The Chicago Tribune’s Lauren Warnecke chats with Meredith Sutton and Roell Schmidt in a preview of our spring 2025 season including our annual Hip Hop battle/jam and festival the B-SERIES:
Fifty-one years ago, the Dance Center of Columbia College launched a series of professional performances aimed at fulfilling one of the university’s key of professional performances aimed at fulfilling one of the university’s key goals: to create a conduit between students and the field they aim to enter .
The Dance Presenting Series looks different today than it did in 1974, evolving and fighting to stay alive every step of the way.
Fifty-one years ago, hip hop was born, too.
The Dance Center’s hip hop festival The B-Series kicks off Feb. 27, opening a spring season that also includes a suite of solo performances March 13-15 by Nora Sharp and Jenn Freeman, aka Po’Chop. And on April 17-19, Red Clay Dance Company returns to the Dance Center for the first time in five years, presenting a world premiere by Bebe Miller…
B-Series Curators and Dance Center Faculty Kelsa “K-Soul” Rieger-Haywood and Daniel “Bravemonk” Haywood explain:
“There’s nothing like the B-Series,” said Daniel “Bravemonk” Haywood, who organizes the mini-festival of workshops, panels and a rousing dance battle with Kelsa “K-Soul” Rieger-Haywood. This year’s theme is “B-yond Borders,” aimed at showcasing kinship between hip hop and social dance forms abroad. Sarah “Sayrah Chips” Olaniran, a Nigerian international [alum] who specializes in Afro-fusion dance, is a featured performer…
Kelsa “K-Soul” Rieger-Haywood, co-curator of B-Series, teaches a hip hop and street dance class at the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago on Feb. 3, 2025. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune)
