The process of adapting “Invisible Man” for the stage began some years ago when film director and screenwriter Oren Jacoby paired up with Christopher McElroen, a New York-based stage director. The work posed challenges for the two early on—getting the rights to the novel from the Ralph Ellison Trust was not easy. Because of Ellison’s qualms about letting out his work for adaptation, the trust has closely monitored use of the book.

The script is composed only of direct quotations pulled from the novel, which was published 60 years ago this year. Though the work’s first-person narration has been pared down considerably, it has been a battle to whittle down the script to a manageable length. The show runs for three hours with two intermissions, which seems long until you consider that for most of last year, Jacoby, McElroen, and Court staff traveled around the country hosting readings, cutting chunks of the script each time.

The first of these readings was held in November of 2010, and the idea of adapting “Invisible Man” immediately struck a chord with Court and its audiences. “The show represents an intersection of Court’s recent mission—new adaptations and African-American stories,” says Court dramaturge Drew Dir. According to Dir, this story should be especially interesting when told in Hyde Park, both a South Side cultural hub and Barack Obama’s home base.

Both the novel’s content as well as it form proved difficult to rework—its non-linear, first-person narration of the title character’s journey from aspiring professor to radical spokesperson for “the race” is difficult to present onstage. The flashback, the voiceover, the memory, which are all vital elements of Ellison’s prose, might be better suited to the silver screen, where it is easier to rapidly switch between images. Court has taken on the challenge, and the product comes very close to a screen-like adaptation, even if at times the visuals come off more assaulting than arresting. The production is clearly meant to astonish and entertain—the sheer mass of lighting and projection effects make the small theater space shimmer like Times Square.

The design is difficult and intense, incorporating many intricate movements of partial walls and floor props. The effect is a little odd—the design is so technical and sophisticated that it feels slightly over-executed. The director and the designers,  brought in from New York, have had over a year to stew on the project, so every detail has been calculated and checked over. The whole technical component, dubbed “aggressive” by Dir, is so powerful it’s almost blinding. The unfortunate result is that it’s powerful enough to overshadow the acting, which often manages to hit right on target, especially considering the number of roles each actor must play—there are ten actors and twenty four characters. Invisible Man, played by Teagle Bougere, has more lines than you can shake a stick at, and he delivers them flawlessly and with poise. The actor playing Ras the Destroyer and the university president is also a standout.

What’s next for Jacoby’s “Invisible Man?” Dir says that there are many different productions to come. “The book has never not been relevant…we want to reexamine “Invisible Man” in a new epoch,” he states, sharing the sentiment of many other theatres around the nation. The script is expected to develop beyond this stage and emerge within a few years as a more polished work—hopefully with fewer flashing lights. And in case you’re wondering, Court’s master electrician proudly delivers the number of bare bulbs onstage in Court’s design at exactly five hundred thirty-five.

Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis Ave. Through February 19. (773)753-4472. courttheatre.org

Tyler Leeds

Bruce Taylor began the first day of class by asking his nine students why they were given their first names. “I was named Joy,” responded one student, “because my daddy said I brought joy into his life.” After two beats of respectful silence a single giggle escaped from someone’s mouth. The class erupted in laughter. Taylor moved on to the next student.

“My grandma and my mom named me Ashley because they didn’t want stereotypes thrown upon the family,” answered another student. “Instead of being called a black name, they chose a common name so that unless I told someone my race no one would know.” This time no one laughed. Instead, a few hands crept toward the book lying on everyone’s desk—Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man.” Taylor was unfazed, and moved on to the next student. Ashley’s response was exactly what he was looking for.

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The students all came from King College Prep in Kenwood, one of Chicago Public Schools’ selective-enrollment high schools. They had come to a classroom on the University of Chicago campus to participate in an enrichment program called Living Bookshelf. The program, created by Taylor, attempts to push student engagement with the arts beyond plot quizzes and reviews. In Taylor’s classroom, the students were pushed to emotionally identify with Ellison’s work. In preparation for their first session, the class attended Court Theatre’s production of the “Invisible Man”—the novel’s first theatrical adaptation.

