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Chicago Tribune
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Dance for summer 2025: Our top 10 includes ‘Superbloom' at Botanic Gardens, tap and a super Joffrey premiere
This is a rare summer dance guide, in that most selections are surprisingly indoors! To be clear, there are a lot of chances to see dance if you want to, including all Chicago Dance Month has to offer — not to mention the ever-popular SummerDance lessons in Grant Park ( and the stalwart Dance in the Parks series ( at Chicago Park District locations all over the city. But more companies chose to extend their seasons into the warm months this year, including the Joffrey Ballet in a much-anticipated new ballet. That's just one of many air-conditioned options. A crash course: June is Chicago Dance Month, with multiple chances to see pop-up performances in all sorts of styles and learn a few moves. On Wednesday evenings, pre-fireworks dance lessons on Navy Pier include instruction in Bollywood, swing, footwork and hip hop. The Pier also has mini-performances on Saturdays from 4-5 p.m. And there are two chances to see a progressive dinner-styled outdoor dance show with companies tucked in nooks and crannies of Palmisano Park in Bridgeport. Different line-ups appear on June 17 and 24, so you may as well see both. For the love of tap: New York scooped up tap dancer Sterling Harris — unsurprising to those who have ever seen him dance — but he returns home often to continue working with M.A.D.D. Rhythms and Chicago Tap Theatre. The latter's final show of the year, 'For All We Know,' devised by Harris with original music by trombonist Emma Blau, is based on bell hooks' 'All About Love,' with tap dance as the vehicle for love and understanding. Joffrey ventures beyond the looking glass: If you thought Pea Town was wild, just wait. In what could very likely be their most ambitious production yet, the Joffrey Ballet is the first American company to tackle 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland,' by Tony Award-winning choreographer Christopher Wheeldon (who also made Joffrey's 'Nutcracker'). All of Lewis Carroll's beloved characters are there: the Queen of Hearts, the Cheshire Cat and a tap-dancing Mad Hatter among them. Cerqua Rivera's greatest hits: The only non-negotiable for this ever-evolving contemporary troupe is their commitment to presenting dance with live, original music. For their latest concert series, artistic director Wilfredo Rivera revisits parts of his best work, 'American Catracho,' tapping into his personal story as an immigrant from Honduras. A newer piece is a variation on that theme, celebrating the Latin diaspora. Returning works by former Hubbard Street dancer Shannon Alvis and Ballet Hispanico's Michelle Manzanales complete the evening. Last call for Links Hall: As their final performance series, Links Hall fittingly presents one last showcase highlighting artists from the Co-MISSION program. Launched in 2017 as a reimagination of the long-running LinkUP program, the low-stakes residency grants artists space and time to let their imaginations run wild. For its final installment, those imaginations include several works exploring memory, ancestry and personal identities. On June 28, they'll host a send-off inviting Links lovers to celebrate its sunset. Something new — for the last four decades: Since 1983, Chicago's off-contract and freelance dancers have come together to create new dances (that's what it's called: New Dances), more recently as a joint project of Thodos Dance Chicago and DanceWorks Chicago. It's reliably good, and often a platform for emerging choreographers to get their feet wet with a top-shelf crop of performers. 'Superbloom' at the garden: Premiered as a one-night-only performance at the Harris Theater in 2023, The Seldoms brings back their high-definition, full-color ode to rare wildflower events — this time in a poetic locale. For the pre-show, a group of 30 dancers will give pop-up performances on the Botanic Garden's Esplanade — that part is free with garden admission. Dancing with the stars: Chicago Human Rhythm Project's landmark tap dance festival, Rhythm World, now 35 years young, gathers heavy hitters from across the globe for workshops and, lucky us, a few public performances. Opening night at the Jazz Showcase is a personal favorite, and this year, that includes a full 30-minute set from artistic director Jumaane Taylor in a rangy improvisation of swing and hard bop. Additional shows at the DuSable Museum and Studebaker Theater feature solos from legends Jimmy Payne Jr., Mr. Taps, Reggio the Hoofer and Dianne Walker, as well as second-generation favorites of the festival: Jason Janas, Christina Carminucci and Cartier Williams among them. Another treat: a new choreographed work from frequent flyer Sarah Savelli celebrating what would have been Canadian jazz master Oscar Peterson's 100th birthday. Not just a fundraiser: Sure, the primary objective of the annual Dance for Life gala is to raise funds for Chicago dancers with critical health needs. It's also an opportunity to catch a terrific all-Chicago line-up including the Joffrey Ballet, Giordano Dance Chicago, Deeply Rooted Dance Theatre, Chicago Tap All-Stars, Trinity Irish Dance Company and more. Among the more is Aerial Dance Chicago, in their first-ever appearance at Dance for Life, plus a heart-pounding, feel-good finale created by Hubbard Street's rehearsal director, Jonathan Alsberry. Biographies in motion: Four Chicago area women draw from their personal histories for BIOS Project, with danced stories of strength and resilience, composed by the women themselves: Silvita Diaz Brown, Jasmine Getz, Rachel Hutsell and Jenni Richards. It's a departure from suburban company Ballet 5:8's typical repertoire, which leans heavily on Biblical tales often told through full-length, narrative ballets by artistic director Julianna Rubio Slager — a sign of what's to come with more commissioned works on the docket for next season. .
