Chicago’s Next Dance Festival
For the last 15 years or so, Chicago’s modern dance community has had its own means of social reproduction. A series of programs at the MoMing Dance & Arts Center, starting with the “Dance for $1.98” series, gave brand-new choreographers the opportunity to show their work. When MoMing folded in 1989, Jan Bartoszek of Hedwig Dances took on the task of incubating modern dance talent, producing a series of choreographers’ showcases. And six years ago Winifred Haun started the Next Dance Festival. That continuity in nurturing modern choreographers is rather extraordinary given dance’s perpetual funding crisis; the difficulty of maintaining such a tradition is shown by the number of times the baton has been passed. But the continuity has often paid off in the fine character of the choreographers produced. In the first weekend of three in the Next Dance Festival, all the choreographers offered solid work, pursuing specific visions with inventiveness and discipline; but most appealing was their generosity of spirit and lack of ego.
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Two pieces by the Dance COLEctive were both introverted. Ann Boyd’s solo for Margi Cole, …Through Night as Long as Rain…, is set in a blank space that seems to represent a midnight of the soul. Cole often stands wordlessly and motionlessly as a voice babbles incoherently in a sound collage. Then she bursts into powerful, feral movement, sweeping across the stage for a few moments. Cole’s quintet, Trembling in the Balance, is more abstract and musical. Although the music is driving pop, the dancers move to their own shared rhythm. Though abstract, the piece has something of a plot: two pairs of dancers work with and against each other and with an independent agent (Cole). The rhythms of these different groups form a whole, and a precise performance enables us to hear and see the rhythms.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Brian Hill.
