Since it is hot as *^%! outside today, why not cool off by dreaming of a wintery treat. Today only – until 7:00 pm – Joffrey Ballet is holding a Christmas in July event. Dance classes, merchandise and 50% off select tickets to The Nutcracker are available.
Link to ticket info here. Use promo code CIJ.
Photo by William Frederking.
Are you a ballerina with an edge? A dancer with classical training, but likes to move more outside of the box? Dare I say, a rogue ballerina? Local dancer/teacher/choreographers Emily Stein and Paige Cunningham Caldarella have a workshop designed just for you. Ballet Lab Chicago is a one-week intensive contemporary ballet workshop being held July 30 – Aug 3 at Visceral Dance Center (2820 N. Elston Ave.). Two morning technique classes – 10:00 to 11:30 and 11:30 to 1:00 pm/teachers will alternate – give you a warm-up and a solid base for an afternoon rehearsal – 1:00 to 3:00 pm – where both choreographers will “workshop” new choreography. On the final day, there will be a works- in-progress showing of the resulting dances. Aside from the full workshop ($300), there are two class options: a 5-class option (you can choose any five classes – $100), or the entire week of nine classes ($150).
Stein and Cunningham met about five years while teaching at the Dance Center of Columbia College. Because they both taught the same level and had some of the same students, they started talking about what was going on in the classes and found they had similar approaches. Columbia’s summer program ends in mid-July and although there are many other companies housing workshops around Chicago, they thought this would be a good time for their students to get some extra classes before school session start up again in the fall.
I sat down with Stein and Cunningham at the Dance Center to find out more about their Ballet Lab.
Why did you create Ballet Lab?
ES: We both are interested in choreographing using the ballet vocabulary, which we don’t always have the chance to do here. It’s also an opportunity for us to get some playtime choreographically that was something more specifically focused on contemporary ballet. There’s a showing on the last day. I think we’re both hoping that it gives us a chance to springboard into some new work next year, either in terms of choreographic ideas that we develop in that week, or in terms of meeting new dancers or finding people we want to work with in the future. We’re both interested in approaching the ballet vocabulary in a choreographic way. I’ve always been teaching ballet, I was classically trained, it’s my first language and my first love, but obviously most of my performing career was in modern dance…very avante garde modern dance. I’m trying to bring the ends of these things together, because in my brain there are similarities.
Can you explain what you mean by “approaching ballet choreographically”?
ES: A lot of my work in the last ten years since I did the solo-commissioning project (working with Deborah Hay), kind of sent me on this journey of improvisation and scores. I’m really interested in structure. Ballet is full of structure, but it’s not improvisational structure. It’s the opposite…or is it? I guess that’s my question. I’m interested in exploring the vocabulary and playing with ideas of structure and score. For example, if I create a combination and then I give instructions of what to do with the combination, what will happen to it? Each dancer will bring something new to it. How open can that be? Or how specific does it need to be in order to be a replicatible piece that’s interesting to watch? Scores are really interesting, but it’s a big risk because sometimes it’s just boring to watch. It just doesn’t work. Can you make it work and make it different every time, or not? A lot of times in improvisation workshops there was “not that”, “not an arabesque”…well, why not? That’s in my body, that’s part of my language. If that comes out, why is that wrong? I don’t mean it to be judgmental. I’m just questioning these things. What if you take these really abstract ideas of score, but you approach them intentionally with ballet vocabulary in your body, as your language…allowing yourself to access that.
PC: I like that. I feel like that is something that comes up. I’ve caught myself working with young students saying, “that’s familiar, don’t do that” and then they shut down. That’s what they know. How do you let them do that, but find a new, interesting approach to it.
How are your teaching styles different?
ES: My class has a classical base, but I approach it from a really somatic point of view. We spend time in class working on mechanical and somatic principles that they can then use in technique. They develop efficiency. They get to know their body better and it’s not just about being able to do stuff, but about finding pathways to do things effectively.
PC: My class tends to be more contemporary ballet, like a ballet hybrid. We’ll do a more traditional barre, but the center work might be phrase work or explore things choreographically, so it isn’t necessarily the traditional ballet class structure. I feel like I was a dance misfit. I started ballet when I was 3, so I had a lot of classical training, then I went to Julliard and had a lot of formal, technical training. I was never going to be in a classical ballet company. Body-wise and the way I approached ballet class, I knew I wasn’t going to be in a ballet company. Then I ended up at Cunningham which was perfect, because I could use a lot of my ballet training, but still be a modern dancer. I never felt like I could fit into a downtown modern dance scene. I wasn’t weighted in that way, so I was in this weird in-between place, but I love ballet vocabulary. For me, it’s exploring taking your pelvis off-center or you may go into the floor and come up to find that verticality of ballet. It’s kind of a mish-mosh approach. There are probably teachers that would call it “bastardized ballet”. I think part of it was when I came here I saw so many students struggling with ballet, because we have generous admissions, we have students that are 18 and have never studied ballet before. I started thinking, how can we approach this so they can see how modern can feed into it, or jazz or African.
