Reflection, Symposium
Roell Schmidt
Embodying Rhythm: Dance Symposium Reflection by ...

“The exceptional line up of guests offered in depth presentations or physicalized practices for participants to embody.”

Embodying Rhythm: Dance Symposium Reflection by Malika Okot
Reflection, Symposium
Roell Schmidt
Experiencing Time / Embodying Rhythm Symposium ...

“Being presented with perspectives and context I wouldn’t otherwise have on topics that are important to the evolution and roots of dance helped me to expand my personal scope of interest and exploration. “

Experiencing Time / Embodying Rhythm Symposium Reflection by J. Stephens
Presented companies, Press, The Dance Center, Latest
Jane Jerardi
Onstage front-runners: Our critics select a few ...

“…fall is afoot, and so are some of the most exciting live performances of the year…” Chicago Reader critics select a few promising performances for the months ahead including Mythili Prakash’s She’s Auspicious

Onstage front-runners: Our critics select a few promising performances for the months ahead.
Presented companies, Press, The Dance Center, Latest
Jane Jerardi
Catharsis and Community: A Preview of “She’s ...

Newcity's Sharon Hoyer interviews Mythili Prakash: "How are powerful women celebrated? Who defines what that power should look like? These are just a couple of the many questions Mythili Prakash explores in her evening-length dance “She’s Auspicious”...

Catharsis and Community: A Preview of “She’s Auspicious” at the Dance Center of Columbia College
Presented companies, Press, The Dance Center, Latest
Jane Jerardi
See Chicago Dance Review: Artists pack a punch ...

See Chicago Dance’s Megan Kudla reviews our recent Chicago Artist Spotlight Festival second weekend of performances: “Every piece was carefully crafted and packed a punch, and the performers masterfully navigated the worlds created. The artistic output of Kilmurray & Brody, Howard and Swilley were meaningful and exciting, setting a high standard for what performance art can be and say about process, product and the relationships that are essential to them.”

See Chicago Dance Review: Artists pack a punch during Columbia College’s Chicago Artist Festival

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.