Robert Battle, artistic director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater since 2011, is hesitant to admit that his first new work for the company, "Awakening," might be just a tiny bit autobio…
Gang rape, sexy virgins, spousal abuse, a racist parody of the love between Othello and Desdemona, a Babel of voices and cultures suggesting the dangers of miscegenation: John Neumeier's bal…
Aiming for your work to be understood is natural, maybe especially in dance. But aiming too hard for understanding, rather than leaving room for the imagination, gives the audience little to…
Aiming for your work to be understood is natural, maybe especially in dance. But aiming too hard for understanding, rather than leaving room for the imagination, gives the audience little to…
Who would want to be 11 again? The cusp of puberty feels like drowning. But that tidal wave of out-of-control change also arguably merely distills, intensifies, the essential mysteries and t…
Who would want to be 11 again? The cusp of puberty feels like drowning. But that tidal wave of out-of-control change also arguably merely distills, intensifies, the essential mysteries and t…
The Joffrey Ballet announced its 2016-17 season Thursday, highlighting the results attained over the last nine years by artistic director Ashley Wheater in his ongoing quest to create a "wor…
The Joffrey Ballet announced its 2016-17 season Thursday, highlighting the results attained over the last nine years by artistic director Ashley Wheater in his ongoing quest to create a "wor…
"Dance is a living art," proclaims Hamburg Ballet artistic director John Neumeier. "If I make a ballet, it's not like I paint a picture and hang it on the wall, or write a book and keep it o…
First my coat and purse were taken. Then the boots had to come off. Finally, I was asked not to haul my pad of paper and pen around but instead to have the true "immersive experience." No no…
First my coat and purse were taken. Then the boots had to come off. Finally, I was asked not to haul my pad of paper and pen around but instead to have the true "immersive experience." No no…
At its best, dance is the most perfect of stage arts, sculpting entire worlds through the most ineffable means: color, light, music, human movement. "Bold Moves" offers three especially dema…
"Music is my main passion," says British choreographer Ashley Page. "I think it always has been. From quite young I've listened to what you'd call 'difficult' music." Taking risks has defin…
"Music is my main passion," says British choreographer Ashley Page. "I think it always has been. From quite young I've listened to what you'd call 'difficult' music." Taking risks has define…
Data overflowing the banks of a storage site doesn't sound a promising premise for a dance. It becomes a suggestive metaphor, however, in Ginger Krebs' world premiere "Buffer Overrun," a stu…
Dancers, like other living creatures, get old. So what? As the aMID Festival begins its final week at Links Hall, it's clear that talented people remain talented, though they might approach …
Dancers, like other living creatures, get old. So what? As the aMID Festival begins its final week at Links Hall, it's clear that talented people remain talented, though they might approach …
The older dancer-choreographers on the aMID Festival's first program were clearly there to have fun. Serious fun. One performer appeared completely nude; another set the audience seats rando…
"Who Wants to See That?" " "that" being old people dancing " is an actual song in the new "Gotta Dance," a Broadway-bound musical which wrapped up its Chicago tryout Jan. 17 at the Bank of A…
"Who Wants to See That?" " "that" being old people dancing " is an actual song in the new "Gotta Dance," a Broadway-bound musical completing its Chicago tryout Jan. 17 at the Bank of America…
Japanese-American dancer Sono Osato, 96, has led a complicated life. And Melissa Thodos' one-act about her had a complicated start, with a chance meeting years ago between Thodos Dance Chica…
January is looking good for hibernation, with just a few performances to tempt folks out. But both locally sourced and international dance jumps up big-time in February and remains strong th…
January is looking good for hibernation, with just a few performances to tempt folks out. But both locally sourced and international dance jumps up big-time in February and remains strong th…
Politics and dance make strange bedfellows. Issue-oriented dance is generally either too oblique, burying the politics, or too overt, becoming preachy and unconvincing, except to the choir. …
Politics and dance make strange bedfellows. Issue-oriented dance is generally either too oblique, burying the politics, or too overt, becoming preachy and unconvincing, except to the choir. …