DANCE CENTER MARKS 10 YEARS AT 1306 S. MICHIGAN WITH FREE CELEBRATION
2010–11 Season Features Emily Johnson, Yasuko Yokoshi, Joe Goode, Robert Moses, Reggie Wilson and Sankai Juku Presented with the Harris Theater and MCA Stage CHICAGO—Having pioneered what is now a thriving South Loop culture and entertainment destination, The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago marks 10 years at its current location, 1306 S. Michigan Avenue, with its 2010–11 season. Opening the season is a free, daylong celebration of the 10th anniversary, followed by Emily Johnson/Catalyst Dance, Yasuko Yokoshi, Joe Goode Performance Group, Robert Moses’ Kin, Same Planet Different World and Reggie Wilson/Fist & Heel Performance Group. In addition, The Dance Center, the Harris Theater and MCA Stage present Sankai Juku, marking the first collaboration between these three leading Chicago dance presenters, taking place at the Harris Theater. Single tickets go on sale July 1 at The Dance Center, 1306 S. Michigan Avenue, 312-369-8330 and online at colum.edu/dancecenter.
FamilyDance Matinees The Dance Center’s FamilyDance Matinee Series continues for its 12th season, featuring special one-hour family-oriented performances preceded by free parent/child movement workshops with the artists. FamilyDance Matinees will be presented by Joe Goode Performance Group (February 5), Robert Moses’Kin (February 26) and Same Planet Different World (March 12).
DanceMasters and other community programs To facilitate meaningful dialogue with Chicago audiences and artists, most artists will participate in DanceMasters, community master classes presented by The Dance Center’s Community Outreach and Education office. Classes are for dancers at the intermediate level or higher.
Discussions with the artists will follow most Thursday performances, and some programs will feature pre-performance talks with artists and Dance Center personnel or guest lecturers. Most out-of-town artists will provide learning opportunities for Dance Center students and conduct community-based residency and educational activities, which might include master classes, lecture/demonstrations, in-school and community- based workshops, professional development workshops for educators and service providers and panel discussions.
1306 – Ten Years Later September 25, The Dance Center This free, full-day celebration of The Dance Center’s 10th anniversary at its current location will showcase regional dance artists/ensembles throughout the building. The day’s activities will include workshops, classes, site-specific performances/installations and small- and mid-scale performances.
Emily Johnson/Catalyst Dance—Chicago Premiere October 7–9, The Dance Center The Thank-you Bar, created by Alaska-born, Native American choreographer Emily Johnson with composers/ musicians James Everest and Joel Pickard (Blackfish), is an evening-length performance/installation of dance, live music, storytelling and visual image connecting ideas of displacement, longing and language to history, preconceived notions, architecture and igloo-myth. Intended for an intimate, onstage audience, Johnson’s illusory stories ride the confluences of truth and myth. The series will include a Saturday night performance by Blackfish.
Sankai Juku—Downtown Chicago Debut October 20, Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 E. Randolph The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, the Harris Theater and MCA Stage present the downtown Chicago debut of Sankai Juku, marking the first collaboration between these three leading Chicago dance presenters. During the past 28 years, Sankai Juku has become known worldwide for the elegance, refinement, technical precision and emotional depth of its second-generation Butoh style. The company will perform one of founder Ushio Amagatsu’s most celebrated works, Hibiki: Resonance from Far Away. The six dancers blend image, sound and performance to create a hypnotic dance experience, incorporating elements such as liquid, which drips rhythmically from suspended glass urns into 13 concave glass lenses; sand; and a lyrical and electronic score by Takashi Kako and Yoichiro Yoshikawa.
Yasuko Yokoshi—Chicago Debut October 28–30, The Dance Center Yokoshi’s work Tyler Tyler was inspired by The Tale of the Heike, a classic 12th century Japanese epic of warring clans that documents the intense desire for domination and the inevitable fall from power. The central theme of the stories—the Buddhist law of impermanence—has special resonance for Yokoshi, who was born and raised in Hiroshima. Tyler Tyler continues Yokoshi’s unique collaboration with her revered master teacher of Kabuki Su-odori dance, Masumi Seyama, and will be performed by a cast of six including two U.S. dancers, a U.S. musician/singer and three Japanese dancers/actors, each of whom trained for many years with Seyama.
Joe Goode Performance Group—Chicago Premiere February 3–5, The Dance Center FamilyDance Matinee: February 5 Joe Goode returns to The Dance Center with Wonder Boy, his collaboration with master puppeteer Basil Twist, an unexpected tale of a peculiar superhero isolated by his gift of super-sensitivity. A creature too strange to be socially acceptable is paralyzed by the power of his own feelings and unable to interact with others. The piece features music by Carla Kihlstedt (Tin Hat Trio) and Matthias Bossi. In 29 Effeminate Gestures, a choreographer and a chainsaw provide for an insightful exploration into the paradox of gender language.
Robert Moses’ Kin—Chicago Premiere February 24–26, The Dance Center FamilyDance Matinee: February 26 The San Francisco-based company returns to The Dance Center with a repertory program including The Cinderella Principal: try these on, see if they fit, a collaboration with playwright Anne Galjour centering on the process of identity formation within non-homogenous “constructed” families, i.e., culturally, racially or genealogically diverse, adoptive or otherwise nontraditional familial groupings. The piece features an original score by Todd Reynolds and Kid Beyond. Other works on the program will be announced later this season.
Same Planet Different World March 10–12, The Dance Center FamilyDance Matinee: March 12 Artistic Director Joanna Rosenthal will contribute Grey Noise, a work inspired by film noir of the 1940s and ’50s, which focuses on the complexity of relationships, the need for self-preservation and the effect of violence and aggression. Minnesota choreographer and Black Label Movement Artistic Director Carl Flink will create a new work on SPDW entitled HIT, which asks SPDW dancers to embrace singular events, such as athletes and fans at a stadium gridiron or around a boxing ring, yet without the goal of victory over an opponent. Collision is the goal itself; HIT allows no middle ground, illusions or deceptions; the collisions are real and the impact felt and heard. To Have and To Hold choreographed by Joanie Smith and Daniel Shapiro (SPDW Dance Premiere 2008) takes the audience on a journey of life’s fragility; the work evokes feelings of memory, love and loss.
Reggie Wilson/Fist & Heel Performance Group—Chicago Premiere March 31, April 1–2, The Dance Center The Good Dance – dakar/brooklyn is the result of Reggie Wilson’s multi-year collaboration with Congolese choreographer Andréya Ouamba and his company 1er Temps based in Dakar, Senegal. The full-evening work explores the influence of Central African culture on world performance forms and its metaphoric, historic, real-world parallel with Mississippi Delta culture. The set and décor includes about 250 plastic water bottles.
THE DANCE CENTER The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, named “Chicago’s Best Dance Theatre” by Chicago magazine and “Best Dance Venue” by the Chicago Reader, is the city’s leading presenter of contemporary dance, showcasing artists of regional, national and international significance. Programs of The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago are supported, in part, by Alphawood Foundation, The Chicago Community Trust, The MacArthur Fund for Arts and Culture at Prince, The Elizabeth Morse Charitable Trust, The New England Foundation for the Arts, The Boeing Company Charitable Trust, Arts Midwest, The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation and The Irving Harris Foundation. Additional funding is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Illinois Arts Council. Special thanks to Friends of The Dance Center.
Single tickets go on sale July 1 at The Dance Center, 1306 S. Michigan Avenue. All programming is subject to change. The theatre is accessible to people with disabilities. For more information, call 312-369-8330 or visit colum.edu/dancecenter.
