Dance: Bleader, Chicago Reader

RIP Luna Negra Dance Theater

Laura Molzahn — Tue, 14 May 2013 16:14:00 -0500

Or should I make a wish that ghosts walk? Maybe then Chicago could start working on another Latino-focused contemporary dance company with a national and even international reputation.…

Artistic director Gustavo Ramirez Sansano leaves Luna Negra Dance Theater

Laura Molzahn — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 15:50:58 -0500

On the cusp of its 15th season, Luna Negra Dance Theater has announced that current artistic director Gustavo Ramirez Sansano, who moved here from Spain to take over the reins from founder Eduardo Vilaro in 2010, has resigned and will return to Spain tomorrow. His longtime friend, Monica Cervantes—the acclaimed LNDT dancer and budding choreographer who arrived in Chicago with him three years ago—has already gone back to Spain, and probably won't return to this country.…

Don't fear the reaper: Geezer dance breaks down ageist barriers

Laura Molzahn — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 13:18:47 -0500

Of all the arts, dance is the most closely fastened to a dying animal (to quote Yeats), and thus the most ageist of art worlds. But old people can still shake it.…

Quick: Deadline for city artist's grant is one minute before midnight, tomorrow

Deanna Isaacs — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 10:33:02 -0500

OK, procrastinators, this is it. The application deadline for the city's 2013 Individual Artists Grant Program is 11:59 PM tomorrow (Fri 4/19).…

This week in Bollywood: ABCD (Any Body Can Dance) 3-D

Ben Sachs — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 16:18:00 -0600

At the end of the opening titles for this Bollywood crowd-pleaser—which is being advertised as the first Indian dance film made in 3-D—Remo D'Souza takes a single credit for direction and choreography, and in that order. That's a commendably modest gesture, as well as an honest one: ABCD (Any Body Can Dance) 3-D, currently playing at the River East 21, is only D'Souza's second film as director, but he's choreographed nearly 100 movies and he's a fixture on Indian TV as a judge on dance-competition shows.…

Music + Movement = new, local choreography at Auditorium Theatre

Deanna Isaacs — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 15:50:12 -0600

A "festival" of performances stretched across five months will bring eleven newly commissioned dance works by local companies to Roosevelt University's Auditorium Theatre stage, its Katten/Landau Studio, and other locations around the city this winter and spring.

The Music + Movement Festival will pair dance companies with musicians for performances that begin in February and extend through June.…

Joffrey Ballet's The Green Table, this weekend at the Auditorium Theatre

Deanna Isaacs — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 18:00:00 -0500

The Joffrey Ballet is performing three pieces in its current run at its exquisite home base, the Auditorium Theatre. All very nice, but the one you'll definitely remember is the last one on the program, The Green Table, Kurt Jooss’s 1932 "Dance of Death in Eight Scenes."

Totally apropos for the season, this macabre masterpiece plays out like a silent film, with a two-piano score (by Jooss's colleague Frederick Cohen) and a load of expressionistic melodrama that manages to grab you by the gut.…

Arsonists, altruists, and assassins: new performing arts reviews

Meg Pier — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 13:10:34 -0500

Max Frisch's The Arsonists provides wicked political allegory but inert drama, argues Tony Adler. The Trap Door Theatre staging is sharp, and yet, with "nowhere to go, the show can't help but go nowhere."…

Sunday in the Park With George and midnight with zombies: new performing arts reviews

Meg Pier — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 14:53:53 -0500

With Halloween just weeks away, Chicago's theater scene is chock full of eerie shows. We've reviewed seven of them for the new issue, plus 13 productions without holiday themes.…

Good People and bad dads: new performing arts reviews

Meg Pier — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 14:45:06 -0500

The Reader recommends Woyzeck on the Highveld at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Handspring Puppet Theatre transposes George Buchner's tale of alienation and murder from 19th-century Germany to South Africa during the apartheid era, using artfully crafted puppets and resonant projected animations to create what Tony Adler calls "a mournful, gorgeous progress through the lumpen tragedy."

Meanwhile, Adler laments that the progress through Goodman Theatre's Sweet Bird of Youth can't be as satisfying.…

A queer Hamlet and an earthbound turkey: new Reader performing arts reviews

Meg Pier — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 13:05:58 -0500

The fall theater season is building momentum, and there's an ample number of Reader-recommended shows out this week.

