For The Birds: Redmoon's 'Winter Pageant' Takes Flight

By Marielle Shaw in Arts & Entertainment on Nov 30, 2013 7:00PM

Redmoon’s latest spectacle, "The Winter Pageant," is just around the corner, and they’ve been involving the entire community in their preparations.

Keeping their goal to make theater a large scale spectacle that involves the community and their creativity has meant that, for the past few weeks, Chicagoans have been at work with the theater company making materials, sitting in sewing circles, and even painting set pieces.

"The Winter Pageant," directed by John Musial and Will Bishop and choreographed by Pranita Jain, is a highly collaborative work and involves several different dance troupes from inside and outside the city.

The talented hip-hop dancers from The Happiness Club will make an appearance alongside the Indian Dancers of Kalipriya, Southeast Asian dancers from Evanston’s Indonesian Dance of Illinois studio, and the Pineapple Dance Studio.

"The Winter Pageant" will also feature Cordova Hernandez from Mexico’s La Piara clown troupe and tunes from the “epic-surf instrumental” band The San Andreas Fault.

Based on a poem by Farid ud-Din Attar called "The Conference of the Birds," "The Winter Pageant" tells the story of a flock of birds, content to play in the shade of the Tree of Light, when the light is stolen from them by a dark Raven.

The birds then select a Pigeon to retrieve the light, who is joined by a Dove on a quest across oceans, forests and the Underworld. Redmoon promises a great blend of Eastern and Western influences, as well as both puppet and object-based theatre, and we look forward to the show.

You can check it out the weekend of December 13-15th or December 20th-22nd. Friday shows begin at 7 p.m., Saturdays you can attend at either 4 p.m. or 7 p.m., and there is a matinee at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, in addition to the 4 p.m. show. Tickets are available here.