The idea that led to plunging a theater seven stories beneath Chicago’s Millennium Park first came in the 1980s. At first called the Music and Dance Theater—MAD, for short—skeptics justifiably wondered if the Joan W. and Irving B. Harris Theater for Music and Dance would ever be realized.

Hoofer Jumaane Taylor’s newest work, Ugly Flavors, collides tap dance with two musical scores known for their difficulty and dissonance: Ornette Coleman’s album The Shape of Jazz to Come and “The Rite of Spring,” by Igor Stravinsky. Taylor, a Chicago native, trained at Sammy Dyer School of the Theatre, one of the places where he […]

One inescapable fact of trying to plan for anything during a pandemic is the need for backup plans—many of them. Planning a fall performance season—which usually happens months and sometimes even years in advance—while navigating state reopening guidelines and virus spikes falls somewhere between frustratingly difficult and impossible. To make sense of it, Ginger Farley, […]

Having spent most of the past 15 years in Chicago, I can confidently say that Elevate Chicago Dance was the most comprehensive celebration of the city’s dance scene this century. A dozen events packed 10 venues for three full days, featuring the work of more than 150 performers, representing nearly 40 locally-based dance artists and […]