Please join us on Sunday June 28 for a glimpse of what happens backstage during and in preparation for a Shubukai Performance. Streaming on the new AIRMW livestream. “Behind Shubukai” Starts at 7p.m. CST.
airmw.org
Please join us on Sunday June 28 for a glimpse of what happens backstage during and in preparation for a Shubukai Performance. Streaming on the new AIRMW livestream. “Behind Shubukai” Starts at 7p.m. CST.
airmw.org
Free Dance Day
Classes, music, and discussions from Synapse Arts’ recent Free Dance Day are available online here.
*This session includes captions
Find more resources, videos, and announcements at www.synapsearts.com.
Take class with Lucky Plush Productions’ newest platform, Virtual Dance Lab! Our 30+ weekly classes will be available until June 6th. Be sure to take your favorite classes before they’re gone!
We will be announcing our summer schedule for Virtual Dance Lab soon. Be sure to tune into our social media channels (facebook, instagram, twitter) to stay up to date on our most recent schedule of classes!
Virtual Dance Lab is pay what you can on a sliding scale of $5-$30. While we have seed support from our general operating funders and residency partners including the University of Chicago, we are relying on class contributions to cover the remaining 80% of expenses.
Red Clay Dance Company is fighting the threat of COVID-19 in its home community with the Dance Pamoja Challenge, a 12-month project beginning June 1 offering free virtual dance classes. “Engaging people in exercise can be challenging, but high-energy and spiritually enriching dance forms are deeply rooted in the African-American tradition,” said RCDC Founding Artistic Director Vershawn Sanders-Ward. “This project speaks directly to our work during the past 11 years to strengthen the resiliency of our communities through dancing pamoja, which means ‘together’ in Swahili.” RCDC is working with Clinical Pharmacist Jewel Younge of University of Illinois at Chicago College of Pharmacy and Dr. Audrey Tanksley of ACCESS Community Health Network to target blood pressure management, A1C monitoring, and psychological stress to reduce or eliminate instances of COVID-19, specifically for communities most affected, due to pre-existing conditions. To register, visit redclaydance.com/pamoja.
Photo by Raymond Jerome Photography.
The Seldoms want your GRASS STORIES!
Take your cue from our questions in THIS VIDEO, or tell us your own amazing tale.
In our second collaboration with playwright Seth Bockley, plus animator Lisa Barcy and designer Maria Pinto, we’re creating a performance about lawns, weed(s) and their power in our lives. GRASS lights up the environmental, social, and economic aspects of these cultivars, and mows down our belief that we grow grasses—rather, they grow us.
In 1988, Lane Alexander and Kelly Michaels founded alexander,michaels/Future Movement (am/FM) - a men’s duet company - that blended elements of tap and modern dance. They subsequently launched Chicago’s first tap dance festival in 1990 – the Chicago Human Rhythm Project – which evolved into a year-round presenter and advocate for American tap and percussive dance. In 2000, CHRP renamed the annual festival “Rhythm World” and will present its 30th iteration this July 6 – 26 in a mix of attended and virtual classes and performances in strict compliance with safety guidelines related to the Covid-19 pandemic. Since the current circumstances will necessitate smaller classes and limited-streamed performances, CHRP is referring to this year’s festival as “RW 29.5” and will look forward to celebrating this important milestone for American tap dance culture in 2021. For complete information about this year’s classes and performances which dedicate at least 50% of its annual budget to Chicago-based artists, please visit www.chicagotap.org. Photo by Mike Canale Photography
To be bodies together in vulnerability and power
A shared liveliness that is life itself
Vital purposiveness without purpose
All of us at Khecari have either tucked in to working remotely or are here at HQ digging deeper into our next installation environments. We are all navigating the unknown, recalibrating, and keeping our feelers out for the needs that the day expresses. We are practicing being nimble, listening, being available. We are trusting in the worth of art, which a desperate world can forget it still relies on to be well. We are taking our time and using what we have. We are exploring two new works which are impossible in this time of social distancing, and vital to our coming back together when we can.
We’d love to tell you more about it.
(PICTURED: Jonathan sweeping Khecari’s new makeshift rehearsal + performance space in the garage, affectionately called “HQ3” )
Take a Dance Break!
Videos from all 11 events of Synapse Arts’ recent “Dance Break” events are available online here. Recordings include mini classes, body care, a new dance film, short performances, and movement activities for all ages. Artists include Dee Alaba, Rachel Damon, Kait Dessoffy, Matt Griffo, Nadine Lollino, Katie Matteson-Campana, Gretchen Soechting-McGuire, Sammy Spriggs, Amanda Ramirez, Megan Rhyme, and Dylan Roth.
A printable ballet activity page is available here (in English and Spanish) along with guided ballet videos. These resources are based on Synapse’s classes for young dancers, but all ages are welcome to enjoy them!
