An interview with Gotham City Choreographer Jessica Deahr.
Why Gotham City? What turned you on to the project?
I was completely on board from the moment I was presented with this project. A story-based dance show with a cast of thirty and a six weekend run was simultaneously daunting and yet incredibly exciting. I saw a chance to present the audience with something different than your typical dance concert which normally consists of isolated rep pieces. I always feel that story-based shows are able to bring the audience in a little more because the audience is presented with characters they will grow to love and hate as well as a series of events, battles and encounters that are all intertwined. The audience can really understand what the action is leading them through and they become invested in the story, which can make for a more full experience.
How would you describe the cast?
This cast is incredibly talented and exceptionally diverse. Our hip-hop dancers range from a young new breakdancer to seasoned hip-hoppers who have danced with Beyonce or in music videos. Our contemporary dancers include the amazingly talented Chloe Crade, who comes to us fresh out of Juilliard and well on her way to a top ballet company, dancing alongside the established Paul Christiano, who could fill a book with his dance resume and experience. The energy of this cast is amazing and contagious.
What’s it like working with so many different dancers with different backgrounds?
It’s been really exciting as a choreographer. The story called for hard-core krump-ish hip-hop, capoeira, straight-edged jazz, a crazy clown-like version of contemporary and, of course, pieces that were a fusion of everything in between. It’s been nice to be able to showcase what each of these dancers bring to the table.
What’s it like working with Chicago Dance Crash as a whole and heading up their 10th anniversary signature production?
I started as a guest artist with Dance Crash in ‘07 through to a company member for many years, so it has been amazing to have the opportunity to put myself on the other side of the process. Dance Crash has always had my heart because it doesn’t limit itself to one style, one type of show, or one category of audience member. Crash has put an incredible amount of energy into this production, from the conception of the story through the length of the rehearsal period and even through the budget provided for tech, costumes and talent…Crash is going all in on this one. It’s been an honor to head this production up and we are hoping to kick off the next ten years with a really exciting and memorable show.
What can the audience expect when they see it?
There is something for everyone in this production. Story-based shows and hip-hop-influenced choreography as well as athleticism always have appeal to any audience member because they are a large part of our current pop culture entertainment. For the more traditional audience member we have ballet, modern, jazz, and various fusions of all of the above. On top of that, we’ve layered in intense characters, relationships, and a story that comments on society, betrayal, and power. Oh, and expect battles, clown masks, minimal clothing, gas, insane city folk, lots of action and dancers working hard for the money! You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll be afraid of clowns.
What do you think of when you think of the actual Gotham City (the place not the show)?
To me, Gotham City as a location brings to mind a dark, dirty, dangerous, and fast-paced world where you never know what you’ll find at the turn of a corner or the end of a dark alley. It smells like a sewer or a dank subway, it feels menacing, and it creates an environment where you never can be sure who is running the city from one moment to the next. What makes this setting perfect for a production is that it is well-known and universally perceived this way, so the audience is already going to enter the theater on board with an understanding of the feel of the world they are about to be immersed in.
Are we gonna see Batman flying around fighting crime?
Definitely not! We really went a different route with this one. We didn’t want to simply reenact a Batman movie from the series or try to create exact copies of specific characters. True Batman fans will catch a ton of references through everything from character names to the powers they have. We definitely reference Batman through plot action and technical aspects to convey to the audience when his character is present or controlling something from out of sight. Aside from that and the fact that the action takes place in Gotham City, we really provide you with something different. The story doesn’t follow just one or two characters. We have eight main characters and thirty dancers total so the story is in the action of these characters in the city rather than on a Batman.
What’s your creative process like for this show? Where do you start? What questions do you ask yourself? What interesting challenges and/or happy surprises have you discovered in the creative process so far?
