Author Archives: Vicki

Fun with Snow Globes (and #sassy pancakes)

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The Seldoms. Photo by Brian Kuhlmann.

Leave it to Carrie Hanson – a 2012 Dance Magazine “25 To Watch” –  to get an assist from Mother Nature who brought a 20-degree temperature drop and torrential downpour for opening night of Hanson’s new work about the argument around climate change. The drastic weather change was the perfect prelude to opening night of The Seldoms‘ Exit Disclaimer: Science and Fiction Ahead at the Dance Center of Columbia College.

As she did in her 2011 hit STUPORMARKET about the financial crisis, Hanson again incorporates voice overs of lectures and debate points from scientists and politicians to make her points with clarity and humor. (I have to admit hearing Newt Gingrich repeat the line – “I’m an amateur paleontologist” – creeped me out.) The dancers verbally add their own twisted talking points to show the absurdity of the extremes in this debate.

Hanson is lucky to have a small, but tight and strong ensemble of six dancers that have worked with her for a number of years. Philip Elson, Damon Green, Amanda McAlister, Javier Marchan Ramos, Bruce Ortiz and Cara Sabin “get” her and are excellent purveyors of her vision. They are fearless – and they need to be considering some of the death-defying partnering Hanson asks them to perform. In colorful pedestrian clothes, they ran, dove, slid and spun with full abandon. An opening duet in, on and around an old-school elementary desk let the audience know they were in for something abstract and unique. Hanson’s intelligence and playful style was also on full display as she included cigarettes, bananas, chocolate eclairs, garbage, snow globes and recurring references to Malibu Barbie and “big ass lettuce”. A clever turn where the dancers peel each others feet off of the stage with metal spatulas grows into actually cooking and eating gluten-free, organic pancakes on stage! (McAlister got the brunt of the feeding and had to hoard away pancakes squirrel-like in her cheeks to continue dancing.)

Hilarious, fun, dangerous, exciting, thoughtful and well done. The Seldoms, and Hanson,  seem to have another hit on their hands.

 

Preview: A Correct Likeness

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Dancer Amanda Dye of Leopold Group. Photo by Jessie Young.

This weekend the Leopold Group, along with Bread and Roses Productions will present an evening of dance and photography at the Defibrillator Performance Art Gallery. A Correct Likeness, curated by Leopold Group artistic director Lizzie Leopold, explores “the intersection of dance and photography”. More like an art installation than a traditional dance concert, the performance interweaves dancers, photography, video cameras and live musicians (electronic duo Hard R), while the audience moves through the space at their leisure. Video and photos taken this weekend may also be included in the subsequent performance scheduled for December 1st and 2nd.

The three featured photographers – Arn Klein, Matthew Gregory Hollis and Jessie Young – each shot the six dancers over the past year. Once in the space on Saturday, they will lay out all the photographs and, with Leopold, decide where to hang them, intermingling artistic visions as the dancers and audience will later intermingle with the photographic stills. Young, also a dancer, has worked with Leopold before and brings a choreographic eye to her pictures. I spoke with Young over the phone earlier this week.

How did you hook up with Lizzie for this particular project?

She was a participant on a project that I did last year called “Blue Space”. I invited people, some I knew and some I didn’t know, to have their portrait taken in…it was an old bedroom of mine, but the idea was that the walls of the room were all blue. They would be in this space and I would take pictures of them doing whatever they wanted. At the end of the project, I would have these portraits and they would all have the same background color. That started two ideas for me. The first was getting into some kind of idea or motive and repetitively working with that idea, then allow the difference in that situation be more about the people that come into it. For this project, I had the dancers wear the leotards they are wearing for the show. They came over to my house and we went into my alley. They each had their own bag of powdered sugar and I would cover them in powdered sugar and take their photos. The interest in the sugar is more because of the texture. When they have it on, it would have this sense..it looks like sand. No one that has scene the photos knows it’s powdered sugar, unless they were there. There were a number of different elements that I wanted to do with them. It’s almost like asking someone to put on a mask. It kind tends to unlock and show different parts of a personality of a person. It’s hard to get into a photo shoot sometimes. The first 15 minutes, you’re breaking the ice. I wasn’t worried about breaking the ice with these girls. I’d worked with a lot of them and I know many of them. I did want to start to see them in a different way and I did want to see themselves in a different way. Beyond that, the reason I liked the powdered sugar is that it’s so light. Any movement or gesture, it casts this kind of wave of powder around them, so you can see the movement. You can see the echo of a movement because of the powder flying off. It was a very beautiful thing to capture with my camera, because I could see a movement, but I could also capture all of the powder around that movement.

