Return Chicago SummerDance to Spirit of Music Garden!

For over 20 years, Chicago SummerDance brought together people from all over the metro area to share the joys of live music and social dancing in a family-friendly, centrally located venue, Grant Park’s Spirit of Music Garden at Balbo Drive and Michigan Avenue. For most of that time, Sunday afternoons were devoted to classic American big band music, including the works of such great American composers and songsmiths as Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Les Brown, Cab Calloway, Bobby Darin, Tommy Dorsey, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Glenn Miller, Frank Sinatra, and Dinah Washington.

Big band events attracted some of the most diverse SummerDance audiences, uniting people of every age, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, ability, educational background, religion, and socioeconomic status in their shared love of dance. In this unique environment, lifelong friendships have been forged, romances kindled, marriages made, and new families formed, who then returned with their children to share their passion with the next generation.

It is for all these reasons that the 2022 SummerDance schedule was received with sorrow by long-time attendees; it felt like witnessing the death of a beloved friend.

While appreciating the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Event’s (DCASE’s) desire to make SummerDance more inclusive, we believe it has done the opposite by moving most events to far-flung venues poorly inter-connected by mass transits, effectively siloing patrons by geography and ethnicity. We also believe that SummerDance does not have to be a zero-sum game of “either-or” but can instead be a “both-and” with regular neighborhood and Grant Park events as it was for so many years prior to the pandemic with the support of its patrons and corporate sponsors.

Therefore, we, the patrons of Chicago SummerDance, petition Mayor Lori Lightfoot and DCASE to roll back this well-intentioned but misguided decision, seek new corporate sponsors and funding sources, and return our beloved SummerDance to the Spirit of Music Garden.

• We, as Chicagoans, wish to celebrate Chicago’s rich musical history and share it with family, friends, neighbors, and tourists alike.
• We, as Chicagoans, wish to reclaim a treasured downtown venue that powerfully showcases the best Chicago has to offer: lakeside breezes and sunshine, music, dance, and love.
• We, as Chicagoans, pledge to support the local dance teachers, band leaders, and musicians who make the city’s live music and dance cultures so special.
• We, as Chicagoans, pledge to support efforts by DCASE and Mayor Lightfoot’s administration to not only bring back our SummerDance but make it even more glorious in the years to come.