS (really 5) with introduction and comments by ---- ready? ---- Mark Hackman.
Chicago Dance Crash has only been tearing up stages, expectations, and entrenched ideas of what a dance company can be for fifteen years? Seems like longer, or at least it seems like more. More than what you could have expected anybody else to do in fifteen short years, but then again, this is Chicago Dance Crash.
Chicago Dance Crash is a company as unique as its artists, with a history of bending the rules of concert dance. In its 15th anniversary season, this band of professional misfits took on the task of creating an original full length production, 'The Bricklayers of Oz' - currently in the running for 'Most Inventive New Work' in Dance Magazine's Readers' Choice Awards 2017. Company Dancer Kristi Licera tells us why this show deserves your vote!
If you've never seen Chicago Dance Crash, now is a good time to find out that you always wanted to. Bricklayers promises to be another rowdy and riveting product of the rich imagination of Jessica Deahr, who directed and choreographed the work with an inspired team of co-conspirators ...
Anyone who knows Lizzie Mackenzie's choreography is probably surprised that she's not better known as a choreographer. She's widely known as a truly exceptional dancer, from her performances with Giordano Dance Chicago and then with River North Dance Chicago, as well as her many guest appearances in high profile special events. She's also well known, especially in the world of preprofessional dance, as the founder and artistic director of Extensions Dance Company, one of the most successful and respected preprofessional dance companies in the country. When she does choreograph, the results are often spectacularly rich; she combines an ability to
Duets for My Valentine is an evening length composition in the diversity of dance, with eleven different dance companies and independent artists each presenting a duet somehow related to that very broad, promising, and potentially difficult subject, romance.
Opposites attract, and not just in the ways that you've probably heard about. Beyond the stereotypes of romance and the science of electromagnetism, there's a thread that runs through some of the most innovative kinds of creativity and reflects much the same idea.