You’re only 40 once: Joel Hall Dancers celebrate with ‘Anja’
"It's our 40th anniversary," crows Joel Hall, "and that happens only once in my life. I am thrilled to still be able to do this after 40 years." As a...
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Dancing Queequeg, the secret weapon in ‘Moby Dick’
Picture this: A timid, would-be mariner arrives in a crowded New England whaling port — and winds up sharing a bed with a nearly naked, heavily tattooed, oddly coiffed reputed...
Stylish ‘MASCULUS’ overwhelmed by its excesses
Sometimes you let a kid loose in a candy store, and the results are not pretty. Judgment goes out the window; excess ensues. That might have been the case with...
All-male work and a spoof of love stand out on Thodos Dance’s busy night
Thodos Dance Chicago's 15th annual "New Dances" program made a strong showing this year in performances Saturday and Sunday at the Athenaeum Theatre. On Sunday, the eight Thodos dancer-choreographers (and...
Muntu Dance reaches out in ‘Healing Hearts’
One of the tragedies of our segregated city is that, though the physical distance between white and African-American cultures is small, the artistic chasm can be huge. An August Wilson...
Tommy Tune, coming to Chicago, shares earliest dance memories
"I danced before I walked," says Tommy Tune, adding modestly that this is "hearsay" from his parents. "I'd be crawling through the living room, and music would come on the...
Review: Apocalypse rules dance-theater ‘THEM’
Fear, hatred, violence: These are the monumental subjects that preoccupy Ahmad Simmons and Kacie Smith in Pursuit Productions' ambitious new "THEM." And they are monumental issues, as recent international history...
‘THEM’ creators take on our racial, sexual, religious divides
In conversation, choreographer Ahmad Simmons and director Kacie Smith are so in synch they might be brother and sister, regularly finishing each other's sentences. Maybe that should come as no...
Tadashi Endo’s U.S. debut an empty abstraction of grief
Death and its effect on the living inspired butoh dancer Tadashi Endo's solo "IKIRU" ("Life"), performed Wednesday night only at the Old Town School of Folk Music as Endo's U.S....
‘Flamenco Passion’ showcases Spain’s love-filled artform
Dame Libby Komaiko, who founded Ensemble Espanol at Northeastern Illinois University in 1975, must be proud of the house that love built. Her own profession of love — "Tiempos de...