On 2 consecutive weekends, May 3-4 and May 10-11, 2025, Visceral Dance Chicago presented their annual spring prohram, this year entitled SpringTwelve, at The Edlis Neeson Theater inside The Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago Avenue, Chicago, Il. A tour de force event displaying extraordinary scope and dance aesthetics, the 90-minute dance concert was comprised of a piece from the Company’s first season, 2 pieces from 2024, and a world premiere by Founder/Artistic Director Nick Pupillo.
- Changes (2014)
Choreographed by Monica Cervantes Rodriguez, the work was conceived as a modern exploration embedding snapshots and vignettes from daily life within driving abstract ensemble movement. It also can be seen as a kaleidoscope of mutating relationships, as the dancers increase, decrease, interrelate in complex bodily forms. In what has become a signature work for VDC, the full company of dancers exhibit a spectrum of moves defined by a body vocabulary that is wide and deep; a veritable kaleidoscope of images reflected in the insightful body language of the troupe.
This full company piece is set to iconic music by F**k Buttons and Phillip Glass, with the women dancers in off-white flowing dresses, the men in off-white singlets and khaki-grey pants by Maggie Jarecki. The piece included split-second reversals, stunning duets and solo work with powerful lifts filled with emotion. The dance proceeded propulsively toward an explosion of confetti-like particles that exuded on the stage, as though the very inner workings of the dancers’ selves were scattered about for all to witness.
- Lost Together (2024)
Choreographed and written by internationally lauded choreographer, director, and performance artist Marco Palomino, the piece showcases the full company in white spacesuits (ruched pleather pants and jerseys designed by Maggie Jarecki)) who create and control an elastic medium. They are internal expressionists utilizing external forms to the ethereal spacy sounds of Manuel Perez Caureo. The wholly original movement language is shaped by a sophisticated palate of ballet, floor work, Cuban styles and African folklore. Lost Together takes the audience into a saga of the known, the only-dreamt-of, the masked self. Startling personality changes emerge from immensely complicated movement, with extraordinary finger-framed facial masking betraying a strong sense of humor inherent in the piece. Spacey light courtesy of David Goodman-Edburg.
- Rise (2025)
Pupillo’s newest work showcased the 5 women of VDC in skin-colored skin-tight bra tops above Maggie Jarecki’s long blood-red matador’s skirts which swirled about their legs and were wielded as capes, almost as weapons. With moves and attitudes that grow from tentative to compelled and compelling, the dancers move like acolytes in tableaux of grace bathed in directed light by Ely Kleinsmith to the pulsing rhythms of Anna Caragnano and Donato Dozzy. The women turn and extend, bend and reach, rising above the constraints of society, of gender, into the trajectory of their own dreams, passionate, rapid, sensual, exciting.
- Pearl (2024)
Pupillo, recognized for the power and passion in his work, mixes the rigorous proficiency VDC is known for with unique partnering and a magical connectivity. This full-company work stages the dancers in extra-cute stylized royal blue and black boyshorts and tanks by Maggie Jarecki under smoky spiked multi-spots (David Goodman-Edburg) that shown light as parqueted tartan images on the stage. The troupe unites to the sound of solo saxophone and hypnotizing electronic beats by Chormatics, Duoteque, Caleb Arredonda, Bot1500 and Nathan Fake. This is a panoply of astonishing athleticism, in mixed forms, in lifts and runs, in thorough dreamweaving.
Spotlight on Select Dancers
This reviewer had the opportunity to interview Justin Bisnauthsing and Erika Shi on the eve of the performance about their commitment to dance and experience with VDC.
Bisnauthsing, a Creole American and a 2023 summa from SUNY, concentrates on technique inspired by the gaga method of Ohad Naharin. “I work to feel emotion and underlying meaning in my body, to dance through sensation, to move from a place of stillness to the never-stop-moving”, he said. “Your mind does the work of isolating ribs, spine, of separating the shoulder blades, completely changing how your body responds. You attempt to make the movement endless. Even when making forms and shapes that are completely non-negotiable, as in ballet, this method of conceptualization allows a fresh and exciting exploration. The goal is to be alive in every sense.” Watching Justin, an audience can almost see him lifting from a lift, pushing into the stage, reaching through himself.
Shi, an Ohio native, is similarly a summa graduate, in 2022 from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. An elastic dancer, she is super enthusiastic about her VDC involvement. “The work is hard, but the goal of excellence is so compelling!’ she explained. “I am first of all an artist and a person who wishes to express my humanity in my dancing. I want everybody who attends our program to actually feel the FUN! This set of dances demands something different from our dancers in each piece. They are all very complex, very demanding, but they all convey a sense of joy! In Rise, where I’m dancing with my best friends, Nick’s choreography pushes me-and all of us- to always go a little bit further, to be off-balance in the challenge of the work, to dare”. Shi appears limber to the point of elasticity-yet so exactly on point!
All photos by KT Miller Photography
For information and tickets to all the great classes and performances of Visceral Dance Chicago, go to www.visceraldance.org
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