Winifred Haun & Dancers, a MacArthur Foundation award winner, is a professional modern dance company and presenter led by award winning choreographer and dancer, Winifred Haun. Founded in the 1990's in Chicago, the Company has created, presented and produced over 125 original dance works, including one full length ballet, commissioned 32 original musical scores, and participated in over 270 public performances and events. The Company re-located to Oak Park to 2004. Winifred Haun & Dancers has garnered many awards and accolades, including Critic's Choice from the Chicago Reader and TimeOut Chicago, and features in the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Oak Leaves (Pioneer Press), WBEZ Radio, and many others. In 2005, the Company was featured as part of the critically acclaimed WTTW series, "The Chicago Dance Project," and in 2010 was featured on WTTW's nightly news program, Chicago Tonight, for performances at the Cheney Mansion. The Company has also been featured on-line at three national sites: Examiner.com, 4dancers.org and Flavorpill.com Major awards include the 2000 Ruth Page Award for "Outstanding Contribution to Dance in Chicago" for initiating and producing Chicago's NEXT Dance Festival, which grew to be the midwest's largest dance festival for the new work of Chicago area artists, and the Oak Park Area Arts Council's 2009 "Best in Class" Award.
Winifred Haun & Dancers has been invited to perform at many prestigious venues including Dance Center of Columbia College, Athenaeum Theatre, Link's Hall, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (Texas), Overture Center (Madison, WI), Epic Center Theater (Kalamazoo, MI), St. Mary's College (Indiana), Iowa Summer Dance Festival, Illinois Wesleyan College (Bloomington, IL), Ruth Page Center for the Arts, Northeastern Illinois University, Fermilab's Ramsey Auditorium, and in many non-traditional performing spaces such as Historic Pleasant Home, Hemingway Museum, Oak Park's annual Handel Week (Grace Church), and the Cheney Mansion.
The mission of Winifred Haun & Dancers is to create and produce the dance works of Ms. Haun and other midwest artists and to make those works available to the widest possible audience. Presenting works with a strong technical base, and often employing humor, the Company produces and presents dances that reflect the complexity of the human condition and inform the viewer's perception of him/herself and the world. It is our fervent belief that, with greater self knowledge, all humans can participate in changing the world for the better. Part of the Company's artistic vision is to have dance viewed not only in the context of professional presentation, but also at the community level and in non-traditional performance venues.
Artistic Director, Winifred Haun, is a veteran choreographer and dancer. She was a soloist with the critically acclaimed Joseph Holmes Chicago Dance Theatre from 1985 to 1991. Ms. Haun has won three Ruth Page Award nominations for Choreography and Performance and in 1999, she won the Ruth Page Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Dance Community. Ms. Haun's choreography has been commissioned by Chicago Ballet, AMEBA Dance, Irreverence Dance Theatre, Zephyr Dance, Lonny Joseph Gordon and many other Midwest and national groups. She has taught dance and dance composition at the Joffrey Ballet's Academy of Dance, Dance Center of Columbia College, Chicago Academy for the Arts, Beijing National Dance Academy and at numerous festivals and workshops worldwide. Currently, Ms. teaches modern dance at Hubbard St. Dance Chicago and Legere Dance Center in River Forest.
