Auditorium Theatre announces 2011–2012 season (updated)

Batsheva Dance Company in Ohad Naharin’s Three.

Photo: Gadi Dagon

Via its blog, Twitter and Facebook—press releases* are just so old-fashioned—the Auditorium Theatre has announced the ten engagements of its next subscription series.

*Unscripted received details from the Auditorium this morning (Apr 8); see updates below.

Music programming kicks it off September 17 with live-orchestra jukebox show “Hallelujah Broadway!” featuring Alfreda Burke, Rodrick Dixon and Anthony Kearns, and a night with contemporary folk singer-songwriter Susan Werner on September 24. Werner’s show, on the heels of her bluesy, rootsy Kicking the Beehive, is part of the Aud’s On Stage With… series and available only as an add-on to subscription packages. DRUMLine Live, which should be self-explanatory, plays October 29 and 30.

Bad Boys of Dance, Rasta Thomas’s garage of 18 dancing Lamborghinis (including Shane Ohmer, briefly of River North Dance Chicago) zooms into town November 5 and 6. Oakland-based AXIS Dance Company, some of whose members are differently-abled, follows on November 19 and 20 with a triple bill featuring work by noted contemporary choreographers Mark Brew, David Dorfman and Alex Ketley. Ketley’s been commissioned in recent years by DanceWorks Chicago, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and Hubbard Street 2; his work for AXIS, Vessel, is a collaboration with poet Carol Snow from 2008 (the same year Dorfman’s company last visited the Dance Center of Columbia College).

Carmen Sandiego’s best buddies Rockapella make their Chicago debut (whaa?) in concert with the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra on November 30. The show, like Too Hot to Handel: The Jazz Gospel Messiah, returning for a seventh time January 14 and 15, will be holiday-themed. (Burke and Dixon of “Hallelujah Broadway!” are two of Too Hot’s 200 cast members.)

The spring 2012 season features three major dance visits nearly back-to-back. Tel Aviv’s Batsheva Dance Company returns on March 17 and 18, performing MAX, a recent evening-length by Ohad Naharin to music by Naharin’s alter ego, Maxim Waratt. (Naharin used parts of this piece in his recent collage for Hubbard Street.) American Ballet Theatre performs Giselle with a live orchestra March 22–25, which balletomanes can/will/should compare and contrast with the Paris Opéra Ballet’s production three months later. ABT’s engagement begins a new agreement with the Aud for three Chicago visits over the next six years. The New York–based company will return in 2014 and 2016, co-presented by the Auditorium.

And Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater makes its annual visit April 11–15, 2012. They’re coming soon, too, this May 18–22, bringing programs including work by its outgoing (Judith Jamison) and incoming (Robert Battle) artistic directors, and a 50th-anniversary tribute to Ailey’s Revelations.

Build-your-own subscriptions are now available. The more you see, the more you save: Get 10% off two shows, 15% for three, 20% for four and 25% for five or more; your kid, in some cases, can join you for free.