How does being both a dancer and a photographer affect the way you see/watch dance or photograph?

I definitely feel like I photograph like a dancer. I think of movement direction and movement qualities before I would think of any variation. I add variation after I’ve taken the photograph. I’m not giving them any kind of context. All the direction during the photo shoot is completely movement. Afterward, when I look at the photograph, I can see relationships and get highlight that with the way I edit, but I’m still connected to it in terms of movement vocabulary. It will be interesting to see these girls that have done movement that I’ve directed, captured on the walls in a space where they’re doing movement that Lizzie’s directed.

Leopold Group with Bread and Roses Production presents A Correct Likeness, Saturday, Oct. 27 at 8 pm and Sunday, Oct 28 at 5 pm at the Defibrillator Gallery, 1136 N. Milwaukee Ave. Tickets ($20) are available at the door or visit www.brownpapertickets.com/event/264244.

Hubbard St Shatters Own Glass Ceiling

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Hubbard St dancer Jonathan Fredrickson in Alejandro Cerrudo's "One Thousand Pieces". Photo by Todd Rosenberg.

The lights dim, the audience settles and music begins to play. The tone is set for an evening of wonder and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago does not disappoint. One Thousand Pieces, inspired by Marc Chagall’s America Windows at the Art Institute of Chicago, celebrates the company’s 35th anniversary season with the first full-length work for the company and the first full-evening work by one choreographer – resident choreographer Alejandro Cerrudo – around a central theme. Bringing both the main company and HS2 dancers on stage together for this world premiere, Cerrudo takes this world-renowned company to a new level of its ever-reaching creative heights.

The curtain opens at the Harris Theater to a lone dancer (Jonathan Fredrickson, hanging briefly on to the ascending curtain) in front of stunning visuals. Blue hues flood the stage highlighting moveable set pieces, some opaque, some clear, some reflective, that look like staggered pieces of glass. A special mirrored Marley floor adds to the reflection/glass theme. Costumes are subdued with dark sheer tunics with a hint of pink or blue underneath for the ladies and dark blue pants with sheer black shirts for the men. The score, a collage of music from Philip Glass and designed by Cerrudo, completes the mood. Once the awe of the scene takes hold. The audience is ready for the dance.

Dancers slide in and out of duets, trios and group work with control and ease. Cerrudo features some – Ana Lopez and Garrett Anderson in frequent, lovely duets threaded throughout, Fredrickson, Jacqueline Burnett, Jessica Tong, Meredith Dincolo and Jesse Bechard – but it’s the moments with all 24 dancers on stage together that really make an impact. The end of Part 1 has everyone doing the same movement, but in alternating directions off three vertical lines having a reflective effect – aided with the mirrors behind them – as if they are multiplying. An interlude between Parts 1 and 2 has Fredrickson floating above the audience like the spirit “Ariel” in The Tempest (from a way too visible harness) reciting a romantic text from an excerpt of Glass’ Einstein on the Beach: Knee Play 5 (*full text below). It could be a nod to the angel or literary figure from the Windows, but that seems to literal for Cerrudo. It’s more likely a love letter to art, to dance, to Glass, to his company, to his fellow dancers and to the audience.

Hubbard St dancers in Alejandro Cerrudo's "One Thousand Pieces". Photo by Todd Rosenberg.

