Jump Rhythm Jazz Project to premiere five works

Opening its 23rd season, Chicago-based Jump Rhythm Jazz Project will be presenting four performances on Nov. 8-11 featuring five premieres.

Of the premieres, three will be presented by artistic director Billy Siegenfeld, who was named Dance Chicago’s “2011 Choreographer of the Year.”

Co-produced by Dance Chicago, the show’s premieres include: My Undecided Shadow, choreography and text by Jeff Hancock;
Maybe? No. Yes!, choreography by Kevin Durnbaugh;
and Billy Siegenfeld’s Why Gershwin?, There Never Was A War That Was Not Inward and The Sumptuous Screech of Simplicity.

The show will conclude with the company’s audience-rocking tribal celebration, god of dirt.

Jump Rhythm uses a rhythm-generated technique in performance that focuses on the expression of percussive energy rather than on the perfecting of codified shapes.

To produce this percussive-rhythmic energy, dancers emphasize articulating the body’s “primary drumbeaters” – the hands, the head and the voice. These rhythm-makers are both primary articulators of energy and the primary communicators of feeling and purpose in human behavior.

For tickets visit www.stage773.com/tickets. The show runs Nov. 8-10 at 8 p.m. and Nov. 11 at 3 p.m. at Stage 773.