Dance for winter 2026: Our top 10 includes Joffrey, Red Clay and a visit from Martha Graham

The first part of the year was slow for dancing in Chicago. This is not the case recently. And in 2026, the cold months are full of rare appearances and new collaborations capable of inspiring a trip to the theater even in the darkest depths of winter. The Martha Graham Dance Company presents its first full evening in Chicago since 2007. In a nod to the revered choreographer’s company’s 100th season, the Joffrey Ballet tries its hand at Graham’s “Secular Games” for its winter mixed performance – a program celebrating the blurred lines between modernism and classicism. Speaking of lines, many festivals, at Steppenwolf, the Logan Center and the Harris Theater this winter and spring, are dissolving perceived boundaries between genres and forms, dance and music, creating rich and varied experiences for patrons and artists.

LookOut Series

With the demise of Links Hall, Stage 773, Hamlin Park Fieldhouse and other venues in recent years, Steppenwolf has established itself as a filler, presenting a suite of cutting-edge artists of all genres each year. Called LookOut, the series runs from January to March, including a macabre tribute to “Granddaddy of Goth” Edward Gorey, created by Jennifer “The Bunny Royale” Friedrich of Incurable and Redmoon Theater and Poonie’s Cabaret steward Bazuka Joe. In “Mudra,” Shalaka Kulkarni teams up with Yoshinojo Fujima to explore the central gestures of the Indian dance forms Bharatanatyam and Kathak. And Project Bound Dance uses meat as a metaphor for a dance about social concessions.

Jan. 15-March 14 at Steppenwolf’s 1700 Theater, 1700 N. Halsted St.; tickets between $23 and $43 at 312-335-1650 and steppenwolf.org/lookout

Martha Graham Dance Company

The nation’s oldest modern dance company hasn’t actually visited Chicago in two decades. A program for that, the Martha Graham Dance Company’s centennial season, includes two classic works by Graham — “Diversion of Angels” and “Chronicle” — and one by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater alumna Hope Boykin, two degrees of separation from Graham, widely considered one of modern dance’s legendary matriarchs. Boykin presents the Midwest premiere of “En Masse,” a play based on Chris Rountree’s adaptation of Leonard Bernstein’s “MASS,” as well as a recently discovered theme believed to have been composed by Bernstein for Graham, but which has not been used until now.

Jan. 24 at the Auditorium Theater, 50 E. Ida B. Wells Drive; tickets from $35 to $195 at 312-341-2300 and auditoriumtheatre.org

Gallim Dance

In a roundabout way, choreographer and artistic director Andrea Miller of Gallim Dance is also connected to Martha Graham, through her time dancing for Graham alumnus Ohad Naharin with Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company. Miller founded his New York-based company in 2007, at a time of deep questioning about the future of contemporary dance as the next generation of choreographers sought to distinguish themselves from their elders. Gallim, visiting Chicago for the first time in more than a decade, basically said, “Hold me some beer,” creating physically and intellectually rigorous — and downright beautiful — works.

Feb. 5 at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 E. Randolph St.; tickets between $40 and $172 at 312-334-7777 and harrisheaterchicago.org/gallim

The “American icons” of the Joffrey Ballet

The addition of Martha Graham’s “Secular Games” to Joffrey’s usual winter mixed repertory program was a novelty I didn’t see coming, paired with pieces by the company’s two founders, Gerald Arpino and Robert Joffrey, as well as Glen Tetley, one of Joffrey’s original dancers. The latter created “Voluntaries” in 1973 in homage to the choreographer John Cranko, whom he succeeded as director of the Stuttgart Ballet the following year – in a style mixing modernism and classicism, resulting from his joint training experiences at George Balanchine’s School of American Ballet and with Graham and Hanya Holm, another of the progenitors of modern dance. Joffrey and Aprino were also greatly inspired by their innovative contemporaries. So it turns out it’s not so strange that Joffrey, who turns 70 this year, is adopting Graham, whose business is now 100 years old.

