End of Line: SeeChicagoDance.com
Walking into the Mayne Stage late night for a KTF (Keeper of the Floor) dance battle between company members and friends of Chicago Dance Crash (CDC), a number of realizations come to mind: 1) KTF is not a typical dance show, 2) Chicago Dance Crash is not a typical dance company, and 3) it’s possible to make people go crazy for dance.
It’s tempting to think of CDC as the “fun” group – the dance company who does flips and tricks and dances in bars. Make no mistake, Chicago Dance Crash is a serious dance company toting serious talent. That, and, a seriously smart marketing strategy. Crash intentionally flirts with the often opposing worlds of concert dance and commercial entertainment, and it appears to be working.
When company member Jessica Deahr was promoted to Artistic Director in 2012, she had never run a dance company. Flash-forward three years, and Deahr is set to premiere Crash’s biggest work yet in Tron: End of Line. Long-time CDC producer Mark Hackman wrote an original narrative inspired by the 1976 film navigating a futuristic world in which people and virtual doppelgängers co-exist in side-by-side realities. KTF champion Webster is the lead character, a woman named Kait who has access to “the mainframe” and meets her virtual self before winding up in a third world – a really unfortunate place called ‘the generator.” It is here that she has to keep up an exhausting show of athletic dancing… think Lost, but instead of pushing the button Webster has to keep her high kicks and pirouettes going. Tron is an ambitious project, with CDC tackling extraordinary technical elements that include 3-D projections, LED lights in the props and costumes, and a collaboration with video game animator Zach Moore. If that wasn’t enough, the production will be enjoying a three week run at the 300+ seat Victory Gardens Biograph Theater.