Hubbard Street Dance Chicago Presents Repertoire Highlights

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago's upcoming Summer Series program will feature highlights from the company's recent repertoire, including work by acclaimed choreographers Brian Brooks, Resident Choreographer Alejandro Cerrudo and Crystal Pite. The program will premiere at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance in Millennium Park (205 East Randolph Street) on Thursday, June 6 at 7:30 p.m., followed by performances Saturday, June 8 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, June 9 at 3 p.m. Tickets are now on sale.

"This program celebrates the outstanding work by some of the leading choreographers working today," said Artistic Director Glenn Edgerton. "Since their debut performances, we have heard repeatedly that audiences would love to see these works more often. This is a 'greatest hits' program that showcases the versatile talents of our dancers, who truly have the ability to perform the most challenging and exciting choreography out there."

The program is as follows:

Terrain by Brian Brooks

Brian Brooks, Choreography
Todd Reyolds, Terry Riley, Music
Nicole Pearce, Lighting Design
Karen Young, Costume Design

Brian Brooks, Choreographer in Residence at the Harris Theater, created a work in which conflict and collaboration coexist for HSDC's 16 dancers. A bold mix of sounds, including Todd Reynolds propulsive, electronic re-composition of Terry Riley's classic minimalist score "In C," heightens the inherent tension, while lighting by Nicole Pearce and costume design by Karen Young add to the overall aesthetic. Brooks said that he hoped audiences would feel as though they are "watching a flock of birds-something of one mind, of one focus, with a cohesiveness balancing order and chaos." The Chicago Tribune called the work "hypnotic... creating a minimalist, pointillist aural backdrop for the dancers' tumbling series of liquid moves." The piece received its world premiere in 2016 at the Harris Theater.

Out of your Mind by Alejandro Cerrudo

Alejandro Cerrudo, Choreography
Various Artists (see below), Music
Burke Brown, Lighting Design
Branimira Ivanova, Costume Design

Out of Your Mind, HSDC Resident Choreographer Alejandro Cerrudo's 16th work for Hubbard Street, premiered in March 2018 at the Auditorium Theatre,. The piece uses winding, rippling, and snakelike group formations in a powerful and energetic piece set to text by philosopher, Alan Watts. "This is the first time I've used text in my work and I'm also playing with group formations that are new to me," said Cerrudo at the time of the piece's creation. Musical selections include "It Starts Now" by Blond:ish; "Threnody" by Keith Kenniff or Goldmund, as performed by Chris Snelling; and "The Spin" by Greg Haines. Hailed as "a hauntingly memorable work" by Splash Magazine, New City described the piece as "a rumination on dreams and the manifestation of our reality."

A Picture of You Falling by Crystal Pite

Crystal Pite, Choreography
Owen Belton, Music
Kate Strong, Voice
Alan Brodie, Lighting Design
Linda Chow, Costume Design
Peter Chu, Staging

Crystal Pite's intimate duet, A Picture of You Falling, with narration by Kate Strong, leads the audience through a relationship of love, loss, and conflict between two people that is "...fluid and vigorous with expansive use of the full stage, exaggerated gesture, fast leg extensions, jumps, and abrupt shifts of level and focus" according to See Chicago Dance. The lighting by Alan Brodie amplifies the couples' movement vignettes through the use of moving spotlights. At the time of its debut, Pite said that she was exploring "the ways in which the body can convey profound meaning through the simplest of gestures, and how distortion, iteration and analysis of familiar human action provide opportunities to recognize and re-frame ourselves in one another." Reviewing the piece, Chicagoland Musical Theatre wrote "The piece demonstrates how the simplest gestures can convey profound meaning. Choreographer Crystal Pite shows how distortion, iteration and analysis of familiar human action allow us to recognize and re-frame ourselves in each other. "

The Other You by Crystal Pite

Crystal Pite, Choreography
Ludwig van Beethoven, Music
Owen Belton, Sound Design
Eric Beauchesne, Staging
Robert Sondergaard, Lighting Design
Linda Chow, Costume Design

Pite's duet for two male dancers, The Other You, performed to Beethoven's Piano Sonata No.14 in C Sharp Minor" presents the internal conflict inside oneself and the forms the inner-self manifests itself. Describing the piece, the Chicago Tribune wrote that viewers "get this exquisite sense of snapshot, of close observation of the quotidian explication of the most profound questions," while Chicago Theatre and Concert Reviews called it "... a probing, intriguing work of intellectual dance."

Hubbard Street's Season 41 Winter Series is at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance in Millennium Park, located at 205 East Randolph Street in Chicago, and the complete performance schedule is as follows:

• Thursday June 6, 2019 at 7:30pm

• Saturday June 8, 2019 at 8pm

• Sunday June 9, 2019 at 3pm

Free Balcony Talks begin one hour prior to the start of each performance. No advance reservations are required.

Tickets are available now for between $25-$110 and can be purchased online at hubbardstreetdance.com or by phone at 312-635-3799. Tickets can also be obtained at the Harris Theater box office.

