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Dance Wed Aug 26 2015
Chicago Dancing Festival Returns
Chicago Dancing Festival returns for its ninth annual series this week for four free performances over the span of five days.
The festival, which is the country's largest dance festival, continues its tradition of commissioning new work for the event with the premiere of In the Meantime. In the Meantime is a percussive piece from Chicago Human Rhythm Project, featuring dancers from Trinity Irish Dance and Ensemble Espanol.
Also new this year is the "Modern Women" program--an entire evening dedicated to women choreographers, including Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham, Crystal Pite, Pam Tanowitz and Kate Weare.
The program additionally features Loie Fuller's one-minute film Butterfly Dance, which was one of the first dance films and features Fuller's improvisational technique.
The Miami City Ballet makes its debut in the Chicago Dancing Festival with George Balanchine's Allegro Brilliante. Other performances in the series include Mark Morris' Sandpaper Ballet performed by Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Gustavo Ramirez Sansano's El Beso performed by Ballet Hispanico, Justin Peck's In Creases performed by Chicago's The Joffrey Ballet, and Twyla Tharp's Sweet Fields performed by Miami City Ballet.
The festival closes with Dancing Under the Stars on Saturday at Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park. While no tickets are needed for this performance, seating is on a first-come-first-serve basis.
Chicago Dancing Festival is co-produced by Chicago dancer Jay Franke and choreographer Lar Lubovitch. They founded the festival with the goal of making dancing more accessible and building its audience within Chicago. Since its inception in 2007, more than 70 dance companies have performed in the festival and seven pieces have premiered.
During this year's festival, on Friday, there will be a Gala Benefit honoring Lubovitch and featuring performances by Miami City Ballet, the Joffrey Ballet, American Ballet Theatre and Brian Brooks Moving Company.
The festival is free, but tickets must be reserved in advance. Full ticketing details are at http://www.chicagodancingfestival.com/tickets.
For more information and a full performance schedule, visit http://www.chicagodancingfestival.com.