After four two-hour sessions of discussion and collaboration, the students will have produced their own creative response to Ellison’s novel—a two-scene musical theatre piece exploring the identities of two secondary characters. Mary Ann Ivan, a veteran of Broadway musical pits, will be flown in to compose music to accompany the lyrics the students write. Taylor will then hire professional actors and singers to perform the scenes on stage at Court Theatre as part of the Hyde Park Bank High School Performance Festival on February 24. But before lyrics can be paired with notes, the students have to do some work.

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While Ashley’s response quieted the room, Taylor was just beginning to warm up. At age 65, Taylor is a spry man. He has a mess of grey hair and a full mustache. He speaks with the intonation and cadence of someone used to an audience. As his students sat along narrow tables that formed a hollow rectangle, Taylor ran about in the middle. He never waited for his students to raise their hands. Instead, he would rush up to whoever hadn’t spoken in awhile. He would lean across the table and look them in eye and ask, “What do you think?” If they took too long, he would reach across and poke the students gently in the head. Their stunned expressions and indignation didn’t change the fact that Taylor’s enthusiasm was infectious.

Taylor’s first question was intentionally pointed—the history of one’s family and culture are often expressed in one’s name. Taylor’s class contains nine African Americans from the South Side, and he was seeking an emotional avenue into Ellison’s text. “Invisible Man” is the story of an African-American man leaving the South for New York City during the turbulent inter-war years.

After Ashley’s remark, everyone could make out the connection between their own lives and the novel. But how clearly did they see it? While Taylor allowed the power of Ashley’s words to linger in the classroom, he is still, like many great educators, quite demanding. Taylor began to drill his students on the basics.

“Our understanding must begin with context,” Taylor declared. “What is the context of this work?”

“Racism. Those were racist times,” said one student, half as an answer and half as a question.

“Correct, but tell me more,” Taylor pressed. “Tell me specifically. Jim Crow laws have a lot to do with the context of this work. Now, which Jim Crow laws offend you the most, and which offend you the least?”

Taylor marched around the room, passing from student to student. They all had the chance to demonstrate their opinions, with Taylor supplementing their knowledge of history along the way. In this manner, the students not only strengthened their understanding of the text, but also the connection between Ellison’s reality and the South Side today.

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Taylor has a long history with theatres. In the mid-1970s, Taylor was the production stage manager for the Seattle Opera. Under the Carter administration, federal money became available to arts organizations that were willing to bring their programming to public school students. This is where Taylor got his start as an arts educator. To prepare students to experience opera—never an easy task—Taylor was sent to prep classes on what to expect before arriving at the theatre. According to Taylor, “I had done almost everything anyone can do in a theatre, but I found I really enjoyed [teaching] and that I did it well.”

From this beginning, Taylor conceived of a post-viewing session to help students refine their understandings of the performances and to discuss their reactions. But Taylor knew arts education shouldn’t simply work to increase his student’s appreciation of work. He wanted his students to love art with the same intensity he possessed, but he also wanted them to get a job so that they could continue to appreciate the arts. As a result, Taylor claims it is his job to “get kids to really use in their own lives what we in the arts use in our profession. So I thought to myself, ‘What are the habits of mind that artists develop? How do we think? How do we create? How do we work together?’”

The seed of Living Bookshelf was planted, but Taylor still needed inspiration. During this time, Taylor came across the Foxfire Magazine. Created in 1966, “Foxfire” is one of the most prominent examples of 1960s experiential education.

Based out of Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School, a private high school in Georgia, “Foxfire” was a student-produced publication that documented the cultural history of the declining Appalachian culture. A collection of the articles was published as a book in 1972, later becoming a national bestseller.

