If I could split myself in half, I’d send my right side to the Lyric Opera House on Sept. 17, and the left to the Harris Theater. Realistically, you’ll have to choose between the opening night of Joffrey Ballet’s “Liliom,” a John Neumeier ballet inspired by the French play that prompted the musical “Carousel,” and “Dancing with Bob,” an evening with late choreographer Trisha Brown’s troupe performing repertoire by Brown and Merce Cunningham made with the iconic contemporary visual artist Bob Rauschenberg. It’s an impossible decision.
Later this fall, another Bob pays a visit to Chicago. Bob Eisen, co-founder of the now-shuttered experimental dance incubator called Links Hall, joins some cream of the crop dancemakers for the third annual 3320 Dance Series. On the eve of his 80th birthday, Eisen performs a duet that ruminates on the aging body. There may or may not be handstands involved.
These are just a tiny slice of the dance events on view in Chicago over the next few months. It’s an embarrassment of riches, really, a few of which are included in this year’s fall dance guide.
A second helping of “In the Round”
After a summer break, dance returns to the breathtakingly gorgeous Murphy Auditorium, once the site of surgical conferences and lectures, which is now among the holdings of the Driehaus Museum, its next-door neighbor. Artist-in-residence Brendan Fernandes’ semi-improvised score has three more dates on the calendar, but that’s only part of the story of “In the Round,” a dance-plus-visual art installation inspired by New York’s Judson Dance Theater. In the spirit of that pioneering hotbed of dance experimentation, three additional dancer/choreographers (Xenia Mansour, Hanna DiLorenzo and Kara Hunsinger) host open rehearsals, community workshops, informal performances and open-to-the-public film sessions revisiting recent ideas in a spectacular venue. Sept. 16 to Nov. 14 at the Driehaus Museum, 50 E. Erie St.; free, reservations encouraged at 312-482-8933 and driehausmuseum.org
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Before “Carousel,” there was “Liliom”
The classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical took cues from Ferenc Molnar’s 1909 play. “Liliom,” about a brash carnie (and eventual fingersmith) who falls in love with a fairground maid. Once-Chicagoan John Neumeier sets his “Liliom” in a drab, Depression-era amusement park, bringing his reliably sardonic, off-kilter treatment to yet another addition to the Joffrey Ballet’s catalog (see also “The Little Mermaid,” “Orphée” and “Sylvia.”) Sept. 17-27 at the Lyric Opera House, 20 N. Wacker Drive; tickets $47-$205 at 312-386-8905 and joffrey.org
Time traveling at the Harris
It feels like eons since anyone from New York’s downtown dance scene (the epicenter of which was the aforementioned Judson Church) came to Chicago. Most of the postmodern pioneers from its 1960s heyday are gone now. That includes Trisha Brown and Merce Cunningham, who, I’d like to think, each held Chicago in high regard. Both had kinships with the Dance Center of Columbia College. In fact, Trisha Brown Dance Company has not been back since Brown herself gave the commencement address for the college in 2009, save an engagement in Evanston a decade ago. Celebrating the landmark collaborations visual artist Bob Rauschenberg struck with that era’s best and brightest dancer-choreographers, “Dancing with Bob” revisits two best-in-show examples: Brown’s iconic 1983 “Set and Reset” and Cunningham’s 1977 “Travelogue” (the latter set to music by John Cage and shelved for the last 47 years). Sept. 17 at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 E. Randolph St.; tickets $40-$155 at 312-334-7777 and harristheaterchicago.org
Tangoing with stanchions
Dancer-performance artist Ginger Krebs pedals in headwinds. For about a decade, she’s been captivated by how forces — some visible, some not — act on humans and essentially muck up our free will. It could look like dodgeball. Or a Sisyphean effort to reach the top of a ramp (and never quite succeed). For “Protected by Invisible Fence,” Krebs has picked stanchions as a dancing partner, which have intelligent lights responding to (and sometimes egging on) the performers. It’s about crowd control, sure, but more broadly, it’s a comment on the negotiations humans make with their technology — and an increasingly near moment at which it might rule the world. Sept. 18-20 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, 220 E. Chicago Ave.; tickets $30 at 312-397-4010 and mcachicago.org
Making a Difference for 25 years
