Leading the Way: Chanel DaSilva, the First Black Woman to Choreograph for Joffrey Mainstage, Celebrates Chicago in Her Latest

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When the Joffrey Ballet premieres “Wabash & You” at the Harris Theater November 6-9, audiences will see choreographer Chanel DaSilva’s fourth new work for the company in a span of just five years. True to its name, DaSilva’s newest piece will feature an iconic Chicago set. Next May, Chicagoans will see another DaSilva premiere, her first for Hubbard Street Dance. The Brooklyn-born choreographer has developed a special affinity for Chicago. “I feel I’ve grown up a lot as a choreographer here,” she says. “Thankfully, Ashley [Wheater, Joffrey artistic director] trusts me and believes in me. Every time I come to him with a new, exciting and crazy idea, he says yes! And we go forth.”

DaSilva isn’t given to opining about current events, public or personal. Instead, she says, her dances play out her thoughts onstage. The realistic setting of “Wabash & You,” however, is somewhat of a departure. More often, she uses the stage to metaphorically represent the spaces we live in—how we delineate them, and how we relate to those on the other side.

DaSilva’s first piece for Joffrey, “Borders,” premiered in 2020 as part of Winning Works, a program in which emerging choreographers of color set pieces on company trainees. At the time, much right-wing political discourse in the United States revolved around building a border wall. DaSilva’s piece explored the idea of separation: “geographically, psychologically, socially, by gender.” A month after “Borders” premiered online, Wheater called DaSilva and invited her to create a work for the main company. It was fall 2021, and DaSilva had been watching the news as the death toll from COVID steadily rose. Her creation for the main company, entitled “Swing Low,” featured angels wearing beautiful, gigantic wings, hovering around a man on the brink of mortality.

In 2022, the Joffrey invited DaSilva into a space where no Black woman had been before: as a choreographer for the company’s mainstage series. For this commission, DaSilva found inspiration in visual art; “colorem” clothed the dancers in vivid red and slate gray, and explored how color influences our perception of movement.

“Wabash & You” explores more concrete ground, using a realistic set and a true story: it’s based on DaSilva’s own brief but memorable romance that began during her third stay in Chicago, beneath the shadow of the El. During a rehearsal in the company’s Randolph Street studios, recorded music by funk band The Main Squeeze propels the action. (In performance, the musicians will play live onstage—a challenge Wheater posed to DaSilva at the outset.) One scene, called “Get at Me,” features split-screen staging. On one side, there’s a humming nightclub floor where big lifts and leaps mix with jazzy accents. Xavier Núñez’s phone rings—a call from the other side of the stage, where Amanda Assucena waits impatiently in her apartment. But Núñez is very busy. At one point, he must find a way to walk straight downstage as four men zigzag in front of him. And then there’s Olivia Duryea, who grasps his face and turns it away from his phone. The call goes unanswered and it turns out this romance won’t last forever.

Earlier in her career, DaSilva danced prominent roles with the companies of celebrated choreographers Trey McIntyre and Lar Lubovitch, but she noticed she was amongst few other dancers of color. In response, she founded the mentoring organization Move|NYC with business partner Nigel Campbell. When she found that she was the first Black woman to choreograph for the Joffrey mainstage, DaSilva was honored but also a little shocked. “I’m the first?” she wondered. “I felt a pang of duty: You’re the first, but make sure you’re not the last.” She created a second organization, Catapult, to help more women—especially women of color—achieve arts leadership positions and thrive in them.

Lately she’s been thinking about the many roles women are called upon to play, which she says will show up in her new work for Hubbard Street. “It’s very clear to me that women are carrying the world,” she declares. “All the things: motherhood, wifehood, business, politics.” For this next Chicago project, DaSilva is interested in the idea of a person carrying something heavy, “like Atlas.”