2022 Year of Chicago Dance
2022 Year of Chicago Dance Events
Let's Dance! Andersonville x Year of Chicago Dance | Saturday, April 30 from 11AM-4PM
Updated 4/29/22! Let's Dance! Andersonville x Year of Chicago Dance has been moved to the former Akira space at 5228 N Clark from 11AM - 4PM on Saturday, April 30, for a day of celebration! Learn Bollywood, Salsa Rueda, Nordic Folk Dance, and more. Don't miss your chance to be a part of the community day of dance! We want to send a special thank you to all of our incredible event partners and sponsors who make this event possible: Chicago Dance Supply, Swedish American Museum, Edgewater Historical Society, Helen Peirce Elementary School, and State Representative Kelly Cassidy. Water provided by Boxed Water!
Trey Elder of Quiet Pterodactyl will serve as emcee and Music Mix Master Guru. Photography by Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth will be available for download after the event at lenihoppenworth.com. Select portions of Let’s Dance Andersonville! will livestream on Facebook at facebook.com/chicagodances.
Performance Schedule!
11AM – Helen C. Peirce School (Bollywood)
11:30AM – Desueño Dance (Salsa)
12PM– Illinois Center for Kathak (Kathak)
12:30PM – Chicago Casineros (Rueda de Casino)
1PM– Nordic Folk Dancers of Chicago (Nordic Folk Dance)
2PM – Chicago Tap Theatre (Tap)
2:15PM – Glenwood Dance Studio (Hustle & Jitterbug)
3PM – Ensemble Español Spanish Dance Youth Company (Tangos Flamenco)
3:15PM – 312 Movement (Argentine Tango)
3:45PM – The Met Down (Hip Hop)
4PM – Joel Hall Dancers (Urban Jazz)
Trey Elder of Quiet Pterodactyl will serve as emcee and Music Mix Master Guru. Photography by Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth will be available for download after the event at lenihoppenworth.com. Select portions of Let’s Dance Andersonville! will livestream on Facebook at facebook.com/chicagodances.
Participating Groups:
Jenny - as an artist, musician, and Latin dance instructor for many years, Jenny found her true calling in dancing and sharing her understanding of tango. With athleticism and grace, she flows effortlessly through complex movements, always with a strong connection to the music and her partner. Her years as a salsa dancer (teacher) also contribute a distinctive flavor that is both engaging and entertaining.
Rod - has been dancing all his life. Although his background early in his life has been mostly in hip hop and street dancing, he has fully committed himself to Argentine Tango. One can still see the lasting influence of his street dancing in his innovative tango style.
Together – (since 2009) they believe that connection, musicality, and technique are the keys to fully appreciate the beauty of Tango. In their classes they want to concentrate on how to be comfortable inside the embrace, based on the logic and naturalness of the movement. They travel all around the U.S. as well as abroad to perform and share their tango knowledge at festivals and weekend workshops.
In Chicago, their classes are taught with an eye on encouraging and nurturing individual artistic styles while at the same time stressing the core movements and strong values of traditional tango. Their infectious energy and love of the dance has created a large following of students in Chicago and the surrounding area. They are the founders of 312 Movement, which organizes events (monthly milongas and weekend workshops), djaying, performing, and teaching.
Chicago Casineros is a group of friends and dancers who dance Cuban-style salsa, which is known as "Casino" and "Rueda de Casino."
They will be doing a demo of Rueda de Casino, which is danced in a formation with a caller. The caller shouts out moves and the group executes them together, constantly changing partners. This is a social dance style, and our dance group has different levels of experience! They will welcome beginners to a workshop following their demo and will dance to Timba Cubana by Roly Maden!
Chicago Tap Theatre, one of the most critically well-regarded dance companies in Chicago, has a multifaceted mission: to preserve America’s indigenous dance form, to promote that dance through story-based shows and innovative presentation, to educate the community and make tap dance accessible to a broad spectrum of people and to foster relationships with other arts organizations. CTT's upcoming events include our annual Gala, A National Tap Dance Day Celebration in collaboration with M.A.D.D. Rhythms, two summer intensives, and our final show of our 19th season! Additionally, CTT offers weekly tap dance classes for all levels at Visceral Dance Center! For more information, please visit us at www.chicagotaptheatre.com!
