David Bowie - the Icon

David Bowie - the Icon

If you haven't checked out the latest "David Bowie Is" installation at the MCA, make the time to find your way to downtown Chicago to experience this opportunity first hand. Bowie is known as one of the worlds most influential and pioneering performing artists of his time. I say performing artists because of the fact that much of what Bowie did was not just in music, but in the stage act he portrayed to his audience. It was an art form, much like what we see with performers like Lady Gaga today. He created a personality for himself that was unmatched at the time and has influenced a broader creative audience, not only within music, but also within design, art and theater.

Organized chronologically, David Bowie Is traces the artist’s evolution from his years as a teenager in the 1950s to the early 2000s when he retired from touring. Before the surprise release of the 2013 album The Next Day, Bowie had not released an album since Reality in 2003. On display are more than sixty stage costumes including the Ziggy Stardust bodysuits (1972), designed by Freddie Burretti; Kansai Yamamoto’s flamboyant creations for the Aladdin Sane tour (1973); and the Union Jack coat designed by Bowie and Alexander McQueen for the Earthling album cover (1997). Bowie’s many personae are amply documented through photography, graphic designs, models of concert sets, visual excerpts from films, and live performances.

Photography by: Dwight Bejec

If you are a Bowie fan, definitely check out the "David Bowie Treasures by: Mike Evans. It's a beautifully curated hardcover text that is sure to inspire and invigorate the visual artist in you.  David Bowie Treasures, through beautiful photographs and unique memorabilia, illustrates Bowie's journey from humble beginnings to world superstardom. It contains beautiful reproduction of show fliers, concert stubs and posters. You can pick up a copy here.

Tickets on sale now for the Bowie Is exhibition!
Individual tickets are $25 for adults and teens, $10 children (age 7–12), and free for children 6 and under. Price includes museum admission.

Admission to the museum without David Bowie Is access is $7 (free for children 6 and under).

Electrifying Giordano Dance

Electrifying Giordano Dance

Giordano Dance took to the stage Saturday to kick off their 52nd year. Known for electric and highly-energy performances, they leaped onto the stage to an audience that was just as electrified to see them. Their presentation was entertaining and unconventional which is typical for them. Giordano Dance is less about telling a story through dance as they are about conveying energy. They are less about displaying subtle emotional overtones though dance than they are about presenting energy that jolts a reaction from the audience. When they do use emotion in their presentation, they are highly effective but it tends to be an emotion that seems that of a crowd — think of the emotions of a flashmob.



As a result, the audience is really gets into their performances and shows them unbridled support. They are a small ensemble of dancers and total only eleven dancers. They take command of the stage and feel like a much larger dance company with the look and feel of a company twice or three times their size. They have the presence and stamina to that of a small army. This group really dominates a stage like none other I have seen. Their movements are highly aerobic and explosive. They are quick and decisive.

The opener of the show best described the tone for the evening. A dance piece titled A Ritual Dynamic had the company moving, jumping, and leaping across the stage at a pace that would kill most aerobic instructors butts. The music for this was Egyptian Disco. This is a music piece that really needs to be heard to understand the energy of what started the evening. I would encourage you to research it up on YouTube. It starts with a steady rhythm of drums and builds with complexity. While it is quite relaxing with a jazz flute adding texture to the musical beat, it builds into a frenzy as it guides the listener. The music also has Spanish guitar which gives an sense of exoticism. The movements of Giordano Dance were less Middle Eastern or classically Spanish than one would expect from this piece of music. The energy was exuberant and unrestrained. In fact, upon reflection, I wondered how such a small group can keep up that level of energy throughout an evening. They don’t do slow dance movements. Everything moves at a pace that makes the viewer loose complete track of time. The evening whips by rapidly. It seems that one sits down and two hours flies in the beat of a heart.

This evening, the company proved how extremely adaptive it can be. At the beginning, it was announced that Maeghan McHale, one of the featured soloist, would not be able to perform as the result of a foot injury. Quite amazingly, Giordano Dance closed ranks and pulled together a show that was stunning without missing a beat. McHale’s piece Alloy was quickly substituted with Gravity — a duet dance piece by Dean Rozanski and Katie Rafferty. They did a wonderful job particularly considering the short notice. Choreographed by Lindsey Leduc, Gravity was a more of a romantic piece. The musical center of Gravity is a musical piece of the same name that was written by Sara Bareilles. It is a lovely musical selection that moves at a slow and builds at a steady pace. The dance while executed beautifully, was not slow. It was quite aerobic and intense. It lacked a certain amount of depth of feeling, passion or tenderness that the music was intended to carry. Instead it was a bit more forceful. The movements didn’t quite jell for me as much as their other works. The dance was lovely and well performed but not to that piece of music. The two did not mesh.

