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.”
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
“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.
In 2015 the BBC produced a short documentary on Tracey Emin as part of their “What Do Artists Do All Day” series. In it, the painter/drawer/fibers/conceptual artist — one of the breakout Young British Artists of the 90s and a personal hero of mine as a young woman studying painting in undergrad — talks about how she gets grounded before approaching a large blank canvas. Throughout the episode, she makes references to needing to feel “confident” or “bold” or “strong in [her] head” in order to step into such a wide open space successfully…
Most of the work of making a dance or performance is going to the studio and the ritual of getting to the studio. This sounds ridiculous, but I find it true. There’s a method to being in a process. Which, what does that mean? It’s permission to give yourself authority. Because no one will ever tell you or give you permission to make. You have to convince yourself it’s a good idea to be making anything at all. Or, maybe it’s more reverse psychology – you have to convince yourself that it’s not a bad idea.