“After reading the Foxfire book,” says Taylor, “I asked myself, Why couldn’t kids do that in the arts?” As a result, Taylor began a program entitled “Creating Original Opera.” As in Living Bookshelf, students were tasked with not only understanding a work—in this case, an opera—but also producing an artistic response to be performed. According to Taylor, “Creating Original Opera” was conducted in over 1000 schools across twelve countries.

But “Creating Original Opera” was always seen as a supplement to his students’ education. While Taylor may wish otherwise, operas never play a central role in primary education. In today’s world, the reaching of national standards in the language arts and mathematics controls school funding. Taylor had to adapt.

“Common Core State Standards dominate primary education. They have been adopted by 46 states. And so I looked at the Common Core requirements, and I thought that I could slightly modify what I do to meet these new requirements,” says Taylor. Living Bookshelf is Taylor’s attempt to meet state education requirements through the arts.

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Taylor recently left the East Coast for Chicago because his wife found a new job. “She makes way more money than I do, so I had to move with her,” he says. “I moved here without a job. I still don’t have a job, but arts education is what I do, so I don’t care if I get paid to do it or not. I like to think that I am my wife’s contribution to the arts.”

Once in Chicago, Taylor got in touch with William Michel, executive director of the UofC’s Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts. Taylor’s current incarnation of Living Bookshelf is being offered through the UofC’s Arts and Public Life Initiative. Taylor had no plans to work with “Invisible Man,” but took advantage of Court Theatre’s production. According to Dara Epison, program coordinator of University and Community Arts Collaborations, “The fact that the students chosen to work with him would have the opportunity to perform their work on Court’s stage with professional actors was simply a result of the stars aligning properly and Court being incredibly supportive.”

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By the end of the first session, the students had had no problem identifying the two characters from “Invisible Man” that they wanted to explore. Selecting the character of Ras, who is loosely based on the Black Nationalist Marcus Garvey, was especially easy. The students were intrigued by the man they interpreted as vengeful, strong-willed, and determined.

In between the end of class and the second session, held last Saturday, the students were tasked with creating a biography for Ras that explained his traits. Whether the result of Taylor’s careful prodding or not, imagination was in strong supply.

“Ras witnessed the murder of his family,” said one student, serious and soft.

“Yeah, his father was betrayed by a white guy involved in the Brotherhood,” whispered another.

As they traced out the source of his anger, Ras’s identity came into focus. He was a poet, and a few years had passed since the time of “Invisible Man.” Ras was now a participant in the Harlem Renaissance—another context for the students to explore.

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Most classrooms don’t work this way. Often, mastering the plot is what matters. It demonstrates a student’s ability to grasp and recall information, as that line of thinking goes. But while Taylor has adapted his project to state requirements, he believes foremost in protecting his students’ futures.

“Plenty of people have iPhones or iPads—if you want to know something, you just look it up,” he notes. “The students of today, if they want to succeed, need to learn how to think and create. They will be paid to be creative. The thing we have to prove, and I want to demonstrate with these kids, is that artists can contribute to student achievement. But we’re not going to succeed by having kids just act, sing, and dance. We have to have them get creative in a way they can apply to an academic subject.”

By leading his students through lyric writing, Taylor hopes to grant his students a command of metaphors—something required for state tests and successful communication. Placing these lyrics atop a melody will be no easy task, but the students still have a few more weeks to prepare. In the end, Taylor’s class will have created something new. This ability—creativity—is at the heart of Taylor’s mission.

“Because of the tests, teachers don’t ask students what they think, they ask what do you know, which isn’t so important. When you ask younger kids what do you think, they freeze. But the jobs out there today are conceptual and creative. The arts can help them think and create.”

