It opens in two opposing lines leaning toward one another, kind of like a rugby scrum or a ropeless tug of war. Lean too far and one or all of the Hubbard Street dancers might fall over. They don’t. “LubDub” starts in homeostasis — but it surely does not stay there.
“LubDub” makes up the entire second half of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago’s season finale, running through Sunday at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance. Choreographer Aszure Barton served up this spectacular main course as part of her three-year residency at Hubbard Street. It’s already year three, and while this world premiere may feel like the last gasp of a fruitful artistic arrangement for Hubbard Street, the terms were intentionally left open-ended. Fingers crossed this once-in-a-generation dancemaker likes Chicago well enough to stay a bit longer.
The full-company work, spanning nearly half an hour, takes audiences on a visceral journey through “LubDub’s” eponymous organ. Lub-dub is what doctors and nurses listen for in a stethoscope — the sound of valves flapping open and closed to permit blood to flow through the heart’s chambers. Atria, ventricles, out and back in again.
I don’t know if Barton intends “LubDub” as an anatomy lesson, though it’s not hard to imagine its 14 dancers as tiny erythrocytes on a not-entirely-autonomous journey through the body. They tremble and sputter, Gangnam style, on a winding journey carving curvilinear paths around the Harris Theater stage.
It could also be about a different kind of pulse that rages through the body when a beat hits just right, as it certainly does here, with a macabre, cinematic opening dropping into Africanist percussion and sparse strings via Jlin and Kronos Quartet’s “Maji.” Jlin, née Jerrilynn Patton, an electronic composer originally from Gary, features prominently in “LubDub,” with added contributions from Kara-Lis Coverdale and Susanne Lundeng.
It is so clearly, exceptionally Aszure Barton, aesthetically functioning as the younger, hotter sister of “Busk,” which Hubbard Street adopted into its repertoire 2021. There’s the dim top light and shadowed faces (courtesy of brilliant lighting designer Jim French); oversized, intentionally frumpy clothes (here, maroon separates adorned with unisex calf-length pleated skirts by Barton and Jenah Hensel); and an idiosyncratic, deliciously weird movement vocabulary which waxes and wanes between serious and silly but doesn’t dare get pithy or overly emotional.
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If “LubDub” was the main course, Bob Fosse was the appetizer. The evening opens with a pair of pieces by Fosse and Gwen Verdon as part of Hubbard Street’s deepening relationship with the Verdon Fosse Legacy — the only concert dance company to have such an arrangement. On Thursday, the company shuffled opening night casting a bit from other outings, placing spitfire Alexandria Best between Dominick Brown and Aaron Choate for “Sweet Gwen Suite” and giving Shota Miyoshi the limelight in Fosse’s electrifying solo, “Percussion IV.”
Miyoshi is entirely in his element here, having trained primarily as a jazz dancer before coming to Hubbard Street. It’s four-ish minutes of pure, unabashed technique with no place to hide. Even its sparse lighting (Harrison Pearse-Pollack) and costume (Willa Kim) make this piece entirely about Miyoshi, who shows up spectacularly.
It’s an incredibly hard act to follow, and that spot goes to Chanel DaSilva in her first-ever commission for Hubbard Street. DaSilva is a familiar face in Chicago, having made a gaggle of short pieces and, most recently, a one-act for the Joffrey Ballet. In “Atlas,” DaSilva channels the mythical man condemned to carry the weight of the world. In this interpretation, Atlas is a trio of women (on Thursday, Bianca Melidor, Simone Stevens and Cyrie Topete) wrestling with what looks to be shimmery, foil-lined exercise balls which, by the end of piece, clearly aren’t heavy at all — and tossed skyward with child-like fervor.
Perhaps “Atlas” suffers from its placement between Fosse and Barton. But despite some genuinely pretty moments (including a gorgeous solo for Stevens), the cream never really rises to the top. DaSilva seems to feel intense inspiration when making things, and maybe “Atlas” says something about womanhood. But it’s too literal and underdeveloped to really imagine a deeper message at play.
Lauren Warnecke is a freelance critic.
Review: Hubbard Street Dance Chicago Spring Series (3.5 stars)
When: Through Sunday
Where: Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 E. Randolph St.
Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes with an intermission
Tickets: $47-$101 at 312-334-7777 and harristheaterchicago.org
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