Emily Loar (Photo: Ashley Deran)
Rachel Damon (Photo: William Frederking)
New works by Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago alum Emily Loar ’14 and Columbia College Chicago Theatre Department alum Rachel Damon ’05 are featured in Body Passages, a joint project of Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble and the Poetry Center of Chicago. Performances are Saturday, August 19, at Ebenezer Lutheran Church, 1650 W. Foster, in Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood, and Sunday, August 20, at Uncommon Ground coffeehouse, 1401 W. Devon in Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood. Both performances start at 7 PM. Seating at Uncommon Ground is limited, and advance reservations for Sunday’s performance are strongly recommended. Tickets are $10 in advance or $15 at the door; student tickets are only $5 in advance or $10 at the door. For tickets, call 773-486-8261. For tickets to the August 19 performance at Ebenezer Lutheran Church (Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble’s home base), click here. For tickets to the August 20 performance at Uncommon Ground, click here.
Loar is a graduate of the Dance Center’s BFA Program in Dance with a concentration in dancemaking. Damon is a graduate of the Theatre Department’s BA Program in Theatre with a concentration in theatre design. She is also a former Dance Center of Columbia College faculty member and is the founder and artistic director of the dance-theatre company Synapse Arts.
Jacqueline Baker
Also appearing in Body Passages is Jacqueline Baker, a student in the Columbia College Audio Arts and Acoustics Department‘s BA Program in Audio Design and Production.
Body Passages is a new performance series that encourages the crossing of artists and audiences. Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble and the Poetry Center of Chicago have paired professional dancers and poets to create their own artist-led projects fusing language and movement. The artists explore fluidity, form, and rhythm as they relate to a variety of topics. The two performances are a translation of these conversational exchanges.
Emily Loar’s piece, created in collaboration with dancer Lucy Riner and poet Stella Binion, is titled Let the Sun Touch You/Leaving Stains. Combining Binion‘s wandering and curious text with Loar and Riner’s playful, disjointed movements, Let the Sun Touch You is an exploration of personal experiences had by different women at various life stages.
Rachel Damon’s piece, Mokosh, created in collaboration with poet Ashley Keyser, is set in rural Ukraine and uses text and textiles to meditate on East-West relationships, resisting easy narratives of cross-cultural connection as the artists weave, unravel, and revel in webs of words. Damon is also a former Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago faculty member.
Jacqueline Baker’s piece Passenger, created in collaboration with Jessica Diaz, reflects on humans’ codependent symbiosis with shadows and the likeness to that of someone struggling with depression.
Sara Maslanka
The program is co-curated and co-produced by Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago alum Sara Maslanka, artistic director of Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble. Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble, founded in 2001, is a multidisciplinary performing arts ensemble dedicated to creating “performance with a purpose” onstage and in the classroom.
