STOMPING GROUNDS is BACK!
Starting in 2015, CHRP presented STOMPING GROUNDS, a two- to three-month, City-wide performance and education festival in communities throughout Chicago showcasing many of the city’s most accomplished percussive dance companies and independent artists.
This year, STOMPING GROUNDS is BACK in community cultural centers throughout Chicago.
On March 22nd, Experience the deep well of percussive arts and dance at the Logan Center for the Arts. This performance showcases traditional and contemporary work of Chicago-based companies, including Ayodele Drum and Dance, Tsukasa Taiko, an encore by last year’s festival hit, Surabhi Ensemble, CHRP’s Stone Soup Rhythms, renowned guest artist, Cartier Williams, and ERA Footwork making their first Stomping Grounds appearance. The drum-heavy program displays the connection between percussive music and dance, featuring works that pay homage to ancient rituals of Spring and the hope that accompanies new beginnings.
2026 Performing Artists/Companies
Ayodele Drum and Dance
A sisterhood of women who recognize the guidance of the Creator in our mission to study, heal and express ourselves through African Drum and Dance from a woman’s perspective.
Cartier Williams
The child protégé of tap dance--- a hoofer, choreographer, filmmaker, and performer hailing from Washington, D.C
The Era Footwork
Collective showcases Chicago footwork, a fast-paced dance and music genre. It creates stage productions, music, and films exploring the origins and cultural impact of footwork.
Stone Soup Rhythms
A collective of emerging and established tap dance artists and jazz musicians who bend time and space to explore the limits of human expression through music, rhythm and mvoement.
Surabhi Ensemble
A cultural polyglot that explores and creates connections between Indian, Spanish and African cultures that reveals a positive message of togetherness through new works.
Tsukasa Taiko
Dedicated to understanding and strengthening Japanese American, Asian American, and Japanese identities, Tsukasa Taiko offers taiko instruction, workshops, educational presentations, and performances that advance the understanding of taiko within the context of the cultural, performing and musical arts.
2026 Performance Venues
Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts (915 E 60th St)
March 22 5-7pm
A place of possibility to experience, create, and contemplate art, connecting The University of Chicago with artists and communities on the South Side and beyond.
DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center (740 E 56th Place)
May 31 5-7pm
The Nation’s Oldest Independent African American Museum Celebrating 62 Years.
Festival History
STOMPING GROUNDS evolved from an earlier, annual CHRP performance series - GLOBAL RHYTHMS - that began in 2005 with the presentation of STRIPES from Japan and Vata Tap from Brazil. Global Rhythms featured extraordinary percussive arts companies from around the globe like Israel's Sheketak, Canada's ScrapArtsMusic and another company from Japan - the taiko drumming sensation - TAO. Joined in 2010 by Chicago-based companies like Sones de Mexico and Be The Groove, Global Rhythms provided a nexus of cultural exchange, rhythm culture and diversity.
STOMPING GROUNDS was built to showcase every possible dialect of rhythm in every neighborhood of Chicago and to celebrate them all . . . TOGETHER!
Past Performance Gallery
Funding
STOMPING GROUNDS is made possible with major support from the Chicago Free For All Fund at The Chicago Community Trust and Engaging Dance Audiences (a program managed by Dance USA and funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation) with additional funding from The Saints and National Endowment for the Arts. Chicago Human Rhythm Project is supported by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The MacArthur Fund for Arts and Culture at Prince, Bloomberg Philanthropies, The Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, The Joyce Foundation, The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, BMO Harris, The Arlen and Elaine Cohen Rubin Charitable Fund of the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Kansas City, The Jeanette & Jerome Cohen Philanthropic Fund of the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Kansas City, Phil and Marsha Dowd, National Endowment for the Arts, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Broadway in Chicago, Illinois Arts Council Agency, City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, L&L Hardwood Flooring, Peoples Gas, The Service Club of Chicago, and generous individual donors.
Past Performing Companies and Independent Artists
Ensemble Español Spanish Dance Theater
The premier Spanish Dance Company and Center in the United States in-residence at Northeastern Illinois University’s Department of Music and Dance.
Collaborative Institute for Cultural Arts
A spectacular, multi-generational company dedicated to the authentic presentation of Mexican and Indigenous dance and musical traditions.
Ishti Collective
Creates a synergistic environment through dance, music, and storytelling where artists engage with the community to generate meaningful dialogue and push the boundaries of their art.
Itotia Mexica Xi
Mexican Indigenous Dance, Heritage & Education
Kalapriya Center for Indian Performing Arts
Presents India’s artistic diversity through performing arts that preserve traditional South Asian art forms, and that build bridges between the performing arts and our contemporary lives.
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Mexican Dance Ensemble
Founded in November 2001.
Mike Austin
The scion of a family with a professional musical tradition that spans at least four generations to his band-leading great-grandfather, a personal friend of John Phillip Sousa. Mike is an internationally recognized master of the Irish Bodhran.
Muntu Dance Theatre
"The essence of humanity" is what the Company seeks to express in its work and to touch in its audiences.
Najwa Dance Corps.
One of Chicago's most celebrated companies devoted to the performance, production and preservation of dance styles and techniques reflective of the African American dance heritage and experience.
Natya Dance Theatre
One of the most critically acclaimed and culturally treasured Indian dance companies in the United States.
Nico Rubio
Tap Dancer, Teacher, Student & Achiever.
The Mexican Folkloric
Dance Company
Has had the honor of performing alongside Juan Gabriel, Lila Downs, Pepe Aguilar, Beatriz Adriana, El Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán & other celebrities
Trinity Irish Dance Academy
Since 1982, this Chicago, Milwaukee and Madison institution has become the most widely recognized Irish dance school in the world, elevating children, the community, and the world through the power and grace of Irish dance.
Tristan Bruns
Chicago tap dancer who has received training under Donna Johnson, Ted Louis Levy, Sam Weber and Martin “Tre” Dumas III.
Auditorium Theater
Has a past that follows the path of Chicago’s history, from the Great Chicago Fire and World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 to the great rock and roll era of the 1960s and 1970s to the present.
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Chicago Cultural Center
A Chicago Landmark building
operated by Chicago's
Department of Cultural Affairs
and Special Events.
Past Performance Venues
Beverly Arts Center
Building community through the arts on Chicago’s South side since 1967.
Garfield Park Conservatory
One of the largest and most stunning botanical conservatories in the nation.
Carruthers Center
Demonstrates Northeastern Illinois University's urban tradition of education, research, and service.
Harris Theater
Proud to be Chicago's home for music and dance.
Irish American Heritage Center
Celebrates Irish and Irish American culture through events, music, theater, literature, and language.
Links Hall
A home for performing artists of all kinds to fearlessly explore and invent, creating new works of explosive imagination.
National Museum of Mexican Art
Preserving Mexican culture through exhibitions, arts education and events.
Pearl Paint, Sip and Hip
A new spin on the classic paint and sip concept.
Studebaker Theater
First emerged as a music and opera hall in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, hosting a variety of acts and performers.