CAUGHT IN ACTION Terence Marling, left, and Kellie Epperheimer with their invisible boxes.

Photo: Todd Rosenberg

Diamonds in the rough
Since the departure of founder Lou Conte in 2000, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago has successfully revamped its image. Under the artistic direction of Jim Vincent, the troupe’s aesthetic has become distinctly more sophisticated and European. The repertory now includes works by recognized Japanese, Dutch and Spanish choreographers. In addition, HSDC is a significant incubator for new choreographic works by dancers from within its own ranks.

This year marks HSDC’s eighth annual Choreographic Workshop, a three-week project in which the company dancers create their own dances, some of which may end up as part of the company repertoire. The workshop culminates on Friday 6 with Inside/Out, a public performance of these pieces.

We chatted with Terence Marling, an HSDC dancer preparing to debut a work at Inside/Out this year. “Jim [Vincent] looks at this as a way of finding talent within his own company,” says Marling, who has devised both the music and the movements for his piece. “It also makes us much tighter as colleagues. It’s great to stand with your back to the mirror for a change and see what that feels like.”

In additon to the main company’s Workshop program, the junior troupe, HS2, has been running a National Choreographic Competition for ten years. HS2 solicits entries from all over the country; the winners get to create a new work on the young dancers over a two-week period. These works are then performed at schools throughout Chicagoland and when HS2 goes on tour. Turns out Marling is also a winner of HS2’s 2008 Choreographic Competition—along with Andrea Miller from New York and Lesley Telford, recently of Nederlands Dans Theater.

Although Marling (a Chicagolander who studied at the Ruth Page Center as a child) doesn’t aim “to become a world-famous choreographer,” he treasures the creative time afforded by these programs. “There’s a kind of communication that happens in the studio that can’t happen any other way,” he says. “It’s valuable to have time to find things, to spend time in the search. Once you get what you’re looking for, it’s like finding a diamond.”

Inside/Out reveals itself Friday 6 and Saturday 7.