Exit 4 was choreographed by Roni Koresh. This had a very tribal and urban feel. There were a lot of very interesting gestures and movements that made the work become exceptionally powerful. Whether it was with funky repetitive head gestures, the air of toughness with the walking and body posturing or perhaps it was the shouts from the dancers; there were many aspects of this performance that seemed to signify the coming together of a group. It was about urban gang assimilation and of isolation. It is a piece that has a grittiness as if it conveys aspects of life in prison without escape. It was very engaging in it’s raw and violent approach. As an audience member, this rawness was tempered with exuberance with music selections that mixed Turkish, Persian and Iraqi beats. Dancers acted like vultures circling their prey.  It seemed to depict a message of what it is like to be apart of a society as it falls into chaos and making a choice at some point to walk away or choose to be apart of it. It seemed to ask the question of whether being a part of a society in disarray is helpful or is it more admirable to exit to maintain individuality.

    The last half of the program was two pieces: the first was Entropy and the finale was Feelin’ Good Sweet — a world premiere.  Entropy was created by choreographer Davis Robertson. Looking at the piece, it had to be exhausting to perform and required much strength and endurance from the dancers. The men carried the female dancers as they “awoke” to the morning sun and birds. This was an inventive, original and different. It was a interesting contrast to the finale Feeling Good Sweet. Feeling Good Sweet has more buzz and glitz than the rest of the performance. It was flashy with more lighting effects and costuming but it was also similar to Bob Fosse’s work for Sweet Charity. This dance number seemed approachable and something the audience instantly resonated with.  The music was a mixture of Micael Bublé, Aretha Franklin and Waren Wade. It was straight up jazz and jazz inspired dance. It was a very sexy rendition. As mentioned, this felt like Sweet Charity. But unlike Bob Fosse’s movie work of the dance sequence, this jazz work seemed current and relevant to today.  It anything, this was a mixture of what really great jazz dance contains. The audience loved this piece — and with good reason. It was fun, entertaining and high energy. It was a perfect end and lacked for nothing. It looked back at jazz and at the same time brought it forward and into the. Ray Leeper, the choreographer of Feelin’ Good Sweet did brilliant work. The audience jumped to a standing ovation with numerous energy as the dancers displayed throughout the evening. I hope Feelin’ Good Sweet becomes part of Giordano Dance’s standard repertoire.

River North Dance kicks some...

River North Dance kicks some...

River North Dance 25th Anniversary Gala Performance kicked off the company's season performance schedule with a bang. The Harris Theater was buzzing with warmth and excitement. This silver anniversary was a milestone full of achievement for the company for several reasons. The evening highlighted it's past accomplishments, displayed how it reaches into the education system and provides support for kids in schools and displayed some new ground breaking work.

Hayley Meier and John Litzler in Iván Pérez’s “Flesh.”

There was an outpouring of support for the company who's tradition has been to not just dance for the public, but to move them with an emotion. The company mission states it wishes to "promote and present dance, makes vital connections between dancers and the audience, create partnerships and collaborations... and advocates for dance." Last night, it did all that. Making emotional connections without words may sound like a tall order, and to many it would be tough - not so for River North. This evening provided many wonderful emotional moments on stage with dance and film.  The level of enthusiasm from the followers of River North Dance Company was palpable. It was a glitzy crowd with lots of eye candy and as sexy as the dancers were on stage. It was also a younger crowd than I expected to find for a cultural arts event. My guess is, perhaps, this was a group in where the dance company had made a significant imprint on their artistic life as well as their city.

The company is moving forward at providing the latest ideas and innovations in the field of contemporary dance. Dancers moved from the heart with performances that dissected the life, the way we live, play out emotions and deal with life's challenges. Themes dealt with relationships, wars, loves, hope, dreams and disappointments. It was a full scope of the human relationships and realities of all kinds and their differences.

An Emotional Trio

Contained in tonight's presentation were three vignettes or paintings (for the more visual). Each vignette was done by a different choreographer. Two of the evenings vignettes were world premieres of new work. The last was a revival of one of the company's ground breaking pieces centering around the work of a 22-year old dancer.

