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, Dayton Contemporary Dance, and Danza…

CHICAGO — A line of men struggled to shift along the walls of a cell, backs turned and elbows struggling to fit in and out of the spaces between the cell’s bars. The wall-to-wall screen of Loyola University Chicago’s Damen Cinema amplified these movements so that we the audience felt as though we were there with the men, feeling the…

CHICAGO — It’s been a while since I’ve seen a dance concert. Truthfully, I can’t remember the last time I saw a single company perform eight different pieces in an hour-long evening. Until Friday night, when I attended Coddiwomple, the Spring performance of Cattywampus Dance at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts. The all-female company of five twenty-somethings is…

CHICAGO — Dancers, choreographers, and performance makers: Did you know that Joanna Read’s studio, Dovetail Studios (on the north side), transforms into a large, crisp, black box performance space complete with an LED grid, shins, and well-kept marley over sprung wood floors? Next time you are considering the same old haunts to self-produce your new show—because who isn’t self-producing these…

EVANSTON, Ill. — 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 more opportunities for Northwestern students…

CHICAGO — The New Prairie School, an evening-length performance by composer, writer, and performer, Corey Smith, along with fellow performers and collaborators Ethan T. Parcell and Claire Saxe, debuted last weekend at Links Hall. As the title suggests, the work was partially inspired by research around Frank Lloyd Wright and the Prairie School of architecture of which he is most famously…

CHICAGO — The vibe was phenomenally good at Links Hall last weekend for Catalyst Movmnt’s first production, Lather.Rinse.Repeat | Fall. Climb. Release. The curatorial project spearheaded by recent Columbia College alums Aaliyah Christina and Keyierra Collins, promises (according to press materials) to promote “movement artists of color who desire to establish their voice on this bold and raw earth.” Well,…

CHICAGO — Last Saturday marked the final performance of The Seldoms’ world premiere of The Making, an evening-length work for the company’s seven ensemble members, three visual artists and one live musician (plus all the other designers and administrative hands on deck). The evening unfolded at the remarkable Pulaski Park field house, which has been the the company’s artistic home…

CHICAGO —This past weekend Madeleine Reber and her company Salty Lark Dance shared a split bill called 664 Miles with Philadelphia-based choreographer Katherine Kiefer Stark’s company The Naked Stark at Links Hall. Chicago-based Reber presented three works, all of which were steeped in a distinctive physicality based on her years of somatic study particularly with Bartenieff Fundamentals and Laban Movement…

In spite of an exciting month ahead, things might be a little quieter around here. I’m very excited to announce that I’ll be contributing to SeeChicagoDance.com to help cover the wealth of Chicago dance events happening in April. Why April?? Why not!  I mean, let’s face it: on any given weekend you could go see 2-8 different dance performances.  But April is…