Ballet de Lorraine in collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
February 18-19
Edlis Neeson Theater at the MCA Stage, 220 E. Chicago Ave., Chicago
Making their first-ever tour to the United States, the Centre Choréographique National - Ballet de Lorraine, a contemporary ensemble of 26 ballet-trained dancers, is one of the most important companies working in Europe. This program features Sounddance, one of Merce Cunningham's pieces most beloved by audiences and critics alike, a work in opposition to ballet's uniformity and unison, a fast and vigorous yet organized chaos that suggests a miniature dance cosmos viewed through a microscope. Musician and composer David Tudor's powerful and driving score provides the perfect energetic accompaniment to Cunningham's fast-paced choreography. Cunningham'sFabrications, a work for a shifting ensemble of 15 dancers, forgoes narrative content. Concocting itself from a structure of randomly ordered phrases, Fabrications manifests a strong dramatic and melancholy dimension, scored by Brazilian composer Emanuel Dimas de Melo Pimenta. Completing this evening of complexities is Untitled Partner #3, choreographed by Petter Jacobsson and Thomas Caley, a work that combines dance and film in a performance-installation, searching for but never finding equilibrium between id and ego. This performance is presented with the MCA exhibition Merce Cunningham: Common Time, a major survey on Cunningham's groundbreaking practice and collaborations, organized by the Walker Art Center.
Chicago Human Rhythm Project-BAM!
February 23-25
FamilyDance Workshop and Matinee: February 25
After an absence from The Dance Center stage of almost 15 years, Chicago Human Rhythm Project (CHRP), Chicago's beloved and inventive percussive dance company, presents an evening of mixed repertory featuring classics from past masters and world premieres choreographed by members of BAM!, Chicago Human Rhythm Project's resident performance ensemble. Technical virtuosity and passion are the hallmarks of the company, which never fails to engage and surprise the most seasoned audiences. CHRP formed BAM! in 2004 as a choreographic project with funding from the Chicago Dancemakers Forum and an Illinois Arts Council Choreography Fellowship and has since performed at the 5th Anniversary Beijing International Dance Festival, the Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park (with the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic), Dance For Life and San Antonio's Third Coast Rhythm Project, among other performances. BAM! appeared as part of Dance Chicago, in Jubilate at the Harris Theater and at the Spertus Institute and other Chicago venues.
Malpaso Dance Company
March 9-11
Malpaso (translation: bad step) is a passionate contemporary dance ensemble that embodies the rich culture of Havana. Under the leadership of choreographer and Artistic Director Osnel Delgado, the company works to bring Cuban contemporary dance into the 21st century by collaborating with top international choreographers and nurturing new voices in Cuban choreography. Following its critically acclaimed international debut at The Joyce Theater in 2014, Malpaso continues to take the dance world by storm with evocative music and dazzling dance. The Dance Center program, the company's Chicago debut, includes a new work by one of the world's most in-demand choreographers, Aszure Burton.Liz Gerring Dance Company
April 6-8
In her company's first Chicago appearance, Liz Gerring presents Horizon, which features seven dancers performing multiple phrases simultaneously in an evening-length work described as "exuberantly athletic" in The New York Times. Working with composer Michael J. Schumacher, production designer Robert Wierzel and costume designer Liz Prince, Gerring's newest work, performed under a white ceiling cantilevered over the stage, is fresh testimony to her pure, movement-driven action and exhilarating physical surprises in a constantly changing media-saturated stage-world. Gerring is considered a 21st century formalist, about whom New York Timesdance critic Alastair Macaulay has written, "This is not choreography that turns into poetic images, metaphors, stories, anything other than itself. Yet at times it's wild, cold, amusing, surprising, impetuous."
B-Series
Fall: November 11-12
Spring: April 14-15
Each semester, a mini-festival celebrates the cultures, histories and aesthetics of hip-hop and street-dance forms, such as breaking, popping and Chicago footwork. With a jam as the focal point, blurring the lines between spectator and participant and spotlighting some of the most talented street dancers in the region going head-to-head in dance battles, the B-Series is a gathering space where all can learn through and connect to the rich culture of hip hop. Kelsa Robinson, visiting lecturer at The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, curates the B-Series. |
|
.png)
