Molly Shanahan is one of those artists who knew what she wanted and went for it. Rather than join a dance company once she graduated from Ohio State University, she got to work on her own, teaching and choreographing in Columbus before settling in Chicago seven years ago, where almost immediately she set up shop as Mad Shak Dance Company. Working closely with Northwestern-trained percussionist Kevin O’Donnell, who also dances, she has generated a repertory that embraces the eclecticism of today’s dance world, where the abstraction of the American scene and the more theatrical bent of the European can merge in a single evening or a single dance.
Although Shanahan occasionally composes to existing music — her upcoming concert features a piece set to Puccini — original music and an interest in text have characterized her sensibility from the start. For “Cock and Bull Stories,” Mad Shak’s latest, O’Donnell not only wrote the score but interspersed spoken passages that Shanahan says “provide a backdrop to this sort of bizarre social situation setup in the piece. Although certain portions of the text have specific meaning and can certainly be followed in a logical sense, they don’t equal a complete, traditional narrative.”
Shanahan describes “Dream With Me the Rain,” set to excerpts from “La Boheme,” as “very grand, unabashedly romantic,” but much of the movement is far more humble. “It’s a piece I originally choreographed when I was a guest artist at the Dance Center of Columbia College the summer of ’99. The original cast members were students of all levels of dance experience and skill, and much of the movement they contributed I’ve retained. It’s really beautiful because some of it is rather unpolished and yet it has this wonderful authenticity to it.”
On Friday and Saturday, Mad Shak welcomes The Repertory Project of Cleveland to share the program. The group will perform “Kilter,” by former Chicagoan David Dorfman, and “Henrietta and Alexandra,” an emotional duet by Mexican choreographer Jose Luis Bustamente.
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Mad Shak Dance Company will perform at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday in the Harold Washington Library, 400 St. State St. Tickets are $15. For reservations: 773-296-0218.