Part 2 brings together the brilliance of the choreography, sets, costumes (both by Thomas Mika), lighting (Michael Korsch), special effects (fog courtesy of Big Shoulders Productions) and dancing in a perfect storm of magic. Shining sparkles dot the floor looking like someone scattered shattered glass across the stage. As dancers move across, the realization hits that it’s water. Three light/fog columns flow down like waterfalls and dancers appear through them from the darkened stage behind to dance in the water. Simply gorgeous.

With that visual still in mind, the shock of intermission was a disappointment and it was a bit difficult to get that vibe back for Part 3, which continued with fantastic dancing from the entire Hubbard Street crew. All the dancers brought their A-game (new company members Laura O’Malley and Quinn Wharton fit in seemlessly), but the true star of the show was Cerrudo himself.  If he’s thinking about topping this any time soon, he better get started now. Wow.

One of the dancers posted to “come get lost” on his Facebook page yesterday. It’s easy to get lost in this world Cerrudo creates completely. A program note quotes Chagall, “Stained glass has to be serious and passionate. It is something elevating and exhilarating.” Serious, passionate, elevating, exhilarating – the perfect description of One Thousand Pieces.

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago presents One Thousand Pieces at the Harris Theater, 205 E. Randolph St., through Sunday, October 21. Tickets are $25-$99. Call 312.850.9744 or visit hubbardstreetdance.com.

Harris Theater box office: 312.334.7777.

*Original text source: Samuel Johnson:

The day with its cares and perplexities is ended and the night is now upon us. The night should be a time of peace and tranquility, a time to relax and be calm. We have need of a soothing story to banish the disturbing thoughts of the day, to set at rest our troubled minds, and put at ease our ruffled spirits.

And what sort of story shall we hear ? Ah, it will be a familiar story, a story that is so very, very old, and yet it is so new. It is the old, old story of love.

Two lovers sat on a park bench with their bodies touching each other, holding hands in the moonlight.

There was silence between them. So profound was theire love for each other, they needed no words to express it. And so they sat in silence, on a park bench, with their bodies touching, holding hands in the moonlight.

Finally she spoke. “Do you love me, John ?” she asked. “You know I love you. darling,” he replied. “I love you more than tongue can tell. You are the light of my life. my sun. moon and stars. You are my everything. Without you I have no reason for being.”

Again there was silence as the two lovers sat on a park bench, their bodies touching, holding handls in the moonlight. Once more she spoke. “How much do you love me, John ?” she asked. He answered : “How’ much do I love you ? Count the stars in the sky. Measure the waters of the oceans with a teaspoon. Number the grains of sand on the sea shore. Impossible, you say. Yes and it is just as impossible for me to say how much I love you.

“My love for you is higher than the heavens, deeper than Hades, and broader than the earth. It has no limits, no bounds. Everything must have an ending except my love for you.”

There was more of silence as the two lovers sat on a park bench with their bodies touching, holding hands in the moonlight.

Once more her voice was heard. “Kiss me, John” she implored. And leaning over, he pressed his lips warmly to hers in fervent osculation…

Joffrey Goes Deep

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Joffrey Ballet dancers in James Kudelka's "Pretty BALLET". Photo by Herbert Migdoll.

“To express your human spirit is a beautiful thing,” Ashley Wheater said in a pre-taped, pre-show video last night before the opening curtain of The Joffrey Ballet‘s fall program at the Auditorium Theatre. As artistic director of the company, he’s tasked with creating an environment for the dancers and audience to grow, learn and thrive. With Human Landscapes, he succeeded immeasurably. The three works on the program span nine decades and range from minimalist German expressionism to modern contemporary ballet and pushed the dancers and audience beyond their comfort zones with resounding success. The Chicago Philharmonic, under the direction of Joffrey Musical Director Scott Speck, added pitch perfect timbre to the contemplative tone of the evening.

