By Lauren Warnecke on November 24, 2020
ST. LOUIS—When the Big Muddy Dance Company made Lemp Legends for the Edison Theatre in 2018, I would bet, dollars to donuts, they expected to remount it at some point. What they likely didn’t expect was a re-imagination quite like this. Lemp Legends marks many firsts for Big Muddy. It was their first full-length work […]
By Lauren Warnecke on November 21, 2020
CHICAGO—So far, Eighth Blackbird’s attempts at live-streaming a virtual concert series from their production house in Horner Park have not gone well. The series—called Chicago Artists Workshop, or CAW for short (get it? CAW? Like a bird?)—was set to open Oct. 20 with the ensemble’s Grammy Award-winning co-founders Lisa Kaplan and Matthew Duvall accompanying tenor Karim […]
By Lauren Warnecke on October 5, 2020
Ten minutes before the scheduled virtual opening of Theatre Y’s “We’re Gonna Die,” I heard that Ruth Bader Ginsburg had died. I didn’t want to go, even though all that it required of me was to click a Zoom link and log-in. No shoes, no parking, no awkward lobby mingling. These are the luxuries of digitized […]
By Lauren Warnecke on April 15, 2020
Universities’ quick action—abruptly closing campuses in March as a necessary response to COVID-19’s rapid spread across the United States—understandably resulted in a sloppy transition to distance learning. Most faculty had less than three weeks to get up and running and reimagine their courses online. The standard right now is not how to do this well, […]
By Lauren Warnecke on March 26, 2020
NORMAL, IL—My feed is filled with virtual dance classes and obituaries. As COVID-19 continues to tear through this country and redefine ways of life, indefinitely, I find myself busier than ever. It shouldn’t be this way. I spend the majority of my time watching and writing about dance. Now, there are no shows to write […]
By Lauren Warnecke on March 8, 2020
Icarus Films—the independent film producer that has created documentaries on Ohad Naharin, Pina Bausch and Trisha Brown—has a new dance film making its way to your laptops and living rooms. Marius Petipa: The French Master of Russian Ballet is currently available for use by academic institutions and libraries, and will be released on home video […]
By Lauren Warnecke on February 16, 2020
BLOOMINGTON, IL—Love was in the air at the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts Friday, which had big pink hearts projected onto the Illinois Symphony’s white bandshell set onstage. Indeed, many couples braved frigid temperatures and icy roads for this Valentine’s Day engagement called Love Notes, with the ISO offering a smattering of compositions from […]
By Guest Contributors on February 15, 2020
MADISON, WI —In a departure from their usual Martha Graham-influenced work, “Love is Love”, Kanopy Dance Company’s midwinter offering in the Overture Center’s Promenade Hall, features three colorful, energetic works from Stanley Love and three from New York-based choreographer, Ede Thurell. The show runs through Feb. 23. Love was a fixture in the New York […]
By Lauren Warnecke on February 8, 2020
OAKBROOK TERRACE, IL—The band was inconsistent. So was some of the tap dancing, and a couple actors’ French accents sounded, well, more like German. If that sounds harsh, it’s because I wanted to get those things out of the way; they’re the only negative things I can say about “An American in Paris,” playing through […]
By Kait Dessoffy on February 5, 2020
CHICAGO—This post is part of a series of conversations with trans/genderqueer dancers to give you a broader idea of where we come from, what we’re up to, and how we navigate the dance community. With that said, meet Dee Alaba! Dee is a dancer, teacher and aspiring academic working in Chicago. Dee (she/her) identifies as […]
By Lauren Warnecke on January 26, 2020
BLOOMINGTON, IL–As Maestro Ken Lam announced what he called the “main dish” of a three-course musical meal Saturday at Bloomington’s Second Presbyterian Church, musicians adjusted their chairs to make way for their colleagues near Lam’s podium. As the evening’s soloists, Illinois Symphony Orchestra (ISO) concertmaster Roy Meyer and principal viola Nicholas Jeffery took their places […]
By Kait Dessoffy on December 3, 2019
CHICAGO—This post is part of a series of conversations with trans/genderqueer dancers to give you a broader idea of where we come from, what we’re up to, and how we navigate the dance community. With that said, meet Jess Martin! Jess Martin, who previously went by Jessica, dances with Momenta in Oak Park, IL, and […]
By Lauren Warnecke on November 16, 2019