A storied Bronzeville tap academy and professional tap dance company, launched in 2001 by two 20-somethings fresh off a couple of Broadway tours, celebrates a milestone year at the annual Chicago Tap Summit. M.A.D.D. Rhythms, an acronym for “Making a Difference Dancing,” has produced some of the planet’s best tap dancers, who are joined by guest artists for three days of workshops, a film screening and, on Oct. 3, a pair of world premieres by the company’s co-founders: Bril Barrett and Martin “Tre” Dumas III. Both call their respective pieces their “dream shows.” Barrett tackles Oscar Peterson’s 1959 album reimagining George Gershwin’s catalog. Dumas, the son of a session musician whose funk-soul band, Rasputin Stash, cut a few albums in the early 1970s, interprets his dad’s music with his feet. Oct. 2-4 at Harold Washington Cultural Center, 4701 S. King Drive; event tickets $35-$50 at MADDRhythms.com
“Carmen.maquia” again, this time with Ballet Hispanico
Gustavo Ramirez Sansano’s modernist vision of Georges Bizet’s opera about a free-spirited cigarette factory worker who loves just a little too hard was last performed in Chicago two years ago by Visceral Dance Chicago, which has lately taken several of Sansano’s works into its repertoire. But the piece really belonged to Chicago’s now-defunct Luna Negra Dance Theater, which Sansano helmed after founding director Eduardo Vilaro left to lead New York’s Ballet Hispanico. So, it’s fitting that the preeminent contemporary Latino dance company is reviving this stunning ballet for its fall Midwest tour, which includes a single night in the ‘burbs. Oct. 10 at the McAninch Center at the College of DuPage, 425 Fawell Blvd., Glen Ellyn; tickets $54-$75 at 630-942-4000 and atthemac.org
It’s not entirely a mid-life crisis
Several of the artists featured in the burgeoning 3320 Dance Series are grappling with how to keep aging bodies dancing. That includes Bob Eisen, the co-founder of Chicago’s once-lauded, now-gone dance venue, Links Hall, as he prepares to enter his 80s. Also: two treasured dancing emcees of the aughts, Jyl Fehrenkamp and Matthew Hollis, present “Mid Century Modern,” titled for its exploration of life, love and a loss of cartilage. Colleen Halloran, a fixture of Columbia College’s dance faculty for decades, premieres a solo ruminating on women of a certain age rendered invisible in society. Oct. 16-24 at Dovetail Studios, 2853 W. Montrose Ave.; tickets $27 at dovetail-studios.com
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A rare pair of visitors at the Auditorium
Kicking off its year celebrating North American dance, in October, the Auditorium hosts Dance Theatre of Harlem for the first time in a decade — performing its iconic interpretation of Igor Stravinsky’s “Firebird.” The following month, Canadian company Ballets Jazz Montréal makes its Chicago debut with a stellar evening-length piece set to music by Leonard Cohen. Oct. 17 and Nov. 7 at the Auditorium, 50 E. Ida B. Wells Drive; tickets $44-$154 at 312-341-2300 and auditoriumtheatre.org
A sizzling season opener
Giordano Dance Chicago, among the country’s preeminent jazz dancers, revisits several works from last year, including a newly revised, jaunty sailor-themed piece by resident choreographer Al Blackstone. Blackstone is making a brand-new solo for GDC star Sasha Lazarus for this occasion, and the company revisits some of its best from the archives, namely Autumn Eckman’s buttery “Commonthread,” Del Dominguez and Laura Flores’ fiery “Sabroso” and Ronen Koresh’s intensely satisfying tour de force, “Exit 4.” Nov 6-7 at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, 9501 Skokie Blvd., Skokie; tickets $35-$70 at 847-673-6300 and northshorecenter.org
Something new from a familiar face
After two decades dancing with Europe’s dominant Netherlands Dans Theatre, Fernando Magadan struck out on his own in 2021, crafting a solo career as an independent choreographer and stager. The latter is how he came to be in Chicago recently, setting Johan Inger’s blissfully bizarre “Impasse” on the company in 2024. Now, he makes something brand new for Hubbard Street, with a style that’s guaranteed to fit them like a glove. Magadan’s isn’t the only world premiere; similarly, the stager of Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon’s repertoire, Linda Haberman, makes her choreographic debut with Hubbard Street. The cherry on top: another chance to see Aszure Barton’s tour de force “LubDub.” Nov. 13-17 at Steppenwolf Theatre Company; tickets $20-$115 on sale Sept. 8 at hubbardstreetdance.com
Lauren Warnecke is a freelance critic.