Hubbard Street Dance: One Night Only at the Paramount

Alejandro Cerruto's "Lickety Split," performed by Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. Photo by Todd Rosenberg

"Last year we performed down in Oregon, in Medford or someplace down there. And this last year we also went up to Vancouver and Victoria and performed, which is great. But it's really great to be back in the Northwest, in Seattle." Jason Hortin, with whom I was having a last-minute phone call this afternoon, paused. "I walked down to the Market this morning, met up with friends, it's really great: The first time professionally I'll have performed in Seattle."

This Friday, October 23, is a sort of homecoming for Hortin, a native of Olympia: After four years of work in Chicago, he's returning as a full company member of Chicago's celebrated Hubbard Street Dance, who are performing a one-night-only engagement at the Paramount Theatre (8 p.m., tickets $25-$42).

Founded by in 1977 by Lou Conte with a focus on jazz dance, Hubbard Street steadily grew and expanded its artistic repertoire (and moved substantially away from its classic jazz roots) through work with a variety of choreographers—everyone from Twyla Tharp to Nacho Duato—and becoming one of the premier contemporary dance companies in the U.S.

"There's definitely been a shift throughout, from the beginning of Hubbard Street," Hortin told me. "It was started out performing for senior citizens, when Lou was director it was very much jazz based. I think throughout that the evolution of the company, of dance in general, it's more of a melding of styles."

Today, Hubbard Street boasts of having some of the most versatile and virtuosic dancers working in the U.S., supporting its ambitious new works programs. HSDC has debuted at least 25 new works of choreography over the past eight years. All of which says something about the region's ability to produce world-class dance talent.

"I started dancing when I was 10, or 11 maybe, at Debbie's Dance in Olympia, Washington," Hortin told me. "Tap, jazz, pop, just standard studio fare. Then I went up to Westlake Dance Center for about a year, that was in high school. Then I burned out on dance when I was a senior in high school. I just completely stopped dancing. And then I went to community college in Olympia, and then went to UNLV as a computer science major, and stated popping in, taking dance classes again, kind of fell back in love with it."

After graduating with a BFA, Hortin moved to Chicago to take a position with River North Chicago Dance Company, which he knew had fed dancers into Hubbard Street in the past. In 2007, he received an apprenticeship from the company, and last year became a full company member.

Hortin will be dancing in three of the four works on the program this Friday, the one exception being HSDC associate artistic director Lucan Crandall's comic romp The Set (2008). HSDC resident choreographer Alejandro Cerrudo's Lickety-Split (2006), a work for three couples, explores the twists and turns of romance, set to music by Devendra Banhart. The company is also re-staging noted Spanish choreographer Nacho Duato's Gnawa (2005), which mixes traditional Spanish and Moroccan movement, set against a percussive score of North African music.

But the most exciting opportunity for Seattle audiences is to be the second city in the country to see Bitter Suite, a new work commissioned by HSDC from Jorma Elo, an increasingly in-demand Finnish choreographer. Described by The Chicago Tribune as "a reawakening for a group of people who have devolved into a tragically detached new species and are learning how to be human again," it's a quasi-sci-fi exploration of humanity set to music by Mendelssohn and Monteverdi.

"If you've never seen Jorma's work, it's very quirky," Hortin said. "It's definitely more out there, much more abstract. He described the piece as entries in journal, but perhaps they're not in order. Non-linear, almost random, but some sense of order in there. But I think it's a very beautiful piece, various human experiences of highs and lows, and beauty and sadness."