Alyssa Motter

Dancing Empathy: New Trier’s ‘Dance Lab 2’ showcase explores human connection and understanding through choreographic exploration

By Alyssa Motter on June 6, 2018

WINNETKA, IL — These days, going to high school can be a complicated and tumultuous experience. Far beyond the age-old ups and downs of adolescence, the issues that occupy students today stretch the notion of growing pains in ways that can break down rather than build up the spirit and one’s faith in humanity. In […]

From Chicago to Lima to Antananarivo: ‘Dancing Around the World’ with Nejla Yatkin

By Alyssa Motter on April 28, 2018

CHICAGO — World Dance Day is not merely an annual event to Chicago-based choreographer Nejla Yatkin. After growing up in Berlin with familial roots in Turkey, Yatkin has spent the better part of her dance career on the road performing her own work or with world-renowned companies such as the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble, […]

Northwestern’s ‘Danceworks’ presents 3 world premieres by 3 of Chicago’s strongest female choreographers

By Alyssa Motter on March 5, 2018

EVANSTON, IL — Northwestern University’s dance department has presented Danceworks, its annual showcase of contemporary choreography, since the 1980s. A few years ago when Joel Valentín-Martinez took over artistic directorship of the concert, he designed the Danceworks programming as a vehicle to create more choreographic opportunities for faculty whose primary interest was dancemaking, and to create […]