Latest, Presented companies, Press, Reflection, The Dance Center
Jane Jerardi
Environmental awakening: ETHOS IV connects ...

A canopy of pink blossoming trees showers petals on the audience as we sail down the path, pulled along by a current of wind and sound. Slow and easy, like swirling air, four figures float through the grove, reverently laying hands upon the bark and grass. They caress the breeze and mimic the shapes of the branches and trunks. Ayako Kato—kinetic philosopher, poet and choreographer—pauses to hang from one branch, arm hooked delicately and body unfolding toward the sky. The crowd is hushed. See Chicago Dance reviews Ayako Kato’s ETHOS IV: Degrowth/Cycle/Rebirth.

Environmental awakening: ETHOS IV connects community to the Earth
Presented companies, Process, Reflection, The Dance Center, Latest
Jane Jerardi
What happens when we take off our socks? The ...

In January/February 2024, dance artist SJ Swilley held a production residency at the Dance Center of Columbia College supported by Chicago Dancemakers Forum. They invited collaborators Mawu Ama Ma'at Gora and Graciella Ye'Tsunami to help shape their work, Aaliyah Christina as an embedded writer, and Jovan Landry as the photographer to document some of the process. The resulting piece was part of the Chicago Artist Spotlight Festival in April 2024.

What happens when we take off our socks? The bittersweet power of introspection: a response by Aaliyah Christina
Latest, Presented companies, Press, The Dance Center
Jane Jerardi
Rooted in Connection: The Dance Center ...

Sharon Hoyer of New City Stage interviews our Artistic Director Meredith Sutton: “The Dance Center at Columbia College Chicago is a semi-hidden gem just off the path of big-name performance venues in the Loop…Some of the most memorable performances I’ve seen in my near twenty years of covering dance in Chicago have taken place on the Dance Center stage. Experimental work, student and faculty showcases, nationally and internationally revered artists have all rarified the Dance Center’s air for half a century.”

Rooted in Connection: The Dance Center Celebrates Local Artists During its Fiftieth Season
Latest, Presented companies, Press, The Dance Center
Jane Jerardi
Stages in Bloom: Our Chicago Artist Spotlight ...

The Dance Center of Columbia College presents the first Chicago Artist Spotlight Festival, featuring works by distinguished Chicago dancemakers Ayako Kato, J’Sun Howard, SJ Swilley, and Erin Kilmurray and Kara Brody in works that expand the footprint of performance beyond the stage.

Stages in Bloom: Our Chicago Artist Spotlight Festival in Chicago Reader's Picks for Spring
Latest, Press, The Dance Center
Caitlyn Gee
"LaTasha Barnes and company explore “The Jazz ...

It’s LaTasha Barnes’ “The Jazz Continuum,” a communal celebration of Black American dance and music running March 7-9 at the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago. Timelines collide as different eras of jazz dance and adjacent forms—tap dance, footwork, popping, break dance, line dance and more—blend together in a seamless juxtaposition of styles.

"LaTasha Barnes and company explore “The Jazz Continuum” at Columbia College"

On the Ground

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On the Ground

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On the Ground

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.

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Dancing Possibility and Privilege: Same Planet Performance Project with Ivy Baldwin

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Dancing Possibility and Privilege: Same Planet Performance Project with Ivy Baldwin

Chicago-based artist and scholar Lizzie Leopold reflects on Same Planet Performance Project’s recent performance of work by Ivy Baldwin and Joanna Read and how it does or doesn’t resonate with the current political moment. In a continuation of our On the Ground series of reviews, she asks what dance can do.

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More than everything and still be all: Mary Coyne on Kimberly Bartosik’s I hunger for you

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More than everything and still be all: Mary Coyne on Kimberly Bartosik’s I hunger for you

Our On the Ground series continues with a reflection on Kimberly Bartosik’s I hunger for you. Mary Coyne, a Merce Cunningham scholar, finds connections between this Cunningham’s dancers work and this lineage, but here emotions come to the fore: “Desire hinged on addiction, craving, finally arriving to a place where the beautiful falls into ugliness, sensuality towards violence.”

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Lines of Flight: Spectrum Dance Theater

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Lines of Flight: Spectrum Dance Theater

For Spectrum Dance Theater’s dancers, each isolated movement and phrase is fully inhabited, demonstrating a respect for the authenticity of all dance forms as well as a rabid curiosity for what happens when they’re all collapsed in on each other, when one category interrupts another. Chicago and New York-based dancer and writer Maddie Kodat reflects on Spectrum’s recent engagement in Chicago.

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On The Ground: “Think in a different way” Joanna Furnans on Tere O’Connor Dance

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On The Ground: “Think in a different way” Joanna Furnans on Tere O’Connor Dance

“Think in a different way.” This is the first of many instructional Tere O’Connor quotes you will find in the response below. O’Connor is widely respected as one of the most articulate, sharp, and inquisitive choreographers working in the field today. While most dance makers (myself included) struggle to adequately describe their creative process and conceptual understandings of the form—Dance— in a way that doesn’t diminish the vast spectrum of its nature (if I may use a term that implies such universality), O’Connor is brilliant at it…

Joanna Furnans follows Tere O’Connor Dance through their residency at the Dance Center, sharing her reflections on it all with us.