ES: You said ballet misfit. That was kind of our point of connection. We’ve both felt that way. We have a ballet background, but we don’t fit into that mold as performers. I feel that for both of us, making connections for the students…trying to make the students understand they don’t live on the ballet planet. There’s one planet, it’s rewarding, it’s not scary or limiting to be able to be able to do all these other things, to be able to think about movement in all these different ways. There’s a place where if you approach it a certain way, ballet really is organic.
PC: Ballet Misfit Academy! That’s what the t-shirt should say.
What’s your end goal aside from a successful workshop?
ES: We’ve been talking for a long time about doing a collaborative show, but we have some extenuating circumstances that are changing the game a little bit. (Caldarella is pregnant.) Both of us look at it as an opportunity. Any time I get to play and make stuff, it becomes something. There is no end goal. Everything is a step to the next thing. We’d like to do the workshop every summer.
PC: Maybe finding ways of connecting with other Chicago organizations. Maybe time it so we have a group of five weeks and make it a larger collaborative intensive.
Ballet Lab Chicago, July 30 through August 3 at Visceral Dance Center, 2820 N. Elston Ave. Spots are still available, register here!
Dance writer/lecturer Zachary Whittenburg. Photo by Benjamin Wardell.
Today, the Chicago Dancing Festival (CDF) announced the programming for the Chicago Now lecture/demonstration at the Museum of Contemporary Art on Friday, August 24 at 6 pm. A discussion on the current state of dance in Chicago will be moderated by journalist and former dancer Zac Whittenburg (go Zac!), featuring a panel of distinguished Chicago dance leaders, including Lane Alexander (Chicago Human Rhythm Project), Ron De Jesús (Ron De Jesús Dance), Carrie Hanson (The Seldoms) and Julie Nakagawa (DanceWorks Chicago). The program will include brief performances by The Seldoms, Ron De Jesús Dance and FootworKINGz.
Tickets for the Chicago Now program become available Thursday, July 18 at 12 pm in person at the MCA Stage Box Office, 220 E. Chicago Avenue, or by calling 312-397-4010. Tickets will go fast! Good luck – this is sure to be a great conversation.
Muntu dancers in action. Photo by Marc Monaghan.
Muntu Dance Theatre of Chicago celebrates 40 years of performance, education and preservation of African and African-American dance. The word muntu means “the essence of humanity” in Bantu and that essence, that human connect, is what the company brings into everything it does. For the newcomer, a Muntu performance is quite the spectacle. Not only traditional African dance, but contemporary offerings with drummers and musicians performing with such passion and dynamic energy, you can’t help but be swept up in the moment. Amaniyea Payne, the Artistic Director since 1987, lists some of the company’s highlights over the years: being able to take the company to other countries and continents (Africa, Mexico, Brazil), to be internationally recognized as a reliable source of this artistic form, to continue educating at summer dance intensives (Colorado Dance Festival, Bates Dance Festival), having the company at full-time status so the artists are able to survive on their craft, working with world-renowned artists on collaborative performances (Arthur Hall, Ronald K. Brown)…you get the picture. “It’s a milestone to still be here, to still be performing, to still be enlightening people,” she said last week in a phone interview. “We’re still looking at the institutionalization of our organization. We want to continue to connect, to promote and to inspire.”
Dancer/choreographer Jeffrey Page. Photo by Djeneba Aduayom.
Payne, 58, has been an inspiration and influence to many young artists over the years, most notably a young boy from Indianapolis, IN that now has quite a reputation in the dance world. Dancer/choreographer Jeffrey Page has been a guest choreographer on So You Think You Can Dance, starred in Fela! on Broadway, got an Emmy nomination for his work on the NAACP Image Awards show, and choreographed the finale of the 2005 Billboard’s Music Awards. His most famous collaboration – so far – has been working with Beyoncé on her 2007 world tour and choreographing the video for Girls Rule the World. “I’ve known Jeffrey since he was 11 years old, since he started his mission to become a dynamic performing artist as well as choreographer,” said Payne. Page affectionately calls her Mama Amaniyea and consistently asked to create something for Muntu. She always answered, “in time that will happen”. Well, it is happening now. Page’s Beauty, I Am will make its world premiere this weekend as part of the New Voices/New Vistas program at the Harris Theater. Page’s work will have the company showing a more contemporary flair.
