During the second iteration of COMMON canvas, bodies circled around a center point: a pile of clothes in an upstage corner. For a moment, the pile of clothes moved, as if to take a breath, and the bodies around it held still. The performance, which Chicago dance artist and current Hubbard Street member Alysia L. […]
Author Archives: Nora Paul
Posted inArts & Culture
A Venn diagram for performance
Global displacement comes to the stage with Theatre Lumina’s Song of Home, one of many acts of the 2022 Physical Theater Festival Chicago that invites a shared humanity within the immediacy of live performance. Throughout the week, organizations will present a range of pieces including theater, music, juggling, clowning, and more. Marc Frost and Alice […]
Posted inDance
Hedwig Dances returns with Field Theory
On an architectural tour last year, Rigoberto Saura settled into the concrete forms of the buildings overlooking the Chicago River. Wrapping around the water, tall brutalist buildings push into the skyline. It was on this tour that Saura heard the phrase “raw concrete.” The piece he created for Hedwig Dances as part of their April […]
Posted inDance
Kia Smith is a south-side diplomat of dance
At Chicago Dancers United’s Dance for Life festival last August, the Jay Pritzker Pavilion stage reverberated with layers of rhythm. Each row of dancers formed a different section of intertwining phrases—movements playful and powerful that recalled the musicality of jazz. The piece, South Chicago Dance Theatre’s Architect of a Dream, was the work of Kia […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Moonwater Dance Project rides the wave
The all-female-identifying Moonwater Dance Project explores water-as-metaphor in its newest piece.