Side Effects and Smoking Meat-- Project Bound Dance and Kelly Anderson Dance Theatre

 Side Effects and Smoking Meat

Project Bound Dance and Kelly Anderson Dance Theatre

On a mid February evening in Chicago, the Color Club brought warmth to the up-and-coming arts corridor on northwest side. At the brand new Joy Machine Gallery next door, a new and popular art show opened, and the Color Club Tavern filled up with early patrons. But the highlight was up the narrow staircase to the Color Club's second floor ballroom where Project Bound Dance (Bound) and Kelly Anderson Dance Theatre (KADT) presented their shared concert Side Effects and Smoking Meat to a full house and enthusiastic audience.

The show opened with Faded Billboards (Relatable) (2024), a playful duet created and performed by Emily Loar and Ali Lorenz. Filled with tension and release, the piece serves well as a light introduction to the Bound style and sensibility. Simplicity and repetition unveil a language blending dextrous virtuosity and strong partnering with pedestrian movement. The pair perform strange hand gestures as if randomly picking some invisible fruit or tracing the contour of each other's face but their gaze never meets. Counter balancing and pulling away from each other while connected at the wrists, they become like a rubber band stretched to it's limit only to release and send each other in opposite directions. Sprinkled with moments of urgency—a sharp heel of the hand to the head or a stomach-grabbing gesture--the dance is mostly a relationship of sharing, helping, playing, and moving on. Even after the last glimpse of Loar exiting in the shadows, music continues as if the game goes on. It has just moved into another room.

The lone piece from KADT, Wealthcare: “an episode” (2025), is a grind of a 30-minute creation by Anderson of her ongoing journey as an epileptic and the trials and horrors of healthcare system. In an unsettling opening image, Anderson lays upstage as four dancers wearing pill-covered tunics and leggings (Cheryl Cornacchione, Danielle Gilmore, Sarah Morimoto and Michael O'Neill) sweep in linear patterns opposing the jarring sound of an MRI scanner. The quartet movement suggests something smooth and calm as Anderson remains still. As the piece progresses, there is nothing smooth and calm about it. Building in seemingly haphazard freneticism, the only relief comes in the form of humor. Vacillating between the lyrical and theatrical, the corps of dancers literally carry Anderson around making the siren sounds of an ambulance. The stage fills with vials of prescription medications that the ensemble dismantles just as quickly as Anderson can line them up. Donning white medical jackets, the corps sings snippets of For the love of Money by the O'Jays and recites endless lists of medications. Anderson finally finds some relief from a comical “Dr. Mendmee.” In one musical theatre style section, the ensemble sings about the rising costs of monthly medication while strutting around like something out of a Busby Berkely movie.

Throughout, Anderson reads deeply personal journal entries relating to medications, diets, holistic medicines and all of the things that haven't helped her condition. It takes bravery and vulnerability to reveal this level of privacy. And it's sometimes too much to take in. Even the smart comedy can't bring enough levity to the weight of hearing a recorded phone voiceover drone on and on about the complications and bureaucracy of navigating insurance policies. As the corp dancers often swirl about with grace, their actual movement doesn't always feel connected to the message. But maybe that's the point. The healthcare machine swirls around us while individuals flounder, searching for answers. Ending the piece in solo, Anderson lunges and slides amidst piles of paper medical bills that have been strewn about. She appears small, as if being consumed by it all.

A Theory on Staying (2107) a solo dance with live accompanying text is so rich, one must make a choice whether to watch mesmerizing dancer Kathryn Hetrick, or listen to the articulate Loar recite her poem. Striking and clear, Hetrick demands attention, while spoken words drift in an out, sometimes paralleling the movement. Seated upstage, Loar's committed and honest vocal delivery tells of love, loss, falling and getting up again and falling again. Attacking the words with power and vulnerability, Hetrick stands one moment, then in a beat, inverts with one leg extended to the ceiling. She rights herself just as quickly as if nothing happened. With surprising changes of direction and shape, movement escalates from gentle clutching at the chest with a claw-ish hand, to a fragmented waving motion, to repetitive falling echoed in the text. Majestic in stature, Hetrick delivers a solid, bruisingly physical and compelling performance.

The newest from Bound is also the most mature piece on the program. In this first glimpse of a work in progress entitled Smoking Meat, together Deran and Loar (the Artistic Directors of Bound) have created a strange and surreal world. With a futuristic feel, a quartet emerges from shadowy lighting and advances slowly into the space. This is a strong and muscular group whose bodies are held taught beneath the layered costumes by Jeff Hancock.

The four (Hetrick, Loar, Lorenz and Moritmoto) don Hancock's intriguing designs consisting of segments of protective sports gear that allude to football shoulder pads or baseball catcher's chest protectors, juxtaposed with body armor, warrior-like baldricks and Wonder Woman wrist cuffs. In black and red with accents of day-glo yellow and orange these strange yet beautiful adornments evoke thoughts of construction workers fused with athletes melding into some sort of contemporary super hero. They're a riveting and curious bunch as they deliberately carve their way across the ballroom, a group on their way to battle.

The four dancers tightly and seamlessly move through the piece, connecting, disconnecting and setting each other in motion. Fluid lifts give way to sharp angled poses, the dancers group together, and spread out, each seemingly dealing with their own personal battle. In one moment, Morimoto rises onto a pedestal and is rotated like a majestic music box dancer/Greek statue as the others look on in adoration. Striking poses out of muscle magazines, the dancers eye the audience as if to say, “take a look, we are strong, and this is us, but it is also you.” An in another section with Morimoto planted downstage in a wide stance, Lorenz rubs up against her repeatedly like a giant needy cat, longing for attention. The piece builds from it's meditative beginning to explosive jumps and lifts, the ballroom floor shaking with each landing, but when the piece ends quietly, it feels like there is still more to say. Good thing this excerpt will continue to grow into an evening length work.