Another Summer Kick-Off: SummerDance
By Alexander Hough in Arts & Entertainment on Jun 11, 2009 7:20PM
Chicago SummerDance begins its 13th season this evening in the Spirit of Music Garden in Grant Park.
The free events, which take place every Thursday through Sunday until August 23, start at 6:00 p.m. with an hour dance lesson by a professional instructor. For the next two hours, a live band performs music to accompany that week's style so you can utilize what you just learned, assuming you were paying attention, of course. Otherwise, you can just dance in the same embarrassing way you normally do.
The dance styles vary widely, although they broadly fall into three camps: swing, Latin, and other random folk dances (a few examples of other cultures featured this summer are Balkan, Ghanaian, Punjabi, and Hungarian). This weekend's lineup includes flamenco rumba tonight, swing on Friday, Cajun two-step and waltz on Saturday, and jive on Sunday.
And lest your feet become disproportionately happy in comparison to your ears, an under-the-radar boon of SummerDance is the equally wide variety of musicians brought in, particularly in the breadth of world music on display.
The dance floor is also worth mentioning. "Chicago Ground Cover," by Chicago artist Dan Peterman, is made entirely of recycled plastic from milk cartons. The floor, now 4,600 square feet, has been expanded twice from it's original size of 2,500 square feet.
If you find Thursdays through Sundays no good or the Grant Park location inconvenient, there are still options. For the third year, SummerDance is bringing the dance parties to outposts in Avondale, Humboldt Park, Jackson Park, Washington Park, and Navy Pier (the events there, of course, will culminate in fireworks). The satellite events will take place every Wednesday through September 2 (with the exceptions of June 24 and August 26).
The SummerDance website has a schedule here, but since it's connected to the City of Chicago website system, it, like its parent site, is unwieldy and unclear. Oh, and, also, it doesn't contain all the SummerDance events. Ah, Chicago, you frustrating son of a bitch.
Spirit of Music Garden in Grant Park, 601 S. Michigan, dance lesson at 6:00 p.m., music and dancing at 7:30 p.m., FREE
Satellite locations: Athletic Field Park at 3546 W. Addison, Humboldt Park Boathouse at 1359 N. Sacramento, Jackson Park 63rd Street Beach at 6300 S. Lake Shore, Washington Park at 5531 S. Dr. MLK, and Navy Pier Beer Garden at 600 E. Grand, ALL FREE