Making Visible: An interview with Okwui Okpokwasili

NEW YORK / CHICAGO — I saw Okwui Okpokwasili’s piece Poor People’s TV Room when it premiered at New York Lives Arts last spring and was struck…

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Music and musings are just ‘Some of a Thousand Words’

CHICAGO — A one-nighter last Saturday marked the second of NYC-based Brian Brooks’ Chicago engagements during his tenure as the inaugural choreographer in residence at the…

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An audience-centered ‘choose your own adventure’ with Zephyr

CHICAGO — Nearly a year after the Amid Festival, a magical gathering of performing artists grappling with aging bodies, festival curator and Zephyr Dance artistic…

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Choreographer Alex Sanchez makes his Goodman debut in ‘Wonderful Town’

CHICAGO — One of Dance Magazine’s 2015 “25 to watch,” choreographer Alex Sanchez makes his Goodman Theatre debut with Leonard Bernstein’s Wonderful Town. The Chicago…

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JUBA! Surprises and Delights (review)

CHICAGO — Last weekend’s JUBA! puts a cap on the 26th annual Rhythm World: Chicago Human Rhythm Project (CHRP)’s month-long tap festival including classes, workshops…

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Robyn Mineko Williams goes UNDER(cover) at Links

CHICAGO — Robyn Mineko Williams, fast becoming one of the most recognizable names in Chicago dance, premieres a new episode of UNDER(cover) this weekend at…

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Urban Bush Women Celebrate Coltrane, Embody Jazz (review)

CHICAGO — Jazz music and contemporary dance: misunderstood genres which often operate ahead of their time. It isn’t until years, or even decades later that audiences…

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Choreographer Ashley Page Premieres Joffrey Work in ‘Bold Moves’

CHICAGO — After nearly three decades dancing and choreographing with the Royal Ballet in his native London, and another in Glasgow as the director of…

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Jessica Lang Makes Magic at the Harris

Shades of black and white were a recurrent theme on stage for Jessica Lang Dance’s one-night-only program at the Harris Theater last Friday. The audience, however,…

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TSMP Celebrates 10 years in Millennium Park

My sophomore year of college, I took an interdisciplinary seminar in ecology and economics.  We discussed how Midwestern prairie lands have changed over time, and the…

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