When I signed on to choreograph this show, I simply began by studying the book of characters and action for the production. In a story-based show like this, a certain opening piece may foreshadow events in a later piece, a particular action in Act 1 needs to pay off in the middle of Act 2, or a character we introduce in Act 1 has to come off a certain way so that the audience is shocked when that character does something contrary in Act 2. A lot of time and thought had to go into simply grasping the script and characters completely from the inside out so that the big picture was in my head before each of the pieces could be tackled. Probably the biggest choreographic challenge was this need to accomplish certain tasks in each piece in order to fulfill the story. When choreographing a stand alone piece for a normal rep show, the choreographer usually has a fairly blank slate to work with. They can take the piece where it organically goes in rehearsal or they can decide on a message or feeling and just work with that theme. With Gotham City, in any given piece there may be a fight between two characters, a pickpocketing episode, a character conveying discovery of a superpower, a “meanwhile” acting scene in a jail cell, or an evil plot that has to be unveiled in a minute and a half. Whenever I was about to tackle a new scene or piece, I would focus both on what I wanted to achieve aesthetically as well as what I needed to accomplish. I really worked on using these two aspects to heighten each other rather than to work in spite of each other.
With so much action and so many bodies on stage, it was really helpful to dissect each piece of music by listening to it over and over and mapping it out like sheet music so that I could visualize what groups were entering, battling, or dancing at what points in the music and how long they had before they would have to move for the next dancer or scene. I was lucky enough to have a hand in helping pick out the music. Once the selected songs were edited into a rough version of Act 1 and 2, I remember listening to the whole soundtrack straight through in a dark room with headphones on, visualizing the action and just thinking, “Holy crap, this show is gonna be amazing.” It’s really a great soundtrack. We’ve got DMX, Muse, Little Dragon, Afrojack, RJD2, Ludacris and classical in the same show, just to name a few. Not only a variety of musical styles, as the variety of dance styles would demand, but also songs that really forward exactly what we are trying to say story-wise.
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If you’re looking for an incredible night out that meshes the high stakes of “competitive dance with the energy of late-night theatre and the spectacle of sports entertainment,” check out Chicago Dance Crash‘s upcoming Keeper-of-the-Floor (KTF) Competition. In anticipation of the upcoming production of Gotham City, this KTF is called Batdance! [note: In honor of the Batman theme, the audience is asked to wear all black!]
In the past 5 years, there have been:
I hope you are able to join us 
Rinska Carrasco-Prestinary graduated from 
Yadira Correa is a native of Puerto Rico, but has been living in Illinois for the majority of her life. Most of her work was cultivated with 
Ilana Faust has been away from the theater scene, raising her two year old and obtaining her Pilates Certification, but she is excited to be back to work/play with this amazing group of people. Ms. Faust is a junior ensemble member with 
Joe McCauley is an ensemble member at 
Rebecca led an exercise called “Mr. Know-it-All” - in which all performers linked arms. This game doesn’t take much instruction and gets straight to the doing. The audience gets to ask a question to the multi-headed “Mr. Know-it-All” who answers by having each performer speak one word at a time. Rebecca explained that this gets performers used to a few important concepts of improv - 1) taking action/speaking, 2) giving up power/control during the performance, and 3) staying focused, alert, and in the moment to respond quickly (in this case, to the word right before yours).
Next, Matt led an exercise called “Freeze Tag” which starts with an audience suggestion for a location. Two performers who respond to each other in this location. Each person is meant to take the “yes, and” approach to any character trait or circumstance that is implied about them by the other person. By giving the performers this “point of concentration,” they can believe the continually evolving circumstances are true and build out additional ideas from there. During the exchange, any additional performers nearby can call out “Freeze!” - at which point the performers freeze, tap one of them and take his/her exact position, and re-start the scene with an entirely new topic/circumstance with which the other performer must now react and correspond.
Bill Arnett led an exercise which also involved 2 performers at a time. One performer begins the conversation and before the second person responds, they must first make a vocal noise - some sort of emotional response before they begin verbally answering. You can learn a great deal about a person from their audible responses - and they give the performer a starting place for communication.
