The 22nd Chicago International Salsa Congress, a four-night, three-day event, kicks off Thursday with three free beginner dance workshops teaching salsa, bachata and rueda casino.
Dance
From the obvious to the obscure, we’ve pulled together a rundown of promising arts and culture events to stir the senses in the new year.
In addition to the bravura performances of its dancers, the exuberant works of a number of different choreographers and the excellent group of musicians that gathered for its grand finale, the company attracted an impressively vast, immensely enthusiastic audience.
Ale Gabino and David Acevedo are both lifelong dancers. After meeting at a 2003 Polynesian dance competition in Hilo, Hawaii, they married in 2009. A year later, they opened Hōkūle’a Academy of Polynesian Arts, where together, they teach their other great love – Polynesian culture and dance.
“It Starts Now” is not an easy work to describe. It is a transfixing physical manifestation of human existence — epic in its emotional tension, its simultaneously real and mystical aura and its remarkable dancing.
Both events served as the latest vivid illustration of why 2022 has rightly been designated “The Year of Chicago Dance.”
It was at Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre where dancers with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater would unknowingly perform for the last time before a nearly two-year hiatus. Fast forward to today, and they’re back on their first national tour.
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater returns to Chicago for the first time since the outbreak of COVID-19 with rousing works and a nod to tradition.
Chicago’s Trinity Irish Dance Company returned to the stage of the Auditorium Theatre for the first time since the pandemic drove it away two years ago for a thunderous performance.
Should you need any additional proof of the adage that “absence makes the heart grow fonder,” the recent one-night-only performance by the Joffrey Ballet at the Ravinia Festival provided all the evidence required.
Footwork is an art form that consists of both music and dance, and it’s brought people together from around the world. Now it’s bringing folks downtown to see animated projections on the Merchandise Mart.
The annual event that puts the spotlight on Chicago dance companies is free and open to the public this year with a concert at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park.
When theaters across the city shut down last year, a local multimedia company took the performing arts from stage to screen. With the help of some celebrated collaborators, they kept audiences in touch with artists.
After 15 months of dark theaters and livestreamed performances, two of Chicago’s most famous performing arts companies announce they are returning to the stage for live performances — this time under one roof.
This world premiere, feverishly choreographed by Nicolas Blanc and performed by 15 of the company’s emotionally fiery dancers, is a work of such beauty and dynamic intensity that it can and should easily endure as part of the standard ballet rep for years to come.
Chicago’s most storied arts institutions have elevated Black leaders to the helm in the last year. We talk with some of them about how the Chicago arts scene is planning its 2021 comeback.
