TAPS Winter Dance Pro-Show
UChicago’s first ever professionally led dance show is connected to a winter course in TAPS (26170) that gives students the opportunity to learn repertory by professional dance artists, culminating in a weekend of performances March 2-4, 2023.
Pre-Register for the Dance Pro-Show course now!
TAPS 26170
Wed: 3:30 PM - 6:20 PM
This course gives students the opportunity to learn repertory and new works by professional guest choreographers and faculty, culminating in a weekend of performances at Logan Center for the Arts. Within an immersive quarter-long production schedule, students will be exposed to a wide array of movement vocabularies, choreographic methods and performance aesthetics, while also gaining practical skills within the many facets of professional production work. Readings, viewings, and weekly journals will supplement studio and production work, connecting each student's experience to broader conversations within dance and performance studies. With a range of performance and production opportunities, this course will accommodate and challenge both trained dancers and movement-curious beginners.
Choreographers include
The B-Series (Daniel “BRAVEMONK” Haywood & Kelsa “K-Soul” Robinson), faculty at Columbia College Chicago and founders of BraveSoul Movement
Robyn Mineko Williams, multidisciplinary artist, producer, and former dancer/choreographer for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago
Vershawn Sanders-Ward, Artistic Director of Red Clay Dance Company
Julia Rhoads / Lucky Plush Productions, UChicago Director of Dance
The concert will also feature legendary choreographer Yvonne Rainer’s Trio A, set by Elliot Gordon Mercer, transmitter of Rainer’s repertoire and a postdoctoral fellow in TAPS
If you are interested to participate in this show—whether through the course or in a co-curricular capacity—please reach out to Julia Rhoads, jrhoads1@uchicago.edu.
Juxtaposition: An Evening of One-Act Plays
At Your Own Risk
Directed and Devised by Peter Andersen
Synopsis: What makes an artist tick? What compels them to create? AT YOUR OWN RISK investigates the life and work of Derek Jarman - queer filmmaker, stage designer, author and gay rights activist. An artist in the purest sense everything was distilled either into his film work or other artistic practices. This devised piece uses live storytelling mixed with video design to crack open what his creative process.
About Peter: Peter Andersen is a director whose work interrogates, adapats, and reimagines classical plays with Queer and POC artists. He is currently pursuing his MFA in directing at Carnegie Mellon. He is also a graduate of Emerson College where he obtained his BFA in Acting. Some directing projects include: American Myth, The Kennedy Plays, Queer Shakespeare, 21, The Cafe Collections, O/A: The Sophocles Project, As You Like it, Macbeth, Measure for Measure. He has also worked at TimeLine Theatre, Huntington Theatre Company, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Yale Repertory Theatre, Writers Theatre, and American Players Theatre as an assistant director. Upcoming Projects include: As You Like It; A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Laika's Coffin
Directed by Seth Bockley
Synopsis: Laika’s Coffin is a miniature epic faux-Soviet opera based on the biography of the doomed first animal in space. Hand-crafted wooden chests open to reveal remarkable miniature Soviet-inspired sets accompanied by operatic sung narration while puppeteers animate the sad but strangely hopeful saga. Laika's Coffin is a toy theater production which has been seen on stages across the country in various incarnations including Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art and St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn. It was conceived and created by Seth Bockley and Frank Maugeri, with text by Seth Bockley, music by Kevin O’Donnell, artwork by Kass Copeland and art direction by Frank Maugeri and Cabinet of Curiosity.
About Seth: Seth Bockley is a writer for the stage, screen and page and a widely produced theater director, specializing in literary adaptation (stories by George Saunders, the novel '2666' by Roberto Bolaño, and a current project adapting The Epic of Gilgamesh). His stage works have been seen in Mexico City, Singapore, rural Ireland, Canada and all over the USA. An inaugural member of Chicago’s Goodman Theater Playwrights' Unit, for three years he subsequently served as Writer in Residence at Goodman Theater. He is an Artist in Residence at the Amsterdam-based environmental nonprofit Sovereign Nature Initiative, and his first film, “The Cartographer,” premiered in 2022 at the Berlin Short Film Festival. He is a lecturer in the Theater and Performance Studies department at the University of Chicago.
Students will have the opportunity to engage with professional artists working on the productions. Be on the lookout for an interest sign-up sheet soon. Questions about what you need to get involved? Email Director of Performance Programs, Devon De Mayo, ddemayo@uchicago.edu.