Care to dance?

My, my, it's a busy season for dance in Chicago. It seems it happens this way every fall and every spring, all the dance events are piled around the same time. What's a dance fan to do? Why, get out and enjoy it!

We just had a couple of modern dance festivals wrap up. Weekend before last we saw the final run of The OTHER Dance Festival, a three-week showcase of some of Chicago's most adventurous modern dance companies and independent artists. We also saw the inaugural Harvest Chicago Contemporary Dance Festival, a three-night showcase with a different line-up of artists and companies each night. This is a brand new fest, so look for the roster to get steadily stronger as the producers get a few more years under their belts.

This past weekend was the fall engagement of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, and what a show! Resident choreographer Alejandro Cerrudo presented two new works, Blanco and Deep Down Dos, both of which were beautiful and beautifully danced. Always a "cinematic" kind of choreographer, Cerrudo displays a masterful control of the stage image and is never short on inventive, original theatrical devices. We also saw Victor Quijada's new work, the hip-hop-infused PHYSIKAL LINGUISTIKS, which was a fun piece that allowed the dancers to explore some new movement vocabularies. And then came the delicious dessert that was Nacho Duato's Archangelo, the last section of which was worth the ticket price alone. It was truly stunning.

Coming up, one can't overlook two of my favorites (and--full disclosure--our clients), The Joffrey Ballet and Luna Negra Dance Theater. Joffrey is presenting a selection of ballet heavyweights in All Stars (maybe the title "Top Choreographer Masters" was taken), which runs October 13-24 at the Auditorium Theatre. The program includes George Balanchine's Stravinsky Violin Concerto and Tarantella, Christopher Wheeldon's After the Rain, and Jerome Robbins' The Concert (Or the Perils of Everybody). I don't know which piece I'm more excited for-- Stravinsky is devilishly difficult, with super fast tempos and hard-to-count rhythms. It will be a task for the dancers, but they're up to it. The Concert is also hilarious, with some zany, over-the-top characters. It's a beautiful example of exactly what Robbins was best at, combining physical comedy with stellar dance technique. Don't miss your chance to see the beauty and fun, get tickets here.

Luna Negra is presenting the first season under new Artistic Director Gustavo Ramirez Sansano in one performance only on Saturday, October 16 at the Harris Theater, which is followed by the annual Noche de Luna gala. The program for the performance will showcase a brand new duet by Gustavo called Toda una Vida ("All My Life") inspired by his mother and father and their endearing (and enduring) love, the kind of love that keeps people together through thick and thin. They will also present a North American Premiere by Brazilian choreographer Fernando Melo called Bate (pronounced "batche," which means "heartbeat" in Portuguese), a work for five men that balances a touch of humor with some powerhouse movement, including one section where the men, laying prone on their stomachs, literally pop off the ground like popcorn (I'm still not sure how they do it). And rounding out the program will be Luna Negra founder Eduardo Vilaro's Deshar Alhat ("Leave Sunday"), which was inspired by the Sephardic Jews in Latin America and their struggles and trials. It's a beautiful, non-linear piece for the whole company--who are looking especially strong these days--and the music, by Stefani Valadez, is poignant, bittersweet, and haunting. Get your tickets here.

A few others I'm looking forward to this season (this is by far not an exhaustive list): the all-female, Afro-Cuban-infused group Lizt Alfonso Dance Cuba stops by the Auditorium Theatre, Oct. 28-29; Ballet Hispanico visits Chicago with Eduardo Vilaro now at the artistic head, at the Harris Theater, Nov. 5; SPDW Dance Theatre and Hedwig Dances co-presented Walking...Drifting, which runs at the Hamlin Park Fieldhouse, Nov. 4-5 and 11-12; and the Chicago Human Rhythm Project presents Global Rhythms IV, an extravaganza of jazz, tap, hip-hop and other rhythm-based dance companies, at the Harris Theater, Nov. 26-28. Fall is the perfect season to "fall" in love with dance, so get out there and take advantage of all the beautiful work!

Photos by Herbert Migdoll, Cheryl Mann and Jonathan Mackoff.