Traditional Indian dance is a form that is rooted in storytelling, folk literature, and sacred texts. Its forms are myriad and complex and are divided into three main categories: classical, folk/tribal, and Bollywood. Classical forms are highly stylized with prescribed movements that accompany sacred and traditional texts in the mode of dance and theater. Folk/tribal […]
Author Archives: JT Newman
Shaking your ass for the revolution
It was a gorgeously sunny and breezy Sunday afternoon, and I was tucked into a corner at Fort Knox Studios on the far northwest side. As I settled into my plastic folding chair, the lighting crew —helmed by veteran Fly Honey lighting director Slick Jorgensen, recording the show onto their phone—assembled around me. As it […]
Dance for Life returns to the Auditorium
In 1991, as the dance community lost friends, family members, and colleagues to the AIDS epidemic, Keith Elliott, a member of the Joseph Holmes Chicago Dance Theatre (JHCDT), thought it was time for the Chicago dance community to do something about the disease. “[Keith] wanted to benefit those who were living with HIV-AIDS, and help […]
Capturing the Argyle Night Market
When photographer and documentary filmmaker Ronit Bezalel (Voices of Cabrini, 70 Acres in Chicago) first walked over to the Argyle Night Market last summer, camera in hand, she didn’t know what to expect. As a documentarian for more than two decades, her ability and confidence in approaching strangers and asking them to take their picture […]
Beauty in Superbloom
Superblooms, nature’s greatest masterpiece, have captivated the attention of the public in recent months. These arresting botanical marvels are found in the arid landscapes of California and Arizona and grow when an extraordinary number of dormant wildflower seeds awaken and burst into a vibrant bloom simultaneously. Superblooms unveil their mesmerizing splendor all at once, immediately […]
Drag for life
Drag, in all of its glorious forms, has been a locus of revolt throughout the decades. In 2023, we are in a time when the very concept of “dressing in the mode not of one’s essential sex’” is in the bull’s-eye of crypto-fascist Republican lawmakers in many states. That’s why it seems like winning when […]
Visceral Dance Chicago turns ten
Entering Visceral Dance’s new venue, a visitor is struck by its size and the care taken to design a space that suits the company that built it. Tucked away on Rockwell Avenue and nestled up against the North Branch of the Chicago River, the performance space is painted a stark black, with soaring ceilings and […]
From classic to kitsch
In general, touring performances of dance companies strive to show the range of the company’s work. And the performance by American Ballet Theatre at the Auditorium Theatre Friday, April 14, fit that bill. With a quartet of works that showed the company’s technical expertise, it included a range of choreographic voices and seemed designed to […]
A dance of contrasts
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 […]
Not your average camp
It’s July 1990, and I am summoned to the corner of Newport and Sheffield over and over again by the lure of my friend Franz’s rooftop parties. But little do I know that just half a block away, Lower Links is beginning a summer of programming that solidifies that corner as a mini-epicenter of performance […]
Say yes to Bendición Dry Bar
Cristina Torres, the owner of Bendición Dry Bar, is forging a new path among the sober and sober curious.
Beyond The Nutcracker
December is obviously the time when dance companies dust off the old chestnut that, according to a 2017 Dance/USA survey, accounts for around 48 percent of their annual revenues. If you’re interested in The Nutcracker, we’ve got a round-up here. But there’s also more afoot in Chicago dance this month than the beloved Tchaikovsky ballet […]
The tastes of home
It’s a common refrain in the city: Chicago summer is so worth the wait. Newbies and transplants can feel the buzz of opportunity in the air when the weather starts to turn. Visceral summer memories fuel locals through even the coldest, darkest months. And many of those memories involve food and drink—cookouts, summer cocktails, farmers’ […]