BAATHHAUS is a Chicago-based performance group and band comprised of multidisciplinary artists Patrick Andrews, Dan Foley, Jesse Young, and Jesse Hozeny. Through a unique combination of popular music and culture with choreography and costuming, BAATHHAUS explores themes of “otherness,” the avant-garde, and political and social issues. Inspired by David Bowie’s reinventions of his own identity, BAATHHAUS performs songs from his albumScary Monsters on MCA Stage.
BOOM CRACK! Dance Company is a professional hip-hop group of more than twenty dancers from diverse dance backgrounds. The company presents unique, concept-based sets in the style of high energy street jazz and grounded in the work of founder and artistic director Trae Turner. As part of David Bowie Variety Hour, they perform a new medley set to a selection of classic Bowie songs.
Chicago Tap Theatre is a vibrant dance company with a mission to preserve and promote the dance form of tap through its innovative presentation of story-based shows. On MCA Stage, Chicago Tap Theatre performs artistic director Mark Yonally’s choreography to Bowie’sUnder Pressure from their extended work Changes: A Science-Fiction Tap Opera.
The Fly Honeys present a high-energy, vaudevillian cabaret of dance, music, drag, comedy, and performance art. Founded by dancer Erin Kilmurray, the Fly Honeys are comprised of professional performers from a variety of disciplines who bring feminism to the foreground of socially conscious burlesque.
Jyldo is dancer and choreographer Jyl Fehrenkamp, whose work fuses dance with burlesque-inspired performance. In addition to hosting David Bowie Variety Hour, she co-curates the full program with MCA Performance Director Peter Taub, bringing her extensive experience in Chicago’s performance scene to MCA Stage.
Kasey Foster is an actor, director, singer, producer, choreographer, and dancer. She is known for her biannual Dance Tribute series, in which she pays tribute to a single musician or band through a collection of songs, dance, and performance. She closes David Bowie Variety Hour with versions of Bowie’s songs Seven Years in Tibet and Golden Years.
LADY/WATCH features Tien Tran and Kieran Kredell, a self-proclaimed “dancejoker” duo known throughout Chicago for their queer performance art.
Meredith Miller is an artist who performs with her cabaret band Lovers’ Quarrel, featuring compositions by Tom Musick. In David Bowie Variety Hour, Lovers’ Quarrel performs songs from Bowie’s mid-1970s soul style, embodied in his album Young Americans.
Nick Davio is a singer, music director, and multi-instrumentalist who works across disciplines and throughout Chicago’s theater scene. As the musical director for David Bowie Variety Hour, he leads guests vocalists in a series of Bowie hits, including a group of youth and adult singers performing an a cappella version of Starman. |