Desueño is a dance company that fuses Afro-Latin, Jazz, Contemporary, and Salsa dancing. Desueño shares dance through performance, dance instruction, and social dancing. Under the direction of Denita Inez, the company focuses on creating artistic works that connect to people. They offer classes, workshops, and a dance community - both online and in person. The Desueño mission is to bring the joy of dance to people. Desueño Dance is pleased to present a medley of Salsa routines to celebrate Let's Dance! Andersonville x Year of Chicago Dance. They have members of our Latin footwork team performing pieces from our current season. Stay after the performance to dance along with us and learn to dance Salsa, one of the most popular dances in the world.
Ensemble Español Spanish Dance Youth Company
The Ensemble Español Spanish Dance Youth Company dancers are blooming roses in the garden of Chicago’s very own Ensemble Español Spanish Dance Theater’s pre-professional training program. These young dancers are our pride and joy. Young dancers develop their talents by means of various afterschool programs and community classes offered by the professional company and then auditioning into the Young Company. We invite you to discover our upcoming classes for young and old, as well Flamenco Passion – our summer American Spanish Dance & Music Festival: https://ensembleflamencopassion.org/
Learn the basics of two fun social dance styles in these thirty-minute classes with Katie DeSalvo of Glenwood Dance Studio. Hustle is a night-club style dance made popular in the 70s, but which can be danced to many types of current pop music. Jitterbug is a type of swing dance that is accessible for beginners, but still has lots of style and flair. These mini-classes can be done with or without a partner - no experience is needed. Come get your toes a-tapping and join in the fun!
7th grade Peirce students explore dance through different cultural lenses, metaphorically traveling the world one dance step at a time! Through these inquiries, students take a brief look at culture, communication and expression as it manifests through movement. Of the many countries and dance forms we investigated, Bollywood truly spoke to our collective energy this year, lifting our spirits and moving our feet. The term "Bollywood" refers to Mumbai's film industry (the world's largest film industry in terms of films produced and released each year). The dances found within Bollywood films combine both classical and contemporary forms of dance, to include Indian folk dance, salsa and hip hop, to name a few. Enjoy a brief taste of the steps we both learned and loved within our 7th grade dance adventures!
Illinois Center for Kathak is a dance school teaching the traditional style of Kathak, a North Indian dance form. Kathak is referred to as the dance of story teller - with expression, graceful movement, blazing spins and fancy footwork, kathak brings stories to life. At ICKathak they help people dance their stories using traditional rhythmic vocabulary.
Founded to showcase and celebrate the artistry of Black and LGBTQIA+ performers, Joel Hall Dancers & Center stands as the embodiment of Joel’s life-long passion for creating, performing and teaching dance artistry and technique. Urban Jazz, Joel Hall's signature style, utilizes movement from classic jazz, lindy, street styles, modern, ballet, and contemporary dance. Choreographies are based upon the human experience, street life and authentic expression of the spirit. First Company dancer Melissa Metro will be leading a demonstration and dance party focusing on Jazz as a social dance and how it still is influencing popular dance today.
The Nordic Folk Dancers of Chicago are a Scandinavian Folk Dance group that performs throughout the Chicagoland area. They do a wide variety of programs for an even more diverse audience – from preschools and senior centers, to major museums and businesses, to small private parties and large ethnic festivals. They take pride in who they are, what they do and what they make possible. They link and connect people to the rich culture and heritage of the Scandinavian countries through dance, music and costumes. They simply love to dance and to share their dances with others – always including audience participation dances. Why just watch when you can get up and dance, they'll show you how.
The Met Down with Melissa Metro
The Met Down is a collective born out of the pandemic that started as a group of friends who just liked dancing together. Many of them share a common training in Joel Hall's jazz and hip hop. They are multi-ethnic, multi-talented and just a fun time to be around. They will be performing a hip hop piece that starts with the Godfather of Soul, James Brown, celebrates the Queen of Hip Hop, Missy Elliot, and pays tribute to the Godfather of House, Frankie Knuckles.
