Dance Top 5: May 2023

Winifred Haun & Dancers at Unity Temple.

1
Deep River
(Harris Theater)
The exemplary San Francisco-based Alonzo King LINES Ballet celebrates forty years with a new evening-length work set to Black spirituals and accompanied live by jazz musician Jason Moran and vocalist Lisa Fischer.
May 5 & 6

2
The Light in Spring
(Unity Temple)
The change of seasons is heralded by Winifred Haun & Dancers’ return to the Frank Lloyd Wright masterpiece in Oak Park. The program includes “Bench” a solo created by eighty-year-old choreographer Lonny Gordon for company member Myles Harris.
May 5 & 6

3
Passages of Dance and Music: Asian Choreographers Showcase
(Visceral Dance Center)
Mandala South Asian Performing Arts presents an afternoon of short pieces by artists working in traditional and contemporary modes of Asian dance including Shalaka Kulkarni, Yoshinojo Fujima, Ikunojo Fujima, Krissy Bergmark, and Sreevidhya and Varsha Vijayan.
May 7

4
The Wasteland and Daryo’s All-American Diner
(Ebenezer Lutheran Church)
Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble remounts their movement theater rendition of T.S. Eliot’s mythic poem a hundred years after its publication—a split bill with CIRCA Pintig’s premiere play about the struggles and resilience of a Filipino American family.
May 5-20

5
Grasp Grip
(Experimental Station)
Another split bill, between The Space Movement Project’s improvisational “Refraction,” and “Let the Record Show,” a full-length piece from the newly formed The Rooted Space Company.
May 19-21