With Gratitude

Dear Dance COLEctive Enthusiasts,

The Dance COLEctive is wrapping up an excellent year of visible and diverse performance opportunities throughout the city of Chicago and beyond. We had the pleasure of performing at the Elgin Ties Dance Festival, the Pivot Arts Festival, and the Peep Show at Links Hall. Through our self produced concert Holding Ground, we produced dancer Madelyn Doyle's work for the first time, and we launched our very first Live Streaming Performance.  There were separate 209 devices, at least 400 TDC fans from around the country that hosted viewing parties and watched the show.

You can see our 2014 Year End Video here.

You can also see what the Chicago Tribune said here.
 
Almost 19 years ago I founded The Dance COLEctive as a means for my friends and I to produce and showcase our work. Today it is much more than that. Often seeking out new collaborations, we joined photographer Eric Olson in the studio with the idea of creating “piles” and intimate moving “portraits”.  You can see what a successful collaboration this was by viewing these images in our gallery.  

Photo by Eric Olson

 Artistically, I have been very fortunate this year. I mentored choreographers through the Thodos New Dances program, performed at the Going Dutch Festival, taught around the country, created work for Columbia College students, and studied dancemaking with master choreographer Joe Goode.  I continued to perform in a new dance/theater work with independent choreographer Peter Carpenter and was also acknowledged as a Woman of Inspiration by Today’s Chicago Woman.

Many good things are coming up for us this year, including my choreographic collaboration with Peter Carpenter, Rituals of Abundance for Lean Times #14: Curious Reinventions. We have every intention of sharing this with you through another live streaming performance. Fingers crossed!

Photo by William Frederking

Currently the company is comprised of 7 thoughtful and sophisticated young women (you can read some of the writing about their experiences here) who are helping me to fulfill my desire to mentor while also actively creating new work. Their dedication and remarkable growth as artists inspires and energizes me to keep finding ways to create performance and mentorship opportunities and to continue adapting to an ever changing landscape. The current national and local economic and political environments continue to pose serious challenges to TDC's future. Disappearing resources on the the state and city level, as well as more limited support from local foundations, continues to impact TDC's ability to support itself and its artists. This is why we need you more than ever. Many of you have been collaborators, students and mentors. Many of you are family, friends, peers, acquaintances, board members and audience members. You have personally witnessed my passion for dance and the power of a positive experience!

Please consider making a year-end donation to TDC.  In supporting us, you are not only making a financial contribution, you are investing in the continued growth of our artists. In addition, you will help us to create new and innovative dance and find more ways to share it with you.

To make a donation, simply go to our website or you can send a check to our snail mail address below.
You can also support us while you are shopping on Amazon.

Thank you so much for your continued interest in the Company and have a safe and wonderful holiday!

Most Sincerely, 

The Dance COLEctive is graciously funded by The Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, The MacArthur Funds for Arts and Culture at The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation,  the Illinois Arts Council, the Arts Work Fund for Organizational Development and many generous individuals like you.  Special thanks to our season sponsors Lakeside Bank, Pacific Management Inc. and the Rivendell Foundation. 

 Submitted by TDC Artistic Director, Margi Cole, Monday, December 22, 2014

What's Next?

Photo by William Frederking

After what seemed like the longest, most dreadful, never-ending winter, The Dance COLEctive is looking forward to a couple of exciting performances. While this year has not been one testing us on our powers to prepare for performances it has been one to test us on how many layers of clothing we can don while side-stepping mega pot holes on our way to rehearsal Tuesday and Thursday nights. All said, the upcoming month should prove to be a special one as we comb the vaults for video to re-create  "13", a comical and equal parts gut wrenching and heart warming look into the lives of thirteen year olds. One of my favorite TDC pieces to perform, it also happens to be a crowd pleaser and getting to dig back into our characters in the piece will be like trying on a familiar comfy sweater.

For the love of Brooke.... to call up my character (a fashion faux-pas, crowd hovering, wedge picking young lady of 13) takes a whole different level of awkward exploration. She is mildly clued in to her un-coolness, but despite many efforts cannot seem to crack the social acceptance code. To her credit she wears her personality on her sleeve and holds her chin high, literally. While it is easy to find comedy in all that Brooke is on stage, it is mildly heart breaking to know that she is inspired by real events and experiences, mostly mine. Don't feel too sorry for Brooke she might bump and clatter through puberty but her resilience will prove to be her strongest quality, and know there are Brookes everywhere, even within you.

