Soft Focus: A Review of RE|dance’s “A Delicate Hand” at Hamlin Park Fieldhouse by Sharon Hoyer

The first delicacy one notices in RE|dance Group’s new work is the quality of the light. Illuminated rectangles of varying dimensions are scattered across the black floor, casting a soft g…

Dance Top 5: March 2024 by Sharon Hoyer

The past, present and future of dance will get you on your feet.

A Powerful Marriage of All the Things: LaTasha Barnes’ The Jazz Continuum Comes to Chicago by Sharon Hoyer

"I know the standards for what is supposed to happen onstage and they are not things that invite that deep improvisational spirit. Things that don’t invite that, we thwart.”

From Home to Broadway: Maria Torres Brings Eclectic Latin Style to Hubbard Street by Sharon Hoyer

New York-based Maria Torres, a dancer, choreographer and educator who works in film, television and Broadway, patented a Latin Jazz style that blends her Brooklyn-raised, Puerto Rican/Cuban/…

Dance Top 5: February 2024 by Sharon Hoyer

February brings local favorites like the Joffrey and Hubbard Street, along with international stalwarts to Chicago dance stages.

Chicago Love Letters: Steppenwolf 1700’s LookOut Series Returns by Sharon Hoyer

Steppenwolf is the most recognizable name in Chicago theater. Since 2016 the venerable institution has become an incubator of multidisciplinary and experimental performance as well, presente…

Speak, Material: The Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival is Back with a Message Beyond Words by Sharon Hoyer

"The puppet is a harbinger coming from a non-human world. It’s like a species that arrives porously through myth and imagination and is like an apparition that becomes present. It speaks a…

One Recommendation for January 2024: DingBat by Same Planet Performance Project by Sharon Hoyer

A new work to kick off the new year.

How We Get By: Joanna Read and Same Planet Performance Project Explore Resilience in “DingBat” by Sharon Hoyer

Coping strategies for a violent, unjust and ever-accelerating world are at the forefront of cultural conversation these days. Enter Joanna Read and Same Planet Performance Project. Read's da…

A New Nutcracker Swings Into Town: “Sugar Hill” Brings Ellington and Strayhorn’s Score to the Stage by Sharon Hoyer

In 1960, jazz greats Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington infused Tchaikovsky’s most recognizable composition with American rhythms and twentieth-century chords. The Ellington/Strayhorn “N…

Dance Top 5: December 2023 by Sharon Hoyer

It's the season for Nutcrackers and other holiday delights.

A Little Child Shall Lead Them: Akram Khan Company Brings a “Jungle Book” For The Age of Climate Change by Sharon Hoyer

London-based choreographer Akram Khan brings his eponymous company to the Harris Theater for the first time, with a near-future version of Rudyard Kipling's "The Jungle Book" set in a rewild…

Dance Top 5: November 2023 by Sharon Hoyer

Clear your first two weekends: November is front-loaded with dance from mixed-rep to immersive storytelling.

A Return to Return to Patience: A Preview of Hubbard Street Dance at the Harris Theater by Sharon Hoyer

Aszure Barton, who embarks this season on a three-year stint as resident choreographer for Hubbard Street, is reviving “return to patience,” a piece she created in 2015 for students at t…

Ways of Seeing: A Preview of Mad Shak’s “Ex/Body: strike, vibrate, shatter” at Studio5 by Sharon Hoyer

Molly Shanahan and Mad Shak know that when she says “Bodies are so much more than what is visually perceived,” she means not only that the vast interior world of individual experience is…

Palimpsests: A Preview of S45 at SITE/less by Sharon Hoyer

For “S45," Michelle Kranicke and Paige Cunningham-Caldarella invited three choreographers to join them in taking a section of Merce Cunningham's “Suite for Five” as a jumping off point…

Dance Top 5: October 2023 by Sharon Hoyer

From Frankenstein to Merce Cunningham, there's dance provocation on stage for everyone.

Safe, Exuberant and a Real Good Time: A Preview of Instigation Festival by Sharon Hoyer

"We brought old and new friends together to take creative risks at multiple venues across Chicago and magic ensued. We shared a similar non-verbal language. This magic has transpired for the…

Can’t-Miss Dance Events (Fall Arts Preview 2023) by Sharon Hoyer

From futurism to Jungle Book revisited, this fall dance season has a big range.

Jerry and Mr. Joffrey: A Centennial Celebration of Gerald Arpino, Co-Founder and “Architect of the Dancers” of One of America’s Premier Ballet C by Sharon Hoyer

On January 14 of this year, the big brother to dozens of ballet luminaries in the United States would have celebrated his hundredth birthday. To commemorate the occasion, the Gerald Arpino F…

Dance Top 5: September 2023 by Sharon Hoyer

The fall season kicks off with a series of festivals.

Spirit of Yes: Harris Theater Celebrates Twenty in Millennium Park by Sharon Hoyer

Harris will kick off its emerald anniversary with an all-day, outdoor festival spread across Millennium Park. Festivities culminate in a three-hour performance in the Pritzker Pavilion of a …

Encouragement and Drive: A Preview of Dance for Life at the Auditorium Theatre by Sharon Hoyer

“Dance for Life” is an annual concert that raises money for The Dancers’ Fund, which provides health care assistance for dancers and people who work in the dance field. But it also hap…

Past and Present Power: Muntu Dance Theatre Celebrates “Lineage” at the Logan Center for the Arts by Sharon Hoyer

Performances by Muntu invoke the power of the past in brilliant hues and thunderclaps: drumming, dance and song so joyfully kinetic it would be cruel to ask any other company to follow them.

Dance Top 5: August 2023 by Sharon Hoyer

Great dance heats up August: North Side, South Side, West Side and Downtown.

Open Doors: A Preview of DisFest at the Chicago Cultural Center by Sharon Hoyer

This Saturday, oft-overlooked artists take over the Chicago Cultural Center in the first DisFest, a daylong festival featuring multidisciplinary work by artists with disabilities. Thirty art…

Titans of Culture: A Review of “The Big Bang: Movement Theory + the Black Dancing Body” at Art on The Mart by Sharon Hoyer

This three-act visual story connects traditional African dance to twentieth and twenty-first century American forms. Through the magic of editing, West African stomps give way to tap and hip…

Don’t Close Your Eyes: A Few Words on Physical Theater Festival Chicago by Sharon Hoyer

Ten years ago, Alice da Cunha and Marc Frost created a small festival for theater artists whose preferred method of storytelling is beyond words. Now, Physical Theater Festival Chicago works…

Dance Top 5: July 2023 by Sharon Hoyer

Dance abounds this summer, lots of it free and outdoors.

The Rhythm of Life: A Preview of “Joffrey for All Celebration” in Millennium Park by Sharon Hoyer

Enduring Legacies: A Preview of “Flamenco Passion” at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts by Sharon Hoyer

Ensemble Español’s annual “Flamenco Passion” concert will give a taste of the international high-profile partnerships the organization has cultivated over its long tenure.