Columbia Spotlight: Upcoming Events

Brendan Fernandes, an internationally recognized Canadian artist working at the intersection of dance and visual arts, will give a lecture at Columbia College Chicago on December 4. Photo by Michael Salisbury from "The Many Identities of Brendan Fernandes," published in Nuvo magazine. The Dance Center’s Chicago Solo Spotlight Festival (March 13–15) highlights the art of solo performance, including renowned Chicago-based artist Nora Sharp's “Cosmic Docks.” Inspired by sci-fi futurism, Sharp's performance examines questions about queer and trans existence, aiming to chart a pathway beyond legibility. Photo by Daniel Patrick Borland.
A range of performances and experiences showcasing student and faculty artists from diverse backgrounds and disciplines.

Learn more about our performance spaces at www.colum.edu/spotlight

Ongoing Events

Cecilia Beaven: Flickering Cocoon
On display through June 1
Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 S. Cornell Avenue
Admission: Free
In “Flickering Cocoon,” artist and Columbia faculty member Cecilia Beaven creates a vibrant sanctuary where spirituality and physicality intertwine. Influenced by her Mexican heritage, her work explores life, death, and transformation with neon-hued imagery of animals, plants, and female forms, playfully embracing the cycle of life. Blending traditional illustration with modern murals, textiles, and sculpture, Beaven brings Mesoamerican myths to life and reinterprets Cipactli, a mythical crocodile, as a powerful symbol of creation.

February 2025

B-Series Festival: B-yond Borders 
February 27-March 1
The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, 1306 S. Michigan Ave.    
Admission: TBA 
Celebrate the kinships and global impact of Afrodiasporic street and social dances at B-yond Borders, co-curated by Daniel “BRAVEMONK” Haywood and Kelsa “K-Soul” Rieger-Haywood. This dynamic festival brings together guest artists, students, and community members for workshops, conversations, film screenings, and a dance jam featuring performances and battles. Highlights include Afro Dance pioneer Sarah Olaniran (Sayrah Chips) and influential local, regional, and student artists. 

“Meanwhile” Film Screening and Director Q&A
February 24, 6:30 p.m.
Film Row Cinema, 1104 S. Wabash Ave.  
Admission: Free  
Columbia will host the first Chicago-area screening of “Meanwhile,” a thought-provoking documentary by Catherine Gund. The film weaves dance, music, and visual art together to reflect on collective action and resilience in uncertain times. 

Jonathan McReynolds Residency Concert 
February 28, 7 p.m. 
Columbia College Chicago Music Center Concert Hall, 1014 S. Michigan Ave. 
Admission: $20 public; $5 Columbia College Chicago students 
Chicago-born Christian music artist McReynolds is known for his soulful voice and inspirational lyrics. He's collaborated with artists like Stevie Wonder and Justin Bieber and is a faculty member at Columbia College Chicago. 

March 2025

You on the Moors Now
March 5-7, 7:30 p.m.; March 8, 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.; March 12, 7:30 p.m., March 13, 7:30 p.m. (ASL-interpreted performance) March 14, 7:30 p.m.; March 15, 2 p.m. 
Columbia College Chicago Getz Theatre Center, Sheldon Patinkin Theatre, 72 E. 11th St. 
Admission: TBA
Four literary heroines of the nineteenth century set conventionalism ablaze when they turn down marriage proposals from their equally famous gentlemen callers. What results is a confluence of love, anger, grief, and bloodshed, as the ensemble struggles to reconcile romantic ideologies of the past with their modern ideas of courtship. Everything you’ve learned about love from the pages of Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, and Little Women is turned upside down in this grand theatrical battle royale.

