Chicago Dances 2021
The Cambrians are thrilled to present chicago dances 2021 at the harris theater for music and dance. the all-new show will premiere january 21,2021 as part of the harris’s mix at six series. everyone from the chicago dances 2020 cast is back again. we can’t wait to make a show for you!
CHICAGO DANCES 2021 CAST
Ayako Kato
Called “moving everyday sculptures, artfully cast in naturalness” (Luzerner Zeitung, Switzerland), Ayako Kato is an award-winning Japanese-native contemporary choreographer, dancer, and improviser originally from Yokohama, Japan. She has been directing her company Ayako Kato/Art Union Humanscape since 1998 through interdisciplinary collaboration with over sixty musicians/composers in eight countries and 34 cities throughout the US, Japan, and Europe.
Venues/festivals include A Race in Space Festival, Lucerne, Switzerland; DOEK, Amsterdam, Holland; Tabito Art Meeting Festival, Fukushima; the International Festival of Arts and Ideas, New Haven, CT; The Art Institute of Chicago; the Jay Pritzker Pavilion of the Millenium Park, Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Chicago Jazz Festival; Links Hall, Constellation and beyond.
She is a recipient of 3Arts Award in Dance; 3Arts Residency Fellowship at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France; “Best of Dance” in The Chicago Tribune; Links Hall Co-MISSION Fellowship; Players: The Fifty People Who Really Perform for Chicago by Newcity Stage, Meiner Achievement Award; Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist Award and beyond.
www.artunionhumanscape.net
Ayako Kato Dance on Vimeo
BENJAMIN HOLLIDAY WARDELL
Benjamin Holliday Wardell is the founder and Creative Director of The Cambrians. His dance training began in ballet and has since widened to encompass and ever broader range of techniques. In his fourteen years as a professional dancer, Ben has had the privilege to work with many of the world’s leading choreographers and movement researchers on innovative performance ventures. His career began with The Cincinnati Ballet, where he achieved the rank of soloist before moving to San Francisco to dance with Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet. Working with LINES allowed Ben to expand further into his understanding of the human body and the many ways to create dance performance. Moving from San Francisco, he joined Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. After working with this company for over four years, Ben began to freelance. Based in Chicago, he has toured internationally with Aszure Barton and Artists, created work with Ron de Jesus Dance and has been an ensemble member of Lucky Plush Productions since late 2011. He has originated works with master choreographers and in so doing gained a breadth of knowledge and professional respect, which allow him to forge new paths in dance creation. His methods center on generating work through large-scale, complex collaborations in which members of numerous dance genres and communities contribute their knowledge, movement and creativity to the creation of singular performance processes. The purpose of these collaborations is to create high-quality, experimental art that audiences of diverse backgrounds can identify with and enjoy.
Ben is the recipient of a 2014 Illinois Arts Council Fellowship Award and one of four 2015 Lab Artist Awards from Chicago Dancemakers Forum.
At 37, Ben's curiosity is inexorably drawn to the nature of performance, the phenomenon of dance and the capacity of art to thwart the walls that divide us.
Daniel Gibson
Dee Alaba
Born and raised in Davao City, Philippines, Dee Alaba, began formal training at The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago and graduated in Spring 2017 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Dance. Dee is an independent transfemme of color dance artist who seeks to collaborate with other artists who values dancers as a moving body. She has navigated through the industry as a trans artist and has had the privilege to work with many artists. During college, Dee’s choreographic debut, Paradoxical, was chosen to represent The Dance Center at the ACDA (American College Dance Association) North Central Conference in Duluth, Minnesota. Paradoxical was chosen to perform at the Adjudicated Concert and subsequently at the culminating Gala Concert.
Since graduating, Dee has expanded her network and started collaborating with more independent artists. In summer 2018, Dee was one of the company members of NEW Dances 2018 under Thodos Dance Chicago and DanceWorks Chicago. Dee has also worked with artist and collaborator Erin Kilmurray and was one of her collaborators for her work Search Party Dances and became a member of the Honey Cast for The Fly Honey Show.
Dee is currently teaching at the suburbs and has recently set a piece for The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Dance Program and will debut for their show in spring 2020.
