Photo by Cheryl Mann Del Cuore

HISTORY

Having lost many close friends and dance colleagues due to HIV and AIDS, Keith Elliott, a member of Joseph Holmes Chicago Dance Theatre (JHCDT), felt it was time for Chicago dancers to take an active role in preventing the spread of the disease. Elliott’s idea—both brilliant and simple—was to bring Chicago’s dance community together for one night…to Dance for Life.

In 1991, Elliott and Todd Kiech began working to make Dance for Life a reality, enlisting JHCDT Associate Artistic Director Harriet Ross to give the event creative force and impact. Elliott also asked HIV/AIDS community activist and skilled fundraiser Danny Kopelson, along with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago Executive Director Gail Kalver, to join him as co-founders.

The inaugural Dance for Life took place in June 1992 at the Organic Theater. Every seat was sold. During the next few years, annual Dance for Life performances filled the Athenaeum Theatre, the Skyline Stage at Navy Pier, and the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, each selling out weeks in advance. Organizers have been proud of our lengthy relationship with the Auditorium Theatre, where Dance for Life has broken audience records for many years.

Today, more than 50 Chicago-based, professional dance companies and numerous choreographers have participated in Dance for Life, supporting and showcasing the city’s unique diversity of talent, dance traditions, and styles. Dancers, companies, and choreographers generously donate their time, energy, and artistry to the cause. Dance for Life remains the only annual opportunity for the incredibly talented, world-renowned professional dancers of Chicago to unite artistically to help their own: those who have been adversely affected by critical health issues that negatively impact their ability to dance, create, and work.

The Dancers’ Fund, now known as the Chicago Dance Health Fund, was established by Harriet Ross in the early 1990s, provides financial assistance to members of the Chicago professional dance community facing critical health issues. Since 1992, Dance for Life and other fundraising activities have raised more than $6 million for the Fund, AIDS Foundation Chicago, and 24 other HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, and advocacy organizations in Chicago.

In response to the changing needs of Chicago’s dance community, evolutions in the nature of HIV/AIDS’ impact, and the growth of Dance for Life, Chicago Dance Health Fund incorporated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in 2015.

An excerpt of a letter written by Rudolf Nureyev during the final phase of his battle with HIV:

“The meaning is to become, not to appear. You should dance for life. It’s not about being a dancer, but rather about the dance.

Those who have never found their passion—for me it is, for example, the pleasure of walking into a studio with wooden bars and mirrors—and those who stop because they don't get the results they envisioned...they haven’t entered the depths of life.

It's the law of love: you love because you feel the need to do it, not to get something out of it or to be reciprocated. If you feel the latter, you are destined to a life of unhappiness.

I am dying. But I thank God for giving me a body with which I could dance so that I didn't waste a moment of this wonderful gift of life.”