"Attention Gotham, the sun has now set. All residents are strongly advised to remain in your private homes for the next 15 hours and 23 minutes of darkness. Do not open your doors to any solicitors… they are not solicitors. Ignore all loud noises, flashes of colored lights, and dramatic changes in sea level. And above all else, have a pleasant evening."

As the sun sets on Gotham City, an urban metropolis left slowly crumbling under its own weight transforms into an underworld den of criminal vice. In this animated, parallel universe, a nocturnal home for the criminally, emotionally, and terminally insane is taken hostage by a madman with a whole new vision of terror.

From sunset to sunrise a mysterious street performer, an abandoned orphan, a dirty cop, a mental patient, a naïve tourist couple, a petty thief, and many other natural (and supernatural) seemingly unrelated characters struggle to make their way through the cold, city streets and possibly to the nocturnal “throne” of Gotham.

Only a few can move on nothing but instinct to find the basic humanity to survive. See 10 million people brought to life by 30 explosive dancers ranging in skills and styles as varied as the people of the city itself.

In the summer of 2012, the dark and lucid dream of “metal and stone” chillingly imagined in your childhood becomes fully realized— downtown, in the round, on the black marley floor of the DCA’s Storefront Theatre for an unprecedented six week run of contemporary dance. Chicago Dance Crash brings a fully realized graphic novel on stage in telling a moving-portrait of one night in the dark life of urban and underworld America.

"I don’t much care for Gotham City. It’s like someone built a nightmare out of metal and stone." – Superman

Written by Mark Hackman. Choreographed by Jessica Deahr. Presented by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs.