The first part of the year used to be slow for dance in Chicago. Not so, recently. And in 2026, the chilly months are teeming with rare appearances and fresh collaborations capable of inspiring a trip to the theater even in the darkest depths of winter. The Martha Graham Dance Company presents its first full evening in Chicago since 2007. As a nod to the 100th season of that revered choreographer’s company, the Joffrey Ballet tries on Graham’s “Secular Games” for its winter mixed rep — a program celebrating the blurred lines between modernism and classicism. Speaking of lines, festivals aplenty, at Steppenwolf, the Logan Center and the Harris Theater this winter and spring, dissolve perceived boundaries between genres and forms, dance and music — crafting rich and varied experiences for patrons and performers, both.
LookOut Series
With Links Hall, Stage 773, Hamlin Park Fieldhouse and other venues vanishing in recent years, Steppenwolf has stepped up as a gap-filler, annually presenting a suite of cross-genre performing artists on the vanguard. Called LookOut, the series spans January to March, including a macabre tribute to “Granddaddy of Goth” Edward Gorey, created by Jennifer “The Bunny Royale” Friedrich of Incurable and Redmoon Theater and Poonie’s Cabaret steward Bazuka Joe. In “Mudra,” Shalaka Kulkarni pairs with Yoshinojo Fujima to explore gestures central to the Indian dance forms Bharatanatyam and Kathak. And Project Bound Dance uses meat as a metaphor for a dance about societal give-and-take.
Jan. 15 to March 14 at Steppenwolf’s 1700 Theater, 1700 N. Halsted St.; tickets $23-$43 at 312-335-1650 and steppenwolf.org/lookout
Martha Graham Dance Company
The country’s oldest modern dance company hasn’t visited Chicago in earnest for two decades. A program for this, the Martha Graham Dance Company’s centennial season, includes two classic works by Graham — “Diversion of Angels” and “Chronicle” — and one by Hope Boykin, an Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater alum, two degrees of separation from Graham, widely considered one of modern dance’s legendary matriarchs. From Boykin comes the Midwest premiere of “En Masse,” a piece set to Chris Rountree’s adaptation of Leonard Bernstein’s “MASS,” plus a recently discovered theme believed to have been composed by Bernstein for Graham, but not used until now.
Jan. 24 at the Auditorium Theatre, 50 E. Ida B. Wells Drive; tickets $35-$195 at 312-341-2300 and auditoriumtheatre.org
Gallim Dance
In a roundabout way, choreographer and artistic director Andrea Miller of Gallim Dance is also connected to Martha Graham, through her time dancing for Ohad Naharin, a Graham alum, with Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company. Miller started her New York-based company in 2007, a time of deep questioning about the future of contemporary dance as the next generation of choreographers sought to distinguish themselves from their elders. Gallim, which visits Chicago for the first time in over a decade, basically said “hold me beer,” creating works that are physically and intellectually rigorous — and downright gorgeous.
Feb. 5 at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 E. Randolph St.; tickets $40-$172 at 312-334-7777 and harristheaterchicago.org/gallim
Joffrey Ballet’s “American Icons”
Adding Martha Graham’s “Secular Games” to Joffrey’s usual winter mixed repertory program was a twist I didn’t see coming, paired with pieces by the company’s two founders, Gerald Arpino and Robert Joffrey, plus Glen Tetley, one of the Joffrey’s original dancers. The latter created “Voluntaries” in 1973 as a tribute to choreographer John Cranko, whom he succeeded as the director of Stuttgart Ballet the next year — in a style blending modernism and classicism derived from his joint experiences training at George Balanchine’s School of American Ballet and with Graham and Hanya Holm, another of modern dance’s progenitors. Joffrey and Aprino, too, were much inspired by their innovative contemporaries. So it turns out, it’s not that weird for the Joffrey, which turns 70 this year, to adopt Graham, whose company is now 100 years old.
