KALAMAZOO, MI — Miami native Thryn Saxon is a freelance choreographer, educator, performer and hope-focused activist currently based in New York City. She is the director of SAXYN Dance Works and holds professional performance credits with Doug Varone, Helen Simineau, Kate Weare and Punchddrunk’s “Sleep No More.” This week, Saxon will travel to Michigan to premiere her new work, “Seolh,”…

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…

I’ve been associating shiny colored swishy pants with choreographer Hope Goldman for a really long time. Her first ever evening length concert, Birds in Paradise, has gone through many iterations, but a few things have remained constant: the cast, the concept, and those fabulous swishy pants. Goldman’s cast of four women (Jessica Cornish, Alana Parekh, Cheryl Cornacchione Nowlin, and Megan Klein)…

If it’s dance and makes noise, it’s fair game to the Chicago Human Rhythm Project (CHRP). Rising from the traditional Argentinian Gauchos, Malambo is a compelling dance form that is yet to be seen in North America – until now. Employing echoes of more familiar Argentinian forms such as the leg flicks seen in tango and foot percussion of flamenco,…

The Dance Center of Columbia College’s 40th season opened last night with the world premiere of Susan Marshall’s Play/Pause. It was kind of a big deal, for a few reasons: 1) The Dance Center turns 40 this year.  I wonder if, when founder Shirley Mordine started all this, she ever could have imagined how successful a place it would become.  As…

Can classical music and hip hop dance truly be friends? I don’t know… …but the Chicago Sinfonietta had the guts to try it in its opening performance for the 2013-14 season at Symphony Center Saturday night. The first half of the evening was a fascinating salad of Swan Lake, Hip Hop Dance, symphonic Americana, and Aram Khachaturian. I’ve seen something…

Another chapter of the Chicago Dancing Festival closed, and while I’d love to say that I was spending all sorts of time trying to process it – well – I’d be a liar.  The day job hit me like a ton of bricks after my visit to the Auditorium Theatre last Thursday. You know, life gets busy, but I would…