Welcome and thank you for joining us for
Harvest Chicago contemporary dance festival 2025!

ACT ONE

1. Aerial Dance Chicago

Caught in Your Gravity

CHOREOGRAPHY BY: Chloe Jensen

MUSIC: Ludovico Einaudi

COSTUMES: Katie Harmon

PERFORMERS: Katie Harmon, Cindy Johnson

Artistic Direction by Chloe Jensen, Rigging and Production by Kip Conwell

Assistant Direction by Karen Fisher Doyle, Lighting Design by Jacob Snodgrass

2. Kora Radella

Before an Immense Sky

CHOREOGRAPHY BY: Kora Radella

MUSIC: Ross Feller

COSTUMES: Kora Radella with alterations by Mackenzie Malone

PERFORMERS: Dasha Aminia, Diego Connolly

3. Little Fire Artist Collective

The Derive

CHOREOGRAPHY BY: Jessi Stegall

MUSIC: Moondog and Aphex Twin

COSTUMES: Jessi Stegall and the performers

PERFORMERS: Laura Baumeister, Hanna DiLorenzo, Jamie Greco, J'Nae Howard,
Kara Hunsinger, Nia Montgomery, Michelle Skiba, Frances Whitford

4. Francesca Baron

This is where I am at (Tuning)

CHOREOGRAPHY BY: Francesca Baron

MUSIC: Laurie Anderson; Alva Noto

PERFORMER: Francesca Baron

5. Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre II

From Here, To Home

CHOREOGRAPHY BY: Katlin Borgeois

MUSIC: James Sanders

COSTUMES: Jordan Ross

PERFORMERS: Emma Armstrong, Jordyn Gibson, Zoe Holland, Kira Jacobs,
Shannon Rodriguez, Nina Rende, Izzy Wolf, Emma Young

I N T E R M I S S I O N : 1 5 M I N U T E S

A C T T W O

6. Nejla Yatkin

The Other Witch (excerpt)

CHOREOGRAPHY BY: Nejla Yatkin

MUSIC: Shamou, Music - Nocturne by Chopin, Voice by Nejla Yatkin

COSTUMES: Corset - Jordan Ross, Masks - Anna Wooden, Skirt - Judy Hansen

PERFORMER: Nejla Yatkin

7. Hattie Haggard Gobble

Speaky Speaky

CHOREOGRAPHY BY: Hattie Haggard Gobble

MUSIC: Fanfare Ciocǎrlia

COSTUMES: Hattie Haggard Gobble

PERFORMERS: Hattie Haggard Gobble, Megan Morrow, Rachel Spies

8. The Seldoms

All At Once

CHOREOGRAPHY BY: Carrie Hanson

MUSIC: Timothy Daisy

PERFORMER: Haley Marcin

9. Giordano II

Interlinked

CHOREOGRAPHY BY: Simon Schuh

MUSIC: AGF, Travis Lake

COSTUMES: Nina G

PERFORMERS: Aidan Aloma, Josh Brumm, Claire Calloway,

Charles Palmer Jr, Sydney Priestly, Jules Shulman

10. Finale

improvisational concept: Nejla Yatkin

Musicians: Drums/Jim Gifford, guitar/wesley reno, bass/Gros Pokossi

hccdf is produced by Nicole gifford dance
Board of Directors: joshua blake carter, Jim gifford, Nicole gifford, danielle gilmore

Technical director/lighting designer: Jacob Snodgrass
Stage manager: Robyn Wilson
Deck manager: A Else
House Manager: Suzanne Wrobel
marketing director: Umraan syed
poster design: Dawn Lara creative

thank you!

Thank YOU for attending our 15th anniversary season!
Special thanks: Ruth Page Theatre Subsidized rental program
the saints, Martita Giacomara, our incredible staff & board, and all of our wonderful volunteers

In-kind donors: Trader joe’s & ericka farkvham, koval distillery
This production is made possible by private donors like YOU!
Thank you for your support & generosity of all who supported our GoFundMe campaign!
Cliff W., Deb M., Mary S. Nan D., Gina D., Caroline S., Joshua B., Nicole G., Stephanie H., Anonymous, Robert S., Brande M., Rebecca L., Chloe J., Elena C., Teresa G., Brett B., Ann Marie M. 

If you’d like to add your support, you can donate safely here to our 15th anniversary gofundme campaign.

Artist bios:

Aerial Dance Chicago is a contemporary dance company guided by the original creative vision of Founder & Artistic Director Chloe Jensen and currently celebrating its 25th anniversary. Characterized by extraordinary physicality and originality, the company's work has been shared across the United States, touching people of all walks of life with the transformative power of dance. ADC operates Chicago’s premiere center for aerial dance, offering cutting-edge curriculum for all ages, beginner through professional. As ADC moves forward, creating, performing and teaching, the company transcends assumed limits of dance and inspires people to rise to their highest potential.

Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre combines dance, music and visual art to immerse audiences in performative storytelling. Cerqua Rivera’s diverse collective of artists take personal narratives and create universal human experiences. They invite both performers and viewers to contemplate the beautiful differences in communities, and explore the intersections of heritage, culture, and identity. Each program performed is carefully curated and designed to facilitate dialogue, push boundaries and build community. Accompanied by a sophisticated Jazz Orchestra, the Dance Ensemble skillfully combines contemporary, jazz, and latin techniques that is unique to the Cerqua Rivera aesthetic. With an incomparable expressiveness, the company stimulates hope and joy that resonates long after the curtain has closed, moving audiences to imagine what is possible. 

Enchanted about dance as a sustainable physical practice, Francesca Baron, mfa delights to be in conversation with/in movement + dance-making alongside students, collaborators and communities. In the past decade she has produced original work that has been presented at academic institutions, festivals, self-produced shows, film festivals, art galleries, weddings and on dance companies, studios and competition stages across the Midwest and New England. She has lectured and set work at: Keene State College, Smith College, Amherst College, Kenyon College, Lindenwood University. Her current creative kindling is composited by attentional states, subtlety, soft-vigor, kinetics and somatics. Francesca works out of Western Massachusetts and Chicago.

GIORDANO II (GII) is dedicated to the nurturing and elevation of young professional dancers under the artistic leadership of Nan Giordano and directed by Zachary Heller. The dancers of GII are provided the unique opportunity to be mentored by Giordano Dance Chicago dancers with the goal of advancement to the main company. Through the company’s Giordano on Giordano program, GII premieres new works each season created by GDC’s artistic team and main company dancers. GII performs at venues throughout the Midwest, preparing dancers with on-stage experience necessary for a career in concert dance and allowing them to broaden their technical and artistic range.

Hattie Haggard Gobble, originally from Plano, TX is a freelance choreographer, teacher and performer. She studied dance at Academy of Dance Arts in Allen, TX then at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX. After graduating, she danced with Thodos Dance Chicago, Dark Circles Contemporary Dance, and Sol Dans Company. She was represented by AJK Agency in London where she starred in the feature film, Elegada. Hattie has choreographed for TDC New Dances, METDance, MadCo, and her own dance films, Black Pajamas and Strangers in the Stall, alongside various commissions for pre-professional institutions. She is thankful for every opportunity.

KORA RADELLA is a choreographer, movement teacher, and performer. Radella’s choreography has been performed in NYC at venues including Judson Church, Danspace Project, 92Y, Pioneer Works, CPR, and Roulette and in other cities including Barcelona, Berlin, Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus, Mexico City, and Paris." Noted for her use of "awkward grace," Radella researches being on the edge of control, pushing both physical and psychological balances. She has had artist residencies at Yaddo, Watermill, Lake Studios Berlin and Bogliasco. She received Ohio Arts Excellence Awards in 2014 and 2018. Radella has been a dance professor at Kenyon College since Fall 2004. www.koraradella.com

Little Fire Artist Collective is a Chicago-based collaborative born out of the chaos and uncertainty of the global pandemic. Spearheaded by a group of dancers, Little Fire seeks to fill a void for early to mid-career artists by acting as an incubator for voices and ideas that would otherwise be unseen or unheard. Learn more at littlefirelittlefire.org

Described by The New York Times as "a magician, telling tales and creating worlds" and "a fierce and supple performer," and a Dance Magazine’s 25 To Watch, Chicago-based choreographer Nejla Yatkin creates around the globe inspiring empathic connection between people and their environments. She is the recipient of the 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship and multiple grants and awards from the Princess Grace Foundation, the Jay Pritzker Fund, the Turkish Cultural Foundation, the National Performance Network, 3Arts Award recipient, the Chicago Dancemakers Forum Award, the 2023 National Dance Project Award and most recently the Illinois Arts Council’s Creative Catalyst Award among many others. For more visit www.ny2dance.com

THE SELDOMS CREATES MULTIMEDIA PERFORMANCE CHARGED BY BOLD, EXACTING PHYSICALITY, AND THE BELIEF THAT DANCE CAN INSPIRE THINKING ABOUT CRITICAL SOCIAL ISSUES. EACH PROJECT IS FUELED BY AN APPETITE FOR RESEARCH AND INCUBATED WITH PARTNERS FROM FIELDS SUCH AS HISTORY AND SCIENCE. UNDER THE DIRECTION OF CHOREOGRAPHER CARRIE HANSON, THE COMPANY DESIGNS EXPANSIVE PRODUCTIONS WITH PRACTITIONERS OF VISUAL ARTS, ARCHITECTURE, THEATER, SOUND, AND FASHION.