Dancing the Archive: Embodied Histories, Collective Power

Performance Run Time: Approximately 2 hours, including intermission. Building on last year’s sold-out engagement, Chicago Black Dance Legacy Project (CBDLP) returns to the Harris stage for their annual cohort performance, featuring ten of Chicago’s most exciting companies. With diverse artistic genres including African, contemporary, jazz, tap, and many more, this performance honors Chicago’s Black cultural, social, political, and artistic architects through movement, imagination, and lineage. The program, Dancing the Archive: Embodied Histories, Collective Power, realizes a living, embodied archive — honoring Chicago’s Black cultural, social, political, and artistic architects through movement, imagination, and lineage rather than literal representation. This performance is not a catalog of biographies. It is a civic ritual — where dance carries memory, interrogates power, celebrates ingenuity, and imagines forward. Legacy is understood not as a fixed past, but as a continuum, shaped collectively across generations. Grounded in the understanding that movement holds lived experience, CBDLP approaches dance as both archive and act, uniting life, memory, and imagination. This performance features CBDLP’s third cohort: The Chicago Multicultural Dance Center and Hiplet Ballerinas Deeply Rooted Dance Theater The Era Footwork Collective Forward Momentum Chicago Joel Hall Dancers & Center M.A.D.D. Rhythms Move Me Soul Muntu Dance Theatre NAJWA Dance Corps Praize Productions Inc. About Chicago Black Dance Legacy Project The Chicago Black Dance Legacy Project (CBDLP) is a multi-year project that celebrates the historic impact of Black dance in Chicago and beyond. CBDLP brings dance companies together to learn from each other, and to leverage the resources of the University of Chicago’s Logan Center for the Arts, where the project is housed. Launched in 2019, the project has made a big impact in just a few short years. CBDLP has encouraged the development of its members, strengthening their organizational capacity through the support of university and other citywide partners, and by creating a forum for exchange. With the goal of increasing the visibility of Chicago’s rich Black dance tradition, CBDLP has presented numerous high-impact group shows at Chicago’s Navy Pier, Millennium Park, Art on the Mart, Ravinia Festival, Harris Theater, and more. The project has been featured in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Ebony, and many other publications. Currently working with its third cohort, the project aims to fortify and amplify the impact of Black dance for generations to come. The current cohort includes: The Chicago Multicultural Dance Center and Hiplet Ballerinas, Deeply Rooted Dance Theater, Forward Momentum Chicago, Joel Hall Dancers & Center, M.A.D.D. Rhythms, Move Me Soul, Muntu Dance Theatre, NAJWA Dance Corps, Praize Productions, and The Era Footwork Collective. Visit chicagoblackdancelegacy.org and follow us on Instagram and Facebook @chicagoblackdancelegacyproject for more. Chicago Black Dance Legacy Project participating organizations, events, and programs are open to all who are excited about celebrating the Black dance form. We look forward to welcoming you to experience, create, and contemplate art.