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.
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.
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.
Columbia College Chicago was invited to participate in a summer intensive at the Centre National de la Danse in Pantin, just outside of Paris. In this blog post, student Kennedy Ward shares their experience of studying with dance legend Germaine Acogny.
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.”
For a new initiative called On The Ground, the Dance Presenting Series engaged five Chicago-based writers to be present for week-long residencies by companies at the Dance Center. In addition to performances, the writers also attend activities such as community workshops, discussions with students, and master classes. Zachary Whittenburg reflects here on Urban Bush Women’s latest visit to Chicago and the Dance Center, February 25–March 2, 2019.