More at synapsearts.com.
Image: screenshot from an Instagram Live performance with Rachel Damon as part of Dance Break on April 30, 2020
American Rhythm Center has continued to focus on economic justice and business development for Chicago teaching artists by organizing monetized LIVE STREAMING classes in Afro Fusion, Hip Hop, Heels, Tap, Ashtanga Yoga and more during the current Stay at Home order. Amansu Eason, Brandy Ford, Daz Harris, Tierra Fondren, Time Brickey, Matt Pospeshil, Todd Bowman, Lane Alexander and other ARC Partners have been staying in contact with their community through weekly classes helping to keep Chicagoans healthy, sane and … moving! While these classes are meant to help provide an income stream for teaching artists, the financial situation of many students has also been taken into consideration and fees are highly variable and selected by each student. To find the weekly schedule, simply go to our home page and click “LIVE” : www.chicagotap.org
The ARC is also mentoring other, non-ARC teaching artists to help set up monetized, live streaming classes. To contact the ARC team about getting support, please write to Jackie Hill at: info@arcchicago.org The American Rhythm Center is a shared education/business development space managed by the Chicago Human Rhythm Project.
News is moving fast, bodies are at a standstill, there is pressure to be productive.
Amidst the online classes, performances, discussions and conference calls, we offer a score of unplugging that was central to our project The Retreat.
If you can find time free of work or other obligations, explore living free of your phone and computer.
We recommend 24 hours to get over the initial cravings, but choose what’s achievable. Notify those who need to know when you’ll be available again, then turn off the devices and place them in a container - something you can seal closed. Put them out of sight and retreat into a world of your making. Give your lizard brain the reins and try:
-drawing
-writing
-moving
-cooking
-walking
That’s it. We hope this score fosters a quality of attention not unlike introspective wilderness wandering. Expansive and still. Full of unexpected discovery.
FLOE AT THE ART INSTITUTE
Ticket sales are LIVE for The Seldoms’ debut performance at AIC. Don’t miss the Chicago premiere of Floe, opening on the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day! Limited seating.
APRIL 22-25, 7pm
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago Stock Exchange Trading Room
$15 AIC members/$25 nonmembers
TICKETS/INFO
If you’re in/near Cincinnati, catch Floe on APRIL 3-4 at the Aronoff Theater.
Created & Directed by Carrie Hanson, with performance by Solomon Bowser, Philip Elson, Sarah Gonsiorowski, Damon Green, Maggie Vannucci. In collaboration with playwright Seth Bockley, visual artist Bob Faust, sound designer Mikhail Fiksel, costume designer Jeff Hancock, lighting designer Julie E. Ballard, projectionist Liviu Pasare.
Red Clay Dance’s “Visions & Voices” Features Three World Premieres
April 3–4
Harold Washington Cultural Center, 4701 S. King Dr.
How do our bodies manifest the world around and through us? INCARNATION 1 by guest choreographer Du’Bois A’Keen (NYC) explores the body as archive | altar | access point in the present | future. Lela Aisha Jones (PHILLY) debuts we:all ~ gon’ die into revivals, an artistic | soulful labor expressing our dreams for blackness and our reciprocity with the natural environment. FAKE NEWS! — Artistic Director Vershawn Sanders-Ward’s response to the 2016 “election” — re-examines our ideals of capitalism, democracy, immigration and our obsession with power and media. Her solo piece (part of her 2019 Chicago Dancemakers Forum Award), Harvester, breaks open the spirit of womynhood to reveal the fullness of her existence, unbound by others’ projections.
Tickets: $35
Student/Senior/Dance Industry: $29
Groups (10+): $23@
VIP/Red Carpet Package (Friday): $125
HEDWIG DANCES Presents
LIGHTPLAY
One Weekend Only
Ruth Page Center for the Arts
1016 N. Dearborn
Friday March 13 @ 7:30 pm
Saturday March 14 @ 7:30 pm
Sunday March 15 @ 3:00 pm
LIGHTPLAY features Artistic Director Jan Bartoszek’s newest dance, Raum, and Rigoberto Saura’s The Flowering Mechanisms.
Raumexplores transparencies and the shifting perceptions arising from cascading layers of movement and fluctuating light forms. Inspired by the work of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Bartoszek delves deeper into Bauhaus history, abstraction and visual metaphor. She collaborates with theater artist Sharon Evans and sound designer Erica Ricketts.
Rigoberto Saura examines human interactions and routine mechanical behaviors in The Flowering Mechanisms. The dance illuminates how interpersonal relations evolve in chaotic environments through individual somatic responses. It is performed to a symphonic score, with set and costume design by Saura.
Purchase your Tickets Online - bit.ly/HD-LIGHTPLAY
312-291-8196