Elijah Richardson
Elijah Richardson, born and raised in San Jose, California, started at age five with versatile training in figure skating, musical theatre, and classical choir. Finding dance at age 12, his strive for excellence led him to earn a BFA in Dance Performance and a minor in History from Chapman University in 2018. Elijah has also spent comprehensive summers training at Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and San Francisco Conservatory of Dance where he learned works by Alejandro Cerrudo, Ohad Naharin, Alex Ketley, and Bobbi Jene Smith. Elijah is currently with DanceWorks Chicago directed by Julie Nakagawa. With DWC, he has toured nationally and throughout Germany, and worked with choreographers Shannon Alvis, Charissa Lee-Barton, Hanna Brictson, and Joshua Manculich among others. As a guest artist, he has performed with Anaheim Ballet, The Cambrians, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and DWC & Thodos Dance Chicago’s New Dances 2019. His choreography and dance films have been presented in California, Illinois, and New York, including twice at Dance Chance, and twice at the Mobile Dance Film Festival. Beyond his fulfillment as a dancer, he is also grateful to exercise his skills as an adjudicator, community builder, and teacher.
IG: @elijahrisharson
ERIN KILMURRAY
Erin Kilmurray is a powerhouse artist making genre-straddling pop-fringe works from dance, theater, space-making team building and nightlife culture, challenging traditional relationships between performer and spectator through electric, often political performance that enlivens body and environment. Resonating in concert dance and immersive spaces, music venues, parties + film, her work has been presented by the Museum of Contemporary Art, The Dance Center of Columbia College, Thalia Hall, Pivot Arts Festival, and The Cambrian’s. Her recent work, SEARCH PARTY, toured in a cultural exchange to Dancebox/ArtTheater - Kobe in Japan (2019). Kilmurray is the founder + director of The Fly Honey Show— a decade long performance + social project named "a Chicago institution" (Chicago Reader). Recognized as one of50 People Who Really Perform for Chicago 2020 (Newcity), Kilmurray is a 2020 Lab Artist anda 2018 Greenhouse Grant Awardee (Chicago Dancemaker's Forum), an inaugural Make-A-Wave Awardee + 3AP Awardee (3Arts), and held teaching artist positions / residency through Links Hall, High Concept Labs, University of Chicago Performance Lab, Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, Loyola University, Beloit College, among others. She moonlights as a movement designer for theatrical productions with Milwaukee Rep, Court Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, American Blues Theater, The Inconvenience, among others.
www.erinkilmurray.com
KARA BRODY
Kara Brody's dance training began in her hometown of Detroit, Michigan where she later received a BFA from Wayne State University. During her time in Detroit, she worked closely with artists Stefanie batten Bland, Eddie Taketa, Dwight Rhoden, Clifford Williams, Trey McIntyre, and Kate Hutter. In 2015, Kara toured internationally to Seoul, South Korea with ArtLabJ dance company for the New Dance for Asia International Festival.
Kara relocated to Chicago, IL in 2016. She is in her third season with Lucky Plush Productions under the direction of Julia Rhoads. She is currently in process with Khecari under the direction of Julia Rae Antonick and Jonathan Meyer for their newest work, “Marginalia.” She has performed with The Cambrians for their annual showcase “Chicago Dances,” for two consecutive years, performing works by Shannon Alvis, Kevin Iega Jeff, and Alice Klock. In 2018, Kara joined Amanda Maraist for her on-going project “Burrow, Tousle” which premiered at Links Hall in conjunction with IS/LAND, a local Asian collective. Since then, “Burrow, Tousle” has been performed in JELLO: Performance Series and An.Open.Space. Kara has also performed at High Concept Labs with Amanda Maraist in collaboration with local musician, Christopher Elmore.
Kara teaches in Chicago and throughout the midwest. She has been on faculty at Visceral, Dovetail Studios, The Cambrians’ Winter and Summer Intensive, Brighton Dance Festival, The Dance Place LTD., and Actors Gymnasium. Kara teaches regularly for Lucky Plush Productions’ company class. She offers a contemporary movement class based in modern technique focusing on the ways that momentum, weight, and gravity influence the movement experience.
KATLIN BOURGEOIS
Katlin Michael Bourgeois began his dance training in his hometown of Gonzales, Louisiana. After high school he attended the Alonzo King LINES Ballet Training Program in San Francisco from which he graduated in 2014. Katlin then moved to Chicago and has since had the privilege of working with companies that include Dance Theatre of San Francisco, DanceWorks Chicago, FLOCK Works, Hubbard Street 2, M/Motions, and Neos Dance Theatre. He continues to freelance (as a dancer, and choreographer) and has performed works by noted choreographers domestically and internationally. Katlin serves on faculty at the Lou Conte Dance Studio and most recently co-founded a contemporary dance company in Chicago called Ensemble180.
