Alluvion Dance Chicago, an emerging contemporary dance company founded and led by Columbia College Chicago Dance Department student Johnny Huntoon, kicks off its 2016 season with “Introductions,” a benefit event on Saturday, January 16, at the historic Fine Arts Building’s Curtiss Hall, located at 410 S. Michigan in downtown Chicago. This year’s benefit is sponsored by Make-a-Wish Illinois. Proceeds will be split 50-50 between Alluvion and Make-a-Wish.

The event will feature performances by the Alluvion ensemble as well as music by students from the Columbia College Chicago Theatre Department’s Musical Theatre Program–singers Katie Spangler, Maddie Sachs, and Hannah Griffith and pianist Nate Pyzik–along with a live jazz combo. The event runs from 6 to 9 PM on January 16; for tickets and more information, click here.

The benefit will also include an auction for items donated by local arts organizations (including Broadway In Chicago, Stage 773, Porchlight Music Theatre, the Lou Conte Dance Center, and the Athenaeum Theatre) and businesses (including Lou Malnati’s, Eli’s Cheesecake, and the Corner Bakery).

Johnny Huntoon is a senior in the Dance Department’s BA Program in Dance with a minor in Management from Columbia College’s Business & Entrepreneurship Department. His aim is to make Alluvion Dance Chicago “lead Chicago in creating a connection between up and coming dancers and choreographers, to the professional world, through allowing underproduced artists’ works to be viewed in a fully produced show.”

Alluvion Dance Chicago’s aesthetic is rooted in contemporary dance with elements of contemporary ballet and musical theatre style dance. The company’s mission is “to create and display new and innovative contemporary dance choreography through a non-textual dance theatre style, bringing forward an understandable story, allowing the audience to question social norms, making this new form available to audiences and students of all ages and from all ethnic backgrounds.”