As the curtain opens on Jirí Kylián’s Forgotten Land the dancers all face upstage looking out over a dark, but beautiful set designed by John F. Macfarlane, inspired in part by an Edvard Munch painting of women on a beach. The sound of wind, which is actually Kylián blowing into a microphone, alludes to turbulent times and the turmoil of loss.  Couples in muted colors (black, red, gray, biege, pink and white) ebb and flow in duets, trios and sextets to music from British composer Benjamin Britten. Each color has its own mood and tempo for movement. A beautiful trio of women end the piece on a somber note.

James Kudelka’s Pretty BALLET, orginally created for the Joffrey dancers in 2010, elicited audible wonder from the audience with its opening tableau. amidst a white fog, Miguel Angel Blanco holds Victoria Jaiani in a horizontal overhead lift as if she’s a puppet waiting to be set free. The long, white tulle skirts on the women are a nod to classical “white” ballets, and aside from a lovely pas de deux by Jaiani and Blanco (where Jaiani, again puppet-like, exits walking en pointe as if a blind or in a trance), that’s all that is pretty here. Women run and circle like demented Wilis, while men march across the stage with forceful battements and fisted hands. Kudelka (on video) said that “ballet is going through an interestingly rough time”. His take in Pretty BALLET shows that ballet doesn’t have to be pretty as long as it’s good – and this is, although the group sections weren’t as tight as in 2010 and could use some cleaning.

Joffrey Ballet dancers Fabrice Calmels and Anastacia Holden in Kurt Jooss' "The Green Table". Photo by Herbert Migdoll.

The most exciting work on the program was Kurt Jooss’ 1932 anti-war ballet The Green Table: A Dance of Death in Eight Scenes. A green table surrounded by “the Gentlemen in Black”, diplomats and politicians, argue about the prospect of going to war. The answer comes as the ten “men” pull out pistols (loaded with blanks) and fire them into the air. In the following six scenes “Death” – in a stellar performance by Fabrice Calmels – is a foreboding, always present presence. He lurks in the background only to swoop onto a battlefield or village and take life, casually, violently and compassionately. The scene where he takes the life of “The Young Girl”, the wonderful Anastacia Holden, was both heart-wrenching and beautiful. Interwoven through the scenes is the Charlie Chaplin-esque character “The Profiteer”, danced brilliantly by Temur Suluashvili. The ballet ends as it began with another meeting at the table, a nod to seemingly perpetual war. Dancer Erica Lynette Edwards said it best (again, from the video), “stillness speaks volumes”. The moments of stillness, of holding a simple gesture, were the most powerful.

Joffrey Sneak Peek: The Green Table

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Kurt Jooss' "The Green Table". Photo by Herbert Migdoll.

This Wednesday, The Joffrey Ballet presents its fall program at The Auditorium Theatre (through Sunday, October 28). Human Landscapes delves into the human spirit with offerings from three distinctively different choreographic voices from three different eras. James Kudelka’s Pretty BALLET was created for the Joffrey dancers in 2010, Jirí Kylián’s Forgotten Land in 1981 and Kurt Jooss’ anti-war ballet, The Green Table, was created  in 1932. While the first two show how ballet has grown in the contemporary realm in recent decades, the latter strips ballet down to the bare essentials.

 Kudelka has the dancers pushing limits of endurance and questioning the necessary beauty of ballet (much of Pretty BALLET isn’t traditionally pretty), while Kylián challenges dancers to push past safe classical style and to go for moves that are off-center. Jooss uses simple steps and gestures to create strong, human feelings. Artistic Director Ashley Wheater loves the juxtaposition of the three works and says the evening will take you on an emotional journey.

I spoke with Wheater and Jeanette Vondersaar, who is here working with the dancers and setting The Green Table: A Dance of Death in Eight Scenes at Joffrey Tower in late September. Vondersaar was a principal dancer with the Dutch National Ballet in Amsterdam for 21 years and has been restaging The Green Table (originally assisting Jooss’ oldest daughter Anna Markard) since 1995. The Joffrey has included Table in its repertoire since 1967. “I actually saw that performance in ’67 in New York,” said Vondersaar. “I was a trainee with the Harkness School for Ballet Arts. It impressed in my mind, especially the role of ‘Death’. I’ll never forget that.”