Also on the program, See (In) Me a contemporary piece by former River North dancer Monique Haley; Roff, a work inspired by the national dish of Senegal – “it’s tasty, a lot of spice, a lot of flavor, but stays traditional”; Djole, a traditional mask dance from Guinea, West Africe and Sierra Leone; Tribute: Afro-Caribe and Djembe Drum Talk featuring the Muntu musicians.
Muntu Dance Theatre presents New Voices/New Vistas on Saturday, July 21 at 7 pm, Harris Theater, 205 E. Randolph Dr. Tickets are $15 – $175. Call 312.334.7777 or visit harristheaterchicago.org.
Giordano dancers Martin Ortiz & Maeghan McHale work with choreographer Alexander Ekman. Photo by Joel Solari.
A whimsically humorous contemporary duet by Swedish phenom choreographer Alexander Ekman will mark Giordano Dance Chicago‘s (GDC) debut performance at the Chicago Dancing Festival (CDF) this August. A small group was given a preview yesterday afternoon at Columbia College’s studios on South Wabash. Ekman, 28, danced with the Royal Swedish Ballet, Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT), Cullberg Ballet and Ballet du Rhin before embarking on his choreographic career, which started in 2006 with a piece created for NDT II. Since then, he has made new works for companies around the world. His work, Two Become Three, was originally created last year on dancers at Julliard where CDF co-founder Lar Lubovitch saw the piece and commissioned it for the opening night of this year’s festival.
Ekman has been in town since Monday and set the piece on GDC dancers Maeghan McHale and Martin Ortiz Tapia in about three days. Ekman recorded a voice over that plays on top of the score providing an audible inner monologue of the characters on stage. A “surprise” prop at the end of the piece provides another layer of humor to the tongue-in-cheek piece that garnered laughter from the viewers at rehearsal. The piece is lighthearted and fun, but the dancing is anything but simple. These two seasoned dancers take the physical and theatrical demands in stride. An obvious respect and rapport grew out of the intense few days in the studio and the result will delight the audience at Chicago Dancing on Monday, August 20 at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance.
Debuting at CDF12 isn’t the only exciting things happening for GDC. Kicking off their 50th anniversary season, the company changed its name (notice the “Jazz” is gone), has a brand new website and logo, as well as new administrative offices (1509 S Michigan Ave, 2nd floor) and is a resident company at the new American Rhythm Center* (ARC) which will open new studio space later this month. If good things come in three’s, they’ve overshot by a few and I see only more good things in the future for GDC.
Chicago Dancing Festival presents Chicago Dancing at the Harris Theater, 205 E. Randolph, Monday, August 20 at 7 pm. Tickets will be released Tuesday, July 17 at noon. For more information, visit www.chicagodancingfestival.com.
*More information on ARC here.
Paul Taylor Dance Company performing at the Chicago Dancing Festival in 2011.
Have you always dreamed of dancing on stage in front of an audience? How about dancing on an outdoor stage in front of thousands of people while looking out over Millenium Park? That dream can come true. This year, the Chicago Dancing Festival (CDF) has commissioned a new work by New York-based choreographer Larry Keigwin set to Maurice Ravel’s famous music Bolero. The world premiere of Bolero Chicago will feature up to 75 non-dancer participants from the Chicago area alongside the dancers. NO DANCE EXPERIENCE NECESSARY! Ashley Browne, a member of Keigwin’s company – Keigwin + Company – will be leading four open casting call/community meetings this weekend to meet potential participants and discuss what will be involved by taking part in this historic performance experience. At the end of the meeting, there will be a chance to sign up for Bolero Chicago, which will be performed twice during the festival: Monday, August 20th in the Chicago Dancing program at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance and Saturday, August 25th in the Celebration of Dance program on the Pritzker Pavilion stage in Millenium Park.
People of all ages and abilities are encouraged to participate. Remember there is no dance experience required. If you join the cast of Bolero Chicago, there will be a two-week residency with rehearsals that run Monday through Friday evening, August 6th – 11th, as well as dress rehearsals on August 19th and 24th. This is the chance of a lifetime.
