The Hubbard Street mission is to awaken the human spirit through contemporary dance. That is a lofty mission in the contemporary world but I think that they have succeeded with […]
Blue is a metaphor for emotions, music, sensuality, and an emotionally wrought period in the life of Pablo Picasso. Like Joni Mitchell’s “Blue,” the Joffrey Ballet’s Studies in Blue held […]
Spain has a complicated history with dance. Like most European countries, Spain’s cultural leaders would rather have a reputation for the finer arts like ballet but came to accept flamenco, […]
A star is born, and none of them is one of four movies with the same title. A star in the sky comes from dust, gravity, collision, and heat in […]
Complexions Contemporary Ballet emerged in 1994 as the creation of two Alvin Ailey alumni Desmond Richardson and Dwight Rhoden. They moved the parameters around ballet with their careers and then […]
Harlem. The name evokes a sense of place, time, and for some, the halcyon days of the Harlem Renaissance. Sugar Hill is a section of Harlem where the strivers lived, […]
The basic plot of the famous The Nutcracker ballet is a familiar story. A young girl, Clara, receives the gift of a Nutcracker on Christmas Eve. That night, she has […]
Chicago is an arts town and home to some of the finest dance companies in the world. Deeply Rooted Dance Theater was co-founded by Kevin Iega Jeff and Gary Abbott […]
I am still in awe from watching the Joffrey Ballet’s Frankenstein at the Lyric Opera House. Choreographer Liam Scarlett stayed closer to Mary Shelley’s book Frankenstein or Modern Prometheus than […]
The Joffrey Ballet took up residence in Chicago in 1996. After nearly four decades in New York and the death of Robert Joffrey, Gerald Arpino, his partner in life and […]
Memoirs of Jazz in the Alley is a tribute to a decade-plus of people jamming in a garage near 50th and Champlain, created by artistic director and choreographer Kia S. […]
The Memory Place is a multidisciplinary collection of vignettes that begins in the lobby of the Edge Theater. The audience is welcomed, asked to turn off their phones, and most […]