PRESS | MEDIA
REVIEW__ Impressions from Chicago: Erin Kilmurray + Kara Brody in “Knockout”
By elena rose light, The Dance Enthusiast, February 11 2025
“…as choreographers, Brody and Kilmurray take a raucous approach to form, collaging time and space and bits of movement phrases such that I can’t really remember how it ends. Were they embracing or grappling? Helping or hurting? I don’t need to know. I just wish the world outside this theater could commit to this cycle of hit and hug, ruin and repair. Like Knockout, that’s a show I’d love to watch”.
REVIEW__ ‘Knockout’ dance duet at Steppenwolf is a knockout — 10 out of 10
By Lauren Warnecke, Chicago Tribune, January 25, 2025
“Intuitive, thrillingly chaotic, deeply vulnerable” and “chock full of layers and complexity, smart composition and plain old good dancing --- frustratingly good in its attention to detail” from “two of Chicago's most captivating performers”.
REVIEW__ ‘Knockout’ at Steppenwolf begins LookOut series with a bang!
By Isabel Campisteguy, See Chicago Dance, January 25, 2025
“A truly phenomenal performance” that “highlights the raw strength and power emanating from each dancer, challenging traditional notions of femininity”.
FEATURE__ ‘Knockout’ Brings Iconic Femme Fight Scenes To Steppenwolf In ‘Action-Packed’ Dance Show
By Leen Yassine, Block Club Chicago, January 23, 2025
50 People Who Really Perform For Chicago 2025
By Sharon Hoyer, Newcity Stage, January 7 2025
“Erin Kilmurray makes the sweatiest, sexiest, most raucous dance performances in Chicago. A choreographer of energy, Kilmurray takes DIY underground party vibes to the concert stage…”
RESPONSE__ Meet Me in the In-Between
By Ryan Adelshiem, Performance Response Journal, Jul 17, 2024
“What results is erotic, surprising, and familiar… It’s a world of possibility that can change in a heartbeat”
INTERVIEW__ Letting Go of Arrival with Tara Aisha Willis
By Tara Aisha Willis, United States Artists, posted May 30 2024
“For nearly twenty years, dance artist Erin Kilmurray has steadily built a presence in Chicago with her tentacular practice, reaching audiences in apartments, nightclubs, music venues, and theaters. Her pulsating performances relentlessly explore the celebration and liberation of women, queer folks, the underground, and the underdog.
REVIEW__ Call & Response: On Knockout
By Rachel Lindsay-Snow, Sixty Inches from Center, September 17, 2024
“Brody and Kilmurray’s dynamic transforms constantly, even in a single phrase and a single gesture”.
“I left the theater wide-eyed, head full, empowered, and hot at hell”.
REVIEW__ A femme-fueled function by Erin Kilmurray
By Isabel Campisteguy; See Chicago Dance, June 14 2024
“Nothing rivals the experience of being in an energetic crowd during a live performance. You know the one—where cheers, snaps and shouts of friends' names fill the air around you. The kind of energy that seeps into your soul, making you feel a part of a larger, connected community. That was the experience of Erin Kilmurray's hybrid femme-powered dance party and performance piece, “the Function.”
REVIEW__ Erin Kilmurray’s The Function Vibrates High Energy in Deconstructed Dance
By Kathy Hey, Third Coast Review, May 29 2024
“the Function is what I call close-up magic.”
PREVIEW__ Erin Kilmurray’s the Function returns to East Garfield Park
By Kerry Reid, Chicago Reader, May 24, 2024
“Choreographer and performer Erin Kilmurray [is a] longtime force for multidisciplinary performance and community building in Chicago”
PREVIEW__ Top Dance for Summer 2024
By Lauren Warnecke, Chicago Tribune, May 23, 2024
“Here, Kilmurray pours from her career-long commitment to surfacing the underground, formalizing the informal, breaking norms and pushing at performers’ and audiences’ boundaries.”
REVIEW_ “It’s nothing short of an adrenaline rush”.
By Megan Kudla, See Chicago Dance, April 30 2024
LISTEN__ Podcast: The Process Episode Three ft. Erin Kilmurray
Interview with Alyssa Gregory. Spotify, Posted 2021
REVIEW__ SEARCH PARTY observed at ArtTheater dB KOBE on
By Mari Takeda; Art-Theatre-Kobe Japan, October 22, 2019 [Japanese - to English translation here]
“Harsh, powerful and ceremonial choreography involves the solidarity and mutual respect of women dancers and mutual respect”
REVIEW__ Pivot Arts Festival Presents Erin Kilmurray in SEARCH PARTY review: Shattering Expectations
By Sarah Stern, Picture This Post; June 10 2019
“Kilmurray’s dancers shatter the expectations of concert dance performance while pushing themselves to the extremes of their technical abilities — makes, crosses, destroys, and recreates borders, to tear down.
REVIEW__ Call Off the Search Party : These Femmes are Found
By Aurora Tabar, Performance Response Journal; December 31 2018
“These bodies are strong, capable, queer, and kinky. As its title suggests, Search Party is both an ecstatic celebration and a thoughtful inquiry. Who holds power? And who is seen? These are performers who demand visibility. They do not need a search party. They are in your face, proud, and their ferocity is unassailable. Their power and rage are resonant, and I experience them sympathetically. Search Party is performance that makes me feel alive. If these are the femmes of the future, then I am on board”.
PREVIEW__ Innovative, Entertaining: Pivot Arts Festival Seeks to Bring Genre-Defying Work Center Stage
BY SHARON HOYER, Newcity Stage, MAY 29, 2019
“...empowering, pushing the envelope, joyous, exuberant. [Kilmurray] is great at engaging audiences in work that feels celebratory”.