Thodos Dance Chicago Presents Premiere of SONO'S JOURNEY 1/9

Dance Chicago Founder and Artistic Director Melissa Thodos revealed today details about the company's 2015-16 season.
Already announced is Sono's Journey, Thodos Dance Chicago's next world premiere, contemporary dance story, debuting January 9, 2016 at 7:30 p.m. at Chicago's Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University. Tickets are $28-$68. To purchase, visit AuditoriumTheatre.org, call (312) 341-2300 or buy in-person at Auditorium Theatre's Box Office, 50 E Congress Pkwy. Discounted tickets for groups of 10 or more are available at (312) 341-2300 or sales@auditoriumtheatre.org.
Created and choreographed by Melissa Thodos, Sono's Journey is a full company work that artistically reflects the life of acclaimed dancer Sono Osato's incredible journey from her roots as a young Japanese-American girl in Chicago, to her defining audition on the Auditorium Theatre stage that launched her international dance career at age 14, to her experience as a Japanese-American performer at a time of war and prejudice, to her position today as one of the most influential, barrier-braking artists ever in American dance.
Click the image above or here to screen a short video introducing Sono's Journey.
Thodos Dance's return to the Auditorium after its triumphant, sold-out debut there last season is part of the Auditorium Theatre's "Made in Chicago" Dance Series. The second act will showcase TDC audience favorites Near Light (Melissa Thodos, choreographer), Memoirs (Garfield Lemonius, choreographer) and All You Need Is (by Thodos alum Taylor Mitchell, a stand-out work at the company's 2015 New Dances series, officially joining TDC's repertoire with its Chicago company premiere at the Auditorium.)

According to Melissa Thodos, "Sono's Journey is an extraordinary and enduring story encompassing Sono Osato's life experience as a Japanese-American performer in a rapidly changing world." Sono Osato, born August 29, 1919 in Omaha, Nebraska, moved to Chicago as a young girl with her Japanese father, Shoji Osato, and Irish-French Canadian mother, Francis Fitzpatrick. Her parents recognized and cultivated her talent as a dancer, and prepared themselves and their daughter the international spotlight. In 1934, Sono's life dream career came true on the stage of Chicago's Auditorium Theatre with her life-changing audition for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo at the tender age of 14.

After her parents entrusted Sono to the world of professional dance, they became the caretakers of Jackson Park's Japanese Tea Garden and Phoenix Pavilion, a gift to the city of Chicago from Japan following the 1893 Columbian Exposition. Shoji and Francis cared for the gardens during the years leading up to World War II, from 1935 to 1941. Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, however, Shoji was taken and held in an internment camp on Chicago's south side, just as Sono had begun her starring roles on Broadway. Sono continued to grow and thrive as a dancer, while overcoming prejudice and professional limitations throughout her career because of her Japanese heritage. Today, Sono and her family are working with Thodos Dance Chicago on the development of Sono's Journey, a remembrance and metamorphosis of an era of dance in America, reflecting her experience as a Japanese-American performer at a time of war and prejudice. Additionally, a film documentary is tracking the making of Sono's Journey, including interviews with Sono and the artists involved with the work, background stories, the creative process undertaken to bring the piece to the stage, Sono's connections to Chicago, and her life story coming full circle on the stage of the Auditorium Theatre.

Chicago is the inspiration for Thodos's Chicago Revealed winter concerts, February 20 at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie, March 5 at Chicago's Harris Theater for Music and Dance Just a few weeks after its Auditorium engagement, Thodos Dance Chicago will present Chicago Revealed, an innovative evening of new and diverse works by established artists from the city's vibrant dance community, motivated by the rich, cultural landscape of the city of Chicago, and celebrating the American voice in contemporary dance. Guest choreographers include Kevin Iega Jeff, Artistic Director of Chicago's Deeply Rooted Dance Theater. Titled Red Lines/Blue Horizon, Iega's new work is an abstract reflection of conversations about Chicago, with Chicagoans from diverse and contrasting communities, set to music by Steve Reich and the all-male a capella ensemble Cantus. Jeff's creative process included traveling with TDC's dancers to four Chicago neighborhoods to spend time with its residents. The dancers transcribed their impressions of their visits, and this honed research served as a critical narrative base for Iega to develop his work with TDC's dancers.

Also on tap to debut a new work with TDC is Robyn Mineko Williams, former dancer at River North Dance Chicago, a member of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago for twelve seasons, and one of Dance Magazine's "25 to Watch" in 2014. Williams' inspiration is music in Chicago. A third work under the Chicago Revealed umbrella is by company founder and artistic director Melissa Thodos titled Thio Kosmos, or "Two Worlds" in Greek. This work will shed light on the Greek American perspective of life in our city and will include text based on interviews with members of Chicago's Greek community. Some of its choreographic and musical elements will be drawn from an earlier Greek themed work by Thodos in 2007 titled Anasa and will contain facets that reflect the history of Greece and its cyclic rise and fall over and through time.

The Chicago Revealed program will also feature Sono's Journey, the work by Melissa Thodos inspired by the incredible life of dance icon Sono Osato.

Thodos Dance's Chicago Revealed concerts are Saturday, February 20 at 7:30 p.m. at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, 9501 Skokie Blvd. in Skokie. Tickets are $28-$50. For tickets and information, call (847) 673-6300 or visit NorthShoreCenter.org. Chicago Revealed will also be presented Saturday, March 5 at 7:30 p.m. at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 E. Randolph St., Chicago. Tickets are $15-$65; 40% off for students and seniors. Purchase tickets at the Harris by calling (312) 334-7777 or visiting harristheater.org.

Immediately following the Harris concert, Thodos Dance will host a Chicago Revealed post show VIP gala. At 9:30 p.m., guests will be spirited to the Harris back stage Green Room to enjoy signature cocktails. Then everyone will ride a Chicago Revealed decorated elevator with Thodos dancers up to the glass enclosed stage of the Pritzker Pavilion. With night views of Millennium Park as a backdrop, Thodos' supporters will enjoy an open bar, hors d'oeuvres, dancing, dessert and coffee stations. Tickets are $275 or $500 and include pre-show cocktails, concert tickets, VIP seating and all of the fabulous post-concert festivities. Purchase tickets at thodosdancechicago.org or call (312) 266-6255.

Thodos Dance will also perform two Chicago-area performances of A Light in the Dark: The Story of Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan and other signature company works. The first is Saturday, February 6 at 7:30 p.m. at Moraine Valley Community College's Dorothy Menker Theater, 900 W. College Pkwy. in Palos Hills. Tickets are $20-$25. Visit thodosdancechicago.org or call (708) 974-4300 for tickets.

The second is at the McAninch Arts Center at the College of DuPage, 435 Fawell Blvd. in Glen Ellyn, on Saturday, March 19 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $40-$45. For tickets and information, visit thodosdancechicago.org or call (630) 942-4000.

Thodos Dance Chicago's always-popular New Dances series, an annual showcase of the ensemble's dancers own, self-created works and a highlight of Chicago's summer dance season, returns Saturday and Sunday, July 16 and 17.

Currently, Thodos Dance is in the middle of its fall Southern States tour, performing A Light in the Dark and company repertory in Alabama, Tennessee and Mississippi.

The tour includes several educational residencies, and a key stop this past weekend in Baton Rouge, Louisiana October 29-November 1 to participate in and perform at the Women in Dance Leadership Conference, where Thodos Dance is one of only two featured dance companies. In November, Thodos Dance is touring in Kansas and Kentucky. In January the company will tour in Florida.

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