Steal This Dance

Peter Carpenter, Associate Director of Lucky Plush Productions, conceived The Sky Hangs Down Too Close in response to the themes of conflict and desire in Bertolt Brecht's stark drama, In The Jungle of Cities (1924). In collaboration with an ensemble of 7 Lucky Plush members, Carpenter addressed the bizarre, shifting and often comical ways that power articulates itself in both public and private interactions.

"The work was so fresh and engaging, there is little doubt Lucky Plush will continue to evolve in its exciting efforts to integrate artistic forms." - Dance Magazine

Lucky Plush Productions made its first engagement at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago with the world-premiere Cinderbox 18, an evening-length exploration of the humor and anxiety in our hyper-networked culture. An intimate and witty spin on media’s voyeuristic approach to “reality,” Julia Rhoads’s work for eight performers weaves fractured stories and unconnected gestures into a work that is both oddly familiar and wonderfully surprising.

“Cinderbox 18 [is] a visually, kinetically, sonically and intellectually dazzling piece of dance theater that comments brilliantly on the whole process of creating, rehearsing, performing, viewing and critiquing dance.” Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun Times, 11/17/2007

She/Three is an evening length choreographic triptych that muses on the shared and distinct qualities of three Shakespearean women - Juliet, Lady Macbeth, and Ophelia - through the point of view of three different artists utilizing dance, performance video, and theater (Brian Jeffery, Marianne Kim, and Peter Carpenter), in collaboration with Lucky Plush Productions. The Prologue video was created by Lucky Plush Artistic Director Julia Rhoads as a way to introduce the image of the triptych working through the questions: What separates these women? What brings them together?

She/Three is an evening length choreographic triptych that muses on the shared and distinct qualities of three Shakespearean women - Juliet, Lady Macbeth, and Ophelia - through the point of view of three different artists utilizing dance, performance video, and theater (Brian Jeffery, Marianne Kim, and Peter Carpenter), in collaboration with Lucky Plush Productions. The Epilogue video was created by Lucky Plush Artistic Director Julia Rhoads as a way to reflect on the alignment of the three characters, three artists, and three mediums coming together. It was also a place to reveal outtakes and the process of making each work, as well as give credit to the collaborating ensemble.

Lulu Sleeps is an evening-length work reflecting the elusive residue of dreams. Conceived and directed by Julia Rhoads along with the visual design elements of sculptor D Christopher Krause, costume designer Lara Miller, lighting designer Margaret Nelson, and video artists John Boesche and Logan Kibens, the stage becomes a visual playing field where dream archetypes and compelling physicality intersect. Set to an original score by composer Mark Messing and Kevin O'Donnell, Lulu Sleeps journeys through the poetic and absurd nature of dreams.

Surrelium draws upon a child's fascination with a helium balloon, an object whose fragility and potential for escape create both beauty and tension. Lucky Plush Productions premiered the work in 2003 at the Vittum Theater in Chicago, and re-set the work for the PAC/Edge Performance Festival in 2005.

Co-created by Julia Rhoads and Krenly Guzman in collaboration with the performers, Shift looks at the physical language of texture and its translation into movement. In this work, Lucky Plush investigates how textural changes in the performers' bodies alter their relationships to each other and to the space, creating an environment with a heightened sense of detail.

In the spring of 2004 Lucky Plush Productions and Walkabout Theater Company collaborated to produce an original performance, Voyaging, based on Charles Darwin and his world-changing voyage on the HMS Beagle. Co-directed by Stephan Mazurek and Julia Rhoads, the show's fusion of dance, theater, music and visual design burst the boundaries of traditional biography looking at social behavior, class structure and biological attraction in light of evolution and natural selection.

Conceived and directed by Julia Rhoads, Endplay uses Samuel Beckett's "Come and Go" as a point of departure. The piece highlights a group of characters whose rituals and games serve as a means of affirming themselves as they are lost in a cycle of endless repetition.

Endplay was presented in 2004 at the Vittum Theater, and in 2006 as part of the Samuel Beckett 100-year festival at the Museum of Contemporary Art.