The long and winding Rhoads

PULL MY LEG Cinderbox 18 reveals the drama in everyday relationships. Below, Rhoads in the director’s chair.

Photo: Cheryl Mann

Julia Rhoads agrees to meet me for lunch at a South Loop diner, but warns she’ll have to rush because her babysitter didn’t show until noon and her classes—she teaches in Columbia College’s theater department—start at 2pm. In addition to teaching and looking after her kids (she has two at home, and a third on the way), Rhoads, artistic director of Lucky Plush Productions, is busy polishing and promoting her latest work, Cinderbox 18, set to premiere Thursday 15. The occasion marks the Chicago-based company’s first engagement performance at the Museum of Contemporary Art.

“The biggest challenge for me is time,” Rhoads admits. “I’m at a place in my life where I’m both a mother of young children and running my own company. I have to be resourceful with the time I have.”

In fact, Rhoads found the inspiration for her latest performance in her downtime. After long days split between being a mom and a choreographer, she found herself in front of the TV, being seduced by shows like American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance.

“I became so intrigued by the reality-television model and by the popularity of these shows,” Rhoads says. “What is real and what is produced? People watching at home are meant to believe that they’re getting this really authentic experience, but those shows follow a prescribed formula.”

This is not to say that you should go into Cinderbox 18 expecting to see a dance-off with catty contestants competing for fame and a grand prize. “One of the great things about Julia’s work,” says Peter Taub, director of performance programs at the MCA, “is that she has very strong responses to certain frames of reference, such as reality television.”

These are only points of departure, he explains. “She melds her own expression into them, creating something completely original that is not in any way illustrative.”

Photo: Courtesy of MCA

Rhoads believes that Cinderbox 18 ultimately “speaks to broader issues of spectatorship, this experience of witnessing other people’s anxiety and vulnerability and the idea that anyone, sitting in their living room, can become an expert judge of talent.”

In rehearsals, she devised tasks inspired by different tropes of the reality format. Once she gave her performers the task of creating a movement phrase that showcased “their best…this idea is really present in reality media. What does it mean?” she asks. “And what is at stake when someone fails?”

Another time she asked two of her dancers to show off their moves, side by side, while the others voted on which of their gestures should be kept in the choreography. The results, she recalls, “were sad and weird and funny. But it led to a really interesting movement section with a bit of a competitive edge.”

“You can talk about the ideas that inspired this work,” Taub says, “and miss one of the most salient qualities about it, which is that it’s got a good deal of really beautiful dancing in it and really great ensemble work.”

Rhoads mapped out the conceptual ideas for Cinderbox 18 early in the nine-month creation period. Through improvisation, Rhoads believes that dancers learn to respond in the moment—to each other, to the feelings that they are carrying with them on that particular day as well as to the ongoing narrative of  the piece that’s being created.

In this respect, she’s got something in common with reality-show producers: She created situations where the dancers weren’t quite sure what was going to happen next. “I think it makes them much more present in the work,” she observes. “There’s theater in that.”

Cinderbox 18 runs through Saturday 17 at the Museum of Contemporary Art.