Efroymson Creative Writing Reading Series: Alumni Reading featuring Lor Clincy and Jeff Hoffmann
March 12, 5:30-7 p.m. and online  
Admission: Free 
Columbia College Chicago Conaway Center, 1104 S. Wabash, first floor 
Lor Clincy is a Chicago-based poet and Columbia College Chicago MFA candidate who explores deep, personal experiences in her work, often addressing grief, loss, and the complexities of identity as a Black woman. Her poetry reflects on her upbringing and African American experiences, requiring readers to engage with perspectives outside the norm. Jeff Hoffmann’s debut novel “Other People’s Children” was published by Simon & Schuster in 2021. His second novel, “Like It Never Happened,” is set to be released in March 2024. He has received the Madison Review’s Chris O’Malley Prize in Fiction and was a finalist for the Missouri Review’s Jeffrey E. Smith Editor’s Prize. 

The Chicago Solo Spotlight Festival
March 13-15, 7:30 p.m.
Admission: Festival Pass: $50; single tickets: $30 (public), $10 (non-Columbia students), free for Columbia students 
The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, 1306 S. Michigan Ave.    
The Chicago Solo Spotlight Festival celebrates the transformative power of solo performance with two world premieres by acclaimed Chicago artists Jenn Freeman | Po’Chop and Nora Sharp. This series explores the evolving solo form through intimate storytelling, multimedia artistry, and experimental dance, featuring Freeman’s exploration of Black women’s history and agency in “THICK: a crumbling freak show” and Sharp’s sci-fi-inspired “Cosmic Docks”, a journey through queer identity and personal history. 

April 2025

Spring Forward: Student Performance Night  
Apr. 10-11, 7:30 p.m. 
Admission: Free with RSVP
The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, 1306 S. Michigan Ave.    
Tap into the energetic lift of early spring harnessed through the soaring creativity of student choreographers collaborating with Theater lighting designers on original, brand new, short works. 

Allium Release Party
April 17, 3:30 p.m.  
Admission: Free 
Columbia College Chicago Conaway Center, 1104 S. Wabash, first floor 
 “Allium, A Journal of Poetry & Prose” is a multi-genre print and online journal published by Columbia College Chicago’s School of Communication and Culture. Three issues are published yearly: two digital issues in the Fall and Summer and one print issue in the Spring. This event will feature Columbia faculty member, writer, and poet Lisa Fishman, plus contributors from the Spring 2025 issue. 

Red Clay Dance Company Presents “16”  
April 17-19, 7:30 p.m. 
The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, 1306 S. Michigan Ave.    
Admission: $20 public; free for Columbia students  
Red Clay Dance Company makes their highly anticipated return to the Dance Center stage with a work by legendary, award-winning choreographer Bebe Miller alongside Artistic Director, Columbia alum, and inaugural Walder Platform awardee Vershawn Sanders-Ward’s re-staging of “Written on the Flesh.”

May 2025

RENT
May 1, 7:30 p.m.; May 2, 7:30 p.m.; May 3, 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.; May 7, 7:30 p.m.; May 8, 7:30 p.m. (ASL-interpreted performance) May 9, 7:30 p.m.; May 10, 2 p.m. 
Columbia College Chicago Getz Theatre Center, Courtyard Theatre, 72 E. 11th St.  
Admission: TBA
“RENT” follows a year in the life of a group of impoverished young artists and musicians struggling to survive and create in New York's Lower East Side, under the shadow of HIV/AIDS.

DELVE: Faculty & Alumni Concert 
May 8-9, 7:30 p.m.  
The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, 1306 S. Michigan Ave. 
Admission: $15 public, free for Columbia students 
The Dance Center’s renowned professional dance faculty and alumni choreograph new works performed by students. 

WITH INCANDESCENCE: BFA Capstone Concert  
May 15-16,  7:30 p.m.  
The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, 1306 S. Michigan Ave. 
Admission: Free with RSVP 
The Dance Center’s Season 51 culminates with the graduating class of Dance BFAs Elizabeth Abel, Kayla Hansen, Konnie Kakridas, Aly Owens, and Rhianna Young’s original works drawing upon their years of study and practice. 

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