Hubbard Street's Summer Series is sponsored by Penny Rodes DeMott, Larry and Marla Gilbert, Richard Rodes and Richard and Barbara Silverman. Hubbard Street's Season 41 Partners are Chicago Athletic Clubs, Athletico, Tahran Architects and Illinois Arts Council.

Brian Brooks is the inaugural Choreographer in Residence at Chicago's Harris Theater for Music and Dance. This innovative three-year fellowship supports several commissions for Brooks, including new works for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Miami City Ballet, and his own New York-based group. A 2013 Guggenheim Fellow, other recent awards include a NY City Center Fellowship, Joyce Theater Artist Residency and Mellon Foundation Creative Artist Fellowship. Brooks' work has toured internationally since 2002 with presentations by BAM's Next Wave Festival, the Joyce Theater, Jacob's Pillow, the American Dance Festival, NY City Center Fall for Dance Festival, and the Works and Process series at the Guggenheim Museum, among others. Lumberyard Performing Arts (formerly American Dance Institute) has provided ongoing support through commissioned premieres and Incubator Production Residencies. Beyond his company, Brooks has developed work with renowned ballet dancers, actors, and student groups. Damian Woetzel/Vail International Dance Festival has commissioned him to create three works featuring dancers from NYC Ballet and Pacific Northwest Ballet, including First Fall, in which he dances with former NY City Ballet Principal Wendy Whelan. He is in his fifth year collaborating and touring with Whelan, currently performing a duet evening accompanied by the string quartet Brooklyn Rider. Brooks has choreographed off-Broadway Shakespeare productions for Theatre for a New Audience including A Midsummer Night's Dream (2013), directed by Julie Taymor, and Pericles (2016), directed by Trevor Nunn. He has created dances for Eliot Feld's Ballet Tech, The Juilliard School, Boston Conservatory, The School at Jacob's Pillow, Harvard University, and many others. Brooks dedicated 12 years as a Teaching Artist at Lincoln Center Institute for the Arts in Education and has been on part-time faculty at Rutgers University and Princeton University. He learned how to run up walls and fly off a trampoline while performing for three years with daredevil choreographer Elizabeth Streb.

Alejandro Cerrudo, born in Madrid, Spain, received his training at the Real Conservatorio Professional de Danza de Madrid. After becoming a professional dancer in 1998 Cerrudo's dance career has been shaped and enriched by various dance companies including Victor Ullate Ballet, Stuttgart Ballet, Nederlands Dans Theater 2 and, since 2005, by Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. In 2008 Cerrudo was named Hubbard Street Choreographic Fellow and became the company's first Resident Choreographer in 2009. Cerrudo has created several works for Hubbard Street and for the company's unique collaborations with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Nederlands Dans Theater. Cerrudo's works are being performed by dance companies around the U.S. and the world, including Germany, Denmark, The Netherlands and Australia. Always dancing and constantly creating, Cerrudo was honored with an award from The Boomerang Fund for Artists in 2011.

Crystal Pite Born in Terrace, British Columbia and raised on the Canadian West Coast, choreographer and performer Crystal Pite is a former company member of Ballet British Columbia and William Forsythe's Ballett Frankfurt. Pite's choreographic debut was in 1990, at Ballet British Columbia. Since then, she has created works for Nederlands Dans Theater I, Cullberg Ballet, Ballett Frankfurt, The National Ballet of Canada, Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal (Resident Choreographer, 2001-2004), Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, Ballet British Columbia, Alberta Ballet, Ballet Jorgen, and several independent dance artists; most recently Louise Lecavalier. Crystal is Associate Choreographer of Nederlands Dans Theater and Associate Dance Artist of Canada's National Arts Centre in Ottawa. In November 2013 Crystal was appointed an Associate Artist at Sadler's Wells in London, UK.In 2002, she formed Kidd Pivot in Vancouver. Integrating movement, original music, text, and rich visual design, Kidd Pivot's performance work is assembled with recklessness and rigour, balancing sharp exactitude with irreverence and risk. The company's distinct choreographic language - a breadth of movement fusing classical elements and the complexity and freedom of structured improvisation - is marked by a strong theatrical sensibility and a keen sense of wit and invention. Kidd Pivot tours nationally and internationally, performing such highly-demanded and critically acclaimed works as Dark Matters and Lost Action. Kidd Pivot's residency at the Künstlerhaus Mousonturm in Frankfurt (2010-2012) provided Pite the opportunity to create and tour her most recent work, The You Show and The Tempest Replica. Pite is the recipient of the Banff Centre's Clifford E. Lee Award (1995), the Bonnie Bird North American Choreography Award (2004), and the Isadora Award (2005). Her work has received several Dora Mavor Moore Awards (2009, 2012), and a Jessie Richardson Theatre Award (2006). She is the recipient of the 2008 Governor General of Canada's Performing Arts Award, Mentorship Program. Most recently, she was awarded the 2011 Jacob's Pillow Dance Award, the inaugural Lola Award in 2012, and the Canada Council's 2012 Jacqueline Lemieux Prize.

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