Our Mission

A contemporary dance company rooted in flamenco, Clinard Dance Theatre brings together people from a diverse range of artistic disciplines and cultural backgrounds to create provocative works that explore personal and global concerns that connect the audience to the world through art.

Founded in 1999, under the Artistic Direction of choreographer Wendy Clinard, the company's works integrate her passionate love for flamenco and her urgent need to create theatrically compelling works that address personal and global concerns and, also, tantalize the imagination. Working through a practical process involving movement, rhythms, drawing, sculpture, video and precise observation of real phenomena are fundamental to the research, development and rehearsal cycles. Clinard Dance Theatre productions are the result of often years of work and have been described as physically bold poetic excursions with a fiece intelligence.


"Clinard Dance Theatre places the intricate presentational aspects of flamenco in a vital contemporary context." Lucia Mauro, Chicago Tribune  

Notes from one collaborator, poet Ken Kessel. Ken wrote an original libretto for their work "Un Sueno Fuera del Lugar":

In early summer 2008, I worked with Clinard Dance Theatre to begin to bring "Un Sueno Fuera del Lugar" to life, and in September 2008, performed in the opening excerpt, as well as watching performances of Clinard's fully-realized Jondo Portraits.

From all three perspectives --- creative collaborator, performer and audience member one has the sense of being on the edge of something about to happen. Wendy has a soft intensity, an abiding faith in people and their inherent creativity, a breadth and depth to her focus and a beckoning inclusiveness that bring out the best in those around her. Her strength and creative passion is inspiring and contagious.

It is hard to do justice to the wonder of being present at the birthing of such a piece. Poetic lines transform into staccato polyrhythms of tongue clicks, palmas and foot taps, then take the shape of an ancient and plaintive Flamenco melody or rhythm. These become brushstrokes on rice paper, conversations between cello, guitar and percussion and then somehow the flow of the body in dance. We lose track of where ideas originated and bring to life something that has pieces of all of us, yet transcends any one of us individually.



CLINARD DANCE THEATRE IS SEEKING COLLEGE INTERNS FOR VARIOUS OPERATION AND ARTISTIC RESEARCH. IF INTERESTED PLEASE CONTACT info@clinardance.org TO RECEIVE A LIST OF VARIOUS SHORT AND LONG TERM PROJECTS.