Dance in the Parks is a professional dance company in Chicago that produces free dance concerts at temporary, outdoor, performance venues in city parks. Our goal is to produce high-quality concert dance performances that will encourage audiences to seek future interactions with Chicago's greater dance community. We hope to thin geographic barriers by taking concerts out of traditional theaters and into public spaces that communities regularly uses. All our performances are free. 

We hire Chicago professionals to choreograph and perform. We also hire collegiate/early-career and high-school-aged dancers as apprentices and interns to introduce them to the industry, build their professional network, and hone their technique.

We partner with a different youth dance training program in each community to offer a performance opportunity as well as community exposure. Our hope is that raising awareness of local dance training opportunities will encourage audience members to participate. 

In order to encourage future dance experiences, our friends and colleagues at other professional dance companies and dance presenting organizations donate pairs of tickets for Dance in the Parks to give away at every show. 

 We believe that dance should be accessible to everyone, and we're doing our best to take dance concerts to all corners of the Chicago area. In our 15-year partnership with Chicago Park District's Night Out in the Parks initiative, the company has become a summer tradition reaching over 1500 audience members each season.