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The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago
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The Dance Colective Performs Premiere, Revival Of Brontë Work - February 21-23, 2008 in Chicago

by Jill Chukerman
December 27, 2007
The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago
1306 S. Michigan Avenue
Chicago, IL 60605
312.344.8300
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 21, 2007

 Contact: Jill Chukerman
773-525-3974/jchuk@rcn.com

THE DANCE COLECTIVE PERFORMS PREMIERE, REVIVAL OF BRONTË WORK
Second Journeys Feb. 21–23 at The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago

CHICAGO—The Dance COLEctive (TDC), under the direction of award-winning choreographer and teacher Margi Cole, will perform a revised work, a premiere and two revivals for its Second Journeys Winter Concert Series February 21–23, 2008 at The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, 1306 S. Michigan Ave. The program features a reconstruction of Artistic Director Margi Cole's Written on the Body, plus works by choreographers Colleen Halloran, Jennifer Kayle and Ellie Klopp. TDC also will participate in The Dance Center's FamilyDance Matinee Series, presenting an hour-long performance geared toward families preceded by a movement workshop free to ticket holders on Saturday, February 23.

Written on the Body uses the lives of the Brontë sisters as a point of departure in its exploration of gender roles and stereotypes. The hidden identities of authors Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë, as well as the hardships they endured throughout their lives in Victorian England, provide the framework. Cole interprets the Brontës' masculine and feminine personas, using images of power, strength, vulnerability and intimacy, exploring how each attribute can be related through movement. Music for the piece is by Kevin O'Donnell, costumes are by Atalee Judy and videoscape is by Michael Cole.

"A pseudonym represents a way of disguising one's identity to remain invisible," Cole explained. "It is also a way to represent yourself as something other than what you are in order to be accepted. During the 19th century, Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë's pseudonyms—Ellis, Currer and Acton Bell—allowed the three sisters to conceal their identities under a masculine persona. The work is titled Written on the Body because our bodies are where our truest histories are written."

Chicago choreographer Colleen Halloran is creating a new work, tentatively titled It Is Okay To Leave. Working with five dancers, including guest artist Dardi McGinley Gallivan, the piece takes place in an atmosphere of suspended reality and explores issues of departure, observation and time. Sound design for the work is being created by Susan Aldous.
           
Also on the program are two revivals. Channel is a commissioned solo for Margi Cole by Ellie Klopp, former associate director of Margaret Jenkins Dance Company, with music by Alvin Curran. Jennifer Kayle's award-winning at the receding edges is a moving meditation on the human and spiritual connection to the body of the earth and on the dangers of disconnection.  Set on four squares of plastic grass, images of community, scarcity and disintegration appear and disappear in this poetic landscape.

Margi Cole formed The Dance COLEctive in 1996 to preserve, advance and strengthen the art of contemporary dance in Chicago and Illinois. In the past 11 years, TDC has contributed to the support of 13 choreographers, 43 dancers and 50 collaborating artists. TDC produces its own concerts and participates in multi-artist festivals such as The Other Dance Festival, Dance Chicago, Estrogen Fest, Stockyards Women's Theatre Festival and the Next Dance Festival. Self-produced concerts have been presented at The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, Harold Washington Library Theater, Northwestern University, Ruth Page Center and Links Hall.  TDC features site-specific work as a part of its annual repertoire, having participated in the Illinois State Fair, Chicago's Millennium Project and Looptopia, Chicago Symphony Center Day of Music and more. The company conducts one or two residencies annually, with past hosts including Beloit College, Knox College, Illinois Wesleyan University, Huntsville Community Ballet and a variety of studios and schools in Alabama and Tennessee.

Artistic Director Margi Cole has received recognition for her contribution to the field of modern dance through awards such as the Illinois Arts Council's Individual Artist Fellowship, a Chicago Dancemakers Forum grant and the American Marshall Memorial Fellowship, a program that selects leaders in their respective fields to represent the United States on a month-long tour of European countries.

The Dance COLEctive's Second Journeys Winter Concert Series is sponsored by the Paul and Robert Barker Foundation, Lakeside Bank, Pacific Management Inc., Community Care Systems, and Suzanne Lovell and Richard Stein. This project is partially supported by a CityArts Program 1 Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.

The Dance COLEctive presents its Second Journeys Winter Concert Series Thursday–Saturday, February 21–23, 2008 at 8 p.m. at The Dance Center, 1306 S. Michigan Ave. Single tickets, $24–28, are on sale through the Columbia Ticket Center, 33 E. Congress Pkwy. Suite 610. There will be a post-performance discussion following the Thursday evening performance. Single tickets for FamilyDance, Saturday, February 23 at 3 p.m. (workshop begins at 2:15 p.m., free to ticket holders) are $6 for children 12 and younger, $10 for adults. The Dance Center does not allow late seating at its performances. The theatre is accessible to people with disabilities. For tickets and more information, call 312-344-6600 or visit colum.edu/dancecenter.
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