Seven dance companies, from Chicago and elsewhere, will join in a new spring festival of dance next year at the Shubert Theatre and two other locations.
The move comes as a last-minute reprieve for the city’s annual spring dance programming, replacing a similar series presented for years by Civic Stages at the Civic Opera House, which will be closed this spring for renovation.
The organizers of the new festival, the Chicago Music and Dance Theater, also see the programming as a bridge to their $30 million effort to construct a permanent home for many of these dance companies within about three years at Cityfront Center.
The festival’s schedule includes Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, April 6-24 at the Shubert, 22 W. Monroe St.; Mordine & Company Dance Theatre, April 7-9 at the Harold Washington Library, 400 S. State St.; and Ballet Chicago, April 14-24 at Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted St.
The lineup continues with New York-based Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, April 28-30; the Chicago-based Joseph Holmes Chicago Dance Theatre, May 4-8; Garth Fagan Dance, May 11-14; and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, May 18-22, all at the Shubert.
The troupes essentially are self-presenters in their various locations, although all receive undisclosed funding from Chicago Music and Dance Theatre. (Performing Arts Chicago will present Garth Fagan and Alvin Ailey at the Shubert.)
The companies, many celebrating important anniversaries and some suffering from severe financial troubles, all plan big things for the series.
The Alvin Ailey troupe promises the premiere of a collaboration by Judith Jamison and performance artist Anna Deavere Smith (“Fires in the Mirror”).
The Joseph Holmes company plans a 20-year retrospective on its late founder.
Ballet Chicago will unveil its first full-length, “Hansel and Gretel,” choreographed by Daniel Duell, with a score transposed from Engelbert Humperdinck’s opera by Chicagoan Kimberly Schmidt.
