By Judy Carmack Bross
Only when conditions are just right do carpets of red, yellow and purple flowers—poppies, primrose, verbena and desert dandelions–appear like magic across Southern California deserts in June. Known as a superbloom, this rare and unpredictable act of nature occurs only when there is high precipitation after years of drought, and when the cloud cover is perfect. It is only this perfect combination that causes wildflowers to burst forth so bountifully that they are seen from space.
For their 20th anniversary, the Chicago dance company The Seldoms planned to salute this surreal season with a multi-media dance work. And the delightful serendipity of the occasion is that this rare and unpredictable act of nature is occurring out west at the very same time as their program at the Harris Theater on June 1.
Photo: Andrew Glatt
The evening-length work combining movement, live music, animation, costumes in vivid superbloom colors, and lighting design is followed by the Bloom Ball in the Harris lobby where patrons have their own chance to dance and mingle with the performers.
“A superbloom may only happen every ten years, you can’t make plans to see it–but when it happens it is a true botanical event,” The Seldoms’ founder, choreographer and artistic director Carrie Hanson told us. “Our performance speaks to how important radical beauty is. It is about wildness and wildflowers as well as the resilience and fragility of the natural world. We want to create a sense of awe.”
Carrie Hanson Photo: William Frederking
“We have done pieces with a political or social context but Superbloom is something different. It is an invitation to think about natural beauty and invites us into a different relationship with earth,” she said. “If there is a message it is our best stewardship of the earth, and our relationship with its natural resources, taking only what we need.”
Photo: Andrew Glatt
“We integrate other disciplines into our work, including that of visual artists and playrights. My personal language or passion is more visual than literary or theatrical, I approach choreography almost as a three-dimensional sculpture,” Hanson said.
Collaborating with Hanson are two visual artists: painter Jackie Kazarian and video artist Liviu Pasare who are building video animation within Kazarian’s abstract landscapes. The set also uses long textile trains, designed by Kazarian, which are activated by the dancers. Finom, the musical duo of Sima Cunningham and Macie Stewart, performs an original score live.
Photo: Andrew Glatt
Although she says that they are taking a risk in performing in the large Harris Theater because they usually choose a smaller venue, Hanson speaks with fervor about what they have accomplished in their 20 years in Chicago.
An Iowa native who received her undergraduate degree in dance from TCU, Hanson performed in several small modern dance ensembles in Chicago before going to London to study movement and sociology at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.
“My studies were more theoretical than physical dance. I learned how to dig deeply into research, to use choreographic prompts to tell stories. Whether it is politics or history, you have to start out with a clear idea. These prompts are often postures or gestures that are not necessarily dance movements but can be amplified into full dance movements,” she commented.
Photo: Andrew Glatt
While in London, Hanson came up with the name of her future company.
“The Seldoms were a London vaudeville troop in the 1800’s. They were very into tableau vivant, the creation of living pictures,” she said. “It seemed like just so much better a name than using my own for the company.”
Photo: Andrew Glatt
“We have many tools in our toolbox and have taken on many challenges, with the underlying belief in the power of dance to speak to serious issues. We participated in Art on the Mart, had our first museum exhibition at the Hyde Park Art Center, and we managed to survive COVID,” she said. “Collaboration has been very important to us. The company defines success to mean achieving a full integration of research and multidisciplinary content and realizing substantive engagement in diverse communities. In Chicago and on tour, the company has involved multi-generational community casts of more than 200 trained and untrained movers.”
Although Hanson describes Chicago as “mostly a sports town” she speaks to the persistent partnerships, such as with the Chicago Park District and the Museum of Contemporary Art, that The Seldoms have built that will allow the company to bloom in its next 20 years,
Photo: Andrew Glatt
Past works by The Seldoms have addressed plastic pollution (Monument, 2007), power and powerlessness in America (Power Goes, 2015), climate crisis (Floe, 2020), and the history and burgeoning cannabis industry. Power Goes focused specifically on President Lyndon Johnson and the might he mirrored during his political career, Hanson told us.
Photo: Andrew Glatt
“We use dance to ignite thinking about critical social issues, and we believe nothing is more critical and urgent than our environmental crises. Superbloom is intended to operate as both cultural resistance and cultural vision,” Hanson said. “Now is a time for healing, hope, respite, and beauty—this is the kind of inspiration audiences need now, as we recover from the pandemic and face multiple environmental crises.”
For further information visit: the seldoms.org
