Hubbard Street Dance Chicago Records, 1971-2014

Gift, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, 1986, 2015.

The Hubbard Street Dance Chicago Records are open for research in the Special Collections Reading Room; 1 box at a time (Priority III).

The Hubbard Street Dance Chicago Records are the physical property of the Newberry Library. Copyright may belong to the authors or their legal heirs or assigns. For permission to publish or reproduce any materials from this collection, contact the Roger and Julie Baskes Department of Special Collections.

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago Records, The Newberry Library, Chicago.

Catherine Grandgeorge, Alison Hinderliter, Samantha Leshin, and Samantha Smith, 2016.

Chicago-based American dance company.

After a performing career that included Broadway musicals, Illinois native Lou Conte established the Lou Conte Dance Studio at Chicago’s La Salle and Hubbard Streets in 1974. In 1977, he founded the Hubbard Street Dance Company (renamed Hubbard Street Dance Chicago in 1993) with four dancers. The company started when Barbara Cohen of Urban Gateways, who later joined the company as its first executive director, asked Conte to develop a program for senior citizens. He devised a program that featured various styles of American jazz dance, including tap, which the original company performed throughout the city under the auspices of the Mayor’s Office. He expanded on the original program and created a popular and serious dance style that combined balletic strength, the energy of jazz, and the footwork of tap with American themes and music, which added elements of musical theatre. Conte established partnerships with emerging and internationally renowned choreographers such as Lynne Tyler-Corbett, Margo Sappington, Daniel Ezralow, Twyla Tharp, Jirí Kylián, and Nacho Duarte. The company after Conte’s retirement in 2000 has continued to widen HDSC’s international focus and develop partnerships with institutions in Chicago.

Today, HDSC, now located on 1147 West Jackson Boulevard, is a dance organization with four components: the main company, Hubbard Street 2 (HS2), Lou Conte Dance Studio, and Youth, Education, and Community Programs. The main company continues to tour year round nationally and internationally. Established in 1997 by Conte and Julie Nakagawa, HS2 prepares young dancers for professional dancing careers. Like the main company, HS2 tours nationally and internationally, as well as serve communities through master classes and workshops. The Lou Conte Dance Studio, also located on Jackson Boulevard, offers weekly classes most notably in ballet, jazz, modern, tap, and hip hop dance styles. HSDC’s Youth, Education, and Community Programs, also founded in 1997, provide movement-based arts experiences to students, families, and teachers throughout the greater Chicago area.

Administrative, promotional, photographic, audio, and film/video materials documenting the history and growth of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago.

Administrative records, along with marketing, development, and financial records, all document the early years of the dance company and its financial challenges, as well as its many successful tours and fundraising endeavors over the years. The company's training and early-career dancer program, Hubbard Street 2, is similarly documented to its parent company. Photographs and printed ephemera in the Publicity series make up a large portion of the collection, providing visual and contextual information about the company, its dancers, and its repertory. The Audiovisual series combines the video and audio output of both HSDC and HS2; the digital data files are 3.5 inch floppy discs of files that are likely represented elsewhere in the records in print. Finally there are several items in the artifact series, including some dance props, some design artwork, buttons, and other merchandising materials.

Papers are organized in the following series:

Series 1: Administrative, 1971-2009 Boxes 1-49 Series 2: Marketing, 1983-2009 Boxes 50-61 Series 3: Development, 1978-2005 Boxes 62-75 Series 4: Financial, 1975-2007 Boxes 76-83 Series 5: Hubbard Street 2, 1996-2009 Boxes 84-100 Series 6: Photographs, 1978-2010 Boxes 101-119 Series 7: Publicity, 1971-2014 Boxes 120-193; oversize folders in flat file Series 8: Audiovisual and Digital Data, 1981-2012 Boxes 194-210 Series 9: Artifacts, approximately 1978-2010 Boxes 211-221

• Names
  • Bataille, Claire
  • Cerrudo, Alejandro
  • Conte, Lou
  • De Jesus, Ron
  • Duato, Nacho
  • Edgerton, Glenn
  • Ezralow, Daniel
  • Farley, Ginger
  • Hubbard Street 2.
  • Hubbard Street Dance Company.
  • Kalver, Gail
  • Kylian, Jiri, 1947-
  • Lou Conte Dance Studio.
  • Nakagawa, Julie
  • Sappington, Margo
  • Taylor-Corbett, Lynne
  • Tharp, Twyla
  • Vincent, James, (James F.)
• Subject
  • Chicago
  • Clubs and Organizations
  • Dance
  • Dance -- Illinois -- Chicago
  • Dance companies -- Economic aspects
  • Dance companies -- History
  • Dance companies -- Management
  • Dance companies -- Marketing
  • Dance companies -- United States
  • Manuscripts, American -- Illinois -- Chicago
  • Modern dance
  • Photographs