April 6 – May 6, 2018
Bridge Dance Festival is the culmination of four years of Japanese-focused programming at Links Hall, including the National Performance Network Asian Exchange, Beyond the Box, and Links to Japan. It features Links Hall co-commissioned works by Kaori Seki (Tokyo) and Darrell Jones (Chicago), and Co-MISSION Fellow J’Sun Howard (Chicago); and it reengages Chicago-based Kabuki artist Rika Lin’s Beyond the Box series, which melds traditional forms with innovative experiments. The festival also features two international touring works, 100 Light Years of Solitude and Enmei (Long Life) who are coming to Links Hall in partnership with Butoh Chicago and Sara Zalek and the University of Arizona respectively.
Through the Bridge Dance Festival we hope to demonstrate a fierce love of and respect for international cultural exchange and connection. In the face of rising US nationalism and the aggressive political reality we find ourselves in, we want to make a home for global connections that are inspired and supported by mutual respect for both cultural similarities and differences.
Each of the works in the Bridge Dance Festival turns to the the wisdom of the body to dispel fears: fears of getting order, of personal loss, of solitude, of oppression, of rigidly defined gender roles, and cultural divides. These works each respond to fear and adversity with strength and love demonstrating the shared humanity that can drive all of us, if we will let it, to build strong bonds across cultures.
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