Expanding our blog to take the pulse on our dance communities

In 2021, through the support of The Walder Foundation, we were able to expand the On the Ground series on our blog. We checked in on the dance communities in our city and beyond by taking the pulse of the moment during the covid pandemic. On the Ground became an online dance journal-magazine that featured interviews with Chicago dance artists, shared work from virtual residencies that we hosted with choreographers, and took deep dives into our video archives.

Find the whole series online – from interviews with Irene Hsiao, Steph Paul, Alex Grelle and Kasey Alfonso, Jasmine Mendoza, Lizzie Leopold, and Anna Hershinow to essays and residency reflections. The Pulse Check series crowd-sourced community reflections on key questions. And, the Dance Dive series gave us a chance to look back and celebrate some of the work that usually lies quietly in our video archives by talking to the artists that brought their work to Chicago about their process.