Piece by Piece
Like two cicadas advancing, springing instep with each other, Tra Mi Dinh and Rachel Coulson manifest from the shadows of the deep stage of the new Union Theatre.
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The scenography here, from the ever-inspiring designer Alison Brown, is truly striking: black confetti on a clinical white floor; spiky masked not-quite-human creatures, elusive faces turned away, eerie white bound furniture, which is decorative as well as functional. Brown's black and white flimsy costumes act as sheaths (called winding sheets in ancient Celtic culture) both encasing and exposing the slender bodies underneath. This is “Endling,” Rob Heaslip's disquieting Gaelic meditation on death and the ritual of condolences and care. The sounds, created by composer Michael John McCarthy, range from birdsong to guttural, slurping sounds, drones to choppy electronica, and there is beautiful and unnerving singing from vocalists Michelle O' Rourke, Gillebride MacMillan and Robbie Blake. The styles of their vocals are very much akin to throat singing, baroque and chants, and are absolutely spellbinding.
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“Endling” by Rob Heaslip. Photograph by Brian Hartley
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Like two cicadas advancing, springing instep with each other, Tra Mi Dinh and Rachel Coulson manifest from the shadows of the deep stage of the new Union Theatre.
Plus“I can’t even stand it,” exclaimed Tina Finkelman Berkett about the Perenchio Foundation grant that her dance troupe, BodyTraffic, recently received.
PlusBeneath a tree also over a century old is where I meet dancer and artist Eileen Kramer, and where the 60-minute loop will end. And it feels fitting, on the heels of her recent death on November 15, 2024, at 110-years-of-age, to start here, at effectively the end of Sue Healey’s screening of On View: Icons.
FREE ARTICLEHubbard Street Dance Chicago’s Fall Series will entertain you. Deftly curated, with choreographers ranging from Aszure Barton to Bob Fosse, Hubbard’s dancers ably morph through this riveting programme of showmanship.
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