On Saturday, May 12 at 8pm Evanston's excellent new dance and music venue Studio5 will present an evening called Ballet Now -- a joint performance of two of the Chicago dance scene's most imaginative and convincing independent contemporary ballet companies. We asked CRB's Wade Schaaf to tell us a little about Ballet Now and here's what he told us:
Unique, intriguing, and compelling are three words that come to mind when describing Alice Klock. There are a lot of different sides to the Chicago-based artist; Alice is a dancer, a painter, as well as a choreographer. I recently got the opportunity to work with Alice on one of her newest creations with Hubbard Street’s Professional Program (HS Pro). During the process I chatted with her about her choreographic exploration and perspective as an emerging female choreographer. Here is what she told us:
Everybody knows that behind the stage, there's a completely different world called backstage, where all kinds of professionals do all kinds of work to make what happens on stage be the best it can possibly be. In the multifaceted universe of Chicago dance, there's another scene behind the scene backstage, where other professionals do all kinds of other work to help the Chicago dance scene be the best it can be. One of the most noteworthy of these back of backstage scenes is See Chicago Dance. Heather Hartley is the Executive Director of See Chicago Dance, and we asked her to give us a better understanding about some of the many things that make this organization so valuable and so unique. It makes for a fascinating set of stories -- there's a lot happening in this scene behind the scene. Here's what Heather told us:
On Saturday, April 7, the audience for Visceral Dance Chicago's SpringFive performance will see choreographer Kevin O'Day's latest work, the World Premier of "A Fine Line", and there wasn't much time between when (a) we heard about this and (b) we knew we wanted to hear more about this. So we reached out to Kevin and learned all kinds of interesting things about "A Fine Line", about working with Visceral, and about Kevin O'Day's rich and humane understanding of the art of dance, and for that matter, the art of understanding. Here's what he told us:
Manuel Vignoulle's ability to create intensely engaging choreography is something that a lot of people in the dance world have known about for a while now. Not surprisingly though, his choreography gets even more attention now, because last November, his work Black and White was awarded the 2017 Choreography Festival Grand Prize Award at the McCallum Theatre Choreography Festival.
When it comes to dance, Shannon Alvis has pretty much done it all! Not only has she danced with two of the most renowned companies in the world - Hubbard Street Dance Chicago (HSDC) and Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT), she was also a recipient of the Joffrey Ballet’s Winning Work’s Choreographic Competition in 2017. I got the chance to chat with Shannon about some of her most pivotal moments in her career as well as what she is working on next. Here is what she told 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.
The very heart of what a dance company has to share with its audience is the choreography and its performance. Here we've reached out to Amy Sanderson, Ballet 5:8's Executive Director, and along with several of the performers in Ballet 5:8's "Compass", she shares with us some more of what Ballet 5:8's audience at Chicago's Athenaeum Theatre will see.
Inaside Chicago Dance begins their fifteenth season with their Fall Concert on Saturday, October 28. Performing for the first time at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie, the Company presents an evening of dance that combines ballet, ballroom and jazz, under the direction of artistic director Robert McKee.
Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre opens its fall concert series, "Alone/Together", at Links Hall, October 5 - 7. DancerMusic's Kristi Licera has been keeping up with the artists at CRDT throughout the season. See what she has learned about this creative, mind-opening evening of dance:
