“The Joy that was witnessed and clearly experienced on stage was unlike anything I’ve seen in a concert setting before.”
Stages in Bloom: Our Chicago Artist Spotlight Festival in Chicago Reader's Picks for Spring
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.
"LaTasha Barnes and company explore “The Jazz Continuum” at Columbia College"
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.
A Powerful Marriage of All the Things: LaTasha Barnes’ The Jazz Continuum Comes to Chicago
In the audio series portion of “The 1619 Project,” New York Times cultural critic Wesley Morris says that when he hears American pop music—jazz, R&B, soul, funk, disco, even yacht rock—he hears Blackness. Likewise (and inseparably) is American social Black dance, emerging and evolving alongside these genres: bodies unstoppably moved by syncopation and harmony, shot through with ripples of delight only a perfectly landed improvisation can provide. But improvisation lives in the new. And as Black artists push forms and culture forward, older styles can get left behind….
Dance Center Leaders Chosen by New City Stage for its Players 50 2024: The Institutions
We’re really honored that New City highlighted our Artistic and Producing Directors as part of its Players 2024: The Fifty People Who Really Perform for Chicago. Meredith Sutton and Roell Schmidt, in collaboration with dance department chair Lisa Gonzales, are experimenting with ways to erase that “and” by “moving away from the ‘gatekeeper’ model of dance presenting.”
Dance Theatre Etiquette and How It Shapes Our Experience as Viewers by Gabriela Marks
Jumaane Taylor "Raised the Bar for Tap Dance" with "Supreme Love"
The Chicago Reader in Conversation with Meredith Sutton, Interim Series Director
Review calls the Dance Center “arguably the best venue to see dance in Chicago!”
Recent praise for FLOCK & Artists’ Somewhere Between calls the Dance Center -- “arguably the best venue to see dance in Chicago!”:
Sometimes in duets, and most often as a six-dancer ensemble, Flock’s Somewhere Between continues to mesmerize with seamless transitions. We lose track of time. It’s not unlike the hypnotizing effect of a lava lamp. All is fluid. Transitions are so seamless we only realize they have happened in retrospect….
Columbia announces Spring lineup for 49th Dance Presenting Series
The Dance Center at Columbia College Chicago announces its 2023 Spring Season, which includes performances from STAYCEE PEARL dance project & Soy Sos, FLOCK, and Jumaane Taylor.