New York Times
31-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Review: A Kronos Quartet Glow Up: New Players, Newly Lustrous Sound
The Kronos Quartet was at Zankel Hall on Friday with a typically eclectic program that included new works drawing on jazz, psychedelic rock and Nordic folk music. The vibrant performance was not only the ensemble's return to a space it reliably fills with devoted fans; with the quartet's ranks refreshed by three brilliant new players, it also felt like a comeback. In recent years, the aging ensemble — founded in 1973 by David Harrington, who continues to lead it as first violin — sometimes seemed to have had slid into an identity crisis. The Kronos brand was still strong: Ambitious commissions kept pushing the boundaries of quartet music, resulting in more than 1,000 new works and arrangements drawing on every imaginable style. In the run-up to its golden jubilee, the ensemble initiated a commissioning project, 50 for the Future, and made the sheet music to all 50 pieces available free online. But the quality of the playing had become inconsistent. And the spoken introductions the players offered at concerts felt perfunctory and tired. When the violinists John Sherba and Hank Dutt, who had been in the lineup since 1978, retired last year, the quartet might have disbanded. Instead, Harrington brought in fresh talent and — judging by the music-making on Friday — strong personalities. The quartet's middle voices now belong to the violinist Gabriela Díaz and the violist Ayane Kozasa, who join the composer and cellist Paul Wiancko, who came onboard in 2022. During the kaleidoscopic first half of the concert the two women asserted themselves as the quartet's engines of emotional intensity and a newly lustrous, rich sound. This came through most powerfully in Aleksandra Vrebalov's incantatory 'Gold Came From Space,' which gradually grows in sonic density and expressive intent of tremulous whispers. Time and again, Kozasa's viola stole the spotlight with its absorbing mixture of lyricism and throaty candor. She channeled Nina Simone's tough-nosed tenderness in Jacob Garchik's arrangement of 'For All We Know' (composed by J. Fred Coots) and set the tone for Wiancko's arrangement of Neil Young's protest song 'Ohio.' Two songs by Sun Ra, 'Outer Spaceways Incorporated' (wittily arranged by Garchik) and 'Kiss Yo' Ass Goodbye,' in a psychedelic arrangement by Terry Riley and Sara Miyamoto, sparkled with experimental glee. That exploratory zest had always been a hallmark of Kronos. But the heart-on-sleeve directness the group brought to Viet Cuong's stirring 'Next Week's Trees,' in which the quartet sometimes sounds like a giant harp, felt new. The second half was taken up by a single work, 'Elja,' by Benedicte Maurseth and Kristine Tjogersen. Maurseth, who joined the Kronos players for the performance, is a master on the Norwegian hardanger fiddle, a violin-like instrument with four extra resonating strings and a curved neck and carved scroll that evokes the bow of an ancient ship. For the 45-minute piece, which also featured recorded nature sounds, the Kronos players switched to hardanger versions of their own instruments. (The viola and cello fiddles were specially built for Kronos by the Norwegian luthier Ottar Kasa.) Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
The Guardian
21-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Nao: Jupiter review – an upbeat, welcome return
Since her 2016 debut, For All We Know, London singer-songwriter Neo Jessica Joshua, AKA Nao, has made gossamer-light R&B that soars on the power of her distinctive high-lying voice. Grammy award- and Mercury prize-nominated for her electronic-influenced second album, Saturn (2018), and finding joy post-Covid on 2021's acoustic-leaning And Then Life Was Beautiful, Nao's output in the four years since has slowed after a diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome. But rather than a tale of struggle, fourth record Jupiter arrives with optimistic flair. Wildflowers sets the tone with its sprightly bass line and interlocking drum groove that anchors Joshua's earworming melody about a yearning romance. Other uptempo numbers such as We All Win and Happy People lift into anthemic choruses. Yet it's on the slower tracks that she is given space to shine, expertly sinking into the nocturnal groove of Elevate and erupting into an emotive crescendo on Light Years. There is little here that will surprise Nao's longtime fans, but it's an enjoyable listen and a welcome return for a homegrown R&B stalwart.