The first painting, entitled Flesh,  starts with segments of a poem called The Knife by Keith Douglas. Portions of the poem are read aloud and illustrate the four themes of this dance movement. Flesh centers around thoughts of memory, love, loss and living in memory after death. It was conceived after the loss of both the choreographers parents and thus made the work intensely and deeply personal. The first movement or sonnet was extremely sensual though not exactly sexual. It was powerful in it's themes of attraction, emotion and it's physicality. It was highly polished in its reflection of movement used tell a story.

A side note — the music for tonight's performance was perfection. Every movement was tied to a tonality that made the music one with the dancer's body. There were movements with cello and violin, acapella choral arrangements and pop rock. It all flowed beautifully. Throughout this vignette, the music was positively breath-taking. One of the movements had an acapella choral piece Her Sacred Spirit Soared by Eric Whitacre that accompanied the dancers. This choral accompaniment added a new dimension to the dance and was expressively precise for presenting the humanitarian conflict. The whole body of work was deeply thought provoking.

The choreographer was Iván Pérez, a Spanish choreographer based out of the Netherlands making his artistic debut in the US. Given the title of "one of the best contemporary dancers of the last decade", the choreographer held true to his standards.  The third movement was particularly moving when a kiss takes on new meaning as two dancers are tied together in movement while being joined at the mouth. It was a tremendous moment expressed by dancers Hayley Meier and John Litzler. The last part of this vignette was very distinctive. The dancers were superb in their performance which was characterized expressive movements of the legs, exhausting physical fitness and harmony between the dancers and the music. It ended with two dancers showcased in a portrait that fades with time to show the non-permanence of life.

(l to r) John Litzler, Hank Hunter, Ahmad Simmons, Levizadik Buckins,
Drew Fountain and Ethan Kirschbaum in Frank Chaves’s “In The End.”

In the End... it was fabulous.

The second presentation was very emotional and my favorite of the evening.  This vignette is entitled In the End. It was choreographed by Frank Chaves, the company's artistic director. Innovative in concept, the themes center around what he describes as the “male relationships of a non-romantic nature.” This description was particularly vague and made me go "WTF?" What it seemed to really center around was man as he struggles to perform roles in society that are particularly hard or challenging — such as being in a group like a fraternity as it evolves and ends, confidentiality and friendship, multiculturalism and breaking beyond the norms of individuality and self identity, being close and confidants in adversity like war and dealing with the pressures of the work world conformity.

There were five segments to this vignette. This was a journey in life and, in a way, the series expressed the very interdependence between friends and coworkers. There was a strange combination of melodious quick movement that was accompanied by violin that added deep sorrow to the content. But it was sorrow mixed with strength and not weakness. This third part of the painting came across clearly about the relationships of humanity between the difficult periods in life when faced with crisis, revolution or war. Chaves' created a segment that would then evolve as the dancers transformed from soldiers to men in business dressed in suits. It was extremely powerful.

There were two significant and breath taking movements of the evening; The first WOW moment of the evening was provided by dancers Levidazik Buckins and Ahmad Simmons. This portion of the show was positively riveting and full of emotional depth. It was amazing in it's expression of what I understood to be two friends caught in a time of war or adversity. They were soldiers or two individuals caught in conflict and providing emotional support and then we watched as their relationship evolved. The last movement was with dancers Drew Fountain, Hank Hunter, Ethan R. Kirschbaum, John Litxler, Ahmad Simmons and Levidazik Buckins. It was so expressive and poignant with how it dealt with men in business. This section was particularly inventive in using neck ties as a noose around the neck strangling the dancers as they work through the day. For some reason, perhaps it was physicality or the dexterity of the dancers, that reminded me of the work of Gene Kelly or Matthew Bourne. It had a comic appeal that made one laugh while at the same time made it easier to pallet the emotion depth of the dance.

John Litzler in Frank Chaves’s “In the End.”