One of the most impressive aspects of “Emergency!” was the way Beaty merged different styles of performance. Characters segued between thoughtful soliloquy, honeyed song, and slam poetry with a speed that could have been distracting, but in this case served only to further illustrate characters’ emotional states. Desperation was delivered in a low, moaning baritone. Anger streamed furiously in the rhythmic beat of spoken word poetry. Some segments were so apparently relatable that it wasn’t uncommon throughout the performance to hear an occasional whoop of affirmation issue from the back rows. Though “Emergency!’s” plot and characters are fantastic, its takeaways are real. Miraculously, all 40 characters’ viewpoints come together in the end to craft a message that spurs viewers to reconsider how they think about their history. “We can overcome,” he said, “if we change the way we see, see our past, see our possibility.”

These questions are left unanswered in Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare’s compelling adaptation of Homer’s classic tale of the Trojan War. “An Iliad” tells the story of the last few weeks of the war, when the Acheans Agamemnon and Achilles are fighting over a woman, Briseis. Achilles loses Briseis and refuses to fight in the war. As the struggle within the Achean ranks unfolds, the war wages on outside the walls of Troy.

The story is recounted in its entirety by only the Poet, turning the performance into more of a storytelling event than a traditional play. And, as a result, the vivacity and emotional range of the storyteller comes to the foreground. But while the original poem—or at least the version known to modern readers—focuses on the triumph of Achilles, “An Iliad” centers the attention on Hector, the defeated Trojan warrior. This simple shift in perspective—from an emphasis the experience of heroism, success and glory to one of defeat and death—exemplifies the adaptation’s powerful underlying anti-war message.

The play begins with the Poet listing significant wars, from Troy up to the current conflict in Afghanistan. This serves to confirm what this adaptation’s title suggests: this is “An Iliad,” not “The Iliad.” It is about every “Iliad” that has happened after the first one, and the many more that are to follow still. The storyteller says that the war only went on for so long because both parties, having already put so much time into it, could not leave without some final resolution. The Poet attempts to put the story in twenty-first century terms. He equates this type of mentality to being stuck in a long grocery line: you can see that there is a shorter one, but you feel obligated to stay in your line because you feel as if you have invested something in it.

But Peterson and O’Hare use more than modern analogy, language and tone to make the story feel relevant. Above all, they bring the epic back to its original and most effective form: oral storytelling. Presented with one man recalling a story from his memory and imagination, the audience becomes a collection of listeners rather than spectators, establishing a rapport with the actor and the play itself.

An Iliad also returns to its ancient roots of oral tradition by incorporating the original Greek verse into parts of the play. The conglomeration of ancient verse, lines of Robert Fagles’ award-winning English translation, and colloquial speech to spice up the formal prose, was the most striking example of the play’s intermingling  of the ancient, the old, and the new.

When a tale is passed through the oral tradition, the story changes with the storyteller, the audience, and the culture to which it is loaned. The story itself is ancient, but an attempt to preserve every element of the original epic poem would lose the uniqueness and malleability of the present moment that is essential to the oral tradition. That is to say, an effective storyteller knows how to relate to his audience. Timothy Edward Kane does a phenomenal job of captivating the audience and performing the role of the Poet. He is not only a storyteller, but also an enigmatic, dynamic personality who, in retelling the epic, carries on Homer’s great tradition.

Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis Ave. Through December 11. (773)753-4472. $40-60 general/$10 students. courttheatre.org

Reenactments tend to straddle the line between now and then. The guests are here for a night straight out of the ’50s, but cell phones, the city smoking ban, and modern beer signs allude more to the present than the past. The free cigarettes were made of candy and the drinks, though plentiful, were definitely offered at 2011 prices, but the Compass Players succeeded in narrating the group’s early history, bringing its playful spirit back to 55th and Woodlawn.

