BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – A new dance concert at Illinois Wesleyan University strives to capture the struggles and emotions of being homeless, transforming an IWU faculty member’s interviews of homeless men into expressive dance.
The concert, titled The Monkey Trail, will run from Tuesday, April 5 to Sunday, April 10 in the McPherson Theatre (2 Ames Plaza East, Bloomington). Performances will be at 8 p.m. April 5-9, and 2 p.m. April 10. Tickets for the weekday and Sunday concerts are $10 for the general public, $9 for seniors and $2 for Illinois Wesleyan students, faculty and staff. Tickets for the Friday and Saturday performances are $12 for the general public, $11 for seniors and $2 for student, faculty and staff. Contact the McPherson Box Office at (309) 556-3232 or online at www.iwu.edu/theatre. Canned food goods and donations will be collected at the door to benefit the local Home Sweet Home Mission.
The idea for the concert began several years ago, and culminated when Illinois Wesleyan Associate Professor of Theatre Arts and Coordinator of Dance Program Jean Kerr spent last summer interviewing homeless people at two shelters in St. Louis. Working with a transitional housing program, Kerr also led the men in workshops of dance and movement as part of the community collabARTive project. “After recovering from a feeling of ‘Who me? Dance?,’ these men experienced the constructs and confounds of dance and movement,” said Kerr, who videotaped the workshops and interviews, pieces of which will appear in the dance performance. “It allows real life to overlap what is on stage.”