Tuesday, November 16, 2021
Happy holidays! Live shows and events are back this year, and if you've missed celebrating — be it Scrooge or caroling at the Bean — we have a holiday list.
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00AMThursday, October 14, 2021
Joffrey’s Lyric debut runs the emotional gamut, with “Birthday Variations” as the sweet icing on top of the cake.
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:33PMWednesday, October 6, 2021
Our list for October, including Halloween theater, family outings in the suburbs and a few in the category of truly horrifying.
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00AMWednesday, September 29, 2021
The musical, which recently won multiple Tonys in its Broadway production, will launch the tour next February at the Nederlander Theatre in the Loop, starring Connor Ryan as Christian and El…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:35PMWednesday, September 8, 2021
Dance companies have been managing their return to live performances in fits and starts, this fall including Deeply Rooted, the Joffrey finally at the Lyric and fan favorites by Ensemble Esp…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00AMTuesday, June 18, 2019
In the summer of 2002, I remember improvising with my Columbia College classmates at Links Hall. We were dressed in black jazz pants and white T-shirts — in hindsight, white T-shirts in Ju…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 06:00AMSaturday, June 15, 2019
Perhaps I’ll start at the end. In the post-performance Q&A for “The Internal Geometry,” a world premiere by Natya Dance Theatre at Links Hall, artistic director Hema Rajagopalan sp…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:15PMSunday, June 9, 2019
If Chicago Tap Theatre (CTT) is known for one thing outside the dance world, it’s probably their Pride-themed extravaganzas. Tap dancing, beloved LGBT arts organizations like the Chicago G…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:00AMFriday, May 31, 2019
Dance offerings at Ravinia are not nearly as robust as they used to be, but the festival’s long-standing kinship with Chicago legend Ruth Page and her legacy remains, 93 years after Page f…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:55PMThis was no ordinary night at the CSO. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra has invited dancers to the stage at Orchestra Hall on a handful of occasions, but surprisingly, a collaborative concert …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:50PMThursday, May 23, 2019
Choreographer Stephanie Martinez is a chameleon. She spent much of her performance career at River North Dance Chicago, and upon retirement began creating dances for contemporary and hip-hop…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:00PMSaturday, May 18, 2019
If, like me, your only knowledge of Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg is the company’s 2017 trip to Chicago for “Red Giselle,” the North American premiere of artistic director Boris Eifm…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:35PMTuesday, May 14, 2019
“Considering this city’s black thumb when applied to grass roots dance companies, I feel a compulsion to fly some zeppelin blimp over the Dance Troupe’s home at 1725 N. Wells St.” Gi…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 06:00AMWednesday, May 1, 2019
In the summer of 2016, Alexei Kremnev and Anna Reznik formed A&A Ballet. The husband and wife team, originally from Russia, had just lost their positions as directors at the Joffrey Acad…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:00PMThursday, April 25, 2019
If you’ve ever watched the sun rise from the seat of a red-eye flight, then you have an idea of what Andrew McNicol’s “Yonder Blue” looks and feels like. “Yonder Blue” opens the …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:00PMFriday, April 12, 2019
Once upon a time, a boy and his cronies go to celebrate their first holy communion at a candy shop in town. The boy gets a belly ache and falls ill, while the candy shop comes alive with mag…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:00AMTuesday, April 9, 2019
As word traveled that American Ballet Theatre (ABT) was making a new ballet based on Richard Strauss’ “Whipped Cream,” I think my reaction was similar to most everyone else: Wait, Stra…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 06:00AMSaturday, April 6, 2019
A timeline of Western dance history usually starts in France, with the royal courts of Louis XIV, the Sun King. Russia is a key stakeholder, credited with the classical aesthetic which broug…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:30PMSaturday, March 30, 2019
Ordinarily, I wouldn’t call William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” particularly timeless — important, obviously, but a bit of a relic. Modern adaptations of the 400-year-old play contextu…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:50PMTuesday, March 12, 2019
Dancer, choreographer and vocalist Jasmin Williams is moving. The 23-year-old Chicago native has lived in Los Angeles, New York and various places in Europe. Hyde Park is home, but she’s f…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00AMThursday, March 7, 2019
The cornerstone of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s 60th anniversary season is “Lazarus,” the company’s first two-act work in its history, created by choreographer-in-residence R…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:15PMFriday, March 1, 2019
When “Giselle” premiered in Paris in 1841, it was an immediate success, part of a trend revitalizing ballet for everyday socialites by abandoning the Greek legends preferred by the Frenc…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:45AMThursday, February 28, 2019
The first time Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater performed at the Auditorium Theatre was Feb. 11, 1969. “Mr. Ailey is right up with the times,” wrote Tribune critic Thomas Willis of the…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00AMTuesday, February 19, 2019
Few productions at the Harris Theater have been more highly anticipated than the North American premiere of English National Ballet’s “Giselle.” Running Feb. 28-Mar. 2, the tour of thi…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:40AMFriday, February 15, 2019
Sometimes, a dance can be greater than the sum of its parts. I came away from “Shyamali: Sprouting Words” – through Saturday at the Dance Center by Minneapolis-based Ananya Dance Theat…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 09:30AMThursday, February 14, 2019
As the overture to composer Ilya Demutsky’s glorious score swelled under the baton of Maestro Scott Speck on Wednesday, haze filled the house of the Auditorium Theatre and billowed across …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:15AMTuesday, February 5, 2019
Dame Libby Komaiko, the founding artistic director of Ensemble Espanol Spanish Dance Theater, died Saturday at Chicago’s Illinois Masonic Hospital of pneumonia, according to Ensemble Espan…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:00PMSunday, February 3, 2019
For the company’s first full evening at home in a decade, the Trinity Irish Dance Company commanded the Auditorium Theatre’s big, beautiful stage on Saturday. The engagement is the secon…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:00PMFriday, January 25, 2019
It was in 2013, with the addition of Stanton Welch’s “La Bayadere” and Lar Lubovitch’s “Othello” to the repertoire of the Joffrey Ballet, that I began to notice a concerted effor…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 08:00AMSaturday, January 12, 2019
Founded in 1992, the Twin Cities-based Ragamala Dance Company made its Harris Theater debut Friday with the company’s 25th anniversary performance “Written in Water.” The hour-long wor…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:30PMFriday, January 11, 2019
When going to a RE | Dance Group show, there are a couple things you can usually count on: 1) unapologetically long passages of pretty dancing; 2) poetry woven into the fabric of the dance w…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:00AM 