Paul Durica, the founder of Pocket Guide to Hell, the traveling tour group, played the part of the knowledgeable bartender—“Fred Wrencovics”—and supplemented the sketches with the history behind them. He explained that the Players’ original performance took place on July 5, 1955 at the nearby Compass Bar, which was demolished in 1960 and is now the site of the Hyde Park firehouse. The idea for the Players came from David Shepherd (here played by Chris Rathjen), an Ivy League-educated actor and director who arrived in Chicago in the early ’50s. He initially envisioned a socialist People’s Theater built around commedia dell’arte-style improvised sketches. Shepherd met director Paul Sills (played by Court Theater’s resident dramaturg Drew Dir) while working in the Chicago theater scene. Sills came from a theatrical family—his mother, drama teacher Viola Spolin, developed several improvisational games at Chicago settlement houses in the early ’30s. Together, Shepherd and Sills founded the Compass Players in the back room of the Compass Bar. The Compass Players begat the Second City, which in turn begat a half-century of talented comedic actors from Bill Murray to Stephen Colbert.

Durica went on to introduce the characters that made up the original Players: students, dropouts, alums, hangers-on, and aspiring actors. Their first performance featured a young, rebellious Elaine May (Laura Mackenzie). Sills claimed they “were all in love with her.” Some notables from the early days included “MASH” actor Roger Bowen, Andy Duncan—who appeared in the 1977 minor league hockey comedy “Slap Shot”—and the late Severn Darden, who may be best known today for his role as the nefarious Kolp in the fourth and fifth “Planet of the Apes” sequels (“Proving that we can’t all go on to direct ‘The Graduate,’” someone deadpanned onstage).

The night continued with sketches, mostly developed by Paul Sills from improv games first introduced to him by his mother. As Fred pointed out, the performance on Monday could not consist of  word-for-word reenactments—no transcripts of the first performance even exist. One standout sketch was the “Living Newspaper,” drawn from the actual headlines on July 5, 1955. At one point in the performance, former U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs Vyacheslav Molotov confronted each other over the phone—or, more accurately, Dulles tried to confront Molotov, who remained sanguine: “Is beautiful day here, Dulles. We are holding Russian government outside today!” In a later scene, Sills interrupted an improv exercise to give his actors pointed criticisms. This succeeded both as history and as comedy, and highlighted Dir’s own acting skills.

Not every sketch got laughs; then again, not all of the Players’ sketches were meant to be amusing. As Sills put it, the famous “Game of Hurt” was “not very funny—at least not at first.” And though it began as comedy, another scene ended on an unexpectedly dramatic note. At this stage in the history of improvisational theater, the form was not as closely bound to comedy as it is today.

The final third of the show was improvised on the basis of audience suggestions (overheard: “Adlai Stevenson!”). At times the material was straightforwardly funny, playing off of common comedic tropes. At other times, the scenes were difficult to understand, either because of their references to unfamiliar elements of ’50s culture or simply because the jokes simply fell flat. Of course, this also may have been true to the original performances. Sills claimed that, after an especially poor show, the Players would run down 55th Street to Promontory Point and jump into the lake.

An icy dip wasn’t necessary for the Players of 2011, as the show succeeded on its own terms. The audience was appreciative, though perhaps not as hard-drinking as their ’50s counterparts. The performers energetically engaged in the history they reenacted. The candy cigarettes, though impossible to smoke, were still fun to chew on, crush underfoot, or dangle between one’s fingers. That seemed just about right.

Jamie Keiles

“This place isn’t actually an orphanage, even if some of the kids here look like orphans,” Bob Leone laughs, gesturing at the space around him. The venue, on the second floor of the community center attached to Bridgeport’s First Lutheran Church of the Trinity,  seamlessly merges luxury with punk. At last Wednesday’s show, kids in studded jackets kicked their Docs up on velvet divans and sipped on cans of cheap beer. As the music began, vibrations from the amps rattled the crystal vases that lined the shelves of the timeworn armoires around the perimeter of the room. Kids stood up to greet each other, exchanging bear hugs and fist bumps beneath the crown molding and vaulted ceilings. Nobody seemed fazed by the stained glass windows or conspicuously plush décor.