What is it about this ballet? Was it something no one had seen before?

AW: It goes back to the danse macabre. You go back culturally to how death…what’s the role it plays in our lives?

JV: It’s inevitable.

AW: It is. It doesn’t matter, you can be the richest person in the world, but we all have to go.

JV: Kurt Jooss was inspired by the medieval dances of death. How he (Death) took those victims from different walks of life and ages. He was fascinated with how he took victims, sometimes violently and sometimes more compassionately. At that time it was between two world wars and he was against the war and what happens after to the people who have suffered from the war. It shows that too. It depicts the whole story.

AW: It was very clear that even though the first World War was over that there was another war looming. And I think if you look at history, there’s always another war.

JV: It’s very relevant. The table scene is the diplomats and the politicians who decide to go to war, but they don’t participate themselves. But at the end, it repeats as if nothing happened, so it’s looming. They don’t learn anything from what happened and a lot of them don’t care.

AW: I would say that The Green Table is such an important piece of work. It has a very clear point of view and it’s not apologetic, yet it’s got so much clarity around it. It’s a very clear statement.

JV: It’s an anti-war statement.

Stylistically, what is different about this ballet?

JV: It’s based on classical ballet. In classical ballet you have a breath or an uplift before a movement and in his movements, they go direct with no preparation. It’s right to the point. The most simple movements…even just the focus of how you look using your eyes. Or your hands and how you open them. If you have your fingers bent, it changes the whole feeling of this openness and this reaching with an open hand an an open heart. This is the kind of thing he developed. It’s so simple and yet so beautiful in its simplicity.

AW: People try to say it’s German Expressionism. I think it’s expressive in that it’s choreographed. He has expressed everything about each character and it’s all done through movement. Movement that’s not complicated. It’s hard to do, but it’s not complicated. There’s no flourish. It is really condensing an emotion to a very straight-forward level.

JV: And within that shows the character.

The Joffrey Ballet presents Human Landscapes at the Auditorium Theatre at Roosevelt University, 50 E. Congress Pkwy., Wednesday, October 17 through Sunday, October 28 (dates and times vary). Tickets are $31 to $152. Call 800.982.2787 or visit ticketmaster.com

 

Luna Negra’s “Reunion”

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Luna Negra dancer Eduardo Zuniga in Fernando Melo's "Bate". Photo courtesy of The DeBartolo Performing Arts Center.

In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, this Saturday, October 13, Luna Negra Dance Theater brings a three-work program to the Harris Theater. The shows title, Reencuentros, or “reunions”, is just that on several levels. A revisiting of Fernando Melo’s 2005 work Bate, which the company performed in 2010; a reuniting of Melo with the Luna dancers for collaboration; and a return to choreographic roots for Artistic Director Gustavo Ramírez Sansano. His new work 18 + 1 anchors the performance between Melo’s earlier Bate and a current collaboration with the company. “Last year was the 18th year of my work, since I started putting things on the stage,” Sansano says. “Last year wasn’t the right moment, so the ‘plus one’. I wanted to make a point with 18, because that’s when you’re a grown up.”

Also growing up is Luna Negra, the company. This season, ten contracted dancers, plus nine apprentices are on the roster, creating a strong foundation to expand and explore. Unfortunately for audiences, veteran Luna performer Veronica Guadalupe will dance her final show with the company on Saturday, although she will still act as rehearsal director. Sansano has been planning this show for a while. “When I talked to Fernando to do Bate (in 2010), that was an introduction of his work to get to the point we are at now,” he says from the Ballet Chicago studios on State Street. “That was the first meeting, now is the re-encounter.”

The Brazilian-born Melo, is currently a dancer, choreographer and rehearsal director at GöteborgsOperans Danskompani in Sweden, while also traveling the world setting his works – a job, he admits, leaves little time for sleep. “Life gets a little busy sometimes,” he says. “I work every day until 6:00 p.m., then my other job starts. I’m a night person, so I get a lot done in the evenings.” Melo took six weeks off to come to Chicago and work with Luna Negra (he’d been here for five when I spoke with him earlier this week). His assistant/repétiteur Stephan Laks and set/costume designer Markus Pysal came with him to aid in resetting Bate and creating Walk-In. The world premiere is finished aside from last minute tweaking. “With a collaboration like this, it’s not ready when you can’t put things in anymore, it’s ready when you can’t take anything else out.”

