Dance Center Announces 2012-13 Lineup

In a season melding choreography from countries worldwide, as well as several artistic disciplines--dance, theatre, visual art, video and more--The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago presents its 2012–13 season.

Opening the season are two programs featuring independent African female choreographers, under the banner Voices of Strength; a new work by Kota Yamazaki; Andrea Miller's Gallim Dance; and Chicago's The Seldoms. The season continues with Double Edge Theatre, co-presented with the Columbia College Chicago Theatre Department; zoe | juniper, a multimedia husband-and-wife team; Stephen Petronio Company; Nana Shineflug's The Chicago Moving Company; and Mexico's Delfos Danza Contemporanea. Subscriptions and single tickets go on sale July 9 at The Dance Center, 1306 S. Michigan Avenue, 312-369-8330 and online at colum.edu/dancecenter.

FamilyDance Matinees
The Dance Center's FamilyDance Matinee Series continues for its 14th season, featuring special one-hour family-oriented performances that follow free parent/child movement workshops with the artists. FamilyDance Matinees will feature Gallim Dance (October 13), The Seldoms (October 27), Double Edge Theatre (January 19), The Chicago Moving Company (March 23) and Delfos Danza Contemporanea (April 6).

Community programs
Discussions with the artists will follow most Thursday performances, and some programs will feature pre-performance talks with artists and Dance Center personnel or guest lecturers. Most out-of-town artists will provide learning opportunities for Dance Center students and conduct community-based residency and educational activities, which might include master classes, lecture/demonstrations, in-school and community- based workshops, professional development workshops for educators and service providers and panel discussions. 

Voices of Strength
September 13–15
Voices of Strength consists of two programs featuring four works by five independent African female choreographers who have received numerous awards in Africa and Europe but have had little exposure in the United States. Program A includes Correspondances by Kettly Noel (Haiti/Mali) and Nelisiwe Xaba (South Africa) and Sombra by Maria Helena Pinto (Mozambique); Program B includes Quartiers Libres by Nadia Beugre (Cote d'Ivoire) and Madame Plaza by Bouchra Ouizguen (Morocco).

Kota Yamazaki/Fluid hug-hug
September 27–29
Based in New York, Japanese choreographer Kota Yamazaki is collaborating with two dancers from Senegal and Ethiopia and four American and Japanese-American dancers on (glowing), a new work exploring Japanese aesthetics of shadow and darkness. To develop the choreography, Yamazaki returns to his early Butoh training, a form with which he finds great affinity in African dance. Collaborators include American architect Robert Kocik and Japanese composer Koji Setoh.

Gallim Dance
October 11–13
FamilyDance Matinee: October 13
Andrea Miller, a rising star in American post-modern dance, founded Gallim Dance in 2007, garnering numerous accolades and appearing at many of the U.S.'s most prestigious venues, as well as internationally. One of two full-evening length works is under consideration for the company's Chicago debut: Blush (2009, contains nudity) or Wonderland (2010).

The Seldoms
October 25–27
FamilyDance Matinee: October 27
The Seldoms' Artistic Director Carrie Hanson is creating a new evening-length work for her Chicago-based company's 10th Anniversary Season, inspired by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman's book Hot, Flat, and Crowded, which examines global conditions of rising population, increasing energy consumption and climate change.

Double Edge Theatre
Co-presented with the Columbia College Chicago Theatre Department
January 18 and 19
FamilyDance Matinee: January 19
Rooted in Jerzy Grotowski's Eastern European theatre practice, Double Edge Theatre is a deeply collaborative, Massachusetts-based ensemble working in a unique form of devised physical theatre incorporating movement, puppetry, object manipulation and circus arts. The Grand Parade is the first installment in the company's anticipated five-work, multi-year Chagall Cycle, inspired by the kaleidoscopic paintings of Marc Chagall. Up to five Columbia theatre students will rehearse and perform with the company. The Grand Parade is co-commissioned by the Columbia College Chicago Theatre Department.

zoe | juniper
February 14–16
Wife and husband Zoe Scofield (choreographer) and Juniper Shuey (sculptor, photographer and visual/media artist) began their artistic collaboration zoe | juniper in 2004 in Seattle. Their latest full-evening work,A Crack in Everything, uses dance, performance, video projection, lighting and text to examine liminal states of mind--thresholds between conscious and unconscious, action and reaction, before and after, and cause and effect. Contains nudity.

Stephen Petronio Company
March 7–9
Widely regarded as one of the leading dance makers of his generation,Stephen Petronio has not presented his work in Chicago since his last Dance Center appearance in 2000. The company performs the evening-length Underland (2003, revived 2011) to music by Nick Cave; Deborah Jowitt of the Village Voice wrote about it: "I see [the dancers] as survivors, insisting on life while buildings collapse and bombs explode behind them...The beautiful, dangerous Underland progresses toward a more hopeful conclusion...Although black hearts still flourish underground, art, perhaps, offers redemption." Contains mature content.

The Chicago Moving Company
March 21–23
FamilyDance Matinee: March 23
Nana Shineflug's The Chicago Moving Company celebrates its 40th Anniversary Season with a selection of revivals: Love Songs (2001),Coming Forth by Day (1988), John Somebody (1987), Windows (1984) and a new piece choreographed by Shineflug.

Delfos Danza Contemporanea
April 4–6
FamilyDance Matinee: April 6
Last seen at The Dance Center in 2009, Delfos Danza Contemporanea is among Mexico's leading contemporary dance companies. A 20th Anniversary program of mixed repertoire is to be determined. 

THE DANCE CENTER
The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, named "Chicago's Best Dance Theatre" by Chicago magazine and "Best Dance Venue" by theChicago Reader, is the city's leading presenter of contemporary dance, showcasing artists of regional, national and international significance. Programs of The Dance Center are supported, in part, by the Alphawood Foundation, The Joyce Foundation, The MacArthur Fund for Arts and Culture at Prince, The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, The Irving Harris Foundation, New England Foundation for the Arts and Arts Midwest. Additional funding is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Illinois Arts Council. Special thanks to Athletico, the Official Provider of Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy for The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, and the Friends of The Dance Center.

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