CHICAGO — What makes dance “midwestern”? I don’t know, really, other than the unapologetic determination of midwesterners to do it. Call me biased, but there’s great dance happening in the middle of the country, by artists who don’t feel a need to seek approval from the coasts or have a specific urge to locate themselves there. And with a two-night…

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 —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…

CHICAGO — Few dancers in Chicago have broken out as distinctly as Anna Martine Whitehead did in her LinkUP residency-ending performance at Links Hall March 3-5, alongside an opening performance by Chicago mainstay Mitsu Salmon. It was a fitting end to Links Hall’s long-running LinkUP program – a truly punctuated, unforgettable send-off. Fearlessly squaring against issues of race and class,…

CHICAGO — Links Hall’s white space was packed to the gills Sept. 18 for the last of three performances of “Belonging,” as is usually the case in choreographers’ first attempts at a concert. The split bill shared by Nora Sharp and Haydée Souffrant was as full as the audience, with well over an hour of work between them and plenty…

CHICAGO — FloatBrilliance, premiering this weekend at Links Hall, is the third installment of what Artistic Director Andrea Cerniglia calls the Imposter Series, a multi-year project consuming at least half of her company’s history. In dropshift dance’s six seasons, Cerniglia’s aesthetic has gently, steadily pulled away from her roots in Zephyr Dance, but her commitment to multiple mediums with equal…

CHICAGO — A decade ago, Rachel Damon sat in a tree knitting a long red scarf. Her fledgling company performed many works like these — site-specific installations using multiple mediums — as we saw Synapse Arts Collective performing in parks, crosswalks and atop fabricated clouds. Since that time, Damon assumed leadership of the once-collective of multi-disciplinary artists, and the rebranded Synapse Arts refined its…

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 Links Hall. On the heels of last fall’s Mariko’s Magical Mix, a fantastical collaboration with Manual Cinema set on Hubbard Street 2, the original UNDER(cover) began as an independent work last summer at the Baryshnikov Arts Center in…

Margi Cole has long been known as a teacher, at the Dance Center of Columbia College and across the globe, bringing her “Margi-isms” and wacky metaphors to eager dance students. Thousands of “cornfused” students have “run around” in Cole’s classes, trying to figure out the Louie from the Richie. Humor and humility are Cole’s trademarks, cultivating young dancers into skilled entrepreneurs,…