Dance COLEctive Review Posted

In January, I reviewed the Dance COLEctive's winter production Meet Me There. The review appears in Clef Notes Concert Journal's Spring 2010 Issue. If you get your hands on a copy of the magazine, you should also see my review of Joffrey's Nutcracker as well (which was darn difficult to write for some reason). Thanks in advance for checking out Clef Notes--so much happening in the Chicago arts scene!

Chicago on the Cheap?

Chicago is not a cheap city. Making the most of living in Chicago on a tight budget can, quite frankly, be a pain in the neck. I’m always on the hunt for free events, concerts, food, etc., but it’s a whole lot easier to come by that kind of thing in the summer than it is in the winter. Thank goodness the weather’s warming up, people are beginning to emerge from their winter cocoons, and outdoor Chicago will soon be bustling with (much free) activity again.

It helps that I have the luxury of attending, on average, two dance performances each season, as a reviewer for Clef Notes. This is enough to keep my soul from starving for the arts, but not enough sustenance to come close to satisfying my desire for culture. It’s always such a tease to receive the huge, jam-packed Excel sheet that my editor sends me just before we go to press each quarter, so that I can make my dance recommendations for the next season. Each monthly calendar teems with more cultural activity than one person could ever hope to consume over the course of thirty days. Plus, well, when I look at all those rows of events in the spreadsheet, I feel nauseated by how much money it would cost to even see a small handful of concerts/exhibits/performances. Let’s be honest: the arts ain’t cheap. Especially in this city.

Yet, if you follow the crumb trail, and do a bit of digging, I’ve found that you can satisfy your craving for the arts without breaking the bank. I still rely on Metromix and Yelp Chicago to help me navigate the events and venues of the city, but I was more than thrilled to discover this website for all things free in Chicago: ChicagoFree.Info. The month of March alone is filled with free jazz concerts, free wine tastings, free cooking courses, free lectures… you name it, and there’s something for everyone. I cannot believe I only just discovered this site. It might just become my Chicago Bible.

A Brimming Stage

Tonight I reviewed the Joffrey’s Nutcracker, and it was fantastic. That’s about all I will say about it. If you want to know more from my perspective, you’ll have to find some way to get your hands on Clef Notes Concert Journal for the Arts spring issue (yes, that’s correct, the spring issue). I’d like to get my hands on the winter issue, so if you have a copy (or know someone who does) and wouldn’t mind parting with it, I’d love to have a print copy of my articles.

Anyway, I just enjoyed myself immensely at the ballet tonight, and I’m pretty sure Kat enjoyed herself, too (I love that they give me an extra press pass). The seats were amazing, about five rows back from the orchestra pit, and the stage was so huge. For a ballet like the Nutcracker there’s so much activity going on across every inch of it that you can’t possibly capture everything that’s going on at once! Adding to the excitement was the fact that I’m starting to know the company dancers immediately when they enter the stage. I have my favorites (don’t we all?) and not so favorites, and it’s almost to the point where all I need to see is their dancing (not even their faces) to know who they are. I enjoy finding new favorites, and picking out the ones I love from the corps pieces (not that they’re often in the corps). It adds that much more entertainment to my evening.

Anyway, I really just want to plug the Chicago arts scene. I feel like the city is so often tied to its mediocre sports teams, that sometimes people overlook its wealth of actually stellar cultural offerings. We may not be as expansive as New York City, but we’ve got a heavy concentration of artistic venues. I mean, there are so many jazz, blues, orchestra, etc. options, not to mention the local band scene, if you’re into that. The Joffrey’s offerings are self-explanatory, and there are other dance companies worth seeing, too, although their names are not as widely-known. I can't even begin to count the number of local theatre and improv troupes. Plus, we've got a range of film festivals, and the museums include your favorite staples (like the impressionist gallery at the Art Institute) as well as enticing exhibits rolling in and out of the countless city museums. There’s always something new to capture, or something old, as the case may be. Which reminds me that, beyond the world of the Joffrey Ballet, I need to get back into those scenes, myself. I know that if I let the cold temperatures become an excuse, I could lose three months of culture, which sounds much riskier than a little teeth-chattering.