Atalee Judy takes a by-any-means-necessary approach to art—a fight club method of performance, a fierce training regimen replete with lumps and lesions that strips away the fat and bores through tenderized flesh to the core of her subject. No medium is left unturned in the hunt and what is found is no less than the raw materials of humanity: violence, humor, sex, silliness, passion, more flesh and—addressed head-on in this latest work—death. The choreography of this inquiry is a collaborative effort; seven postmortem ruminations—some tender, some terrifying, some bizarre—were developed by the ensemble, who pulled stories from the public and private spheres, setting their swan songs in spaces familiar and strange, imaginary and claustrophobic. The deaths of Mama Cass, a neighbor, a fondly remembered grandmother and the young man who died two years ago whilst running the Chicago Marathon are reimagined and plumbed, along with a death narrowly averted by a stranger’s intervention and the simulacrum between a publicized story of two hoarding agoraphobes and the cancer gradually destroying one company member’s mother. (Sharon Hoyer)
At the Hamlin Park Studio Theater, 3035 N. Hoyne, (773)841-2663. July 29-31 and August 5-7, 7:30pm. $15.
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