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I’m back, y’all!! Kelly Anderson – Season 4 and 5 Company Member here to dish everything your way through our SCDT blog! Welcome to Season 5!!

Our season started a bit earlier this year – we came together in the beginning of August to dive into three rigorous weeks of rehearsal with Kia S. Smith’s choreography and Jessica Miller Tomlinson’s incredible rehearsal directing. Our purpose for starting so early? We were selected to be a part of Chicago Dancer’s United’s Dance For Life annual performance! This is such an amazing honor for Kia as a choreographer, for us as a young company, and for each of us dancers as young members of the Chicago dance community. All in all, it was an experience we did not want to miss out on!

We came back with the six returning members from the previous season and welcomed a full slew of guest artists and new emerging artists to be a part of this performance. We reconstructed a 5-minute excerpt of Kia’s “Architect of a Dream” which was part of our Black History Month show, set to the powerful words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Bringing this piece back to life was a privilege and to be quite honest, I forgot how much I loved performing it! I wrote about it last year, but this piece gave me actual CHILLS in rehearsal last season. There’s something so difficult to explain but so special to feel about experiencing dance that provokes thought, means something, and demands change in our world.

One of the most exciting parts about our preparation for Dance for Life was that it would be our first live performance since I joined the company! The state of our world has made it so difficult to truly see dance the way it was meant to be seen – live, in person, and fully and viscerally experienced. To have the opportunity to once again perform for people in a safe way at the beautiful Pritzker Pavilion was nothing short of amazing. It brought true joy to stand at the end of the piece with my fellow dancers, take in the applause, and soak up the dream of performing for so many people that we’ve all desired from the start of our training. This is what we train for!! Obviously we were thankful to still be dancing – even if it was simply for a screen – last year, but there is no comparison to dancing for a live audience.

Dance for Life 2021 was just what we needed to jump-start what is bound to be an incredible season. We have SO much in store, I am already struggling to catch my breath! I’ll be here all year updating you on our adventures, so don’t worry – you’ll get your SCDT behind the scenes fill as always!

For now, I just leave you with a giant THANK YOU for your continued support. We are all ready to make this season the best one yet!