The Links Hall of Chicago will be permanently closed at the end of its current season in June, due to the current financial difficulties, confirmed the place on Thursday.
Since its foundation in 1978 by the choreographers Bob Eisen, Carol Bobrow and Charlie Vernon, Links has been the cornerstone of the city dance scene, often giving a house to new experimental works that have pushed the envelope, both artistically and politically. The Executive Links Director SK Kerastas said Thursday that the place will continue with the performance scheduled until June, and then close the store during the summer.
Recently, Links housed a dance piece, Abort. As the title suggests, work boldly took abortion. It is the kind of political and experimental art that connects, where numerous works by dancers' dancers specialize for almost half a century.
A job like this – blunt and without political fear, perhaps off -putting for some – is comfortable at Links Hall. Founded in 1978 in Lake View and named after a pre -existing panel on the building, the dance incubator recently shared a space on Western avenue near the village of Roscoe with the constellation of the music room, belonging to Jazz Impresario Local and Co-founder of Pitchfork Mike Reed.
In a press release Thursday, Links Hall Leadership said that Reed was interested in “managing some of the long -term links and supporting the transition for tenants”. According to the press release, the exact plans of these transitions are still in progress.
Links has hosted a residence program for contemporary choreographers dating back decades and presented works by local dancemakers, especially Erin KilmurrayAyako Kato and I am Howard.
“It is difficult to overestimate what links mean to the Chicago dance community,” said Joanna Furnans, executive director of Chicago Dancemakers Forum, who also organized work at Links. “For many, Links is a house – the kind of base of incubator for the construction of careers of dance artists in this city.”
“The links were an integral part of the Genesis of Chicago Dancemakers forum,” added Furnans. “We will not exist without Links Hall.”
The choreographer Kiki King's Dancework first was presented at first at Links Hall in March 2025 as part of a program of evening length on body autonomy. In the play, King delivered an urgent call for reproductive justice and celebrated black women in music.
With the kind permission of Zach Wittenburg
Despite its great artistic influence, the links were faced with an existential crisis, accelerated by a precipitated drop in subsidies. Links announced its Lifeline for links Fundraising campaign, aimed at collecting $ 350,000. Since this week, Kerastas told Wbez that the total had reached around $ 165,000. The place made public the fundraising effort, which was already in the background, after not having received a Cityarts subsidy by the Chicago Cultural Affairs department and special events, which has been given for several years. On his website, Links said that the change launched the organization in a “terrible cash flow situation”.
According to figures obtained through a request for public files, Links received $ 203,500 in city grants between 2019 and 2023, including a unique subsidy of $ 100,000 in 2023 as part of the Chicago Arts Recovery Program.
Historically, the links offered dancemakers a low cost and sometimes free place for workshop parts and new stage work. The year he celebrated his 40th anniversary, he organized a 40th 40th payment season which gave space to artists without rent, a lifeline in a city where the dance space can cost a bonus and be difficult to find. While some places may hope to avoid a meticulous examination that comes with the presentation Politically busy art, the links were leaned. The place also did not hesitate to promote works by queer and racially diverse artists.
This kind of avant-garde art is at risk, say local creatives, as Trump administration operation From the National Endowment for the Arts has led to a scanning of changes for groups. The new grant rules prevent subsidies from going to groups that promote diversity, equity and inclusion or those that come from decrees on “gender ideology”. Although these changes do not seem to have led to the closing of links, the local artistic community is concerned that federal changes will cause a peak in competition for less restrictive local dollars, including philanthropy.
“I think the goal is to try to separate people and compete with and isolate, consolidate an individualist ethics even more,” Kerastas told Wbez last month. “I feel so passionate that this is not how we have to be connected.”
Graham Meyer contributed.
Courtney Kueppers is a journalist in arts and culture at Wbez.
