First RAD Fest late night is ‘like a prayer’

Author’s note: To read additional coverage of the 2018 Midwest RAD Fest, click here. KALAMAZOO, MI — Gina Kohler walks onstage, naked, and sits on top of a mirror, that’s on top of a muslin drop cloth, that’s on top of a larger plastic drop cloth. She pours a red liquid slowly down her back, across her forehead and across her…

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The Dance COLEctive Celebrates 20 Years with ‘Revelry’

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,…

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The ‘Carpenter COLEctive’ is greater than the sum of its parts

CHICAGO — Margi Cole and Peter Carpenter have been courting for awhile (artistically, that is). Cole has joined Carpenter as a dancer for the last few installments of his serial dance called Rituals of Abundance for Lean Times, a project that began in 2010 at New Trier High School as a response to the economic state of the field. I…

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A New Lens for Dance: Pros and Cons of Live Streaming Performance

CHICAGO — Dance for the camera is nothing new, but with idevices, YouTube and the Internet literally everywhere, broadcasting dance to living room sofas is easier than ever. Chicago companies large and small are trying it out, in different iterations, and for slightly different reasons. The common goal, however, is to access and engage with new audience members. In the…

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COLEctive Notions Plays with Memory, Femininity, and Nostalgia (review)

The Drucker Center can be a challenging space (speaking from much personal experience), but the interplay between a “casual Sunday night get-together” and the refined manner in which Margi Cole puts up a show deemed it a fitting venue for The Dance COLEctive’s mentor project COLEctive Notions. Three world premieres from Dance COLEctive company members Olivia May, Katie Petrunich, and Shannon…

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SPDW, Peter Carpenter, and Dances that Make you Go Hmm (preview)

It doesn’t appear to be a logical combination at first. One might even call them “The Odd Couple” of the October Chicago dance frenzy. But actually, it’s a match made in heaven. Same Planet Different World (SPDW), under the direction of Joanna Rosenthal, and Peter Carpenter Performance Project, under the direction of… well, you know… come together this weekend at…

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