David Medina, church member by day and Doorman Dave by night, is responsible for this aesthetic juxtaposition. Medina manages God’s Closet, a one-room donation-based thrift store operated by First Trinity that distributes clothing and furniture to the needy on a pay-nothing-take-what-you-need basis. The shop is located on the first floor of the rec center, directly beneath the Orphanage.  When Medina comes across something quirky, he simply carries it upstairs. This exchange is only one of the many ways that the relationship between the Orphanage and its host First Trinity is symbiotic.

Though the Orphanage has no official religious mission, this hasn’t prevented the two organizations from establishing a kind of informal cultural exchange. On occasion, bands seize the opportunity to provide a soundtrack to Sunday mass. What was once the church’s parsonage is now home to a handful of punk kids, artists, and organizers. At one point, First Trinity’s pastor, Thomas Gaulke, was the man in charge of booking shows.

Medina sheds light on this strange image—his pastor temporarily becoming a player in the local punk scene—by sharing a bit about the history of the Orphanage. The Orphanage opened about seven years ago, when one of the church’s members went looking for a place for his band to play. Bridgeport musicians, and eventually touring bands from around the nation, took an immediate liking to the space. In its original incarnation, the Orphanage served as a rotating gallery space for local artists’ work, as well as a music venue.

“When touring bands would come through,” Medina explains. “We’d put them up in the chapel. In the morning, we’d go to the store and get a ton of eggs and cook them breakfast. People loved it.”

After about five years of successfully hosting acts, an internal conflict began to rattle the staff of the Orphanage.

“Something about the website,” says Medina.

Many members of the original team defected, and the venue fell into an involuntary hiatus. Touring acts would call the church looking to book shows, confused by the venue’s sudden disappearance.

“People wanted to play here. They’d heard good things about the crowd, the space, the hospitality,” Medina says.

Eventually, Pastor Gaulke stepped up and started dealing with the scheduling. It wasn’t the original Orphanage, Medina clarifies, but it was still a good space.  An occasional act would trickle through, but it wasn’t the same. The scene started to fizzle. For two years, the Orphanage wallowed in organizational purgatory.

This past summer, Medina, along with musician and music teacher Bob Leone, decided it was time for a resurrection. Leone, who started attending First Trinity with his now ex-wife, saw the reinstatement of the Orphanage as a chance to recapture the fun of his youth. The church, and the Bridgeport scene, welcomed a new planning team with open arms.

This new incarnation of the Orphanage held its first event this past August—playing host to the second annual Black and Brown Punk show, a semi-queer, semi-activist-oriented, entirely eclectic fundraiser. Both Leone and Medina agreed the show was a success, despite an appearance by the cops and what Medina calls “a citation for a noise violation or something.” This past Wednesday, the new Orphanage’s second event took place. Familiar and new faces flocked to the venue for what was billed simply as “a punk show.”

During the show, Medina and Leone were both at ease, confident in the ability of the new generation of kids to carry on the DIY ethic left behind by the old guard. After one particularly frantic cymbal crash, a stand fell over, with one nearby punk hurrying over to re-set the instrument before the end of the song. If the smooth set changes, respectful decorum, and earnest music are any indicator, their confidence is justified. The space’s next event, a “dual benefit for community self-defense and to help the Orphanage pay their heating bill,” takes place December 10.

Courtesy of Clinard Dance Studio

Wendy Clinard’s passion for dance began with a few failed sketches of a flamenco class. “I couldn’t capture the energy of what I was feeling and seeing on the page,” she explains. “Everything that I came away with paled in contrast to what I felt and saw.” Driven by artistic curiosity, she decided to try the dance herself. Clinard immediately encountered the emotion inherent in the dance—the passion and vivacity that fill every movement. This is what she couldn’t capture in painting; this is what draws the audience in.

Clinard was hooked. She trained as a professional flamenco dancer, drawing inspiration from her familiarity with the lines of the human body from years of painting. She now runs the Clinard Dance Theatre in Pilsen, which is home to a professional performance company and provides lessons for all levels of dancers.

