Latest, Presented companies, Process, The Dance Center
Jane Jerardi
Meredith Sutton sits down with South Chicago ...

Dance Center Artistic Director Meredith Sutton sat down with South Chicago Dance Theatre’s Founder, Director of Vision and Strategy, and Resident Choreographer Kia S. Smith this past summer to talk about how she was approaching the process of creating the company’s first holiday show.

Meredith Sutton sits down with South Chicago Dance Theatre’s Kia S. Smith to talk about the company's first holiday show.
Jane Jerardi
Sharon Hoyer of New City interviews T. Ayo ...

Sharon Hoyer of New City interviews T. Ayo Alston about our upcoming presentation of Ayodele Drum & Dance at the Dance Center in “Joy and Sisterhood: Ayodele Drum & Dance Make Their Dance Center of Columbia College Debut.”

Sharon Hoyer of New City interviews T. Ayo Alston
Latest, Presented companies, The Dance Center
Jane Jerardi
T. Ayo Alston, Artistic Director of Ayodele ...

Dance Center Artistic Director Meredith Sutton sat down with Ayodele Drum and Dance Founding Executive/Artistic Director and Columbia faculty member T. Ayo Alston to talk about BEAUTY AND THE BEAT: MASKED as part of Season 52.

T. Ayo Alston, Artistic Director of Ayodele Drum and Dance, in Conversation with our Artistic Director Meredith Sutton
Reflection, Alumni, Symposium
Jane Jerardi
Timothy Tsang: Spiraling Through Contemporary ...

Timothy Tsang (BA, Dance 2017) returns to the Dance Center to present a workshop on his current research into Leslie Cheung, the Hong Kong pop icon whose concerts and films have become central to queer cultural memory as part of our Fall 2025 symposium. Here, Timothy reflects on What is Contemporary?

Timothy Tsang: Spiraling Through Contemporary Dance
Jane Jerardi
NANIGO 2025: Movement, Memory, and Liberation ...

Raynner Garcia (BFA, Musical Theatre ‘26) shares his experience of the National Association for American African Dance Teacher’s annual dance intensive NANIGO 2025 in this reflection. “Just a block from the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, the Autin Lo’Ren Studio was full of warmth and rhythm the moment we stepped in. You could feel the energy pulsing before any music played; it was a community in motion. As someone with limited experience in Umfundalai, I came with a few nerves, but the generosity of the community quickly washed those away. That is the essence of Umfundalai. More than a technique, t’s a philosophy rooted in Diasporic movement traditions, ancestral connection, and the beauty of the African body.”

NANIGO 2025: Movement, Memory, and Liberation on Juneteenth

The Dance Center

, , ,

On the Ground

, , ,
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.

, ,

Dance Buffet - thanks for coming!

, ,
Dance Buffet - thanks for coming!

The Dance Center’s Dance Buffet wrapped up last week and I want to celebrate and thank everyone who helped make it possible. Between mid-September and mid-November 2020, we presented 37 live events, ranging from discussion groups to improvisation workshops to technique classes. These were small-scale events, intentionally designed to preserve as many aspects of liveness and presence as possible…

,

Fall 2020 programming at the Dance Center

,
Fall 2020 programming at the Dance Center

CHICAGO—The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago announces their fall programming season, which includes classes, discussion groups, virtual residencies for local artists, and more.

With travel curtailed out of public health concerns, the Dance Center is highlighting Chicago dancers and choreographers with its fall season. Season highlights will include the following production residencies, virtual residencies, and programmatic course offerings…

, ,

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

, ,
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.”

, ,

Lines of Flight: Spectrum Dance Theater

, ,
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.