The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago — the city’s leading presenter of contemporary dance, showcasing artists of regional, national and international significance — is pleased to announce its 2017-18 season, an action-packed year featuring eight programs of great aesthetic diversity from across the country and around the world. It features several Chicago premieres and some of Chicago’s most treasured dance artists. Many of the artists and visiting companies will also come into studios and classes at the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago for week-long residencies with Columbia College Chicago students — who can also take advantage of $10 tickets for all of the performances in the Dance Center theatre.
Here’s a video highlighting the 2017-18 season at the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago:
The varied season moves from pure movement, rhythm, and tap dance to postmodern fusions and explorations of social issues. Season subscriptions as well as tickets for individual performances are available. Performances take place at the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, located at 1306 S. Michigan in Chicago’s South Loop.
Chicago Human Rhythm Project in “Push Past Break.” (Photo: ProPhotoSTL)
Chicago Human Rhythm Project opens the season (September 21-23, 2017) with new works by Dani Borak alongside an eclectic repertoire, including works by Broadway choreographer and Emmy Award winner Ted Levy, MacArthur Fellowship winner Michelle Dorrance, international rhythm masters Guillem Alonso and Fernando Barba, legendary tap masters Buster Brown and Eddie Brown, and NEA American Masterpieces award winner Lane Alexander. In works spanning seven decades of the American rhythmic evolution, CHRP showcases the breadth and depth of tap and contemporary percussive dance.
Anna Schon, Yeman Brown, Annie Wang, Clement Mensah, and Raja Feather Kelly in “Citizen.” (Photo: Courtesy of Reggie Wilson / Fist and Heel Performance Group)
Reggie Wilson/ Fist + Heel Performance Group’s Citizen (October 12-14, 2017) questions what it means to belong and what it means to not want to belong.
Cynthia Oliver’s “Virago-Man Dem.” (Photo: Chris Cameron)
Cynthia Oliver’s COCo. Dance Theatre shares Oliver’s rich exploration of black masculinities across American and Caribbean culture in Virago-Man Dem (November 2-4, 2017).
Doug Varone and Dancers in “Possession.” (Photo: Erin Baiano)
Doug Varone and Dancers (February 8-10, 2018) share Varone’s musical and deeply felt works in the company’s first visit to Chicago since 2001.
Ben Law, Jessica Marasa, Kristina Fluty, Molly Shanahan. (Photo: William Frederking)
Bebe Miller Company. (Photo: Derek Fowle)
A two-week “Process v. Product” festival features works by Molly Shanahan/Mad Shak (March 29-31, 2018) and the Bebe Miller Company (April 5-7, 2018). Shanahan’s world premiere Of Whales, Time, and Your Last Attempt to Reach Me grapples with emotional ambivalence in a world of perception-altering technology and digitally-dependent relationships. Miller’s Dancing in The Making Room, inspired by the writings of Gertrude Stein, Toni Morrison, and David Foster Wallace, looks at how we apprehend meaning through the juxtaposed dynamics of action and context in time and space.
“Formosa,” performed by Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan. (Photo: LIU Chen-hsiang)
And Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan returns to Chicago in a special engagement at the Harris Theater, located 205 E. Randolph, performing choreographer Lin Hwai-min’s new work Formosa. Subscribers to the Dance Center’s 2017-18 season get first access to tickets for Cloud Gate’s performance.
The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago offers BA and BFA programs in dance in conjunction with a first-rate liberal arts education, with unique opportunities for cross-training in theatre and digital technology, teaching, arts management, and body science. And as Chicago’s leading presenter of contemporary dance of regional, national and international significance, the Dance Center closely collaborates with the city’s diverse dance communities to ignite the imagination.
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