Hubbard Street Dance

Hubbard Street Dance
If you're in town or just visiting it, go and see just one dance performance, Hubbard Street Dance. Hubbard Street Dance is an internationally acclaimed troupe mixes jazz, modern, ballet, and theater dance into an exhilarating experience.

Sometimes whimsical, sometimes romantic, the crowd-pleasing 22-member ensemble features a range of dance traditions from Kevin O'Day to Twyla Tharp. The dancers look as if they're in heat, splaying their legs to face, emphasizing the groin and frequently bringing it into emphatic contact with one or another part of their member.

Although Hubbard Street Dance ensemble spends most of the year touring, it stays 2 to 3 weeks in Chicago in the fall and spring. The dancers feature classical ballet technique, theatrical jazz and contemporary dance at Ravinia, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's lovely outdoor pavilion in suburban Highland Park.

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago or HSDC was founded in 1977 by Lou Conte. Lou Conte is a Midwesterner with considerable experience as a Broadway dancer and choreographer and served as artistic director until his retirement in 2000. He moved to Chicago in 1972 and opened the Lou Conte Dance Studio on Hubbard Street.

Lou Conte, the company's sole choreographer, developed relationships with emerging and world-renowned choreographers as the company began to grow. In the meantime, he was putting on display bodies of work by a variety of artists, including Lynne Taylor-Corbett, Margo Sappington, Daniel Ezralow and Twyla Tharp.

His relationships transformed Lou Conte Dance Studio into the internationally acclaimed repertory company known as HSDC today. From his best students, a group of four ladies began performing as the Hubbard Street Dance Company at senior centers in 1977. A year later Conte choreographed The 40s, a work which became the HSDC's signature dance.

In The 40s, dancers showed off the work featuring great agility, strong musicality, and an exciting projection. An original company member, Claire Bataille, began choreographing with Lou Conte in 1979. The company grew steadily, giving its first downtown performance in 1981.

After 1982, Conte began to add works by choreographers like Lynne Taylor-Corbett, Margo Sappington, Daniel Ezralow, Bob Fosse, and, most recently, Nacho Duato. The troupe first went abroad in 1983, to Paris. A partnership with Twyla Tharp in the 1990s helped expand the company's repertoire.

With the acquisition of adding six of Tharp's works and commissioning an original work for the company, the company's popularity gained momentum. Around this time, Lou Conte Dance Studio began to include European choreographers Jiri Kylian and Nacho Duato.

These long-term relationships, along with the selection of Jim Vincent as the company's new artistic director, helped determine the company's future direction. In 1992, Conte altered the company name to 'Hubbard Street Dance Chicago' to reflect its close ties with Chicago.

Artistic Director Jim Vincent continued to develop Hubbard Street Dance Chicago's strengths and increase the company's popularity. The company's 22 dancers are notable for a versatility and flexibility. Their work allows HSDC to perform a varied repertoire and serve as a living archive for choreographic works by international choreographers.

Today Hubbard Street Dance Chicago has become an ideal platform for new dance works by new choreographers. The company develops to work new ties, choreographers and collaborates with artists in music, visual arts and theater.

Hubbard Street Dance features an array of dance performances. Set to the jazz piano music of Willie Smith is a performance called Lion. This work sets its dancers intoxicatingly crossing and re-crossing the floor of what soon feels like a 1920s ballroom. Tharpian ripples passing up and down the dancer's bodies will never even let you blink your eye.

The phrasing looks more spontaneous and the Hubbard Street Dancers are strong and efficient. In 2007, The New York Times hailed Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, 'One of America's foremost modern-dance repertory companies, putting on display the dances of a range of choreographers'.

Today HSDC is critically acclaimed for its exuberant, athletic and innovative repertoire, featuring dancers who display unparalleled versatility and virtuosity that inspire, challenge and engage audiences worldwide. Being Chicago's foremost contemporary dance company, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago proudly serves as an emblem of the city's international cultural profile.

HSDC continues to produce bold and passionate performances for Chicago, national and international audiences. Changing and evolving performances while maintaining the highest artistic standards together make HSDC one of the only American dance companies to operate year-round.

Besides performing works unmatched in artistic excellence by world-renowned choreographers, the HSDC has partnered with several schools in Chicago as part of their effort to outreach to the community of Chicago.

Presently, it is offering both in class and after school programs to students and provides classes for teachers on how to incorporate dance into their classroom. Under the generous support of the National Endowment for the Arts, HSDC works with an average of 25 schools each year.