Winter crop

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and Hubbard Street 2 cultivate their budding choreographers with the first-ever “Danc(e)volve: New Works Festival”—two weekends of nine premieres by company members. The fest is more tightly curated than “Inside/Out,” the ten-year-old company showcase, and seemed such a “big opportunity” to HS2 member Johnny McMillan that instead of entering a refined version of his 2011 “Inside/Out” piece, he created a brand-new sextet. McMillan describes a magpie process of collecting images, music, and movement to use in the piece, Path and Observations; you might see traces of Beyonce and Nancy Sinatra moves. But it’s all unified by a soundtrack of music from the Sami people, indigenous to the arctic regions of Nordic countries. Anyone expecting commensurately arctic choreography will be shocked by the passion and sensuality of Path and Observations, which has the raw intensity of Nijinsky’s Rite of Spring. The fest offers two distinct programs, each of which runs both weekends (Path and Observations is on Program A). Though the opening weekend is sold out, at press time tickets remained for the second.