The title Walk-In, also has multiple meanings: a walk-in closet (“the dancers have to walk into the set for the action to begin”), as well as the new age meaning of when a soul or spirit departs a body and is replaced by a new one. Melo says the initial departure point for starting the collaborative in-studio process was the mundane routines of everyday life. “The theme has been, not only the routines, but the mental state or the emotions that are behind our daily routines. What is actually going on in our mind, while we’re in the midst of our daily routine.” he says. “The mundane itself may not be very exiting to put on stage, but what lies behind those activities, I find very interesting. It’s a very human piece.”

While Melo digs into the meaning behind the ordinary, Sansano goes for the simple.”This one is going back to basics,” he says of 18 + 1. “It’s just music and dance. The celebration, for me, is the perfect marriage between dance and music, where both of them make each other. We give sight to to music and the music gives us sound for our bodies.” His trademark humor, detailed nuance and lightening fast moves are on full display here.

Sansano couldn’t be happier working with Melo, who he says will definitely be back to work with the company in the future. “I’ve seen the process and it’s [Walk-In] probably, I believe, the best creation for the company,” says Sansano. “It shows how we’ve grown in a real way. Everything was a process and we wouldn’t have gotten here if it weren’t for everything we’ve gone through. It’s the result of these two years of work. It’s like, ok, we’re here.”

Catch a sneak peek into the rehearsal process:

Luna Studio: Reencuentros

Luna Negra Dance Theater presents Reencuentros, Saturday, October 13 at 8 pm at the Harris Theater, 205 E. Randolph. Tickets are $25-$65. Call 312.334.7777 or visit www.lunanegra.org.

Sneak Peek: Hubbard Street’s One Thousand Pieces

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Hubbard Street dancers Ana Lopez and Garrett Anderson in front of "America Windows". Photo by Todd Rosenberg. Marc Chagall © 2012 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris.

Yesterday morning I popped in on rehearsals at Hubbard Street for Alejandro Cerrudo’s much-anticipated new full-length work, One Thousand Pieces,  inspired by Marc Chagall’s America Windows housed at the Art Institute of Chicago. This was the first rehearsal with the mirrors covered and with the dancers getting used to new elements (which I’ve been asked not to reveal), so there was some experimentation with aspects of the movements and a lot of starting/stopping as is necessary in a cleaning rehearsal. With that in mind, what I saw was a company fresh, focused and on the verge of something big.

Preparing for next week’s world premiere celebrating the company’s 35th anniversary at the Harris Theater (Oct. 18 – 21) is a collaborative effort engaging all Hubbard Street dancers – main company and HS2 – with all artistic staff hands on deck. Hubbard Street rehearsal director Terry Marling, HS2 director Taryn Kaschock Russell and dancer Penny Saunders (who is expecting a baby – congrats Penny and Pablo!) take turns running rehearsals and helping Cerrudo mold his new masterpiece.

The little bits I saw – and, frankly I wanted to stay and watch all day – were enough to make me believe this work will be something spectacular. Here’s a little glimpse into the process filmed by HMS Media:

Hubbard Street Inside the Studio: One Thousand Pieces

 

 

Who Are You?

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Hello? You there, yes you.

Can I take a moment of your time for a quick, painless and ANONYMOUS survey? I have an idea of who you are, but would like to ask a few simple questions to solidify who is reading RB.

Please and thank you!

 

 

 

 

[SURVEYS 1]

Happy Anniversary to RB!

