Sunday, August 28, 2016
Street dance doesn't get much respect — and that includes Chicago's homegrown style, footworking. Though kids have been doing it on the West and South sides for nearly 30 years, in parking…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:24PMWednesday, August 24, 2016
We're not exactly provincial in Chicago; there's a pretty hefty smorgasbord of dance here. Still, many classics of 20th century dance aren't often seen on our stages, especially danced by th…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:00PMSunday, August 21, 2016
Given the chance, most people would choose order over chaos for their own lives. But somehow a bit of chaos doesn't hurt when it comes to art: the theater script that doesn't fit neatly toge…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:20PMFriday, August 19, 2016
What's it like to be brown or black in the city of Chicago? My stepson, who's African-American, was once handcuffed in our yard for trying to go into his own house through the back door. He'…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:36PMMonday, August 15, 2016
With a massive undertaking like the Chicago Dancing Festival, which features multiple programs of multiple companies, planning is both essential — and impossible to perfect. Still, festiva…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:19PMSaturday, August 13, 2016
A hardboiled detective, lounging in his office after dark, savors his solitude with a bottle and a shot glass. There's a knock at the door, and when the dame enters, she's wearing a long ove…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:30AMMonday, August 8, 2016
"In the beginning, I think they wanted to do something to help the cause," says choreographer Randy Duncan, speaking about the performers who first gathered in his now-annual Dance for Life …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:07PMFriday, July 22, 2016
Something about tap dance feels thrillingly existential. As one intensely unplanned moment follows another, the synergy of dance and music seems beyond control, like a wind that blows strong…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:08PMSunday, July 17, 2016
Imagine assembling an ocean liner in your basement, then carting it out onto a body of water, hoping it will float. That must be something like the experience Thodos Dance Chicago has mounti…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:37PMTuesday, July 12, 2016
"I tried to make sure Coltrane's poem was the foundation of what we were doing," says tap dancer Jumaane Taylor. "It was a turning point in his life, and that really moved me. So I used his …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:35PMSaturday, July 9, 2016
Biting off more than anyone could comfortably chew, Chicago Dance Crash tackles good and evil in the new "Evil & Good," a rough collection of nine vignettes that actually achieves a semblanc…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:56PMSunday, June 26, 2016
Drag queens, a marching band, a stunt bicyclist, a cheerleading squad and an emcee in stiletto platforms with his own posse of two: "We Will Tap You! A Celebration of the Music of Queen" was…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:42PMSunday, June 19, 2016
You almost feel you've stumbled into a bridal situation, with yards of tulle draped here and there, flowers littering the perimeter of the space, many glittery surfaces, and four nymph/bride…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:48AMTuesday, June 14, 2016
When Dame Libby Komaiko started Ensemble Espanol Spanish Dance Theater with a few student-dancers in 1976, "I wasn't thinking it was going to be like this! I had no idea it would grow into t…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 09:06AMSunday, June 12, 2016
It's not easy to pack the Auditorium, even if you don't count the balconies. But Giordano Dance Chicago did that Saturday, in a one-night performance that concluded this season's Made in Chi…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:50PMTuesday, May 31, 2016
Basically a tap-dance rehearsal is a matter of seeing, hearing and doing, its nuts and bolts the rhythms the feet make and the shapes the body takes. But watching choreographer Lane Alexande…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:52PMSaturday, May 28, 2016
A dozen dancers, all colors and ages, stand in a circle, facing in. They don't stand for long. Instead they stamp, flap and flutter their feet, each in his or her own way, taking their turns…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:42PMMonday, May 23, 2016
The bigger and better known a company, usually, the bigger the venue. That's also the usual direction dance artists hope to take. So it's a little crazy that choreographer Robyn Mineko Willi…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:10PMFriday, May 13, 2016
The avant-garde wouldn't have such a bad name if all artists cared for their audiences the way most of the six in "Dance Shelter 2016" do. It's a shame that, as usual, the Chicago Moving Com…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:06PMThursday, May 12, 2016
The seeds of Sir Frederick Ashton's mercurial "Cinderella" are buried in its Sergei Prokofiev score. Listening to the overture, with its quicksilver transformations from major to minor keys …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:33PMMonday, May 9, 2016
Who hasn't sympathized with Cinderella when the clock is about to strike midnight, her pretty coach milliseconds away from reverting to a pumpkin, she herself about to be exposed in rags? Wh…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 06:58PMFriday, May 6, 2016
The '60s were a confusing and pugnacious time, with more pushing and shoving than a Donald Trump rally (so far). What do we do with such times? We try to understand them; witness the thousan…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:14PMSunday, May 1, 2016
Major ballet companies are like battleships: big, heavy, built for rather antiquated displays of power, costly and difficult to keep afloat. But dance is a better use of resources than war, …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:35PMFriday, April 29, 2016
Fluidity marks the work of choreographer Kyle Abraham, fluidity of feeling, perception, movement. That protean force, applied to the outrageously long-lived issue of black people's civil rig…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:00PMMonday, April 25, 2016
"They come in and they look like bomber jets, because they're in a straight formation and they kind of swoop around," says Lourdes Lopez, artistic director of Miami City Ballet, describing t…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:01PMTuesday, April 12, 2016
Several women sit motionless on stools, hands resting in their laps or on their knees, eyes closed — but flashing open at unpredictable times with a look of pleasure, astonishment, appreci…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:36PMSunday, April 10, 2016
Nick Pupillo has come into his own with "SpringThree," the one-night third-season showcase for his young company, Visceral Dance Chicago, Saturday at the Harris. Though he's been a risk take…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:22PMNick Pupillo has come into his own with “SpringThree,” the one-night third-season showcase for his young company, Visceral Dance Chicago, on Saturday at the Harris. Though he’s been a …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:15PMSaturday, April 9, 2016
Choreographers sometimes create concrete worlds for their otherworldly work using props and set pieces. Long one of the most imaginative and diligent of those artists, Jan Bartoszek of Hedwi…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:55PMChoreographers sometimes create concrete worlds for their otherworldly work using props and set pieces. Long one of the most imaginative and diligent of those artists, Jan Bartoszek of Hedwi…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:42PMWednesday, April 6, 2016
Delight defines Mark Morris' "Dido and Aeneas." Delight in sex, in music, in pathos, in mischief and even evil. Delight despite the ancient tragic story of love betrayed, and despite the his…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:28PM 
