Joffrey Ballet Archives - Chicago Reader

Two men at opposite ends of the stage, caught in the middle of leaping in the air. The man on the right is covered with bloody scar makeup over a nude bodysuit.

Man meets monster at the Joffrey

by Kerry Cardoza October 13, 2023October 13, 2023

Just before the lights dimmed and the Lyric Opera Orchestra signaled that the show was about to begin, two glamorous older women beside me kept repeating to each other, “We are blessed.” The characters in Frankenstein are not so lucky. In this Joffrey Ballet production, the story is condensed into three acts that use tension […]

Dance

Malevolent enchantment

by Irene Hsiao April 27, 2023April 27, 2023

Through a wash of watercolor sea, as if glimpsed through a periscope, a lighted box appears, within which a poet writes lines in cursive script: “Far far out to sea, where the water is blue as a cornflower and clear as a crystal . . .” It isn’t once upon a time in Hans Christian […]

A male dancer is dressed in a costume suggestive of a 19th-century military uniform (gray tights with red stripes down the side of the legs, suspenders, black boots). He holds up a woman in a white blouse that looks like a corset and a thin white translucent skirt

Arts & Culture

A dance of contrasts

by JT Newman February 20, 2023February 20, 2023

Scene: A blustery, freezing February night in Chicago. As we approach the Civic Opera House, a cluster of protestors come into focus. They’re holding aloft bloodied ballerina soft sculptures, signs that sport slogans like “supporting ‘great Russian culture’ is supporting the war,” and large-scale images of Oleksandr Shapoval, a Ukrainian ballet dancer and teacher who […]

Dance

Different but the same

by Irene Hsiao October 19, 2022October 19, 2022

Though differing in mood, the three works in Joffrey’s Beyond Borders program are structurally of a type: abstract, ensemble-based, heavy on unison choreography that exhibits the patterns that can be formed by dancers forged according to an exacting technique. Featuring a world premiere by Chanel DaSilva, alongside a 2013 work by the late Liam Scarlett, […]

The ensemble of Don Quixote in Spanish-style costumes stands in a circle around a blanket upon which Sancho Panza is being tossed into the air. The set backdrop is brick and stucco and Spanish-Moorish in design

Dance

Romance languages

by Irene Hsiao June 6, 2022June 6, 2022

Two years into this pestilence, the misery of war, the disappointment of mankind day after day weighing down desperate minds, with a future certain of nothing but social and planetary destruction, do we not long for a reprieve? As the nobleman Alonso Quijano sought glory in the guise of the knight Don Quixote, as a […]

Two men in denim work clothes sit. The man on the left is sitting on a bench, pointing upward. The man on the right is following the direction with his eyes.

Dance

Binary ballets

by Irene Hsiao May 2, 2022May 5, 2022

The evening begins with Ukrainian composer Myroslav Skoryk’s melancholy Melody meandering through the auditorium, a haunting tune that invites contemplation. Curtain down, panels bordering the stage lit in blue and yellow, vines rise in relief where pillars would seem to stand: a ruin retaken by foliage or a reminder of the interdependence of nature and […]

Dance

The collective quest of Chicago dance

by Irene Hsiao December 22, 2021December 23, 2021

Two events occurred toward the close of 2020 that suggested that life and art as we knew it (for better or for worse) might have a fighting chance of existing in 2021: the election in November and the emergency use authorization of COVID-19 vaccines in December. But more briefly than the duration of most resolutions, […]

Ensemble of the Joffrey Ballet's The Nutcracker assembled in front of a screen showing shadows of the upcoming 1893 Columbian Exposition

Dance

Joffrey’s Nutcracker gets a new home

by Irene Hsiao December 8, 2021December 23, 2021

Year after year the critic comes, that unkind aunt who wasn’t quite invited to the house spoiling Christmas for the children by pointing out that The Nutcracker is, like most American traditions, not as old and established as it purports to be and problematic where it comes to gender and race to boot. This year, […]

Dance

Home is where the heart is

by Irene Hsiao October 15, 2021October 15, 2021

Twenty months and one (ongoing) pandemic since their last performance at the Auditorium Theatre, their home of 20 years, the Joffrey Ballet launched its new tenure on the stage at the Lyric Opera House with a dazzlingly triumphant program of three new works by Chanel DaSilva, Nicolas Blanc, and Yoshihisa Arai and a classic by […]