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Last week – September 24th to be exact – Rogue Ballerina turned 3! While there are ups and downs to having a one-person-pony-show dance blog (up: getting to see tons of kick-ass dance, down: burn out, making very little $ – read 0.00), and while I honestly consider scrapping the whole thing about once a week (sometimes daily), I’m still having a helluva good time doing it. I get to meet amazing artists one-on-one (even if it’s via phone) and discuss what they love passionately. I’ve been exposed to genres and styles I never would have come across in my normal “post-dancer/civilian” life and my knowledge base and tastes have evolved exponentially (I am now a full-fledged Forsythe fan!).

Going over some of the posts from the last year, my belief that Chicago is a world-class city for dance has only grown. From the big dogs like Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and Joffrey Ballet, to small start-ups like Leopold Group and Elements Contemporary Ballet and everything in between, the Windy City has myriad opportunities to see great dance and a ceaseless artistic creativity that is unmatched.

Someone recently told me they appreciated my enthusiasm. While I’m certain some find it annoying, it was greatly appreciated. I see myself more as a cheerleader for all dance in Chicago as opposed to a critic (although I sure do have my opinions).

On the writing front in the past year, I took over the monthly dance column at Windy City Times, covered the sixth annual Chicago Dancing Festival as one of the official bloggers for the second year in a row and had the pleasure of writing Hubbard Street’s Robyn Mineko Williams’ transition notice for Dance Magazine, as well as my usual gigs as a culture writer for Front Desk Chicago and CS Magazine. Other noteworthy events – and there are way too many to list here – include interviewing Twyla Tharp (terrifying!), singing “Happy Birthday” to Ann Reinking and seeing Batsheva Dance Company, Merce Cunningham Dance Company on the final leg of The Legacy Tour and the American Ballet Theatre (live) and the Paris Opera Ballet perform Giselle live (via simulcast).

Goals for the upcoming year include officially meeting fellow dance lover Mayor Rahm Emanuel (instead of just smiling and nodding in passing at events – an interview would be stellar!) and moving forward with a book project (or two) near and dear to my heart and possibly throwing some advertising up on this mug.

Thanks to everyone who reads RB!

Feeling the love,

Vicki

 

 

 

 

Wunderkind Whittenburg

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Zachary Whittenburg - photo by Todd Rosenberg.

If you’re at all familiar with the Chicago dance scene, you know his name.  He’s been a dancer, choreographer, teacher, student, panel moderator, writer, critic and “insatiable audience member.” Locally, he’s danced with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Lucky Plush Productions, Same Planet Different World Dance Theatre and Molly Shanahan/Mad Shak. After graduating high school two years early at age 16, he moved to Seattle to train at Pacific Northwest Ballet School and joined the company at 18. After three years at PNB performing works by choreographers ranging from George Balanchine to William Forsythe, he moved cross-country to dance with North Carolina Dance Theatre, where he was a soloist for a season before coming to Chicago to dance with Hubbard Street for two years.

He then traveled for a year performing Crystal Pite’s choreography with Les Ballets jazz de Montréal. He’s also written for many publications and websites including Flavorpill, See Chicago Dance, Windy City Times, Hoy Chicago, Time Out Chicago, Dance Magazine, Pointe Magazine, Dance International magazine (where he recently got the cover story!), Dance Teacher magazine, Dance Spirit magazine as well as his own blog, trailerpilot. Zac Whittenburg: wunderkind, indeed.

Now, Whittenburg is taking his career in a new direction. Almost a decade after dancing with Hubbard Street, he returns to join the external affairs team at the beginning of an exciting landmark season that will include a full-length world premiere by resident choreographer Alejandro Cerrudo, a work by Swedish choreographer Mats Ek and a collaboration with Alonzo King LINES Ballet.

I spoke with him over Labor Day weekend, just before he started in his new position.

When you danced with Hubbard Street, which choreographer or pieces were your favorites or that you had a deep experience with?


I’ll never forget the experience of learning “Minus 16” [by Ohad Naharin]. It’s probably the piece I performed most when I was in the company. I might’ve done over 100 performances of it in two years. It’s such an extraordinary piece. It asks so much of the dancers as artists. We did a piece by Jirí Kylían for five dancers called “No More Play.” It runs like a wristwatch, the way the characters and the vocabulary intersect with each other, and how the sections turn from one into the next. I’d never been so close to something that was built that way. I learned so much about choreography just by being involved with that.

