Author Archives: Cerinda Survant

BALLET CHICAGO at the Blackstone Theatre October 17, 19, and 20 The awkward adolescent has grown up. Like a member of the corps de ballet learning her first principal role, just discovering her unique mental and physical potential and anticipating a long, distinguished career, Ballet Chicago has come of age. Circumstances conspire to make our […]

A LITTLE PERSONALITY Sentience at Link’s Hall December 9 Sentience’s A Little Personality offers a lighthearted, personable, positively painless introduction to dance. If you sought a performance filled with finely finished and meticulously crafted work, you probably would have been disappointed by the barely structured dances and marginally successful improvisations on the program. But if […]

LYNDA MARTHA DANCE COMPANY at the Weinstein Center for the Performing Arts October 20, 21, 27, and 28 The Lynda Martha Dance Company is another of those companies long on style and short on substance. The Evanston-based troupe is one of the area’s most technically proficient, with nine consistent, capable, lithe, quick dancers. The majority […]

AKASHA DANCE COMPANY at MoMing Dance & Arts Center June 23-24 Watching Akasha Dance Company’s recent concert was a bit like eating a slice of lemon chiffon pie for lunch: while you relish the indulgence of such a sweet treat, part of you still longs for a nourishing meal. All six of Akasha’s dancers are […]

BALLET CHICAGO at the Civic Center for Performing Arts May 17-20 Chicago is a pretty gritty town–an incubator for the blues, not the ballet. But under the artistic direction of Daniel Duell, Ballet Chicago has just presented its third season in eight months, and that alone is a significant accomplishment. Duell hasn’t succeeded in creating […]

MOMING COMMISSIONS: NEW WORKS BY JAN ERKERT AND AMY OSGOOD at MoMing Dance & Arts Center May 11-13 and 19-21 It’s been nearly two years since Jan Erkert or Amy Osgood, two of Chicago’s established independent choreographers, last produced concerts here. They returned to the stage at MoMing last weekend, presenting a satisfying concert of […]

MORDINE & COMPANY at the Dance Center of Columbia College May 4-6 and 11-13 Mordine & Company is celebrating 20 years of struggle and achievement with characteristic savvy. No simple self-laudatory retrospective for choreographer Shirley Mordine: she has chosen instead to juxtapose her newest works–Flores y Animales, a premiere, and the 1988 Delicate Prey–with dances […]

STEPHEN PETRONIO COMPANY at MoMing Dance & Arts Center April 27-30 Stephen Petronio’s dances defy description. Movements rush by with gale force. Dance phrases are so densely packed that they barely register; if ever there was a choreographic equivalent of subliminal advertising, this is it. The dances’ actual movement images, even the most mundane and […]

MARGARET JENKINS DANCE COMPANY at the Dance Center of Columbia College April 7-8 Margaret Jenkins makes arresting, eloquent dances. Her choreography incorporates gestures so abstract they lack recognizable meaning–a freewheeling, fluid, idiosyncratic vocabulary of tensionless jumps, balances, aerial turns, and even codified, recognizable elements of ballet and modern-dance technique. Jenkins choreographs at the very threshold […]

JOFFREY BALLET at the Civic Center for Performing Arts March 28-April 2 If institutions can suffer the same diseases as individuals, then the Joffrey Ballet is afflicted with acute schizophrenia. Watching a program that includes both poles of the company’s repertory–the revival of Balanchine’s 1932 Cotillon and Gerald Arpino’s 1983 Round of Angels, for instance–produces […]

ALL YOU CAN EAT AND OTHER HUMAN WEAKNESSES Xsight! Performance Group at MoMing Dance & Arts Center March 9-11 and 17-19 “All You Can Eat and Other Human Weaknesses,” the Chicago premiere of Xsight! Performance Group, is quite simply the most electric debut concert I’ve ever seen. A one-time-only, whacked-out performance event created by Brian […]

AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE at the Civic Center for Performing Arts February 7-18 Last summer Twyla Tharp stopped dancing, disbanded her dance company, and joined American Ballet Theatre as artistic associate. The company’s all-Tharp program featured four dances, including Tharp’s signature The Fugue and the brand-new The Bum’s Rush. The seriousness and genuineness of the company’s […]

AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE at the Civic Center for Performing Arts February 7-18 Looking better than in years, American Ballet Theatre has danced into town with a lovely if unimaginative season featuring beautiful dancing, ever more fully developed dancers, and a slow, steady improvement in repertory. La bayadere represents the most recognizably classical side of ABT’s […]