Jackie Radis received her Bachelor of Science in Dance Education from the University of Illinois in 1969. From 1974 until 1988, she was fully involved in running MoMing Dance and Arts Center as co-founder and administrator. During that time she also developed her dance career teaching, performing, and choreographing.

Though the Encyclopedia of Chicago lists seven founders of MoMing Dance & Arts Center, including Jackie Radis, she was its heart and in effect its sole director from 1974 to 1988.  The classes, workshops and performances at MoMing enriched the cultural life of Chicago in so many ways. For 16 years, the former church school brought in distinctive artists, often little known at the time: Trisha Brown, Meredith Monk, Bill T. Jones, Mark Morris, Eiko and Koma, Ralph Lemon, Liz Lerman, Bebe Miller, Ping Chong. It provided a venue and support to local artists, many just beginning to make names for themselves—Jan Bartoszek, Jan Erkert, Laura Wade, Bob Eisen, Charlie Vernon, Amy Osgood, Tim O’Slynne—while others were young performers taking workshops or trying out new ideas in programs like “Dance for $1.98.” It provided classes at all levels for both adults and children, creating a continuum of the art form, from childhood to professional.

Radis’ own work, like MoMing itself, was based in the conviction that individuals matter, that the small and “ordinary” matter. Her last piece before she left MoMing in 1988, the evening-length sextet “Without Words,” relied in the most loving way on the unique characters of her performers: their physical presence and spare actions alone created a far-reaching, moving drama.  Reportedly, “MoMing” means “something too beautiful to be named” in Chinese. Radis believed wholeheartedly in that something, in the value of modern dance and in the necessity to nurture and educate dancers.

By 1984, Jackie had choreographed over 30 dance/theater works with sponsorship from MoMing, the Illinois Arts Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1988, she decided to move out of the performing arts and into thehealing arts, going on to earn her Masters in Social Work and certifications in healing modalities. She now resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico where she continues to practice as massage therapist.  She has a private practice in Gentle Healing Bodywork and Intuitive Tarot readings.  Jackie is an avid hiker and continues to dance enjoying the benefits it provides both physically and spiritually.

Ginger Farley, Executive Director of the Chicago Dancemakers Forum, has worked in Chicago as a dancer, choreographer, teacher and as an advocate for live and performing arts since 1978.  Farley received a Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist award in its inaugural year, 200e, after which she then served as project director and consortium member.  In 2015, Farley became the first Executive Director of the organization.  Under her leadership Chicago Dancemakers has raised $1million to support grants to dance making artists and has attracted a national multi-year stimulus for dance, the Regional Dance Development Initiative, to Chicago.

Ginger was an early member of Chicago’s Hubbard Street Dance Company, performing in roles by founding director Lou Conte, Claire Bataille, Lynne Taylor-Corbett, Margo Sappington and John McFall from 1978-1988.  She taught technique classes for 20 years at its public facility, the Lou Conte Dance Studio.  From 1988-2004 she served as part-time faculty at the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago.  From 1996-2001 she directed her own company, The 58 Group, with colleague Cameron Pfiffner.  Farley continues to mento artists through a program designed with colleague Bryan Saner call “The Art of Rehearsal.”  During her service as a consultant to the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation on its Small Theater and Dance Program, Farley participated in the “Excellence in Dance Initiative” at The Chicago Community Trust, leading the way on a study of small, mid-sized and independent dance artists in Chicago.  The larger initiative led to the development of the Chicago Dancemakers Forum.  Farley has served on numerous committees and boards for arts and culture in Chicago.  She is currently on the board of the Chicago Dance History Project, a fonding member of the group which conceived the project; and on the Advisory committee to the School of Theater and Music at the University of Illinois at Chicago.  She lives in Chicago with her husband Bob Shapiro, and between them, they have six kids and three grandkids.

Laura Molzahn has written and published for 30 years, contributing to the public understanding and appreciation of the arts through her thoughtful and cogent writing and editing of reviews and features on the arts for newspapers, magazines, and public radio.  She has written for the Chicago Tribune, Dance Magazine, Pointe Magazine, WBEZ, and the Chicago Reader, where she also served a 20+ year stint as Editor for performing and visual arts.  While working on her Ph.D. in English at Northwestern University, Molzahn began taking dance classes in 1980, at age 30  at the MoMing Center or Arts and Dance; energized by her love of the form, took the writer’s maxim “write what you know”  to heart and began reviewing dance or the reader in 1987.  For nearly 40 years she’s  studied all over Chicago, following where the muse led, taking classes in modern, ballet, jazz, African and Afro-Caribbean, flamenco, Brazilian, hip-hop and yes, even clogging.  

This full immersion in dance makes understandable her especially rich writings on dance, which in turn influenced decades of readers, writers and artists in all genres.  Laura’s writing has twice been recognized by the Chicago Headline Club with two separate Peter Lisagor awards.  On March 23, 2018, Laura Molzahn will receive the Hedwig Dance Advocacy Award In recognition of her journalistic contributions for 30 years in which she has furthered the reach and deepened the understanding of contemporary dance through her thoughtful written examinations, reviews, and gifted “verbalizing of the non-verbal art form.”