During Second Fridays in Pilsen, Clinard hosts an open performance in her studio where her students can show off what they’ve learned. As Clinard explained at the beginning of the most recent Second Friday show, “To be witnessed is really important as a performer.” That night, the crowd squeezed in around the edges of the hardwood stage, tangling feet and chairs.

The intimacy of her studio created an experience reminiscent of the tablaos where flamenco is performed in Spain. Since space is so tight in the tablaos, a sense of closeness develops between the performers and the audience, which encourages the viewers to participate in the show. “Flamenco was born in the tradition of a community-minded art form,” Clinard says.

On that evening, the performers covered a wide range of ages and abilities. Clinard’s classes often bring dancers of different levels into the studio at once, as more advanced dancers perfect the fundamentals that beginners are still just learning. Clinard joked to the audience that age is “no trouble” for a flamenco dancer. She believes that the dance is accessible to anyone. “Flamenco is a type of art form that accepts your individuality and embraces it,” she later remarked.

Affirming that flamenco has no age limits, the first performance on Friday featured two members of the youngest flamenco class, girls who barely reached their teacher’s waist. As their lanky, awkward bodies tried to imitate the sophisticated fluidity of their teacher’s movement, their faces showed an expression of concentration as intense as any that evening.

In the performances that followed—one by the class of older dancers and another by Clinard herself—the emotional intensity reached new heights. Energy coursed through the dancers and was reflected in the musicians and singer. The musicians, a group called Las Guitarras de España, began each piece by slowly strumming the first chords on their guitars. Singer Patty Ortega joined in soon thereafter with her powerful alto. The dancers were called forth, with stomping feet and proud, upright postures.

The dancers moved with intention, slowly drawing out the movements of their arms and then rapidly snapping their heels and toes about the floor. “They say that the pantheon of the human experience is captured through these forms,” says Clinard.

The final piece of the night was entitled “Fin de Fiesta.” The fiesta atmosphere culminated as crowd members joined in the tradition of jaleo—“shouts of encouragement or confirmation of what you see,” Clinard clarified. The dancers and musicians had called out shouts of “¡olé!” all night, and in the final dance, the audience began to participate in the exchange as well. As the reveling heightened, the viewers were drawn deeper into the heart of the flamenco performance. After witnessing such a scene, it is clear why Clinard was unable to represent the dance in static, two-dimensional art.

Clinard Dance Theatre, 1747 S. Halsted Ave. (312)399-1984 clinardance.org

Elizabeth Bynum

Last Sunday, the auditorium of the National Museum of Mexican Art was filled to capacity, with young families and older couples chattering eagerly before the the Mexican Folkloric Dance Company of Chicago’s performance of Tardeada del Corazón. Stepping onstage, director of the company José Ovalle asked if anyone in the audience did not understand Spanish. After only two hands were raised, Ovalle proceeded in his native tongue, “Mexico is exactly at the center of the world,” he said, though he was talking about more than geography. For the dance company, Mexico is a prototype of cultural mixing—a place enriched with a panoply of people, customs, and histories. This diversity is best seen, they believe, through the country’s folkloric dancing, which is cultivated on la rancha, in community spaces, and in the home.

To resounding applause, the music swelled, and seven dancing couples emerged on stage. The women were outfitted in vibrant reds and greens, with skirts that billowed wildly as they flitted around their white-clad partners. Clearly recognizing the dances, the crowd joined in the performance from their seats, clapping along and raising their voices for the more exciting moments. Audience member Madison Barragan, age 13, noted, “This is the type of dance I am learning to do.”

The performance encompassed styles from various regions of Mexico, showcasing the jarocho and the characteristic Guerrero chilenas. Most of the dances were narrative in structure, detailing romantic conflicts, a rowdy bullfight, or the struggle of the Mexican Revolution. Still, crowd favorites were the numbers featuring the company’s youngest dancers—elementary school children who moved nervously about the stage. Ovalle’s commentary between dances called on viewers to recall the past that these dances record, as well as their continued importance. He called upon the audience to “teach these dances to your children” for the sake of imparting an important part of their heritage, no matter how many miles away they might be from its roots.

