Best Dance Company, Reader's Choice: Hubbard Street Dance Chicago (performing Cerrudo’s Extremely Close)

Rosalie O'Connor

Reader’s Choice

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago

Artistic vision, which is not the same thing as choreographic vision, means thinking about what will have popular as well as artistic appeal. The rest—including top-notch dancers—follows after. Hubbard Street started out as small potatoes 30 years ago, and founder Lou Conte made money the hard way: by producing dance that general audiences would pay to see. Early on the choreography was sometimes far from astounding, but under Conte’s leadership it was well danced. And in the decade before he retired, in 2000, the company could afford to bring in choreographers with deserved international reputations, among them Twyla Tharp, Jiri Kylian, and Nacho Duato. Current artistic director Jim Vincent has reinforced Conte’s vision, and Chicagoans are the winners.

The Joffrey is obviously a contender for Chicago’s best company, but its 50-year-old concept of a uniquely American ballet has needed refurbishing. Promisingly, new artistic director Ashley Wheater dug up a largely unknown masterwork by Twyla Tharp, Waterbaby Bagatelles, for May’s American Moderns program. Best up-and-comer is nine-year-old Luna Negra Dance Theater, led by Eduardo Vilaro, whose savvy choices and risks have paid off in increasingly sophisticated Latin- inflected work.  Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, 312-850-9744, hubbardstreetdance.com. —Laura Molzahn

Readers’ Choice

Matter Dance Company

Next show: With a Twist, 9/11-14, Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 2 PM, Viaduct Theater, 3111 N. Western, 773-281-3140, matterdance.com.

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