After recently spending sometime working with the wonderful Peter Carpenter on our skills to better vocalize while moving we head into these performance projects armed with tools to dive deeper into the text that already colors "13". As always it is my hope that we take the material and performance to a new level finding more meaning within the sub-text and connecting with a new audience who has yet to experience this piece.  Hope to see your at our next performance at the Elgin Ties Dance Festival on April 25 at 7:30pm. 

Submitted by TDC company member Olivia May on Sunday, March 31, 2014.

Thank goodness I don't have to wear a skirt!

As the artistic director of The Dance COLEctive I think it is so important for me to be active as a performer having to engage with others in their creative process and to work in this way with my peers.  As Margi Cole the dancer, I crave the opportunity to be inside of a work with others, discovering new creative juices, to be questioned, to be challenged and to experience the fear and joy of performing in someone else's work. Work that I am not producing but that I have the simple pleasure of participating in. Normally, I bring someone to us or me, to work with under the umbrella of TDC.  As the company has gotten older these opportunities have been fewer. But you never know what can happen from a random casual conversation about someone's upcoming project, sharing admiration for their work and the simple inquiry of when auditions are being held.  (Yes, that really happened!)

I have been so lucky to have been working with choreographer Peter Carpenter for the last several months.  He has put together a pretty cool quartet comprised if himself (Welcome to the gunshow!), Lisa Gonzales (whose beauty and generosity as a person spills into the studio and her artistry) and Matthew McMunn (poor Matthew...Having once been one of my students he has had to endure all my teasing but, he has more then earned my respect as a dance partner, collaborator and artist) and little ole me.  Pete's process has been rich with fun, discovery, SPARKS of curiosity, sheer physicality, and lots of heavy breathing.  I am happy to report that I have lines to remember, gained some new skills with a fancy tape dispenser, have bodies to move through space, a sassy costume to wear designed by Jeff Hancock and an enormous amount of gratitude for this opportunity.

You can see a teaser here.  Go ahead... Click on it!

Pete is sharing the bill with Same Planet Different World October 10-12 at the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago.  Pete is a sophisticated and thoughtful dancemaker and I am so proud to be part of this work!  I hope you will be able to come to the show. 

Submitted by TDC Artistic Director Margi Cole on October 2, 2013.

Dancing backwards...

Musings from the Artistic Director

It is September.  Summer is coming to a close and The Dance COLEctive is about to embark on the beginnings of it's 18th season...  What????? 

Where does the time go?  I mean that about 18 years worth of TDC as well as summer.  Generally I spend the bulk of my summer teaching here and there and I am grateful that I had the opportunity to do so in various different places this summer!  Cincinnati, OH; Birmingham and Gadsden, AL; Springfield, IL; our own workshop here in Chicago and, a major highlight, at the American Dance Festival in Durham, NC.  I have also been a "dancer" much of the summer in the studio with choreographer Peter Carpenter and fellow dancers Lisa Gonzales and Matthew McMunn.  This has been joyous for me mentally, spiritually and artistically.  I can't wait to perform in October at the Dance Center.  Admittedly I had a giant to do list and I did not get to all of it!  Costumes to organize, things to file, grants to write, Linked In pages to update and the list goes on.  Cleaning my office will just have to wait another day...

One of my big challenges generally is creating personal time for myself without feeling guilty about it while the things on my to do list go unchecked.  I did manage to spend a little time with family and friends. Went to the beach in Florida. Completed my Advanced Open Water Dive Certification and ended up seeing sharks in the process.  (No joke!)  I appreciated the beauty and water of Lake Michigan by boat.  Read all the Hunger Games books.  Celebrated an important birthday with a dear friend, welcomed new babies into the world and have been mourning the loss of a friend and mentor Dr. Woodie T. White who served on the TDC board for many years.  I have been in a whirlwind. 

I guess I am sharing all this with you because summer is generally, dare I say it, a time for ME.  It allows me to reflect, replenish, nourish, challenge, be a student, be a teacher and remind myself that I am simply human.  NOT super human, which is what I would like to be!  And everything I do for ME enables ME to gather my forces and jump headlong into yet another season, the 18th season of The Dance COLEctive!  I am excited about the artists I am working with, eager to get back into the studio, open to change, to experimentation and looking forward while I am dancing backwards.

Submitted by TDC Artistic Director Margi Cole, Monday, September 3, 2013.