Jess Hutchinson, Editorial Content Manager for the Logan Center and UChicago Arts, sat down virtually with Princess, who divides her time between Chicago and Washington D.C., for a conversation about her history, perspective, and why the CBDLP is a vital force in Chicago’s contemporary artistic landscape.

In Practice: UChicago Arts Blog | March 25, 2023

The companies selected for the new cohort include six returning companies: Chicago Multi-Cultural Dance Center & Hiplet Ballerinas, Deeply Rooted Dance Theater, Forward Momentum Chicago, Joel Hall Dancers & Center, Najwa Dance Corps, and Muntu Dance Theatre; as well as four new additions: M.A.D.D. Rhythms, Move Me Soul, Praize Productions, and The Era Footwork Collective. The new cohort will be supported by funding from the Joyce Foundation and the Mellon Foundation and additional support from Walder Foundation, University of Chicago Women’s Board, and the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation.

Press Release | February 23, 2023

Galvanized by the findings in Mapping the Dance Landscape in Chicagoland, a 2019 census and analysis of the individuals and organizations that participate, produce, and fund dance in the city, Hall, then director of the Joyce Foundation’s culture program, partnered with the Logan Center for the Arts to create an organization with the mission of advocacy, archiving, capacity building, and presenting Black dance in Chicago.

Chicago Reader | August 25, 2022

“I believe this will be in the history books.” While Princess Mhoon, director of the Chicago Black Dance Legacy Project is directly speaking of “Reclamation: The Spirit of Black Dance in Chicago” at Millennium Park this Saturday, she was also clearly referring to the larger implications of the project. The CBDLP was founded three years ago by Logan Center for the Arts and the Joyce Foundation to bridge the vast funding gulf between high-profile, predominantly white dance companies and Black-led companies working in African and African American dance forms.

New City Stage | August 24, 2022

If there was ever a night that Chicago dance history was on full display, it would be this one. Veteran companies Muntu, Joel Hall and Deeply Rooted have collectively danced for over 100 years. Chicago Multi-Cultural Dance Center Director Homer Bryant, who performed with Dance Theatre of Harlem, has been a cornerstone of ballet training in Chicago since the ‘90s. Pierre Lockett of Forward Momentum Chicago arrived in Chicago in 1995 with the Joffrey Ballet and, upon retirement, was pivotal in the early stages of that company’s community engagement programs. For at least a decade, Red Clay Dance Company has been a key figure in revitalizing the South Side dance scene, most recently opening an impressive new dance center in Woodlawn. And on and on.

Chicago Tribune | August. 22, 2022

Black dance long has been at the forefront of innovation and expression, through the Black Arts Movement, born of 1960s social and political upheaval, to today’s social and political upheaval. In Chicago, Black dance companies always have played an integral role in the cultural and artistic landscape. Now, amid the arts’ slow but ongoing recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Chicago Black Dance Legacy Project (CBDLP) is furthering that history in a way that illustrates so much of the Black experience in America: by adapting, surviving and thriving against the odds.

The Joyce Foundation | June 30, 2021

Dance Leader Princess Mhoon returns to her hometown to amplify the voices of Chicago’s Black dancemakers and icons

(Chicago, IL)—The University of Chicago’s Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts announces the appointment of Princess Mhoon as the new Strategic Program Manager to lead its Chicago Black Dance Legacy Project, which celebrates the impact of Black dance in the performing arts and provides critical financial and operational support to Chicago-based Black dance makers.

Read more | March 26, 2021

Eight of the city’s most prominent dance companies are coming together for a one-night-only concert this week. “Lineage: The Black Dance Legacy Project” has a single mission: to celebrate the legacy of black dance in Chicago. The project will not only document the history of dance for future generations, but pay homage to black dance companies that have been around the city for generations.

WTTW | November 19, 2019

The Chicago region is a hub for arts and culture and boasts a thriving dance community. What do we know about the dance sector in Chicagoland (defined in this report as Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, and Will Counties in Illinois and Lake County, Indiana)? And what do the data reveal about opportunities and challenges facing dancers, dance organizations, and the sector as a whole? In 2002, Dance/USA published a groundbreaking study about Chicagoland’s dance community. Authored by John Munger, Mapping the Chicago Dance Community: A Benchmark Study 2002 provided a first-of-its-kind census of dance organizations and activities. It was the most comprehensive analysis of the dance community in a major metropolitan area of its time. Seventeen years later, how has the Chicagoland dance sector changed? In this report, Sustain Arts and See Chicago Dance, in partnership with Candid and Fractured Atlas, assess the current state of dance in the Chicago region.

Read more