Tuesday, February 5, 2013

MUSIC + MOVEMENT FESTIVAL Announced!

The Auditorium Theatre’s MUSIC + MOVEMENT FESTIVAL welcomes the best of Chicago musicians and dance companies for a celebration spanning February through June of 2013. In a series of collaborations, 11 dance companies will pair off with musicians to create brand new works. 

The MUSIC + MOVEMENT FESTIVAL will feature: 

Feb - April: 10 new collaborations in the Auditorium's Katten/Landau Studio - 425 S. Wabash, 4th Floor | Chicago 
April 13: HAVANA BLUE, a World Premiere collaboration between River North Dance Chicago and Orbert Davis’ Chicago Jazz Philharmonic’s Chamber Ensemble 
May 15: MUSIC + MOVEMENT SHOWCASE featuring Giordano Dance Chicago and Luna Negra Dance Theater, plus the top 5 studio collaborations 

The MUSIC + MOVEMENT FESTIVAL will continue with community performances through June in select locations around Chicago.


Chicago Tribune
Music + Movement Festival to bow at city's stages 
February 05, 2013|Howard Reich

A new festival celebrating music and dance will launch Feb. 28 under the auspices of the Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University and run into June in venues downtown and across the city. 

The Music + Movement Festival will present 11 Chicago dance companies performing newly commissioned work with live music, some of it created for the occasion.

Two key events – by River North Dance Chicago with Orbert Davis' Chicago Jazz Philharmonic (April 13) and a Music + Movement Showcase with Giordano Dance Chicago and Luna Negra Dance Theater (May 15) – will unfold on the stage of the Auditorium Theatre, 50 E. Congress Pkwy. The other performances will take place at the Auditorium’s Katten/Landau Studio (425 S. Wabash Ave., 4th floor) and in Chicago community centers to be named.

“This really came about because of a desire on the Auditorium’s part to work with a lot of great artists in Chicago that we normally wouldn’t be able to work with because of the costs,” said Auditorium Theatre executive director Brett Batterson.
“We thought: There are all these terrific musicians, all these terrific dance companies – could we raise enough money to put them together and see what happens?”
The Auditorium found support from the Chicago Community Trust, the Boeing Company and the Joyce Foundation for a festival budgeted at approximately $150,000, said Batterson. The River North/Chicago Jazz Philharmonic event, already announced as part of the Auditorium’s 2012-2013 season, is sponsored by BMO Harris Bank.
Read the entire article HERE

Chicago Sun Times
Auditorium Commissions 11 world premieres for festival
By Hedy Weiss and Thomas Conner Staff Reporters February 5, 2013

The Auditorium Theatre has announced a major new initiative, “The Music + Dance Festival,” a project designed to pair 11 of Chicago’s finest dance troupes with some of Chicago’s best live music makers. The festival, which will unspool over a five-month period (beginning this month and running through June), is being underwritten with $145,000 in grants from the Chicago Community Trust, The Boeing Company and The Joyce Foundation.

The festival will begin with 10 performances taking place in the Auditorium’s Katten/Landau Studio, 425 S. Wabash (4th floor), and will continue on the Auditorium Theatre stage, 50 E. Congress, with the highly anticipated April 13 collaboration between River North Dance Chicago and Orbert Davis’ Chicago Jazz Philharmonic in “Havana Blue,” and exploration of Afro-Cuban music and dance.

The Auditorium also will host a May 15 showcase featuring five selected performances from the festival as well as Giordano Dance Chicago and Luna Negra Dance Theater.
“This festival came out of a conversation [River North artistic director] Frank Chaves and I had when we were both part of the Miles Davis Festival at the Auditorium,” Orbert Davis, co-founder and conductor of the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic, said Tuesday. “We talked about what we could do, something bigger, that blended music and movement. Then he mentioned that his family was from Cuba.”
Davis and Chaves spent nine days in Cuba in September. Davis, a trumpeter, was transformed: “I became truly inspired. My goal was to become Cuban, which meant taking my horn to every restaurant. Guys in the street, I was playing with them. Guys in a band would see I had an instrument and say, ‘Come on over and play!’”
The result is the new “Havana Blue,” one segment of which features both musicians and dancers improvising.
Read the entire article HERE

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