Feb. 19 to March 1 at the Lyric Opera House, 20 N. Wacker Drive; tickets $46-201 at 312-386-9805 and joffrey.org

Hubbard Street Winter Series

Amy Hall Garner was one of the very first choreographers commissioned by Hubbard Street Dance Chicago following a change in leadership and a pandemic pause in live performances. The richly saturated and aesthetically satisfying “As the Wind Blows” returns this season alongside the premiere of Juel D. Lane’s “Touch & Agree,” on a mixtape from Sam Cooke, James Blake, H.E.R. and Byrell the Great. The icing on the cake? After a long absence, Nacho Duato’s dazzling “Gnawa”, created for Hubbard Street in 2005, returns to the active scene for the first time in several years.

February 26 to March 1 at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance; tickets between $20 and $112 at hubbardstreetdance.com

Trinity Irish Dance Company

Tap dance phenom Michelle Dorrance, one of two choreographers behind Trinity’s spectacular tap-Irish fusion called “American Traffic,” goes solo this time with a new work custom-designed for Chicago’s only professional Irish dance company. Also new is a world premiere from Jamey Hampton and Ashley Roland of BodyVox.

Feb. 28 at the Auditorium Theater, 50 E. Ida B. Wells Drive; tickets from $35 to $136 at 312-341-2300 and auditoriumtheatre.org

“Turn It Off” with Tiler Peck & Friends

The “and friends” of New York City Ballet star Tiler Peck’s big swing, as a first-time director, include some of the best dancers in the country, like fellow NYCB dancers Chun Wai Chan, Roman Mejia and Christopher Grant; tap dancer Michelle Dorrance; and “So You Think You Can Dance” champion Lex Ishimoto, to name a few. Peck calls the evening a “love letter to dance,” featuring works she created with Dorrance and two titans of contemporary dance: Alonzo King and William Forsythe. Honestly, what’s not to like?

March 7 and 8 at the Auditorium Theater, 50 E. Ida B. Wells Drive; tickets from $35 to $130 at 312-341-2300 and auditoriumtheatre.org

The “ice floe” rarely

Artistic director and choreographer Carrie Hanson pedals politics and the natural world for her deeply researched dance-theater works. An evening-long play about climate change certainly touches on both, using dance to tell the fractured story of rising seas, melting polar ice caps and the collective, global responsibility to do something about it. There too: the tension between those who believe what is happening and those who do not believe it.

on March 12 and 13 at the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, 1306 S. Michigan Ave. ; tickets $35 at dance.colum.edu

“Stomping Grounds” by the Chicago Human Rhythm Project

The festival dedicated to percussive arts returns with a global program featuring American, African, South Asian and East Asian music on the same stage. ERA, who pioneered Chicago’s high-speed street dance style as a concert dance form, makes its Stomping Grounds debut – as part of a program that is equal parts dancing and drumming.

March 22 at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St.; free tickets with reservation on chicagotap.org

Red Clay Dance Company’s La Femme Dance Festival

Much of the magic of the annual Red Clay Dance Festival lies in what happens off stage, bringing together dancers, choreographers and dance facilitators for workshops and conversations about the contributions of black women in the field. For those of us who usually sit in the auditorium, this year’s “La Femme” is particularly special, with a day-only performance featuring the Los Angeles-based tap dance company Syncopated Ladies, a world premiere by Hubbard Street alumna Rena Butler, and a revival of “Unconditional Conditions” by Red Clay artistic director Vershawn Sanders-Ward – easily among the best of his recent works. As a bonus, South Chicago Dance Theater performs excerpts from artistic director Kia Smith’s “Memoirs of Jazz in the Alley,” a tribute to her late father, tenor saxophonist and South Side jazz titan Jimmy Ellis.

March 27 and 28 at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 E. Randolph St.; pre-sale tickets from $19 to $59 starting January 12 at redclaydance.com

Lauren Warnecke is an independent critic.