The steel rings hang just above head height in the Prairie Stone Arts Center's black-box theater, and Isabella Martinez wants her dancers to look like they're drowning in air. That's the rehearsal image that sticks—four performers launching from low-hanging apparatus, rebounding off the marley floor, their shadows swelling and dissolving against a rear-projected digital landscape that Martinez coded herself.
This is not a standard regional dance recital. The 2024 Hoffman Estates Contemporary Dance Showcase, presented by the [Name of Presenting Organization] and running March 14–16 at the Prairie Stone Arts Center (1565 Brookside Drive), brings together 12 pieces by nine choreographers for the event's eighth annual edition. Tickets are $28 general admission, $22 for students and seniors, with a pay-what-you-can matinee on March 16.
From the Suburbs to the Stage: What's Different This Year
Hoffman Estates is not an obvious dance capital. But the northwest suburb has developed an unexpected reputation in regional dance circles, thanks in part to [Name of Key Local Institution/Company] and a municipal arts budget that has expanded the showcase from a single night in 2016 to a three-day program with post-show talkbacks. This year's lineup includes choreographers from Chicago, Milwaukee, and Indianapolis, plus two Hoffman Estates-based artists making their mainstage debuts.
"We're programming work that we think will land differently here than it would at a downtown Chicago venue," says [Name], the showcase's artistic director. "The audience knows these dancers. They watched them grow up. That intimacy changes what you can ask of a room."
Inside "Boundless": Martinez's Hoffman Estates Premiere
Martinez, 29, choreographed Boundless specifically for this theater's proportions. The piece opens with soloist [Name] suspended motionless in the nearest ring, her body angled so that her shadow on the back wall appears fifteen feet tall. When the other dancers enter—first walking through the aisles, then climbing into rings themselves—the boundary between spectator and performer dissolves literally before the audience can settle into standard theater posture.
"Freedom, for me, is not about weightlessness," Martinez said during a February rehearsal. "It's about resistance. The rings fight back. You have to negotiate with them. I wanted that visible struggle."
The "unconventional props" mentioned in early publicity turn out to be industrial rigging more commonly found in aerial studios than contemporary dance theaters. Martinez sourced the steel from a Chicago foundry and worked with a rigger to limit each ring's swing radius to eighteen inches—enough to create momentum, not enough for true cirque-style release. The result is closer to assisted falling than flight.
The Debut Class: Four Dancers to Watch
The showcase also functions as a professional springboard for dancers ages 18–24 selected through a September audition. This year's debut quartet—[Name], [Name], [Name], and [Name]—appear in four separate works, including the world premiere of [Name]'s Gathering, which closes the program.
"[Name], who trains at [Local Studio], will perform a seven-minute solo in Gathering that requires her to speak fragmented text in Spanish and English while executing choreography drawn from Mexican folk dance and release technique. It's the most technically demanding assignment given to a debut dancer in the showcase's history.
"I keep waking up at 4 a.m. running the transitions in my head," [Name] said. "You don't want to be the person who got this opportunity and played it safe."
The Full 2024 Lineup
Thursday, March 14 (7:30 p.m.): Opening night includes Martinez's Boundless, [Name]'s ballet-street fusion Crosswalk, and [Name]'s Drumline, which incorporates live djembe players and rhythms from Ghana's Ashanti region.
Friday, March 15 (7:30 p.m.): Program B features [Name]'s The Distance Between Two Points (performed in the theater's lobby and stairwells, with audience members guided through three spaces), plus [Name]'s Still Life and [Name]'s Ritual Return.
Saturday, March 16 (2 p.m.): Pay-what-you-can matinee of Program A, with a post-show conversation with Martinez and the debut dancers.
Saturday, March 16 (7:30 p.m.): Program B repeat performance, followed by a closing reception in the gallery.
How to Attend
Tickets are available through prairiestoneartscenter.org or at the door. The Prairie Stone Arts Center is accessible via Pace Bus 604 and has free parking in the adjacent lot. For out-of-town visitors, the Hampton Inn & Suites Hoffman Estates
