SEASON 52: MOMENT + MOVEMENT

October 15, 2025 - may 15, 2026

Dedicated to Shirley Mordine (1936-2025), founder and leader of the Dance Center for three decades, Season 52 celebrates dance as a vital contemporary art form. You are invited to experience world premieres, U.S. premieres, Midwest premieres, and Chicago premieres by artists based in the U.S., Benin, and India exploring the present moment through movement.

 

photo by Julie Lucas for Columbia College Chicago.

Wednesday and Thursday, October 15 and 16, 2025

Wednesday, October 15, 2025 - MOMENT + MOVEMENT Performance Showcase at 7:30 p.m.
Thursday, October 16, 2025 - Sessions from 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Co-curated by Keesha Beckford and Dardi McGinley Gallivan

Dance technique, a foundational specificity that is able to be repeated, is a form of entrainment - making something part of a flow and carrying it along. It is the source of all codified dances and how all codified dances are created and embodied. Anything that flows or carries forward is naturally susceptible to adaptation, alteration, evolution. Contemporary is the continuously adapting, altering, evolving expression of dance’s codified forms…or is it? Is contemporary dance more of a how than a what? Is it open and available to more styles, techniques and points of view, to visual, aural, aesthetic conflation? Is it about being relevant in the moment and the movement? Is contemporary synonymous with innovative or radical? Should it be?

Through performances by acclaimed Chicago companies and artists and sessions selected from an international call, let’s discover and uncover together what is contemporary in dance.

May 5, 2025

It is with deep sadness that we share the news of the passing of our visionary founder, Shirley Mordine, who led the Dance Center from 1969 until 1999.

Shirley Mordine’s impact on Columbia and the broader dance community is immeasurable. A pioneering force in contemporary dance, her leadership transformed the Dance Center into a nationally recognized institution for dance education, performance, and public engagement.

David Rousseve/REALITY, from Stardust, photo by Yi Chun.

Urban Bush Women in Hep Hep Sweet Sweet, photo by Rick McCullough.

About

The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago is the city’s leading presenter of contemporary dance – bringing international, national, and local artists to Chicago audiences. The Dance Center has served as a focal point for dance and performance in Chicago since 1974.

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Featured
Timothy Tsang: Spiraling Through Contemporary Dance
Timothy Tsang: Spiraling Through Contemporary Dance

Timothy Tsang (BA, Dance 2017) returns to the Dance Center to present a workshop on his current research into Leslie Cheung, the Hong Kong pop icon whose concerts and films have become central to queer cultural memory as part of our Fall 2025 symposium. Here, Timothy reflects on What is Contemporary?

NANIGO 2025: Movement, Memory, and Liberation on Juneteenth
NANIGO 2025: Movement, Memory, and Liberation on Juneteenth

Raynner Garcia (BFA, Musical Theatre ‘26) shares his experience of the National Association for American African Dance Teacher’s annual dance intensive NANIGO 2025 in this reflection. “Just a block from the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, the Autin Lo’Ren Studio was full of warmth and rhythm the moment we stepped in. You could feel the energy pulsing before any music played; it was a community in motion. As someone with limited experience in Umfundalai, I came with a few nerves, but the generosity of the community quickly washed those away. That is the essence of Umfundalai. More than a technique, t’s a philosophy rooted in Diasporic movement traditions, ancestral connection, and the beauty of the African body.”

Review: Nora Sharp's COSMIC DOCKS on Sixty Inches from Center
Review: Nora Sharp's COSMIC DOCKS on Sixty Inches from Center

Corey Smith and Rachel Lindsay reflect on the March 2025 premiere of Nora Sharp’s COSMIC DOCKS at the Chicago Solo Spotlight Festival for Sixty Inches from Center: “Cosmic Docks is one part standup special, one part loop-pedal-karaoke, one part dance-with-an-uppercase ‘D.’”

Review: Jenn Freeman | Po'Chop's THICK on Sixty Inches from Center
Review: Jenn Freeman | Po'Chop's THICK on Sixty Inches from Center

Corey Smith and Rachel Lindsay reflect on the March 2025 premiere of THICK: a crumbling freak show by Jenn Freeman | Po’Chop at the Chicago Solo Spotlight Festival for Sixty Inches from Center: “The [performance] is a tour de force of Freeman | Po’Chop’s chops.”

In Memoriam: Our Founder Shirley Mordine (January 8, 1936 - May 2, 2025)
In Memoriam: Our Founder Shirley Mordine (January 8, 1936 - May 2, 2025)

It is with deep sadness that we share the news of the passing of our visionary founder, Shirley Mordine, who led the Dance Center from 1969 until 1999.

Red Clay Dance Company's 16 Featured in Local Press: WGN-9 Midday Fix, Fox 32 and ABC 7 Interviews, New City, and more
Red Clay Dance Company's 16 Featured in Local Press: WGN-9 Midday Fix, Fox 32 and ABC 7 Interviews, New City, and more

Red Clay Dance Company is gearing up for its concert series at the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago and has been featured in New City, on See Chicago Dance, and several TV interviews - including WGN 9’s Midday Fix, Fox 32, and Chicago’s ABC 7.

Red Clay Dance Company & Bebe Miller: A Homecoming
Red Clay Dance Company & Bebe Miller: A Homecoming

Red Clay Dance Company’s upcoming program pairs two works created in collaboration with the dancers: Bebe Miller’s Field: New Ground and Vershawn Sanders-Ward’s Written on the Flesh. Asked about how it has been for the company to work with Bebe, for Vershawn it’s something of a full circle moment: “I’m still in awe. I don’t want to get all sentimental – it just reminds me of the specialness of the Dance Center.” Read about the two works and the collaboration between these two artists.

The Chicago Tribune features our annual B-Series Battle and Jam and our Spring 2025 season!
The Chicago Tribune features our annual B-Series Battle and Jam and our Spring 2025 season!

The Chicago Tribune’s Lauren Warnecke chats with Daniel “BRAVEMONK” Haywood and Kelsa “K-Soul” Rieger-Hawyood, Lisa Gonzales, Meredith Sutton and Roell Schmidt in a preview of our annual Hip Hop battle/jam and festival the B-SERIES.

Distractions and attractions onstage this season: Irene Hsiao picks our Chicago Solo Spotlight Festival in The Reader
Distractions and attractions onstage this season: Irene Hsiao picks our Chicago Solo Spotlight Festival in The Reader

The Chicago Reader’s Irene Hsiao picks the Dance Center’s Chicago Solo Spotlight Festival in its Winter season theater preview highlighting “brilliant Chicago-based artists Jenn ‘Po’Chop’ Freeman and Nora Sharp.”

The Embodying Rhythm Symposium by Sophie Daker
The Embodying Rhythm Symposium by Sophie Daker

“With wonderful presentations about the tradition and history of rhythm from different experiences, personal understandings, and cultures, I was able to unlock new ideas and grow my previous ideas of what embodying rhythm can mean.” - Sophie Daker 

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from Irene Hsiao’s Merely a Mistake A Score for your Door.

Explore On the Ground, the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago’s online publication. With support from The Walder Foundation, it features interviews with Chicago dance artists, checking in on dance communities, sharing work from our virtual residencies with choreographers, and exploring the Dance Center’s video archives.

 

banner image: from Approval At High Noon by: Kia S. Smith; pictured l to r: Sophia Peck, Diamond Turner, Isabel Bastardo, Adrean Maxwell, Konnie Kakridas, Courtney Cooper, Aly Owens, and Jay Richardson; photo by: William Frederking.