Perhaps the thing I love most about the summer dance calendar is how it moves, literally and figuratively. The warm months lend ease to dance popping up all over the city. That’s something Katie McCann saw was lacking when she moved here in 2004. She created Dance in the Parks to bring dance to your neighborhood, from Rogers Park to Roseland and everything in between. It meant not having to go downtown to see professional dance, while creating partnerships with dance studios and much-needed work for off-contract dancers in need of summer employment. After 18 seasons, Dance in the Parks will sunset after this year.
Another hallmark of summer is how many chances it affords audience members to get out of their seats and dance, too. There are open-air lessons in Grant Park and on Navy Pier and, notably, a lit after-hours party at the MCA themed after its current dancehall-inspired exhibition. Here is our list of these and some of the other summer dance highlights.
Joffrey Ballet caps its 70th season
After successfully mounting a dance journey through one Russian literary masterpiece, the Joffrey Ballet looks to see if lightning can strike twice in the same place. “Eugene Onegin,” a shared commission with the San Francisco Ballet now getting its Chicago premiere, has a lot in common with “Anna Karenina,” beyond the canon from which those two books arise. Ukrainian by birth, Russian by training and, for several decades now, living and working in America, choreographer Yuri Possokhov tackles Pushkin’s literary poem as his latest elegiac foray with the Joffrey company, again supported by composer Ilya Demutsky and much of the same design team that brought the stunning “Anna” to life. June 4-14 at the Lyric Opera House, 20 N. Wacker Drive; tickets $46-$214 at 312-386-8905 and joffrey.org
Dance with a view
The pandemic necessitated a change for Chicago Dance Month. The series of pop-up performances moved from April to June — something that stuck and wound up being very much better in the long run. The series, produced by the audience engagement nonprofit called See Chicago Dance, includes twice-weekly festive dance events (many of them interactive) in the plaza beside Navy Pier’s Ferris wheel. Wednesday and Saturday evenings, June 3-27; free, more at seechicagodance.com
“Saturn Returns” in Edgewater
Us Earthlings take a trip around the sun once a year. But it takes about three decades for Saturn to reach the same point on your birthday. That astrological phenomenon forms the thematic foundation for Chicago Tap Theatre’s summer show. Director Molly Smith considers the universal experience of aging in curating a series of dances composed by tap dancers from within the company’s ranks, each at different points on that inevitable journey. June 11-14 at the Edge Theater, 5451 N. Broadway; tickets $35-$65 at chicagotaptheatre.com
Ensemble Español’s golden year
Chicago’s landmark Spanish dance company takes one more victory lap as part of its yearlong 50th anniversary celebration. Tucked into the ensemble’s summer dance and music festival is a retrospective starting in the now (with Isaac Tovar’s “Amangue,” a flamenco piece in the Bulería style set in 2023) and ending with company founder Libby Komaiko’s signature 1993 “Bolero.” Current artistic director Irma Suarez Ruiz offers a world premiere in the classical style set to music by Enrique Granados. 7:30 p.m. June 13 at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, 9501 Skokie Blvd., Skokie; tickets $45-$65 at 847-673-6300 and northshorecenter.org
See the new kids on the block
New artistic director Brian Josiah Martinez now has the wind at his back. Since forming Boykin Dance Project in 2022, he’s gathered an impressive collective of early-career dancers and choreographers who got saddled with launching as professionals during the pandemic. The result has been a group of ridiculously talented dancers with a never-say-quit attitude and a lot of stuff to say — and doing it elegantly. June 12-13 in the Ann Barzel Theater at Visceral Dance Center, 3121 N. Rockwell St.; tickets $49.87 at boykindance.org
An interrogation of self
A trio of artists supported by Synapse Arts’ long-running choreographic incubator traverses various themes about how we show up for ourselves and others. For dancer and ceramicist Qū Jié 曲洁, that’s navigating dual identities as a Chinese American adoptee growing up in the Midwest — not to mention her muddling of movement and clay. In “Tending to the M{other},” veteran performance artists Aurora Tabar and Christine Shallenberg together find the dance contained within domesticity. And an up-close audience gets the added treat of touring a pair of restored lakeside mansions as we watch. June 25-28 at the Berger Park Cultural Center, 6205 N. Sheridan Road; tickets $10-$50 at synapsearts.com
One last dance (in the parks)
Dance in the Parks pioneered the roaming summer dance show in Chicago, bringing professional dance to parks all over the city before Night Out in the Parks was even a thing. The company is closing shop after 18 years enduring rain, heat, bugs and a pandemic. And for the finale, a greatest hits list of choreographers who’ve made things for this unique offering in years past returns, including Jessica Deahr Neville, who formerly led Chicago Dance Crash, and Tom Mattingly, the former artistic director of Ballet Des Moines with deep roots in Chicago. July 7-24 at various Chicago parks; free, more at danceintheparks.org
Two nights at the museum
This year’s MCA Prime Time is a night of reggaeton and dancehall-inspired merriment connected to the museum’s excellent exhibition, “Dancing the Revolution.” The after-hours party opens the entire museum up for dancehall workshops with Latonya Style, a dance floor headlined by Chicago’s DJ Miriam and a performance by Awilda Rodríguez Lora, whose oeuvre explores sexuality, self-determination and colonial legacies. Earlier in the month, Chicago drag queen Dahlia, aka The Caribbean Diva, also activates Radamés ‘Juni’ Figueroa’s karaoke stage amongst “Dancing the Revolution” for a karaoke night with 100 songs to choose from. June 9 and July 25 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago Ave. Karaoke is included with museum admission, more at mcachicago.org
Feel the rhythm
Rhythm World, the annual workshop and performance series hosted by Chicago Human Rhythm Project for well over three decades, returns with its reliably impressive lineup of tap dance stars paying homage to various historical legacies. Among them is Cartier Williams, from Washington, D.C., who will show excerpts from a new piece honoring Harlem’s legendary Hoofers Club. Demi Remick, who currently dances alongside a live iteration of the YouTube sensation Postmodern Jukebox, is adapting Eleanor Powell’s solos from Hollywood’s Golden Age. And Flint, Michigan’s Brinae Ali Bradley shares an evolution of the Baby Laurence Legacy Project that debuted at New York’s Apollo Theater before it heads to Jacob’s Pillow this summer. Aug. 5-8 at the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, 1306 S. Michigan Ave.; all but the Aug. 6 Gala! JUBALEE are free, more at chicagotap.org
A one-stop shop
For 35 years, Chicago’s dancers have come together to raise money for AIDS research and prevention, and other critical health needs artists face. Along with raising money for the Chicago Dance Health Fund, the annual Dance for Life is also among the dance scene’s best parties of the year, giving audiences a chance to see many of the city’s most prominent companies on the same stage for a night. This year, that includes ballet, hip hop, Spanish and Irish dance. And after two years away to address his own health, Randy Duncan returns to choreograph an all-skate, inspirational finale. Aug. 22 at the Auditorium, 50 E. Ida B. Wells Drive, with gala dinner and after party at Venue SIX10, 610 S. Michigan Ave.; tickets $65-$750 at cdhf.org, as well as 312-341-2300 and auditoriumtheatre.org
Lauren Warnecke is a freelance critic.