ST. LOUIS–It’s only been a week since the inaugural Big Muddy Dance Festival, and The Big Muddy Dance Company, who produced the expo, performances and workshop series in locations all over Grand Center, only just finished “Such Sweet Thunder” in October. “Such Sweet Thunder” was a collaborative effort with Shakespeare Festival St. Louis, Jazz St. Louis, and […]
By Lauren Warnecke on October 25, 2019
CHICAGO—A triptych of films screened Thursday to Sunday, collectively marketed under the header In Focus: Dance, forms an anchor point of the 2019 Chicago International Film Festival, North America’s longest-running competitive film festival. The films—director Levan Akin’s And Then We Danced, Isadora’s Children, directed by Damien Manivel, and Cunningham, a documentary on Merce Cunningham directed […]
By Lauren Warnecke on October 4, 2019
ST. LOUIS—With their second edition of “An Evening of Ballet Stars,” Dance St. Louis aimed to find out if lighting does, indeed, strike twice in the same place. Last year’s inaugural program featuring prominent principal dancers at Washington University played to a sold out crowd; on Sept. 28, the Edison Theatre was likewise heartily filled […]
By Lauren Warnecke on August 30, 2019
HIGHLAND PARK, IL—My last trip to the Ravinia Festival was on opening week in early June. It was unseasonably cold and blustery; wind whipped picnic blankets and napkins about. I regretted not bringing a parka. Summer weather was slow to start, and the outdoor oasis’ box office inevitably took a hit during a season that started with […]
By Jordan Kunkel on August 22, 2019
This post is part of a series cataloging and responding to interviews I’m having with people across Chicago (artists, non artists, art enthusiasts, art un-enthusiasts) about their experiences and perspectives on dance. The project, “Speak! Through The Body, Uninhibited,” will use various artistic mediums to explore dance’s significance as a First Amendment right to freedom […]
By Jordan Kunkel on July 9, 2019
This post is the first in a series cataloging and responding to interviews I’m having with people across Chicago (artists, non artists, art enthusiasts, art un-enthusiasts) about their experiences and perspectives on dance. The project, “Speak! Through The Body, Uninhibited,” will use various artistic mediums to explore dance’s significance as a First Amendment right to […]
By Kait Dessoffy on June 20, 2019
CHICAGO — This post is part of a series of conversations with trans/genderqueer dancers to give you a broader idea of where we come from, what we’re up to, and how we navigate the dance community. With that said, meet A. Raheim White! Raheim began dancing when they were fourteen years old as an alternative […]
By Lauren Warnecke on June 13, 2019
CHICAGO — Two festivals which ran simultaneously this month — the Pivot Arts Festival in Uptown and Edgewater and the Physical Theater Festival in Lakeview — have more in common than their North side roots. Each is a veritable grab bag of contemporary performances from Chicago and beyond, many of which defy categorization. The Physical […]
By Lauren Warnecke on June 8, 2019
CHICAGO — Summer is just beginning, and Chicago is itching to hit the beach. Last Sunday was sunny, but deceptively cold. The chill in the air didn’t stop a couple of brave bathers from sunning themselves at Thorndale Beach anyway, conspicuously opting in — perhaps unwillingly — to the end of Ayako Kato’s newest work, […]
By Lauren Warnecke on May 26, 2019
ST. LOUIS, MO — On National Tap Dance Day, tappers opened and closed the final evening of Spring to Dance, capping three full days of performances at the Touhill Performing Arts Center. The night began with MoSTLy TAP, a local company started in 2017, and ended with Chicago Human Rhythm Project (CHRP), which celebrates its 30th […]
By Lauren Warnecke on May 25, 2019
ST. LOUIS, MO — It’s not a new trend. Contemporary dance has shared a kinship with minimalistic music for decades. As an undergraduate dance major around the turn of the century, I too was smitten by composers like Arvo Part and Philip Glass — I mean, there’s something intriguing about musical maps which are beholden […]
By Lauren Warnecke on May 24, 2019
ST. LOUIS, MO — With nightly performances through Saturday at the Touhill Performing Arts Center, the annual Spring to Dance festival is slowly building to a boil, spending much of its first day of programming firmly locked into contemporary dance. You had to make it to the end to see anything else, with the second […]
By Lauren Warnecke on May 14, 2019
CHICAGO — Since its humble beginnings in 1992, husband and wife business owners Christophe Ridet and Elisabeth Miegge-Ridet built their line of dance apparel called Wear Moi, going from custom orders made on a single sewing machine to an in-demand international brand sold in 60 countries at more than 700 retailers. For the Ridets, the next logical step was to plant […]
