As the only concert dance company in the world authorized to add a Bob Fosse-choregraphed work to its repertory, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago will include "Sweet Gwen Suite" on its Oct. 25 program at the Center for the Arts.
Fosse, one of the most internationally recognized figures in the history of the performing arts for his groundbreaking, genre-defying work as a director, choreographer, performer, and writer, was the first director in history to win the Oscar, Tony, and Emmy Awards in the same year for Cabaret on film, Pippin on Broadway, and "Liza with a Z" on television. Together with his collaborator and wife Gwen Verdon—"widely regarded as the best dancer ever to brighten the Broadway stage (The New York Times)—he choreographed segments for performance on 1960s-era television, including “The Ed Sullivan Show” and “The Bob Hope Show,” which have been recreated for the stage in the 2021 work "Sweet Gwen Suite."
In The Washington Post Fall Arts preview which highlights this Hubbard Street Dance Chicago performance, Celia Wren notes that one of the three works included in the suite is "the jaunty, flaunty 'Mexican Breakfast' which inspired Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” video," a connection also explored in this reel. The program also includes works by choreographers Aszure Barton, James Gregg, and Amy Hall Garner.
Read more about Hubbard Street Dance Chicago's fascinating process of recreating the Fosse/Verdon choreography in this 2024 Chicago Sun-Times feature story.