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New Dance Column: Dancin' Feats
by JONATHAN ABARBANEL
2005-10-12

This article shared 5261 times since Wed Oct 12, 2005
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Pictured #1 Jay-Son Dance Co. #2 Giordano Jazz Dance Chicago and #3 Gran Folkloriko de Mexico. #4 & 5 Jay-Son Dance Company.com . Photos by Andrea Petruccelli. #6 Thodos Dance Chicago. Photo by Marsha Cairo.

The autumn dance season is out of the gate and galloping, and it will keep going until the end of the year, culminating with Dance Chicago 2005 at the Athenaeum Theatre, Nov. 4-Dec. 4, followed by various versions of The Nutcracker in time for The Holidays. But even before that, the dance card is full.

Indeed, the first week of October already has offered performances by the Bebe Miller Company, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Luna Negra Dance Theater and Jay-Son Dance Company. The latter presented New Haven, created by company founder Derek Jay-Son Rusch based on his own experience as a Vietnamese orphan adopted by a U.S. family. New Haven used modern dance to explore issues of racial tension, gay identity and cultural history. Notes prepared for the performances pointed out that three Jay-Son Dance Company artists are orphans and five are minority ethnics. Also, the company dancers collectively sport 16 tattoos. Now, there's dance news you can use.

Those who read Dancin' Feats when it hits the sidewalks may be in time for the free About Dance program Thursday night ( Oct. 13 ) , 6 p.m., at the Chicago Cultural Center. This monthly program ( second Thursday of each month ) features performance excerpts by local dance companies and a discussion of the artistic process of the choreographers and dancers. Theater and dance critic Lucia Mauro is the moderator. If you miss the October About Dance, the next one will be Nov. 10 ( yes, the date the Edmund Fitzgerald went down in Lake Superior, but that has nothing to do with dance ) .

Giordano Jazz Dance Chicago revs up the Harris Theater for Music and Dance this weekend ( Oct. 14-15 ) with a program of six dances, among them the world premiere of BeIngOne by Davis Robertson and the company premiere of Jon Lehrer's SuperZeroes. Dances choreographed by former Hubbard Street artists Ron De Jesus and Alberto Arias also are on the Giordano bill. The umbrella title for all six is Interplay.

The Chicago-based Giordano crew will slug it out for the contemporary dance audience with Pilobolus Dance Theatre, also performing this weekend ( Oct. 14-15 ) . Pilobolus will bring four of their signature athletic and sculptural pieces to the Chicago Theatre, among them the Chicago premiere of Aquatica, a dance by Michael Tracy to original music by Brazilian composer Marcelo Zarvos. This writer is old enough to remember when Pilobolus played Chicago for the first time, appearing at the long-gone MoMing Arts Center for $5.

Sedlmaier Dance brings a new dance theater work to the intimate ( 150 seats ) confines of Theatre Building Chicago, Oct. 18-19. The Tendency to Exist, by company founder Christina Sedlmaier, combines acting, live music and dance as a wife, a husband and a lover explore their interactions. Further, the three characters are represented by a flamenco dancer, an actor and a modern dancer performing to a live guitar duo.

The Joffrey Ballet launches its 50th anniversary season at the Auditorium Theatre, Oct. 19-30, with a program featuring works on dream themes by Sir Frederick Ashton and Jiri Kylian, plus the first revival in 25 years of Joffrey co-founder Gerald Arpino's Celebration to mark the Golden Jubilee. The umbrella title for the three works is A Midsummer Night's Dream, with Shakespeare's play being the specific inspiration for the Ashton piece. The Joffrey is one of the few dance troupes anywhere that still performs with a full, live orchestra, and that alone makes their performances special treats. For the third year, the Chicago Sinfonietta is the house orchestra for the Joffrey.

The North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie hosts a one-night spectacular, Oct. 21, with the Gran Folklorico de Mexico. The magnificently costumed corps de ballet with live musicians and singers use dance to explore Mexican culture from ancient Aztec times to the present.

The month comes to a strong close with the welcome return to Chicago of Merce Cunningham Dance Company, presented at the Harris Theater by the Dance Center of Columbia College. The troupe will offer four dances in two programs, Oct. 28-29.

Overlapping the Merce Cunningham weekend will be Thodos Dance Chicago in its first-ever fall concert, which the troupe intends to make an annual event. The Oct. 29-30 performances at the Athenaeum Theatre will offer eight works by seven choreographers, among them company founder Melissa Thodos herself. The dances have been set to music by Peter Gabriel, John Nevin and Intermix ( Afro-Techno ) among others.

People: the Chicago Dance and Music Alliance has named Molly McLinden as its new executive director. She has a degree in vocal music and will complete in December her Master's in Marketing Communications from Roosevelt University. The Chicago Dance and Music Alliance ( CDMA ) serves more than 150 local arts organizations offering more than 2,000 performances and concerts each year.

You can access the full performance calendar via the CDMA Web site, www.chicagoperformances.org .


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