Vocabularies for Empathy: Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble Prompts Audiences to Take Action for Social Change by Sharon Hoyer

Why don’t we take control of the conversation instead of letting the conversation steer us?

Dance Top 5: May 2018 by Sharon Hoyer

The dance shows to see in May from intimate activist performances to large scale story ballets.

Remix: Lucky Plush Presents New Short Work and Reimagined Old in Tab Show by Sharon Hoyer

The wildly witty and inquisitive company presents two reimagined shorter works: an expanded riff on a short piece created for Hubbard Street last year and a mashup of memorable moments from …

Cellular Histories: “Poor People’s TV Room” comes to the MCA Stage by Sharon Hoyer

Okwui Okpokwasili's new work, inspired by protest movements of Nigerian women, asks the audience to open up the layers of sensing and awareness we use to make our world.

Dance Top 5: April 2018 by Sharon Hoyer

It's Chicago Dance Month and picking just five is near impossible. We made sure to put some free shows in the mix.

Creation and Control: a preview of The Mysterious Disappearance of the Second Youngest Sister by RE|Dance by Sharon Hoyer

An ancient Underwood typewriter, a dress form, stacks of books and Victorian-inspired garb set the scene for intimate character development and a tinge of claustrophobia.

Kinetic Signature: a preview of Hubbard Street Dance at the Auditorium Theatre by Sharon Hoyer

Hubbard Street Dance's 40th anniversary season and the Auditorium Theatre's "Made in Chicago" series intersect with a special program dedicated to Hubbard Street's first and only resident ch…

Of the Shameful and Strange: a preview of Lie Through My Skin by Same Planet Performance Project by Sharon Hoyer

Sensuality and disgust drip through the opening of "Lie Through My Skin," setting an ambivalent tone that becomes increasingly surreal as the piece unfolds.

Of Ballet and Bondage: a review of Brendan Fernandes’s The Master and Form at the Graham Foundation by Sharon Hoyer

Fernandes’s show, an installation and performance project in collaboration with design firm Norman Kelley and the Joffrey Ballet Academy is a quietly elegant look at the pleasure of pain i…

Dance Top 5: March 2018 by Sharon Hoyer

So much great dance in Chicago in March. Here's a few of our recommendations.

The Power of Words: Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan Returns with a Final Work by its Founder by Sharon Hoyer

The dancers move with an impossibly subtle, inwardly-generated fluidity and power, on stages transformed into vast, timeless landscapes. Cloud Gate performances are truly as much mediations …

The Dancer In Every Pedestrian: Doug Varone and Dancers return to Chicago after Seventeen Years by Sharon Hoyer

"I really believe in the honesty of being on stage—the word 'being' being key. If there’s a character to imbue that it is at the very heart of the performer as opposed to something place…

Dance Top 5: February 2018 by Sharon Hoyer

It's a big month for ballet with Balanchine, Baryshnikov, and ABT gracing Chicago stages.

Dance Top 5: January 2018 by Sharon Hoyer

Dance highlights to kick off the new year.

A Terrible and Beautiful Time: Performances at Links Hall Capture the Creative American Zeitgeist by Sharon Hoyer

January at Links Hall is an intensive course in the complexity of our American identity.

Dance Top 5: December 2017 by Sharon Hoyer

Dance in December with Twyla Tharp, Crystal Pite, Christopher Wheeldon and more.

Going Deeper: Deeply Rooted Dance Theater mines pain, healing and spirituality in Fana Tshabalala’s INDUMBA by Sharon Hoyer

Tshabalala originally created the piece in his native South Africa, ostensibly in response to apartheid and its aftermath, but the pounding heart of "INDUMBA" is universally powerful to witn…

Partially Obstructed: The Seldoms tune in to the lower frequencies in The Making by Sharon Hoyer

This latest piece from Hanson plays with perception by moving the audience through three rooms.

Rules of the Game: Lucky Plush Productions Finds Empathy Through Storytelling in Rooming House by Sharon Hoyer

"We’re always wrestling with how to create a piece that an audience can connect to. That’s by creating a logic, but then we also believe the logic breaks down because life doesn’t work…

Dance Top 5: November 2017 by Sharon Hoyer

November dance brings a golden celebration, African Dance and movement and theater games. Dance along.

Testing Bounds: a preview of Unwinding at the Studebaker Theater by Sharon Hoyer

Pranita (Jain) Nayar, executive artistic director of Mandala South Asian Performing Arts, is testing the bounds of the highly formal dance style she has worked in for over thirty years: the …

The Irrevocable Condition: Reggie Wilson/Fist + Heel Performance Group Explore the Trappings of Group Identity in CITIZEN by Sharon Hoyer

How an individual or community feels like they do belong, or want to belong, but at the same time there might be something about that belonging they don’t want to participate in. You can t…

Dance Top 5: October 2017 by Sharon Hoyer

Dance in October, from the exploration of dance and soccer at MCA Stage to a broad swath of dance styles at Elevate Chicago Dance.

Gentle, Awkward, Human: A Review of Hubbard Street Dance’s Space, In Perspective at the Harris Theater by Sharon Hoyer

...the company visibly honed in on choreography that ranges from small—an almost imperceptibly slow decent by dancer Rena Butler from standing to sitting in a chair—to massive, with the …

In Discomfort, Beauty: Carole McCurdy Blends Argentine Tango and Butoh at Defibrillator by Sharon Hoyer

Exploring the embrace of otherness, and the eternal wavering "between female and male, presence and nostalgia, attention and forgetting."

What Could Be Better? Glenn Edgerton Discusses the Fortieth Anniversary Season of Hubbard Street Dance by Sharon Hoyer

The Fall Series will transport audiences backstage and behind the scenes at the Harris Theater.

Dance Top 5 by Sharon Hoyer

From Shen Wei Dance Arts to Visceral Dance.

Taking Care of Our Own: Dance for Life Brings Chicago’s Dancers Together for a Cause by Sharon Hoyer

Raw, Ambitious, Passionate, Imperfect by Sharon Hoyer by Sharon Hoyer

Dance Top 5 by Sharon Hoyer by Sharon Hoyer

Honoring the Past, Accelerating Creativity by Sharon Hoyer