From its humble beginnings with four dancers tap dancing in senior living communities, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago became one of this nation’s best contemporary dance companies. In her curtain speech Thursday introducing Hubbard Street’s 45th season, artistic director Linda-Denise Fisher-Harrell paid homage to her company’s journey and to Lou Conte, the man who started it all.
But Hubbard Street has never been about one person. What is abundantly clear from her first full season in the director’s chair is that Fisher-Harrell is committed to Hubbard Street’s legacy but will not be bogged down by it. The biggest move thus far is redirecting the ship toward American choreographers and themes after decades gazing across the Atlantic.
Through Sunday at the Harris Theater, Hubbard Street’s season opener is a sweet trio of works. Each is umbrellaed under the title “Refraction” and meticulously packaged to show off the dancers’ versatility.
About those dancers: If you’re a Hubbard Street fan you’ll notice more new faces than familiar ones — just five of the 15 dancers on the roster have more than a season under their belt.
The evening opens with a revival of Cuban choreographer Osnel Delgado’s “The Windless Hold.” A world premiere by Chicagoan Randy Duncan follows, showcasing Duncan’s signature style of balletic jazzy modern. And Darrell Grand Moultrie’s “Dichotomy of a Journey,” premiered last season at the Museum of Contemporary Art, gets a reboot here, stretching out on the Harris’ larger stage.
Delgado created “The Windless Hold” during an artistic exchange with between Hubbard Street and his Havana-based Malpaso Dance Company in 2019. When it premiered at the Auditorium Theatre, “The Windless Hold” was a full year away from COVID-19’s wrath bearing down on the United States. But for this second viewing, that’s where I went in the piece’s opening section. “The Windless Hold” is like a salve, a kind of counterpoint to the months of isolation we didn’t know were coming.
The opening tableau has Jacqueline Burnett, Jack Henderson and guest artist Alexsander Swader compassionately, but not gingerly sharing weight, gliding through the diagonal runway of a crisp beam of light on the floor (by lighting designer Manuel Da Silva). The ensemble enters like sylphs with flittering, backward traveling bourées. Each is eventually sucked into a vortex of circular runs and unison swirls. The metaphor, perhaps, is that letting go of each other leads to being swept up by a whirlwind — however you define that.
The mind ventures to thoughts of endless meetings, the daily grind, the ups and downs of relationships. On this night, thoughts of Hurricane Ian tearing through Delgado’s country and ours crept in. But there is relative calm in the eye of a storm. As the ensemble undulates around them on the perimeter, soloists Burnett and Henderson — separated from the group by their topaz-hued pants and tops (by Branimira Ivanova) while the rest of the company wears shimmery ruby — are unflappable. Is their stoicism amid chaos “the windless hold,” and if so, can I get some of that?
Though Moultrie’s “Dichotomy of a Journey” shares little with “The Windless Hold,” community and care still come to mind. Moultrie’s reverie appears to be more about what we as individuals can do to serve a collective good.
Case in point: V. Michael McKay’s gospel anthem “In My Dreams” is nestled halfway through the piece’s seven vignettes. “What should I do? What is my task?” pleads McKay’s lyrics. Soloist Elliot Hammans oscillates between majestic technique and contorted self-flagellation, thrusting his chest, pounding the stage or repeatedly assuming a Christ-like posture of pronated knees and arms outstretched.
Throughout “Dichotomy of a Journey,” Moultrie appears to ask if a society can be greater than the sum of its parts. That is surely true in the finale, an aspirational joyful noise set to music by Donald Lawrence. Crimson and white separates (also by Ivanova) set a subtly patriotic tone. But it’s the quieter moments that, for this critic, are most striking: a tender duet for Jacqueline Burnett with one the best partners in the business (and real-life hubby), David Schultz; a poignant group section to music by Nils Oliver Frahm; and the opening tableau to Ezio Bosso’s magical “String Quartet No. 2.” These are the bits that tugged my heartstrings the most, injecting an otherwise frenzied laudation with a deep sigh of relief.
Duncan’s modus operandi is to make technically rigorous, raucous crowd-pleasers. With “Love Infinite,” Duncan’s first ever work for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, he does not deviate. Reliably joy-filled, Duncan’s style is a Chicago-style blend of Graham and Horton techniques, seasoned with balletic accents and a jazzy veneer. Count on deep contractions in the torso, emotive jumps and impressive partnering, plus lots of brisés and pas de chats. The man uses more brisés than Marius Petipa.
Duncan’s ironclad ethos comes from his time in the Joseph Holmes Chicago Dance Theatre, where he was a longtime company member and artistic director upon Holmes’ death in 1986. Duncan led the company until 1995 and has been the style’s primary steward. But unless you’ve trained with Duncan — which new dancer Morgan Clune did at the Chicago Academy for the Arts, where Duncan has been a faculty member for almost 30 years — the technique can be an unnatural, effortful slog. New powerhouse and featured soloist Shota Miyoshi, however, leaned into his classical modern training at SUNY Purchase and confidently owned the stage — brisés and all.
Thumping new music by Ira Antelis, a polka-dotted stage from lighting designer Dustin Derry and all-white palette by costumer Luis Razo gave the whole piece a ’90s white party vibe. And let me be clear: “Love Infinite” is not and was not a slog. But it is outside most of these dancers’ comfort zones, and it showed. A few cracks in the edifice of an otherwise gorgeous piece, with more time, should surely gel.
Lauren Warnecke is a freelance critic.
Review: Hubbard Street Dance Chicago’s “Refraction” (3.5 stars)
When: Through Sunday
Where: Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 E. Randolph St.
Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes
Tickets: $15-$110 at 312-334-7777 and www.hubbardstreetdance.com