Why did you leave Hubbard Street?


Well, there are two answers to that question. A dancer’s career is very short, and things run their course. And it was around the time that I became aware of Crystal Pite’s choreography. I saw a video of “Short Works: 24,” which I think was the first piece she made while she was in residence [at Les Ballets jazz de] Montréal. I was aware of her when she was a member of Frankfurt Ballet, which sort of became today’s Forsythe Company, but hadn’t seen her choreography before. I wasn’t aware of the things she was doing using Forsythe’s movement vocabulary in a dance theater context. I thought that was really fascinating, and that she was doing it with a lot of intelligence and humor. I wanted to work with her. I had the wonderful fortune of doing Crystal’s evening-length work [“The Stolen Show”] all over Canada and in Asia and in the United States. To get to see so much of the world, and to have the reason for that travel be that you’re bringing this work to audiences all over…it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. There was a sense of purpose. A feeling that we were a company of ambassadors for contemporary dance.

Let’s talk about your new gig at Hubbard Street. What is your official job title and what will you be doing?


I’m going to be the company’s manager of communication. I have a pretty good understanding of what I’ll be doing, but of course, I’m not in the chair yet. It’s a great position because there are a lot of different angles to it. A large part of it is press relations and working with media outlets to get the word out about what the company is doing. That said, that comes in a variety of flavors. The conversations that I had in the interview process…we were talking about how the media landscape is changing. Part of this job is going to be working on getting the word out about a company when the channels about how the word gets out about a contemporary dance company like Hubbard Street are changing. There are new channels opening, old channels closing, a whole new landscape of how people receive information. I’m thrilled to walk into the challenge of, how do you work with that, and how do you get the most out of what the current media landscape is, anticipate how it’s going to change in the future and use all of that to your advantage, to make sure people know what Hubbard Street is doing, make sure they are aware of the variety of things we do in addition to the production and stage work, and how those things relate to one another. I’m excited to talk about our partnerships with other institutions and put stories in places where the company hasn’t been covered before.

You’re coming in right at the beginning of the 35th Anniversary Season, which is a big deal. What do you expect to be doing on day one?


I know I have a meeting on Tuesday morning with some other managers. It’s great that literally the first thing I’ll do is touch base with people in other departments to see what they’re doing and what they have planned for the near future. I haven’t been in that building very much in the last eight years. I have a lot of catching up to do, not only meeting the people that make the magic happen, but what the company’s overall strategies are. There are a lot of things that I’ve already learned about the 35th Anniversary season and there’s a lot more that I don’t know yet, so I imagine a lot of it will be about finding my place in relation to all those initiatives, cooperating with the other team members and figuring out how I can help them.

You know I like to joke around about how we’re “arch nemeses,“ but I hope you really know that I’m a huge fan. Your voice, not only in the Chicago dance scene, but nationally, is really important and you have a big fan base, so what does your new job mean for trailerpilot?

The blog still exists. When I was full-time at Time Out Chicago, I wasn’t posting a lot. At this point, I’ve got 426 posts on the blog. It’s a big archive and I will continue to make the annual payments to make sure people can find it. I’ve always been interested in things other than just dance and choreography. I’m glad I’ll still have a place, where, if I go see a film and really have something to say about it, I can. My voice will still be out there, I’m still on Twitter, although long form writing about dance isn’t appropriate while I’m manager of communication for a dance company. I think, just in going back over my career with you, over the phone this morning, it’s just been one episode after another of all of these different things I’ve done, and all of my various experiences constantly coming back around and intersecting and sort of morphing together in new ways. Writing is one of those things. I’m certain that will continue. I don’t have my mouth stapled shut, but Hubbard Street is going to be the star in my sky. I love the company. I love where it’s been and where it’s going. I’m really looking forward to helping them get in front of more people and new audiences.