Hubbard Street Dance Chicago announces 35th-anniversary season

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago’s Jacqueline Burnett in Untouched (2010) by Aszure Barton

Photo: Todd Rosenberg

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago’s 2012–13 opener is already out of the bag: Resident choreographer Alejandro Cerrudo premieres the company’s first-ever full-length work, inspired by Marc Chagall’s America Windows, this October 18–21. As of this morning, the rest of Hubbard’s domestic slate is official (international dates remain to be announced).

December 6–9, 2012 the company presents Casi-Casa, its first production of choreography by Swedish artist Mats Ek.

Ek is best known via Cullberg Ballet, the Stockholm company named for its founder, Birgit Cullberg—Ek’s mother. As she was, Ek is a key figure in European concert dance, as highly regarded and influential there as William Forsythe and Jiří Kylián, both in rep at Hubbard. But Chicago audiences are far less familiar with Ek’s works, for no good reason; the only recent sighting of them here was in 2009, when Mikhail Baryshnikov and Ana Laguna danced Place (2007) and an excerpt from Solo for Two (1996).

Ek created Casi-Casa for a Cuban company in 2009, by combining scenes from his Apartment (2000) and Fluke (2008) with original material. Completing the Winter Series are Aszure Barton’s charged, mysterious Untouched (2010) and a Cerrudo twin pack: Blanco (2010, for four women) and PACOPEPEPLUTO (2011, for three men).

Spring brings to Chicago a previously announced collaboration between HSDC and San Francisco’s LINES Ballet. For members of both companies and choreographed by LINES director Alonzo King, the production’s local debut March 14–17, 2013 follows its world premiere at Berkeley’s Cal Performances February 1 and 2. Each company will also perform repertory to be announced.

All three programs will be shown at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance; Hubbard’s 35th season concludes June 6–16, 2013 at the Museum of Contemporary Art’s recently renamed Edlis Neeson Theater. The second “danc(e)volve: New Works Festival” will, as the first did in January, feature choreography created in-house by and for dancers from HSDC and junior ensemble Hubbard Street 2, the latter to see its 15th anniversary. Candidate concepts for the next “danc(e)volve” hit the stage this June 13 at the UIC Theatre, during HSDC’s annual “Inside/Out” workshop performance.

Season subscriptions run $75–$302; single tickets are available beginning in August. For further info, call 312-850-9744 or go to hubbardstreetdance.com.