Since April, the Chicago Human Rhythm Project has been traversing the city, bringing percussive dance into neighborhoods far and wide as part of a two-month festival called Stomping Grounds.…
Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, Jose Limon, Erick Hawkins and Paul Taylor. This is a short list of pioneers who shaped and transformed 20th century modern dance in America. Taylor started h…
The last time Ballet Nacional de Cuba (BNC) came to Chicago was 2003. Prima ballerina Viengsay Valdes was 26 at the time. Her performance at the Auditorium Theatre was anticipated by Tribune…
When visiting Hamlin Park Theater for the annual Dance Shelter series, it's important to know a couple things: 1) This is an iconic modern dance space, developed by Chicago Moving Company (C…
Tanztheater, or "dance theater," is a post-World War I expressionist art form originating in Germany and Austria which blends dance and theatrical techniques. Ellyzabeth Adler studied tanzth…
The Harris Theater's main curtain opened Thursday to a cast of familiar characters swaying their hips back and forth and bopping to the beat of their own tunes. If you listen closely, you he…
"Think Shakespeare? Think again," says the Joffrey's Ballet advertising campaign for the North American premiere of Alexander Ekman's "Midsummer Night's Dream," the final home engagement of …
"There was a time, way, way back, when Oprah was a human being," said Thuli Dumakude near the beginning of Okwui Okpokwasili's "Poor People's TV Room," running through Sunday at the MCA. The…
In 1955, a 14-year-old African-American boy was kidnapped and murdered in Mississippi. His name was Emmett Till. Till's mother insisted on a glass topped casket for his funeral. The story is…
"How does any organization make it to 55?" asked executive director Michael McStraw on stage at the Harris Theater Saturday. A valid question, though Giordano Dance Chicago, which McStraw le…
A tidal wave of dance is upon us. Each April, See Chicago Dance, the city's dance service organization formerly known as Audience Architects, shines a spotlight on the wealth of dance offeri…
The Silk Road, consisting of ancient trade routes that connected Asia, the Middle East and Africa with Europe, shaped modern American culture today. Trade between Eastern and Western culture…
The last 36 minutes of every performance artistic director Robert Battle programs for his company is predetermined. As an audience member, I find this grounding; no matter how far Battle str…
Hailing from Monaco, Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo makes its Auditorium Theatre debut this weekend with "La Belle," by choreographer and artistic director Jean-Christophe Maillot. Princess Caro…
"I started Cloud Gate with no professional experience behind me," said Lin Hwai-min in a phone interview with the Tribune. The Taiwanese writer begin seriously studying dance at age 23 while…
Ballet is about legacy. Works are passed down from mentor to student, until the student becomes the mentor to someone else. It was three years ago Feb. 22 that Ivan Nagy, one of ballet's gre…
While growing up in the northwest suburbs, I have vivid memories of my parents bringing me downtown to the Auditorium Theatre to watch American Ballet Theatre. For a young student of ballet,…
Heavy snow couldn't keep dance fans away from the Dance Center of Columbia College for opening night of New York-based Doug Varone and Dancers. Braving the weather was wholly worth it, if on…
This season, it seems as though there is no challenge the Joffrey Ballet can't meet. Last fall, "Orphee et Eurydice" marked the company's first collaboration with the Lyric Opera. Stunning p…
The work of famed Russian poet Joseph Brodsky is on tap this weekend at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, in a piece of avant-garde theater devised by director Alvin Hermanis. It's tit…
The State Ballet Theatre of Russia, a professional company of 55 dancers touring the U.S. with a collage of full-length classical ballets, stopped in town Sunday for two performances of "The…
It was at the Chicago Dancing Festival that dance audiences first got to know contemporary choreographer Brian Brooks. Brooks, a particular favorite of the festival's organizers, showed the …
In Tania Castroverde Moskalenko's first press conference as CEO of the Auditorium Theatre in October 2016, she pointed to the success of the theater as a world class dance venue, but said sh…
For dance, 2017 was about taking risks. Companies tried new things, celebrated milestones and took on ambitious projects. The year had a "go big or go home" feel to it, and for these product…
Whether your household is filled with serious dance enthusiasts or you're a once-every-couple-of-years kind of family, "The Nutcracker" has crept its way into Chicago's holiday traditions li…