Feb. 19 to March 1 at the Lyric Opera House, 20 N. Wacker Drive; tickets $46-201 at 312-386-9805 and joffrey.org
Hubbard Street’s Winter Series
Amy Hall Garner was among the very first choreographers Hubbard Street Dance Chicago commissioned following a change of leadership and a pandemic pause in live performances. “As the Wind Blows,” the richly saturated, aesthetically satisfying result, returns this season alongside the company premiere of Juel D. Lane’s “Touch & Agree,” set to a mixtape by Sam Cooke, James Blake, H.E.R. and Byrell the Great. The cherry on top? After a long absence, Nacho Duato’s stunning “Gnawa,” created for Hubbard Street in 2005, returns to the active rep for the first time in several years.
Feb. 26 to March 1 at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance; tickets $20-$112 at hubbardstreetdance.com
Trinity Irish Dance Company
Tap phenom Michelle Dorrance, one of the two choreographers behind Trinity’s spectacular tap-Irish fusion called “American Traffic,” flies solo this time with a new work custom-crafted for Chicago’s only professional Irish dance company. Also new, a world premiere from Jamey Hampton and Ashley Roland of BodyVox.
Feb. 28 at the Auditorium Theatre, 50 E. Ida B. Wells Drive; tickets $35-$136 at 312-341-2300 and auditoriumtheatre.org
“Turn it Out” with Tiler Peck & Friends
The “and friends” part of New York City Ballet star Tiler Peck’s big swing as a first-time director are among the country’s very best dancers, like fellow NYCB dancers Chun Wai Chan, Roman Mejia and Christopher Grant; tap dancer Michelle Dorrance; and “So You Think You Can Dance” champion Lex Ishimoto, to name a few. Peck calls the evening a “love letter to dance,” with works she created with Dorrance and two titans of contemporary dance: Alonzo King and William Forsythe. Honestly, what’s not to love?
March 7-8 at the Auditorium Theatre, 50 E. Ida B. Wells Drive; tickets $35-$130 at 312-341-2300 and auditoriumtheatre.org
The Seldoms’ “Floe”
Artistic director and choreographer Carrie Hanson pedals in politics and the natural world for her deeply researched dance theater works. An evening-length piece about climate change certainly touches both, using dance to tell the fractured story of rising seas, melting polar ice caps and the collective, global responsibility to do something about it. Also there: the tension between those who believe what is happening and those who don’t.
March 12-13 at the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, 1306 S. Michigan Ave.; tickets $35 at dance.colum.edu
Chicago Human Rhythm Project’s “Stomping Grounds”
The festival dedicated to all-things percussive arts returns with a global program featuring American, African, South Asian and East Asian music on the same stage. The ERA, who pioneered Chicago’s lightning-fast street dance style of footworking as a concert dance form, makes its Stomping Grounds debut — part of a program that is equal parts dance and drums.
March 22 at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St.; tickets free with reservation at chicagotap.org
Red Clay Dance Company’s La Femme Dance Festival
Much of the magic in Red Clay Dance’s every-other-year festival is what happens off stage, gathering dancers, choreographers and dance leaders for workshops and conversations about the contributions of Black women in the field. For those of us who generally sit in the auditorium, though, this year’s “La Femme” is particularly special, with a one-day-only performance featuring the Los Angeles-based tap company Syncopated Ladies, a world premiere by Hubbard Street alumna Rena Butler and a revival of Red Clay artistic director Vershawn Sanders-Ward’s “Unconditional Conditions” — easily among the best of her recent works. As a bonus, South Chicago Dance Theatre tags along with excerpts from artistic director Kia Smith’s “Memoirs of Jazz in the Alley,” a tribute to her late father, tenor saxophonist and South Side jazz titan, Jimmy Ellis.
March 27-28 at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 E. Randolph St.; pre-sale tickets $19-$59 beginning Jan. 12 at redclaydance.com
Lauren Warnecke is a freelance critic.
