COMMON featured in the Chicago Reader!
“Building COMMON Ground”
by Nora Paul
“During the second iteration of COMMON canvas, bodies circled around a center point: a pile of clothes in an upstage corner. For a moment, the pile of clothes moved, as if to take a breath, and the bodies around it held still. The performance, which Chicago dance artist and current Hubbard Street member Alysia L. Johnson created in collaboration with students of COMMON Conservatory, was built in a day.
COMMON canvas is a newer feature of COMMON Conservatory, which Terence (Terry) Marling founded in 2018. Since its first performance in 2021, the canvas series has brought members of the Chicago artistic community together to create an improvisation-based piece with the Conservatory over the course of a day, serving the organization’s mission to nurture the dance community artistically and through pursuing financial equity. The product of the day’s rehearsal is a ticketed event held at the Drucker Center (1535 North Dayton), and seats often sell out. The ticket revenue is split evenly amongst the dancers.”
Terence Marling, founder of COMMON Credit: Joseph A. Hernandez