Hannah Marcus, Rahila Coats, Laura Baumeister and Kate Laughlin in “Grit”/Photo: Gabriela Chavez
In choreographer Maggie Vannucci’s “Grit,” running March 6-8 at Steppenwolf’s 1700 theater, dance isn’t just an art, it’s an endurance sport.
The hour-long piece follows four female performers as they are possessed by a spirit of competition that seeks to divide them even as it throws them together in increasingly intimate ways. The piece is sweaty, physical, gritty—the dancers running a race that has no end.
“I was really interested in creating something where external pressures cause the dancers to make real time decisions and also a piece that explored how we navigate the different choices we make and the impacts that they have,” says Vannucci.
In “Grit,” these external pressures are placed on the dancers through sharp, energetic shifts in the performance’s lighting and score. Taken together, these shifts create a pressurized environment, forcing competition between the performers even as they rely on one another to move forward. This environment mirrors the world beyond the stage, says Vannucci, where careerism, political anxieties, and the pressures of late-stage capitalism force each of us to make difficult, split-second decisions every day.
Vannucci created “Grit” after a long period of feeling these pressures in her own life and in her work as a dancer and creative. Eventually they became connected with more people in Chicago’s DIY performance scene, a community Vannucci says reframed how they were thinking about their artistic practice.
“I was really focusing more on community work and sort of feeling community oriented in the sense that you don’t always need to be paid to be an artist. It’s more about the people that you’re showing up for. How committed are you to the project and the work that you’re invested in?”
Throughout the piece, there are moments of solo improvisation where an individual breaks off from the four dancers before returning to the safety of the group. The audience is confronted by the feeling of being torn between individuality and community. “Grit” is about this push and pull.
For the past several years, Vannucci has been an avid fan of the Tour de France and wanted to find a way to translate the race’s physicality onto the stage. Throughout the piece, the dancers entangle themselves in water bottles, towels and tape—everyday items with strong tactile and sonic qualities that remind Vannucci of the famed cycling race.
“It gets messy pretty fast, with the water and the tape and a lot of these items becoming sort of layers on the dancers, whether it’s like the physical layer of being wet from the water bottles or the tape accumulating on their clothes.”
“Grit” is Vannucci’s second original dance work; their first piece, “Space of Uncertainty,” premiered last year as part of Northwestern University’s Danceworks program, where Vannucci is an adjunct professor. They also teach an open dance improvisation class every Friday at The Rooted Space, a dance studio dedicated to strengthening the bonds of Chicago’s dance community. The class is for experienced dancers who are looking for a relaxed environment to explore their movement practice.
Vannucci hopes the audience leaves “Grit” with a desire to lean toward the people they care about. “How do your communities help you through these external pressures that we all face and feel? We’re making our way through these things, and hopefully the audience sees how doing it alone is actually so much harder, but bringing people with you, and having a group to rely on, can help.”
“Grit” premieres as part of Steppenwolf’s LookOut performance series presenting new works from emerging artists pushing boundaries of genre and form.
“Grit” at Steppenwolf’s 1700 Theater, 1700 North Halsted. March 6-8 at 8pm. $15-$25. Tickets and info at steppenwolf.org.
