More About Same Planet Different World Dance Theatre:

Since 2009, SPDW has made significant strides in engaging a national market and building credibility among presenters in Chicago and in communities throughout the United States.  A recipient of an A.W.A.R.D. Show! Chicago grant in 2010, SPDW has been presented locally by the Dance Center of Columbia College, and has toured extensively with residency work at the University of Iowa, Alma College, Illinois State University, The University of Minnesota, St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire, College of Du Page; and offered performances at the Joyce Soho and Wave Rising Festival in New York City, Spring to Dance –Dance St. Louis, The University of Minnesota’s Rarig Center. The company is a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation International Connections Fund, supporting a tour to Israel.  SPDW is a member of Pentacle’s Artist Gallery.

During its fifteen-year history, SPDW has cultivated a community of artists both locally and nationally that embody its mission to be inclusive of local talent in its exchanges with national artists it brings to Chicago.  SPDW has been actively cultivating and building a reputation as an educational and experiential resource for the professional and professional-in-training dance community in Chicago. 

To that end, SPDW Dance Theatre is responsible for the Guest Artists Project, a program that commissions national artists to conduct workshops and set new work on the company, and the High School Performance Company.  In addition, since 2007, the company has offered open company classes to the community at Links Hall and Visceral Dance Center.  SPDW is part of Urban Gateway’s Touring Roster.

Mission:

Same Planet Different World Dance Theatre is a contemporary-based repertory company that presents the work of its Artistic Director and other choreographers, both established and emerging. The Company strives to present choreography that can support a humanistic voice while remaining in the physical world where dance is the primary ingredient; using the full moving body for expression. The Company maintains an ever-evolving body of work that is driven by theatricality, athleticism, tenacity and accessibility for its audience.

Pieces that SPDW is working on while in residence at Old Town School of Folk Music:

Stripped

Premiering February 26-March 1 at Links Hall

Stripped is a dance that explores how technology can affect the lived (social) experience. Stripped creates environments that vacillate between past, present and future and reminds us of what is at stake when the pervasive use of technological objects replace human connection. The absence of technology within the work cleverly illuminates its ubiquitous presence in our everyday lives.

New work: Untitled

SPDW will begin a new work exploring how choreographic structure tells its own story. That may seem like a transparent statement; don’t all dances deal with structure? Yes, of course. We will play with structural construction; how things come together, pulled apart, spliced, wrecked and rebuilt to create a structural narrative. 

The company will create a half-evening duet using 5 dancers by creating a dance with a modular construction. SPDW will look to other examples of things devised modularly. We believe that working within a duet form within a modular framework will challenge how we consider structure or conversely, throw structure to the wind.