The Writers' Theatre production of Hamlet isn't perfect, says Tony Adler, but a stunning set, some strong performances, and a fascinating concept make it vibrant.…

"Goofball perfection" to emotion-killing monologues: this week's performing arts reviews

Meg Pier — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 12:29:16 -0500

The fall theater tidal wave is upon us. Here are Reader reviews to help keep you from drowning.…

Genderfucks and bouncing boobies: new performing arts reviews

Sharon Lurye — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 14:07:47 -0500

We have only a handful of newly opened shows to tell you about this week, but that's all right—the Abbie Hoffman Died for Our Sins Theatre Festival more than compensates. An annual commemoration of both the titular revolutionary and the 1969 Woodstock festival, this year's AHDFOSF features more than 50 hours of performances.…

Pop Sophocles and stormy Shakespeare: midsummer performing arts reviews

Sharon Lurye — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 12:29:33 -0500

Summer is officially half over. August 7 was the midpoint, which means that you've got less than 45 days left to enjoy the quirkier shows that tend to turn up when the weather gets hot.…

Tapping and Taming: this week's new performing arts reviews

Sharon Lurye — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 15:28:46 -0500

According to the Reader's Tony Adler, it's been "one hell of a summer for Latino theater in Chicago." A case in point: the Yo Solo Festival of Latino Solo Shows.…

Serious about pleasure

Ben Sachs — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 10:31:09 -0500

Last week the Washington-based critic Trevor Link posted a provocative rave review of Step Up Revolution, arguing that the movie's politics live up to the title. The movie apparently touches on contemporary class struggle, not only in its thin between-the-dances narrative, but in the choreography itself.…

Smartphones and Soirees: new performing art reviews

Sharon Lurye — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 14:58:05 -0500

Our esteemed arts editor Tony Adler is off on vacation this week, but the reviews must go on, and Reader critics have plenty of performances to recommend. First there's La Soiree, an astounding show that combines gravity-defying circus tricks with the comedy and sexiness of a burlesque.…

Pole dancers and playground injuries: the Reader's latest performing arts reviews

Sharon Lurye — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 09:38:23 -0500

The shows we've reviewed this week run the gamut from wholesome goodness to rather more wicked affairs.

The angel on your shoulder will likely tell you to see Crowns, which rings with gospel glory.…

The American Rhythm Center? You know—it's in the emerging dance corridor

Laura Molzahn — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 00:01:00 -0500

Chicago Human Rhythm Project head Lane Alexander has seen the future of dance funding, and it's tuition-based education. Well, that and collaboration.…

John Wayne Gacy and lighting-based dance: the week in performing arts reviews

Jordan Larson — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 12:26:00 -0500

Though it gets off to a strange start with a "smarmy opening song," the new Second City E.T.C. show We're All in This Room Together gets its act together and proves to be a "very fine, very funny revue," according to Reader culture editor Tony Adler. Similarly, David Bell's world-premiere production of Hero: The Musical overcomes a plausibility problem to tell a sweet tale delightfully.…

Glory holes and circus feats: new Reader performing arts reviews

Sharon Lurye — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 09:39:19 -0500

There aren't many shows to cover this week, but there are plenty to recommend. For instance: Common Hatred, a new homage to Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard by lyrically named local playwright Calamity West, and Oh, the Humanity!, a collection of five short plays from Thom Pain (Based on Nothing) author Will Eno.…

Horrors historical (Eastland) and theatrical (Dancing Queen): the week in performing arts

Tony Adler — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 15:12:25 -0500

In honor of Pride Week, the Neo-Futurists present 30 Queer Plays in 60 Straight Minutes, a greatest-LGBTQ-hits collection drawn from the hundreds of two-minute plays written for their long-running show Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind. Reader intern Sharon Lurye advises audiences to expect the typical frenzied pace—plus lots more crossdressing than usual.…

Clowns and crazies: new Reader performing arts reviews

Sharon Lurye — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 14:48:46 -0500

Allowing the the original sadist, the Marquis de Sade, to stage a play with a cast full of lunatics can only lead to trouble. And sure enough, all hell breaks loose in the insanely brilliant Right Brain Project staging of Peter Weiss's 1963 masterpiece, Marat/Sade.…

From Camelot to Goldman Sachs: new Reader performing arts reviews

Joe Valdez — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 10:58:02 -0500

Chicago Dramatists explores the unfortunate but all-too-familiar scenario of forgetting to set your alarm before an important job interview in I Am Going to Change the World. We recommend Andrew Hinderaker's drama about a young man who finds out that denial isn't just a river in Egypt.…

Corrupt cops and colliding queens: new Reader performing arts reviews

Tony Adler — Fri, 18 May 2012 07:54:00 -0500

We don't keep records on this sort of thing, but based on my experience I'd say that Reader critics handed out an unusually large proportion of backwards Rs this week, recommending 11 out of 18 new productions. Either they've got spring/NATO fever or there are just a bunch of really good shows out there.…