Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble announces 2025-2026 Season

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CHICAGO DANZTHEATRE ENSEMBLE ANNOUNCES ITS 

2025 - 2026 SEASON  

Whisper Theatre's Well Balanced Dads courtesy of Whisper Theatre 

performing in the Full Circle Festival

Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble (CDE) is pleased to announce its 2025 - 2026 season. CDE will open this season with LUMINOSITY, Aug. 1-2, followed by a reimagined “Full Circle Festival,” Sept. 19-28, featuring local artists participating in a classic fringe-style festival. The Artists’ Residency, Body Passages, returns to CDE from Nov. 14-15, as well as the New Plays Program and Next Stage Development. In addition, CDE announces Davon Suttles as its new assistant artistic director. The season will conclude with a new work by Ellyzabeth Adler, "Architecture of Memory” May 8-23.

Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble’s youth programming, in partnership with FACETS, includes the Annual Family Days of films and forums at FACETS, 1517 W. Fullerton Ave., Sunday, Oct. 19 and Sunday, Dec. 7.

All performances and special events take place at Chicago Danztheatre, 1650 W. Foster Avenue. For additional information on this upcoming season and to purchase tickets visit DanzTheatre.org.

“Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble is excited to announce its 2025 - 2026 season and share some positive administrative news that will not only help sustain CDE but also support the vibrant visual and performing arts community,” said Executive Director Ellyzabeth Adler. “Last year, we relaunched our artist residency program, Body Passages, which not only included performing artists but also expanded to include visual art with the addition of our new art studios. We received a grant from the Bayless Family Foundation for a new dance floor for the auditorium, as well as for our new rehearsal space, The Loft. We have expanded our rehearsal and performance subsidies rentals program, thanks to a grant from the Driehaus Foundation.  We launched our first playwright cohort with nine artists, and now, we are ready to expand and sustain to carry us into our 25th year.” 

The 2025 - 2026 Artistic Season Includes:

LUMINOSITY - Dance, Theater, Visual Art

August 1 - 2

Performance Schedule: Friday, August 1 and Saturday, August 2 at 7:30, 8:30 and 9:30 p.m.

Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble Auditorium, 1650 W Foster Ave

Humanitix.com

Tickets: $25

LUMINOSITY showcases international and local artists exploring the fluid intersections of culture, imagination and personal mythology through an art exhibition, film and performance, featuring 25 Chicago and International Artists. This is a part of a larger symposium with the artists' collective “Oceans Between” that will also be featured at the Oliva Gallery in Logan Square.

Full Circle Festival

September 19 - 28

Performance Schedule: TBA

Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble Auditorium, 1650 W Foster Ave

Tickets: TBA

Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble has reimagined its Full Circle Festival, featuring physical, fringe, and dance theater works between 30 and 60 minutes in length. About the festival, for eight years, CDE has produced this eclectic festival for works under 15 minutes. Since reopening three years ago after being closed due to the pandemic, we have been responding to the needs of the performance community even more, and have found that there is a need to present longer works. We are co-producing this event with Whispering Theatre Collective (Britt Anderson and Richie Schiraldi. This year’s lineup will feature: REDANCE, Ramona Rotten, Whispering Theatre Collective, Michelle Stine, CIRCA-Pintig, HGBIC Productions, Emma Jean Eastling and Broken Planet.

Body Passages Artists Residency

November 14 - 15

Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble’s Body Passages residency offers dance, theater, and visual artists the opportunity to explore, collaborate and create, while expanding their artistic practices.  The Artists will create collaboratively and/or separately over four months, with 30 hours of rehearsal and/or studio space. Artists will present their work at the Body Passages Performance and Exhibition on November 14 and 15.

New Plays Program

Sunday, February 22 at 2:00 p.m.

Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble is very excited to launch the second year of this program for playwrights! We will select four playwrights to write a new 10-minute play or 10 pages of a new play that will feature up to four actors around the theme and inspired by the "red string."

“An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place, and circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle. But it will never break.” – Ancient Chinese Proverb

Drawing inspiration from the “Red String” theory, we will explore what connects people, artists, and communities in their creative endeavors. Going beyond the original “soulmate” concept, we will explore how people connect.

Timothy Rey, Artistic Associate and playwright of the Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble, will facilitate the cohort. CDE hopes to have one or two of the plays move to our Next Stage Play Development program.

Next Stage Play Development

DATE:TBD

Chosen from our first playwrighting cohort, Sara Hensley and Keely Jones, have been selected for our new “Next Stage Play Development,” and its goal is to have a directed reading of a new work out loud so that they can move it to the next stage.  This residency encourages the playwright to take ownership, collaborate with others and stay on a timeline to meet deadlines.

Poetry In Beats

April 2025

To celebrate CDE's 25th anniversary, we are hosting a one-night-only performance featuring poetry and music on stage.  Ellyzabeth Adler, at the age of 26, wanted to do a creative project. It was a physical theater adaptation of “The Wasteland” and a workshop version of it debuted on April 20, 2001. T.S. Eliot may inspire some new work! 

Architecture Of Memory

May 8-23

Architecture of Memory is a new, original Danztheatre work by founder Ellyzabeth Adler, exploring perseverance, hope, and self-discovery. Told through film, dance, theater, and original music, this visceral and immersive performance experience aims to showcase the beauty of overcoming obstacles in life and creating a new sense of self. Adler is teaming up with Digital Tapestries to create new films that will be integrated into the performance, and this will be her first full-length work since 2017.

New Assistant Artistic Director

Davon Suttles has been named the new assistant artistic director for the organization. They have been working with CDE since 2021 as teaching artists and, since 2024, have been managing CDE’s social media. Suttles was a Body Passages artist this past year and is a member of M.A.D.D. Rhythms.  

ABOUT CHICAGO DANZTHEATRE ENSEMBLE

Founded in 2001, Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble (CDE) is Chicago’s only multidisciplinary arts organization dedicated to social justice and socially conscious work that builds community through the arts “one voice, one story, one person at a time.” CDE’s mission is to engage, inspire, and challenge the community, both onstage and in the classroom, through innovative and collaborative multidisciplinary storytelling to illuminate aspects of social issues. We do this in the genre of Tanztheatre, "which unites all art media to achieve an all-embracing, radical change in humankind.” Through our school-based art and performance programs, CDE helps students in Chicago schools explore their own creativity, supporting their social and emotional learning. CDE provides a physical and emotional space where community conversation and cultural change can happen.

For our performance series, CDE is dedicated to creating performances that blend together dance, theatre and visual art to tell stories about the human condition. We give an artistic voice to those who are not always heard.

Dedicated since our founding to diverse casting of age, body type and ethnicity

Consistently listed as a “Top Theater and Dance Performance to See” by New City and Chicago Reader

Unique collaborations with the Veterans Art Museum, Poetry Center Chicago, Cantigny Museum, Neighborhood Writing Alliance, Voice of the City and numerous dance and theater companies

MacArthur Award Grantee for International Collaborations.  

Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble is supported by The Illinois Arts Council, a state agency; Bayless Family Foundation, The Saints Foundation,The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, The Gaylord & Dorothy Donnelley Foundation; Innovation 80; Farny Wurlitzer Foundation; Mardi Gras Fund and the annual support of individual donors.