DANCE IN THE PARKS

Dance in the Parks annually creates a free, professional dance concert to be performed in outdoor, public parks in the summer. By taking theater dance out of the theater, the company aims to lower barriers to the art form by eliminating ticket prices, shrinking geographic distances to a dance event, and offering roads to future dance events in order to encourage new audiences to participate in the greater Chicago dance community.

Our concerts are always free and in neighborhood parks that are regularly used by their communities. On each concert, we showcase a local youth dance training program. We offer an additional performance opportunity for existing pieces of choreography and also draw greater attention to the immediately local opportunities for dance classes and youth performances. Youth partners are also offered the opportunity to perform in the finale dance work. Our assistant director visits participating partner studios to teach the dancers the company warm up and the finale choreography.

At the end of each performance, DIP gives away donated pairs of tickets to future dance events. Dance companies and presenters who have donated tickets include The Joffrey Ballet, The Harris Theater for Music and Dance, Visceral Dance Chicago, Chicago Dance Crash, Giordano Dance Chicago, and Chicago Repertory Ballet, among others.

Dance in the Parks has a two-prong training program aimed at giving early career dancers and young dancers of color professional experience, network building opportunities, and value-add technical skills. We aim to build dancer experience to assist their professional career, but also to create a culture of growth and encouragement that sets expectations of respect, equity, and professionalism in the industry.

We hire a collegiate/early career dancer every year to perform, understudy the rest of the show, and assist with technical aspects of performances (set-up flooring and sound system, running sound, etc). Apprentices gain professional experience by dancing/training at a professional level in a paid situation, by working closely with currently working dance artists (both dancers and choreographers) to establish networks in the professional community, and by learning value-add production skills outside the studio.

In 2022, DIP launched our intern program. Our intern is a high school aged dance student of color interested in pursuing dance in collegiate and professional spheres. The intern is paid $15/hour for rehearsal, performance, and teaching duties in addition to a $3000 tuition scholarship paid to their training institution. In our first year, our intern understudied the entire show, assisted the assistant director in Youth Partner choreography classes and managed youth partners at each park venue to make sure they were ready for the finale performance. She helped with venue set up and ran the sound system during shows. We helped her develop her resume and reel.

Dance in the Parks has an ongoing partnership with Chicago's Night Out in the Parks Initiative that brings together artists and art producers to create programming specifically for presentation in Chicago's parks in the summer months. With their support, DIP has access to park spaces, the use of the park district's portable stages, and funding for our season of performances. 2022 was our 14th season partnering with Chicago Park District, and our 10th as part of the NOITP programming. Our ongoing partnership with NOITP has been and remains the crucial partnership to our ongoing success.

The 14 seasons of performances in Chicago's parks have made DIP a summer tradition. Our longevity and recognition in the dance community aid in our requests for donated pairs of tickets to give away. Company directors and presenters know who we are and what we do and have been generous in their willingness to donate tickets to our audiences.

After 14 seasons of performing all over the city of Chicago, in addition to the teaching experience of our directors and artists, DIP has built relationships with many dance training institutions. Our ongoing relationships with those directors, and their relationships with colleagues, help us to find youth performance partners in every corner of the city.

Dance in the Parks has an ongoing partnership with Chicago's Night Out in the Parks Initiative that brings together artists and art producers to create programming specifically for presentation in Chicago's parks in the summer months. With their support, DIP has access to park spaces, the use of the park district's portable stages, and funding for our season of performances. 2022 was our 14th season partnering with Chicago Park District, and our 10th as part of the NOITP programming.

As the company produces work in the summer months, the traditional "off-season" for dancers and dance companies, we have access to so many choreographers and professional and early career dancers looking for dance work during the months we're working. The company offers dance artists the opportunity to have paid work in their field instead of only their "other jobs" for the summer. Choreographers are often excited to join DIP for a season because they can work outside their "usual" companies. We give them the opportunity to do something different with different artists, and not have to shoulder the burden of producing it themselves.

In summer 2022, Dance in the Parks
*presented 11 public performances in 10 Chicago city parks and 1 park in Evanston, IL.
*reached over 1300 audience members
*hired 6 choreographers, 6 professional dancers, 1 early-career apprentice, and 1 high school intern
* partnered with 15 youth performance partner training programs