Though the message of the afternoon was one of Mexican cultural memory, the stories and the dances carried something more universal. With discernible European musical influences, a fusion of African rhythms, and broad, relatable narratives, the dances communicated a history that anyone could engage with. Fortunately for all of us, the company, which is made up entirely of volunteer dancers, performs regularly in the area, bringing Mexico much closer to the South Side.

Sasha Tycko

A sonic blend of jazz, funk, blues, disco, soul and New Wave, the house music celebrated by the women of Honey Pot Performance is not the heavily-digitized music we think of today. Their inaugural show at the Experimental Station at 61st and Blackstone last Thursday attempted to recreate the energy and intimacy of the house scene the dancers grew up in.

The ’80s house culture that originated on the South Side extended far beyond music and parties, especially for dancers Media McNeal, Abra Johnson, Boogie McClarin, and Ni’Ja Whitson. It provided a safe outlet for youth grappling with issues of gender, sexuality, race, and class. Aptly named, house music served as a home for those who needed one. “The Chicago house culture,” Johnson said, “is one rooted in family.”

Led by McNeal, the group’s artistic director, the four women created the Sweet Goddess Project to bring more attention to the rise of women in the house scene, where more and more girls are becoming DJs, dancers, and promoters.

As the audience trickled in and took their seats, a DJ spun jazz records in the dim light of the corner. The small space of the Experimental Station added to the mellow party vibe.

Swathed in the soft blue and yellow light, the Honey Pot dancers flung themselves into the music with palpable energy. Though choreographed and well disciplined, the dancing had an improvisational air to it. The women writhed, twirled, glided and stomped around the floor, yet the diverse movements were rooted in rhythm and fluidity. In their dialogue and video clips that were interspersed throughout the performance, the women addressed big issues such as freedom, sexuality, consciousness, and exclusion. But with the varying pace of the dance and the shifting character of their movements—sometimes interlocking and moving as one unified mass of bodies, other times flitting around dizzily—they seemed to physically break out of the confines of these words and problems.

The audience bobbed along and yelped out catcalls, their own minor contributions to the lively atmosphere. Each dancer brought a personal element to her performance—in one solo, Johnson spoke aloud about her family’s relentless migration through the city in pursuit of better education and more security. Clutching her chest, she ended her monologue with the statement, “I want a home that wants me too.” House music was that home. The Honey Pot Performance will return to the South Side on December 18 at eta Creative Arts.

For the expo attendees, there were plenty of opportunities for engagement—from makeovers to contests for prizes ranging from cars to exotic vacations. Along the walls of the center hung paintings, photographs, sculptures, and various arts pieces created by different Latino artists.

Teen Day Fashion Show and Family Pavilion started at 2pm with the fashion expo. But the runway show was to be the main event of the evening, featuring Cuban designer Jorge Pérez de la Havana’s new quinceañera line for Macy’s. As the time of the show approached, the din began to rise with excitement as more people entered through the doors. Parents of one model, Carmen Guerrero, stood waiting anxiously and announced proudly, “It’s her fist big show.”

Upstairs above the expo and mounting crowd, the runway area was full of energy.  Past several rows of white chairs—each with a Macy’s bag on it—and behind the curtains on the stage, the models prepared themselves for the big entrance. A pile of shoes were stacked up on the left, waiting to be worn in the show. Workers steam-ironed long dresses, while professional beautification staff applied make-up to the young models: hairspray, straighteners, and curling irons tossed about as they sculpted the models’ hair. Arabel Alva Rosales, one of the co-executive producers, hustled about amidst the many people backstage.

The ring shaped platform in the center of the room loomed, calmly awaiting the teen models that would soon be walking out. Colored lights shown about the room, and projections flashed over the empty chairs onto the wall.  The show was ready to start.