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Dance Fri Oct 12 2012
A Company Reunion: Luna Negra Dance Theater's Fall Program
The strength of Chicago's dance scene can be found in the array of choreographers and performance styles found within the city. Like many of their contemporaries, Luna Negra Dance Theater employs a solid and experimental group of choreographers to create challenging, contemporary works that solidify their standing as one of the most important companies in Chicago. For their latest performance entitled Reencuentros, the company welcomes new works by Brazilian choreographer Fernando Melo and as well as Luna Negra Artistic Director Gustavo Ramírez Sansano. Reencuentros, a one-night only performance, takes place on Saturday, October 13 at 8pm at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance.
This will not be the first time the company has welcomed Melo's work. In 2010 during the inaugural year for Artistic Director Sansano, the group performed the US premiere of Bate, a work for five men set to the music of Eydie Gorme and the Trio Los Panchos. In addition to reprising Bate for Saturday's audiences, Melo and Luna Negra will perform the world premiere of a recently commissioned work that touches on ideas of expectation and surprise. Everyday objects appear in unexpected places to be put to surprising uses by the dancers. In some ways, the work harkens back to Bate. Melo incorporates a fascination with household objects into the play of body and striking, theatrical visual elements.
18+1, Sansano's full-company world premiere, is a joyful piece that aims to look at the present as well as the future. The work is set to the mambo music of Pérez Prado, a musician Sansano has listened to throughout his life. Like past works, Sansano aims to employ his history and memory into his creative process. For last year's CARMEN.maquia, Sansano knew and grew up with the story, but didn't begin to truly understand the work until he spent more time with it. "It has been 19 years since I put my choreography on stage for the very first time," Sansano recently noted about 18+1. "Exposed in front of the audience with care, trust and hope as much as fear and insecurity. Just like a parent of a newborn baby."
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Reencuentros runs one night only, Saturday, October 13 at 8pm. Tickets range from $25 to $65 and are available at the Harris Theater Box Office, by phone at 312-334-7777 or online. The Harris Theater for Music and Dance is located at 205 E. Randolph.
