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:
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:
If you had just happened to walk in on one of Chicago Human Rhythm Project's annual STOMPING GROUNDS performances, that would have been amazing enough. STOMPING GROUNDS is a series of concerts that Chicago Human Rhythm Project has presented across the city of Chicago for the past four years, and it's not like anything else. Chicago Human Rhythm Project brings together a real all-star lineup of percussive dance companies, and to see the bright, energetic, irrestible enthusiasm of percussive dance in so many different forms, from so many different artists, steeped in the heritage of so many cultures, well that wouldn't just be amazing, that's more like a waterfall of amazing experiences, moment after cascading moment. But the Grand Finale of STOMPING GROUNDS promises to be all of that and more. There was so much that we wanted to learn about all of the dimensions of this multifaceted event that we asked Lane Alexander, Founder and Director of Chicago Human Rhythm Project, to give us a little more insight into STOMPING GROUNDS. Here's what he told us: