Hubbard Street Dance Teams Up With Chicago Dancemakers Forum Awardees For 10x10 | CROSSBODY COLLABORATIONS

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago (HSDC) and Chicago Dancemakers Forum (CDF) are partnering on a special collaboration which pairs 20 artists with one another for a project dubbed "10x10| Crossbody Collaborations."

HSDC company members and dancemakers who have been previous awardees of CDF are paired for an embodied exploration, where artistic process becomes the product. Each duo identifies and experiments with new ways of creating together across dance disciplines and cultures, growing their understanding of each other as artists and discovering new insights into their individual practices along the way.

Artists were invited to identify who they wished to work with and the pairings were created based on those preferences. The project takes place in two intensive periods with careful attention paid to COVID-19 safety. Five of the duos are working together this fall, the other five will collaborate in early 2021. The initiative invites artists to bridge differences through creative process. Participants represent a broad spectrum of danced knowledge including Bharatanatyam, burlesque, contemporary, performance, West African dance, tap and more. Many have other movement languages to draw from as well, including martial arts, dance film, musicianship, etc.

"These artists are working together to learn from one another's experiences and perspectives, finding discoveries through the exchange of their diverse practices," said HSDC Associate Artistic Director Jessica Tong. "Often, a dancer specializes in a particular genre and rehearsal or performance commitments prevent them from exploring differing types of dance. This is a unique opportunity for each pair to push the boundaries of experimentation, expanding the skills they each possess, while at the same time bringing the larger Chicago dance community closer."

The pairings are as follows:

• Anjal Chande and Craig Black

• Jumaane Taylor and Adam McGaw

• Sirr Tmo Sama and Alyssa Allen

• Darling Squire and David Schultz

• Ayesha Jaco and Alysia Johnson

• Catherine Sullivan and Jacqueline Burnett

• Darrell Jones and Abdiel Figueroa Reyes

• Jenn Freeman aka Po'Chop and Elliot Hammans

• Mark Jeffrey and Kevin Shannon

• Vershawn Sanders-Ward and Andrew Murdock

For biographies of the HSDC company members, click here. For biographies of the Chicago Dancemakers awardees, click here.

Serving as Guides/Resonators for these collaborations are Meida McNeal, Arts & Culture Manager, Chicago Park District, and Tara Aisha Willis, Associate Curator of Performance, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, who will be joining each pair during their collaborative journeys to provide them with artistic feedback, strengthen connections between artists and tend to the health of their collaborations.

"We are honored to partner with Hubbard Street, which has been a longstanding Consortium Member organization for CDF, on this experimental project. The goal is for everyone involved to broaden their understanding of what dance can be in this moment," added CDF Programs and Communications Director Shawn Lent. "We are thrilled to see where these collaborations might lead. The pandemic has presented a silver lining to us where we can take the time for dancemaking artists to collaborate in depth and create an environment that is ripe for dance innovation."

The artists will document their collaborations on social media. The program can be followed using the hashtag #10x10 or #CrossbodyCollaborations on Instagram, where interested viewers can see clips and photos posted by the dancers chronicling their journeys. For more information, including the full list of pairings, visit https://www.hubbardstreetdance.com/the-hub/10x10/.