HEAVY OBJECTS (and light movements)
Chicago dancemaker of promise, Drew Lewis, is one of three artists selected to participate in the Work Around Series presented by Steppenwolf Theatre. The Work Around residency gives each artist (in this case three choreographers) 40 hours of rehearsal space and a place to perform their creations. Part self-portrait and part inspired by the work of artist/activist David Wojnarowicz, Lewis used the allotted studio time to create Heavy Objects (and light movements) , an hour-long dance mosaic, and shared the results in the 1700 Theatre. A shallow and wide space, seeing dance in the 1700 feels like watching a tennis match with ample space for dancers to move side to side and not much depth. Among the pieces sections, there is no obvious activism, and none of the stark imagery that might be associated with Wojnarowicz's art, save for a brief soundtrack of presumably Wojnarowicz recounting witnessing the deterioration of friends and acquaintances fallen to AIDS. No matter. We don...