SHOWS

DanceBridge Showcase Summer 2012 WORLD PREMIERE!

Presented by Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble and Kate Corby & Dancers

August 07, 2012 — August 08, 2012
Dance Studio

DanceBridge is an initiative of the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, in partnership with the Chicago Office of Tourism and Culture, to support Chicago’s professional dance artists and choreographers. Its goal is to foster the creation of new and innovative work, particularly work that engages and challenges an audience and pushes the boundaries of the dance world. Toward this end, free rehearsal space is offered for 12-week periods in the Dance Studio of the Chicago Cultural Center as well as a performance opportunity to present the new or developing work.

The performances
Touch choreographed by Ellyzabeth Adler, featuring Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble
“Dance for film is has been a growing area of interest for choreographers and movement based directors thanks to readily available technology. For DanceBridge, I will be exploring how not only to create dance for film but also how to create dance for the stage that is interactive with film. Inspired by the poetry of Rumi, Touch will be a full-length work which will debut in 2013 and is a continuation of my exploration into his poetry that inspired our last year’s full-length work, Mirrors. Touch will have a series of solos, duets and trios that will implore the use of film, poetry and original music explores five stages of touch; mourning, anticipation, healing, hurting, and holding.” 

Passing by Kate Corby & Dancers
While in residence at the Chicago Cultural Center, Kate Corby & Dancers will develop Passing, an evening-length contemporary dance work exploring mortality, aging, life cycles and death. The project endeavors to inspire discussion through creative process and performance while presenting high quality dance theater that expresses a broad range of emotional and conceptual ideas about a central aspect of the human experience.

The companies and artists
Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble is a Chicago-based multidisciplinary arts organization founded in 2001. We are dedicated to inspiring change in the world around us through our performances, partnerships, and outreach programs. Inspired by the German Expressionist movement, “tanztheater”, the ensemble uses the written word as the structure and body movement as the primary tool to create original and compelling narratives that inspire new awareness to wide-ranging audiences. CDE strongly values the concept of the ensemble in our creative process. All of our pieces are created ensemble, the French word for together, which allows each of our performing artists to contribute their own strengths and artistic voices. We also frequently workshop early versions of our pieces, by holding discussions with audience members and incorporating their feedback. Because we are an integrated arts ensemble, our inspiration comes from a wide range of sources. These have included poetry, literature, historical sources, periodicals, and true stories. We strongly believe that movement and staging can help to contextualize and analyze the written word in new ways.

Ellyzabeth Adler founded Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble in 2001, creating a resource for performers whose interests extend beyond their primary artistic discipline. Ellyzabeth hoped to foster a sense of true artistic collaboration, drawing on the many artistic media to create multi-sensory dance theatre performances that would inspire audiences to engage in making positive changes in the world. Believing in bringing quality arts education to children, she later created opportunities for artists to work as teachers and visiting artists in Chicagoland schools and community centers, specifically focusing on areas that do not have other arts programs available. Ellyzabeth developed a multidisciplinary approach to teaching children literacy, social emotional learning, and the artistic process; believing that early cultivation of the imagination and critical thinking skills would initiate a life-long quest for learning, curiosity and social and civic engagement.

Kate Corby & Dancers is a contemporary arts organization committed to producing innovative dance theater works that push the aesthetic boundaries of concert dance. Ms. Corby is currently an assistant professor of dance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is also an active choreographer, dividing her time between Madison and Chicago. She established Kate Corby & Dancers in the Midwest with Chicago-based dancers Erin Kilmurray, Emily Miller and Anna Normann in 2009. In addition to regular seasons in Madison and Chicago, the company’s past projects include: the Live Art, Live Rio! Festival in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the SB-ADaPT Festival in Santa Barbara, CA, The A.W.A.R.D. Show! 2010: Chicago at the Dance Center of Columbia College, the World Dance Alliance Global Dance Event at Dance Theater Workshop in New York and the Wave Rising Series in Brooklyn. KC&D’s current collaborating performers are: Josh Anderson, Erin Kilmurray, Emily Miller, Sarah Mitchell, Anna Normann, Mikey Rioux and Michelle Scurlock.

Kate Corby has shown her work in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Santa Barbara, Madison, and internationally in Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Taiwan and Hungary, where she carried out choreographic research as a Fulbright fellow. She was featured in Dance Magazine’s April 2011 issue in “Taking Off” highlighting six choreographers “on the cusp of making waves in the larger dance world.”  She completed her MFA in Dance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2007, where she received a University Fellowship and the Wanda M. Nettl Award for outstanding student choreography. In addition to teaching master classes nationally and internationally, she has served on the faculties of Beloit College, Columbia College Chicago and the Pedagogy Department of the Hungarian Dance Academy.

Read all about these choreographers’ processes for creating dance on the DanceBridge blog!