The Far East won’t seem so far when Taiwan-based WCdance shares a stage—and dancers—with Chicago’s Seldoms. Beach towels become the unlikely psychological anchor for an evocative, culture-straddling new sextet, Otaku’s Beach, created for the Seldoms by WCdance artistic director (and former Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company member) WenChung Lin. Festooned with goldfish, the neon-colored towels might refer to the bright fabrics used in Chinese traditional dance (Lin’s mother directed a Chinese folk-dance troupe). But the way they’re used—as blankies, bedcovers, cocoons—suggests metaphors for emotional safety. The music, combining squeaky door noises with Chinese traditional strings and percussion, sounds a lot like the score for another, older Lin piece on the program: Small River (Reversed), which embodies, first, the circles and eddies in a stream, and then the tossing of turbulent water.
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6/28-7/1: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 3 PM, Ruth Page Center for the Arts, 1016 N. Dearborn, 312-337-6543, theseldoms.org, $15-$20.
