‘The Art of Falling’ stage is big enough for Second City improv and Hubbard Street dance
Two comedians walk into a ballet barre …
That unlikely collision of comedy and dance is the idea driving “The Art of Falling,” a collaboration between two Chicago cultural cornerstones, the Hubbard Street contemporary dance company and the Second City improv troupe. The mostly scripted show, which has its West Coast premiere Friday at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, has three story lines performed by Second City members interwoven with Hubbard dance pieces unfolding in tandem onstage.
The dances and scripted vignettes frequently, and cheekily, play off of each other as they explore the ideas of romance, relationships, creativity and the importance of letting go in life. But there’s also straight-up improv comedy in the form of a Q&A with the audience, as well as more serious dance numbers — all of which makes for an unusual hybrid of a production.
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Second City and Hubbard would seem to be diametrically opposed, the comedic collective flying by the seat of its pants onstage and feeding off the audience, the 38-year-old dance company honing emotionally nuanced pieces. But the two are, in fact, bound by similar DNA — the spirit of improvisation, Hubbard Street artistic director Glenn Edgerton says.
“We both have that sense of improvisation in our daily creativity and cultivation of work,” Edgerton says. “We’re always trying to find new movement, we’re always looking for improvisation, and Second City is the master of improv in comedy — and so it seemed like an obvious connection.”
Improvisation is a central theme in “The Art of Falling,” which is directed by Second City’s Billy Bungeroth. Nearly all the pieces in the show carry the idea that it takes the courage to relinquish control and go with the flow in life, love and art in order to evolve and succeed. There’s a healthy dose of poignancy to the production as well, especially in the central love story between two men. The other two story lines focus on letting go as well: One takes place on an airplane and the other revolves around the move to a new city for a new job.
“But it’s hysterically funny throughout, from one second to the next,” Edgerton says. “Especially when the dancers improv according to the Q&A.”
Dance enthusiasts, however, fear not. “The Art of Falling” is part of Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at the Music Center series, so there’s plenty of straight dance beyond big opening and closing numbers. Edgerton describes one section of the show as “Hubbard Street at its finest,” a series of five languid and introspective duets (“Second to Last”) by Hubbard choreographer Alejandro Cerrudo performed to the music of composer Arvo Pärt.
Neither Second City nor Hubbard is a stranger to collaboration. Second City joined with the Lyric Opera of Chicago for a one-night production in 2013; the last time Hubbard appeared at the Music Center in L.A., it was in collaboration with Alonzo King Lines Ballet.
Partly fueled by its success with the Lyric, Second City approached Hubbard in 2013 about a joint project. That led to creative workshops between the two companies.
Five choreographers, four writers and more than 30 dancers and actors helped to realize “The Art of Falling,” which had its premiere in October 2014 at Harris Theater for Music and Dance in Chicago. Rehearsals, which took place at Hubbard Street Dance Center, were occasionally unwieldy, but in the best possible way, Bungeroth says. He compares the scene to the Beatles’ recording of the “White Album.”
“They were working in like every studio at Abbey Road,” Bungeroth says. “We had at least three studios worth of people creating the material that would be the show, and I was just walking room to room. It was a lot like making a record with a ton of musicians and working on multiple tracks at once.”
Actually debuting the production took a leap of faith on the part of both companies, especially Hubbard.
“We thought every day that we were crazy. Comedy — it wasn’t our world,” Edgerton says. “But opening night, we got the first laugh, and everybody got excited. Then the second laugh came, and the third. It was so much fun to see the energy from the audience, the mix of people. We have a typical dance audience in Chicago, but this brought out many different facets of the community.”
The Music Center is hoping to tap into that energy. “The Art of Falling” fits into what the Music Center sees as the future of its programming, says Rachel Moore, president and chief executive. The production has multigenerational appeal, she says, and may draw a younger and more diverse audience than the venue’s traditional dance base.
“We want to increasingly present work that redefines what is dance, what is theater, because in many respects those are artificial categories now,” Moore says.
“The future is around collaboration and multidisciplinary work, and I think that’s more engaging, especially for the younger generation, who’s used to multiple input from lots of different kinds of entertainment.”
There’s something of an ask of the audience as well: Fall.
“When you’re letting go,” Edgerton says, “if you let yourself be free to fall and you don’t restrict yourself, you’re going to have a better time.”
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