• Raks Inferno will perform world fusion dance, circus, dance with fire and with silks. “We’re excited that Navy Pier has entrusted us to have fire onstage,” says Julia Mayer, the executive director of See Chicago Dance.
• Movement Revolution Dance Crew, a hip-hop company, will send eight dancers to perform the provocatively titled “Ballet Is Not the Foundation of All Dance.”
• A surprise interactive opportunity. Last year, there was a salsa lesson. I’m sworn to secrecy about this year.
Lake Stage, Navy Pier. 3 p.m., May 28.
A couple of other Chicago Dance Month happenings:
• A progressive dance show, where audience members wander through an Olmsted-designed park in Back of the Yards, following a map to find pocket performances, at the somewhat odd time of 4:30 p.m. on a Tuesday. Sherman Park. June 7 and 21.
• At Pier Dance, dance companies teach beginner lessons all month, to tide you over until SummerDance gets into full swing in July. City Stage, Navy Pier. 6 p.m., Thursdays, June 2-30.
All downhill from here
One of the great Chicago storefront theaters, Steep Theatre, spent its pandemic wandering in the wilderness even more than most, as its longtime home near the Berwyn Red Line el stop was sold and slated for demolition. After two years of fruitless searching around and near Edgewater, they finally discovered a former Christian Science Reading Room only a block and a half east on Berwyn Avenue that they’d overlooked before. “It always seemed sort of small from the outside, but it turns out it’s a bit of a puzzle box,” says Kate Piatt-Eckert, Steep’s executive director.
The new space needs some work to convert it to a theater. They plan on an operational 70-seat space by the end of 2023. (Their old space held 55.) Right away, however, they’re putting on their big return show in the new building. “Paris,” by Eboni Booth, follows a Black woman returning to her majority-white hometown of Paris, Vt., to live and work. Tickets are free, and the unrenovated space holds only 40, so book tout de suite, as they say in Paris. June 11-July 23.
Also this summer, Steep will put on “Light Falls,” a new play by Simon Stephens the company had intended to mount in summer 2020. It’s the sixth Stephens play Steep has done, and the previous Stephenses—such as “Harper Regan,” “Birdland” and “Motortown”—have produced a mountain of award nominations. A two-show pass guarantees a seat to “Paris.” Steep Theatre at Theater Wit. July 2-Aug. 14.
Read More: What to do in Chicago this weekend