There were five segments to this portion of the program. It also reminded me of the work of the late Martha Graham. Ms Graham was pivotal in pushing modern dance into the forefront of the American psyche. Her work portrayed woman, sexuality and oppression at a time when it wasn't shown on the dance stage. Tonight's performance was equally riveting in that it dealt with mens issues. There has been a lot in the past generations written about how women act, cope and deal with society. Ms Graham gave women a voice in dance. Tonight was the mens turn with Frank Chaves' world premiere of In the End. And like Martha Graham, there were some strikingly poignant similarities. Frank Chaves, like Martha Graham, has had wonderful stints with Hubbard St. Dance Company,  New York's Ballet Hispanico and now is on to producing brilliant works. But also like Ms Graham whose talents was taken away by arthritis, this was Graves first work where he had to choreograph from a wheelchair as the result of surgery to remove a cyst on the spine. It made the evening's performance more significant and perhaps explained the deep emotional richness of the work. I am not a dancer but I was totally on page with this work. It left me with such a sense of awe. The dancers were brilliant in their use of body to tell story and convey emotion.

(l to r) Ahmad Simmons, Hank Hunter, Ethan Kirschbaum,
Drew Fountain (Below), Levizadik Buckins and
John Litzler in Frank Chaves’s “In The End.”

 Flashback to the Beginning

The last movement of the show was a revival of Reality of a Dreamer. Originally done in 1992, the vignette's musical focus centered around British pop band Eurythmics' Sweet Dreams (Are made of This). This segment of the evening provided a dramatic contrast to how much choreography has changed and evolved during the company's tenure. This high energy performance was more of a "line dance" like performance that while less emotion-gripping, was no less intense. It was very high energy and ended the evenings performance on an incredible high note. The original performance in 1992 is what catapulted the company onto the national stage with a PBS broadcast of the company in a three-part documentary. This documentary broadcast titled Reality of a Dreamer won and Emmy Award for Outstanding Entertainment and also a Silver Plaque at the Chicago International Film Festival.  Tonight's performance was choreographed by the company's first Artistic Director Sherry Zunker. The piece centers around a dream that is yet to be realized. Twenty five year later, dreams change - the artistic vision of this company remains steady. This evenings performance displayed that previous dream and how it has gained roots. The dreams are now reality. This piece now symbolizes how the company would like to move forward. Given tonight's performance, I would say the company has made lofty dreams a reality and moving forward is a short step away.

Three presentations provided humanitarian cases and the different stages of different emotional journeys.  Nicely condensed, the evening was brisk and concise while at the same time provided new additions to contemporary dance. As this was the kickoff of River North Dance 25th Anniversary Season, they now start a world tour that takes them away from Chicago for some time. Should you have the opportunity to catch them on their performances on October 10 or 11th, run to see them. Your next opportunity is in late February when the perform at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie on the 28th. They also have a one day performance at the Auditorium Theater in late March. Should you happen to be in Israel or Europe in Mid-October through Mid-November, you will want to make a point of seeing them. You can find them online at www.rivernorthchicago.com. Enjoy

Written by: Thom Olson and Tareq Al Saud

Latino Fashion Week: Beyond Exceptional

Latino Fashion Week: Beyond Exceptional

The one and only week dedicated to Latino Fashion is emerging here in Chicago. You heard right! Five days of pure culture, authentic fashion, and mind-blowing inspiration. Bringing together international and local designers from across the world to showcase their talents. 

This event, now known as a "movement", is touring through Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, and yours truly: Chicago!

All the buzz this week goes out to Latino Fashion Week. This culture-filled event brings in Paco Mayorga to celebrate his 30th year of participating in the show. A wide variety of intriguing international styles fly in from Colombia, Bolivia, Puerto Rico, and Mexico to share the runways with our local designers. 





















Excitement builds for Ronald Rodriguez & Claudia Urrutia to take the spotlight. This local duo is HOT and READY and will be lighting up the stage with their upcoming collection. The hair-pulling anticipation to see what these two have created is building!

This worldly event is bringing in some special helpers this year! Tricoci University of Beauty Culture students are at the ready with their talents. These fire-filled young talents will be taking the show to the next level behind the scenes to ensure absolute beauty pours out on the runway. Their cutting-edge techniques can be practiced at the Professional Beauty Glam Workshops  Wednesday, October 1st. DO NOT miss this opportunity to learn from the pros and gain the insider secrets.

PAPARAZZI ALERT: Be on the look out for some big time attendees this week. 

Latino Fashion week is not only about the fashionistas across the world; National Domestic Violence Awareness Month is during October and will be celebrated with purple carpets. This 'purple event' empowers womanhood for all our fierce ladies out there!

It's all about the curves! Full-figures will be taking over on Thursday, October 2nd. Feel good in what you wear. Come out to see these curves laced with the hottest trends and classic styles. Something to walk away with: Beauty is universal and size is just a number.