300 stories by "Laura Molzahn"
"TightWire" opens promisingly. A smoky, sepia-toned stage emerges from the darkness, and we hear the chugging of cleat-clad feet offstage, re-creating the rhythms of an approaching train. Th…
Herding cats: Now there's a skill politicians could use today. Lyndon Baines Johnson, our folksy dictator-president of the '60s, had it by the ton, alternately muscling and charming his vict…
Herding cats: Now there's a skill politicians could use today. Lyndon Baines Johnson, our folksy dictator-president of the early '60s, had it by the ton, alternately muscling and charming hi…
Personal history, family lore, myth, rumor and imagination went into the making of "Hep Hep Sweet Sweet," says choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar. "It's about my family's migration from Te…
With so many dance troupes lying somewhere on the broad spectrum of classical contemporary dance, it can be hard to pin down style and mission for any of them. More to the point is the quali…
You may be totally done with the beer bottles on the parkway, but who can resist the capering kids of St. Patrick's Day? They're everywhere, it seems, beating out the rhythms of Irish dance,…
You may be totally done with the beer bottles on the parkway, but who can resist the capering kids of St. Patrick's Day? They're everywhere, it seems, beating out the rhythms of Irish dance,…
"See the music, hear the dance" is perhaps George Balanchine's best-known pithy remark. It's also the one that choreographer Gustavo Ramirez Sansano has taken to heart.
If a dance company has prospered for nearly 60 years, it's not only doing something right, it's moving forward. But Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater takes a step back this season, at least…
What can you say about the perfect, wholly committed embodiment of an incomprehensible form? A chasm divides Westerners' understanding and treatment of religion from the ancient, highly codi…
What can you say about the perfect, wholly committed embodiment of an incomprehensible form? A chasm divides Westerners' understanding and treatment of religion from the ancient, highly codi…
"People dance who they are," says choreographer Alonzo King. "Moving is thought in action. So when you see great movers, you're actually seeing great thinkers."
"People dance who they are," says choreographer Alonzo King. "Moving is thought in action. So when you see great movers, you're actually seeing great thinkers."
"Relationship" has become an empty word: a Facebook status, some vaguely defined romantic attachment. But, truly, what is a relationship, and how is it formed? Or destroyed?
When brothers Paolo and Rodrigo Pederneiras and their siblings " who'd studied ballet and contemporary dance as teenagers " decided on dance careers in the mid-'70s, their hometown of Belo H…
Among Melissa Thodos' accomplishments " beyond guiding her company to its 23rd season, no small feat " is expanding its universe with the American Dance Legacy Project in 2009 and the "New D…
The Joffrey Ballet announced Tuesday that it has commissioned a new "Nutcracker" from choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, which will have its world premiere in Chicago in Dec. 2016 as part o…
Flamenco is a paradoxical art, requiring passion and control, self-assertion and self-abnegation, physical vehemence and delicacy, defiance and surrender, joy and despair. Not coincidentally…
The Joffrey colors way outside the lines in "Unique Voices," a program of three very different Chicago premieres that all bring a childlike freedom and delight to ballet. Through Feb. 22 at …
On the brink of its 13th season, Chicago Dance Crash is still doing what it does best: changing things up. This risk-taking fusion troupe " whose native styles range from ballet and break da…
High school is seldom easy on anyone. But for the unseen protagonist of "Stardust," Junior, it's a living hell.
High school is seldom easy on anyone. But for the unseen protagonist of "Stardust," Junior, it's a living hell. Why did God make him black? he texts. Why did God make him gay?
"When you walk into the studio, the work ethic alone is just phenomenal. They will do anything for you," says freelance choreographer Ray Mercer, speaking about Giordano Dance Chicago."If yo…
An array of ideas and creative disciplines collide at the intersection of the labor movement, the women's movement and perfidious corporate greed in Erica Mott Productions' collaborative "3 …
Wendy Whelan's "Restless Creature" made its one-night, all-too-brief Chicago debut Wednesday at the sold-out Harris Theater, which was jammed to the rafters. A kind of chemistry experiment f…