Open Casting Call/Community Meetings:
Friday, July 13 at 4:30 pm, the Dance Center of Columbia College, 1306 S. Michigan Ave.
Saturday, July 14 at 11:00 am, National Museum of Mexican Art, 1852 W. 19th St.
Saturday, July 14 at 2:00 pm, PINT, 1547 N. Milwaukee Ave.
Sunday, July 15 at 2:00 pm, Beverly Arts Center, 2407 W. 111th St.
Please email your RSVP for attendance in advance to: info@chicagodancingfestival.com. This RSVP will enter you for a chance to win 2 VIP tickets to one of CDF12’s performances.
Rendering of the American Rhythm Center's reception area.
Lane Alexander’s dream of a shared-space, communal arts building is finally coming true. The American Rhythm Center (ARC), located in Chicago’s Fine Arts Building at 410 S. Michigan Avenue – former space of the Boitsov Ballet – will launch its first stage in a few weeks. On the third floor of this cultural institution will be three new multi-use studios to be shared by nine local mid-sized arts organizations. Alexander’s Chicago Human Rhythm Project (CHRP) will be the first to use the space for the upcoming Rhythm World Festival 2012 later this month with a grand opening with the resident partners coming this fall in September.
The collaborative space will be shared by community partners Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre, Chicago Chinese Cultural Institute, Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra, Giordano Dance Chicago, Kalapriya, Luna Negra Dance Theater, Ping Pong Productions and River North Dance Chicago. “One of the things that’s appealing about ARC is that we’re helping to build cultural infrastructure,” said CHRP’s new Executive Director Frank Sonntag. “To have a healthy ecosystem, you can’t just pay attention to the top, you have to pay attention to the middle and create entry points for artists. That’s what we’re doing and I think it’s important.” Sonntag, 50, boasts a long career in arts administration with stints at the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts, Dance St. Louis, David Parsons Project, New York Foundation for the Arts, Broadway Cares, Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts as well as helping open the Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts in Minneapolis last fall. He’s only been in town a month and is already in love with the city and excited about this new venture. “It’s very much born out of the idea of collaboration,” Sonntag said. “What is going to make it work is that collectively the offerings we’ll have are much greater than any one of us are and that will give us market penetration that all of us will have.”
The plan for ARC came out of CHRP’s strategic planning process and with Alexander on board it was only a matter of time before it became a reality. Approximately $1 million has already been raised and a capital campaign is in the works to raise the estimated $2.5 million needed to complete the other two phases of the project which include administrative facilities, additional space for programming and a black box theater. Shared performances have gained ground in recent years with many smaller experimental companies presenting together at independent venues and with Audience Architects’ MetLife Fund New Stages for Dance Initiative pairing mid-sized companies at larger venues. This shared-space facility takes sharing to a whole new level. “It’s a new model based on the strength of collaboration,” said Sonntag. “Medium-sized dance companies in particular are under-capitalized, not just here, but all over the country. What happens when resources are tight is organizations cut programs, the cut marketing budgets, they cut educational outreach and the audiences dwindle. It’s a downward spiral that can be debilitating. What ARC will do is to enable these companies to expand their community outreach, be more financially stable through earned income sources and potentially grow their audience.”
As contractors race to make sure the three studios are ready for class by the end of the month, Sonntag feels they are in a good place and is ready for the challenges ahead. “We’re going to take baby steps. We’re going to share a copier,” he said. “The real goal is taking advantage of the synergy that you create when you put that many arts organizations in such close proximity. That will cut down on some of the barriers that exist. It’s the wave of the future.”
This weekend, the Ruth Page Center for the Arts will be hosting and auction of dance artwork and memorabilia from their collection. The auction will be held Saturday, July 7 from 10 am to 4 pm and Sunday, July 8 from 11 am to 3 pm. The proceeds of the sale will benefit the Center and its work.
Click here to preview the items for auction!
Crowd at Pritzker Pavillion for Paris Opéra Ballet's live simulcast of "Giselle". Photo by Robert Carl.
An estimated 14,000 people showed up at Millennium Park Wednesday evening to watch the live simulcast of the Paris Opéra Ballet‘s performance of Giselle. After a greeting from Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) Commissioner, Michelle T. Boone and a few words from Brigitte Lefèvre, Paris Opéra Ballet’s Director, the audience fixed its collective gaze at a giant screen set up on the Pritzker Pavilion stage. The LED screen set up by Staging Solutions was 18′ x 32′ according to the City’s press release or 16.5′ x 32.5′ according to Hedy Weiss in the Chicago Sun Times – it was big! Hi-tech, LED, surround sound and arguably the most famous ballet company in the world performing my favorite ballet…for free. I love my city!
