Hubbard Street kicks off New Works fest

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Hubbard Street 2 dancer Alicia Delgadillo in Clebio Oliveira's "The Fantastic Escape of the Little Buffalo." | © Todd Rosenberg Photography

Updated: January 12, 2012 6:34AM

Not every dancer is a choreographer. But for years now, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, like many companies worldwide, has realized that identifying and nurturing potential dancemaking talent within its own ranks can yield intriguing results.

Now, Hubbard Street’s annual Inside/Out Choreographic Workshop is getting a higher profile thanks to its collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art on “danc(e)volve: New Works Festival,” featuring two different programs, curated by artistic director Glenn Edgerton, and running Jan. 19-29 at the MCA Theater, 220 E. Chicago.

Program A (Jan. 19-20 and 28-29), will feature works by company dancers Robin Mineko Williams (“Recall,” about the experience of memory, set to The Chromatics and Chris Menth); Penny Saunders (“Bonobo,” the 2011 National Choreographic Competition winner, inspired by the lives of performers in the 1920s and ’30s, and set to music by Astor Piazzolla, Arvo Part, and the British musician of the title); Jonathan Fredrickson (whose “Untitled Landscape,” set to the music of Henryk Gorecki, is about the patchwork nature of man); and Alejandro Cerrudo (Hubbard Street’s resident choreographer, whose “Never was” is a duet to baroque music). Also on view will be Hubbard Street 2 dancer Johnny McMillan’s “Path and Observations,” a work inspired by the culture of the Sami people — indigenous reindeer herders of Scandinavia — set to the music of Pekka Lehti, Liu Sola and Mari Boine.

Program B (Jan. 21-22 and 26-27), will feature the choreography of dancer Alice Klock (“ . . . and other stories of imperfection,” set to minimalist scores by Clint Mansell and Max Richter, and dealing with the nature of personal history); a repeat of Cerrudo’s “Never was”; and the work of Taryn Kaschock Russell (an artistic associate and director of Hubbard Street 2, whose “Facets of the Same,” is set to the music of Django Reinhardt, The Tiger Lillies and others). Also on the bill is the work of Terence Marling (artistic associate and rehearsal director, whose “thrice,” set to Vivaldi and Marling’s own music, deals with the abstraction of dance and the precision of mathematical patterns), and Brazilian-bred choreographer Clebio Oliveira’s 22-minute piece, “The Fantastic Escape of the Little Buffalo,” created for Hubbard Street 2, which explores the question: “When do humans become animals, and when do animals become humans?”

For tickets, $35, call (312) 850-9744 or visit mcachicago.org/performances.

—Hedy Weiss