Memory in Motion: UrbanTheater Company's Back in the Day and the Chicago Latinx Dance Crews of the 1980s

Abstract:During the 1980s, a number of Latinx and Black dance groups emerged from high schools on the Near Northwest Side of Chicago. Contemporaneous with the Chicago House Music phenomenon that began in Southside clubs like the Warehouse, LGBTQ dance groups such as The Culitos, The All Stars, and Imported Taste choreographed routines and competed in dance battles to the driving beat of house, disco, R&B, and European techno. This article examines the Urban Theater Company's 2019 performance of Back in the Day: An 80s House Music Danceicle. The choreography in this site-specific, immersive play conveys a kinesthetic empathy that engages the audience members in a reflective nostalgia of an era and a community that has up until now been absent from the Latinx artistic and performance archive. By contrasting stillness with movement and creating an immersive theatrical experience, the dance musical production positions the nostalgic audience in a critical space where memory is performed as an embodied phenomenology, wherein an unwritten history of love and loss is articulated through rhythm and dance.