Imperial Silence: Una Ópera Muerta
Who says death can’t be fun? Just look at Mexico’s most famous holiday—the Day of the Dead, which has been thriving for centuries among pagans and Christians alike. West coast multimedia artist John Jota Leaños capitalizes on the, um, vitality of that tradition in his 2008 political satire Imperial Silence: Una Ópera Muerta.
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Everyone here is a skeleton—the ultimate leveling device for Leaños, who says he “identifies as part of the mainly hybrid tribe of Mexitaliano Xicangringo Güeros called ‘Los Mixtupos.’” Comic cartoon animations (a faux-naif alphabet song, reworked nursery rhymes, a trip to the underworld via lowrider, and a report from the Dead News Network) anchor this 80-minute work, which also features live music and dance. A four-piece new-wave mariachi band from Arizona, Los Cuatro Vientos, plays in skull makeup, providing ringing vocals and driving rhythms and accompanying a pair of dancers (also dead) who perform choreography by Chicago-based Joel Valentin-Martinez. Like the rest of Imperial Silence, the dancing mixes old and new: there’s plenty of folkloric stamping, but it’s interspersed with modern-dance leaps and break-dance dives to the floor. —Laura Molzahn 9/14-9/16: Fri-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM, Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago, 312-397-4010, mcachicago.org, $10-$28.
Hubbard Street Dance Chicago
In honor of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago’s 35th anniversary, resident choreographer Alejandro Cerrudo was asked to create the company’s first-ever “full-evening” work and given an inspirational subject: Marc Chagall’s famous America Windows. The windows are also 35 years old—installed at the Art Institute in May, 1977, in memory of Mayor Richard J. Daley, who’d died six months earlier. Cerrudo’s work, One Thousand Pieces, will be dedicated to current mayor and former dancer Rahm Emanuel, in honor of his commitment to making Chicago “a worldwide destination for dance.”
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Fall Arts Calendar: An event for each of the season’s 80 days