Chicagoans have been privy to this ballet before. Local fave Joffrey Ballet presented Giselle in October 2007 and American Ballet Theatre has performed it here numerous times, most recently in March. The ballet was created for the Paris Opéra Ballet in 1841, however, the current version was staged by Patrice Bart and Eugene Polyakov in 1991. The french version is pretty much the same as what we’ve seen before with one notable exception. The Americanized adaptations throw in more grandiose choreography. For instance, ABT’s version has Albrecht’s brisé diagonals and grand jumps in Act II, where Paris Opéra has him doing slow changements that grow into a crescendo of entrechat quatré and six (performed with great ballon by Nicolas Le Riche). Where ABT’s Myrta breezes back and forth across the stage and in and out of the wings in a bourré flurry, Paris Opéra’s Myrta’s doesn’t leave the stage, stopping and balancing in sous-sus before taking off again, an exercise in complete control (danced brilliantly by Nolwenn Daniel – she was scary!). Clairemarie Osta’s Giselle was a sweet, innocent take on young love, but her mad scene lacked the dramatic prowess of a Julie Kent. Rounding out Wednesday’s cast was hottie Vincent Chaillet as Hilarion and a stellar corps de ballet. Those Wilis were on!
Being outside had the effect of enhancing, yet separating you from the performance. The breeze made you feel like you were in the glen celebrating the wine festival and as the sun set and the sky became darker, you could imagine yourself in a wooded graveyard. The minimal downside was random fire engine sirens and the weekly fireworks exploding at nearby Navy Pier, but that made the experience uniquely Chicago. There was a disconnect not being in the theater. A twice-removed feeling: one, you’re not in the theater and two, you’re watching live dance being filmed on a screen. Nothing beats a live performance experience, but knowing it was being performed live a few hundred feet away (and below) was pretty cool. The actual filming was fantastic with close-up shots of the lead dancers, a peak into the orchestra pit, an angled shot that showed a hint of the entrances from one wing. It gave those of us in the cheap (free) seats a VIP feel.
Martha Graham Dance Co dancer Xiaochuan Xie on the Pritzker stage.
The Chicago Dancing Festival (CDF) hits Chicago stages for a week of free dance performances again this August. Now in its sixth year, CDF – the brainchild of Lar Lubovitch and Jay Franke – is expanding (again) to six days of events with new programs and a couple of commissioned world premieres to boot! RB will be part of CDF’s blogger initiative for the second year, bringing you sneak peeks, dancer/choreographer interviews, event coverage, reviews and wrap ups. I’ll also be live-Tweeting pre- and post-event coverage for the Fest complete with photos, behind-the-scenes happenings and audience quotes.
New to the fest this year is an all-Chicago program, Chicago Dancing, featuring local faves Hubbard Street Dance Chicago (HSDC) and Joffrey Ballet and three CDF commissioned works. Giordano Dance Chicago (note the new name!) makes its CDF debut in a work by Swedish choreographer Alexander Ekman. New York-based choreographer Nicholas Leichter will work with the After School Matters students to create a world premiere honoring the memory of Maggie Daley, former first lady of Chicago, who started the program in 1991. A two-week residency led by Larry Keigwin blends dancers and non-dancers from Chicago into a world premiere, Bolero Chicago. Keigwin’s new work, set to Ravel’s most famous score, will incorporate local movement traits for a uniquely Chicago piece. New groups performing at the fest this year include Pacific Northwest Ballet and Ballet Arizona, along with returning companies San Francisco Ballet, Houston Ballet, New York City Ballet, Martha Graham Dance Company and Brian Brooks Moving Company.
A partnership with Chicago SummerDance, the city’s outdoor dancing series, for Dancing Under the Stars and prolific local dance writer Zac Whittenburg leads a lecture demonstration, Chicago Now, with local companies at the MCA Stage. Programming for both of these event to be announced at a later date. A day of Dancing Movies also takes place at the MCA with films including PINA, All Is Not Lost, Two Seconds After the Laughter and Fanfare for Marching Band curated by local artist Sarah Best. The fest always ends with a Celebration of Dance at the outdoor Pritzker Pavilion stage in Millennium Park showcasing a number of artists that have performed throughout the week.
Tickets for all of the events are free, however, you do need to reserve seating for the indoor theaters in advance. These will “sell out” very fast! More information on tickets will be available the week of July 16th.