East coast born and Chicago raised choreographer Leila Henry premiered her “Sincerely” series last month in front of a packed crowd in the South Loop. She has long been highly regarded throughout the Chicago dance community even with a reputation of shyness; you would not know that to be a small culpability from her recent […]

  Chicago dancer and artist Leila Henry will be premiering her long awaited project this Saturday, February 11th at Jimmy Green’s on State Street.  The video is set to include over 50 dancers and was filmed in the span of a year in various locations throughout Chicago.  With the help of cinematographer Katie Moffit, Leila […]

  Never gone are the old days of house parties when you’d risk sneaking out of your parents house to jam to some old school Chicago house music and Freestyle jams.  Even in our now grown adult years, the party never leaves us. Newly formed MAS Entertainment from the Northwest Suburbs is determined to bring […]

See Nicki’s feature on Art and Sol here

The spirit of the gypsies was colorful and vibrant.  As was this weekends ballet performance of Day of the Gypsy at the Harris Theater in Chicago.  A live band supported the dancers in the foreground emitting the vibrancy of a culture from fables and fantasy.  I recently had the opportunity to speak with Day of the Gypsy‘s creator, Gordon Peirce Schmidt, […]

HalfStack was invited to the bi-annual Carnival showcase earlier this month to view Chicago’s top talent, once again, all on one stage. Different from other showcases, this show originated in LA and has been conquering other cities throughout the world.  The Choreographer’s Ball is known to have launched or boosted the careers of today’s well […]

If anyone has been following me along on my Halfstack journey, you may have read briefly about my adventure in dance.  Since hanging up my performance jersey several years ago, I volunteered to help my friends out put on their annual showcase. My participation in this has been paramount to who I was and what […]

While I have one eye on Rio, I am multitasking my other eye, live streaming an international hip hop competition. Yes, Rio 2016 is here and I, among the many, am spending the next few weeks obsessing over superhuman strength and abilities.  Abilities that basically remind me that my summer body is far too late.  […]