The Next Cup of Tea: 5 performances in March!
Culminating a 7-years-long process, The Next Cup of Tea weaves evocative improvisation, personal storytelling, and playful routine to search for radical honesty inside the complexity of our times. March 8-16, 2024
Co-presented by Steppenwolf’s LookOut Series and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, The Next Cup of Tea is a genre-expansive, solo dance-theater show, by Anjal Chande and pianist Sharon Udoh, that reckons with capitalism, colonialism, and love.
Unceded land of the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi Nations, also known as CHICAGO, IL, (February 8, 2024) - Founder/Director of Soham Dance Space and anti-disciplinary creative Anjal Chande premieres The Next Cup of Tea, the final fruit of a project that has been iterating and incubating for over 7 years. Chande offers five performances, March 8-16th, 8pm, at Steppenwolf’s 1700 Theater, joined by the brilliant and emotive pianist Sharon Udoh.
The Next Cup of Tea is a solo dance-theater performance that investigates how to make sense of the never-ending impulses that run through our hearts, our everyday moments, and our contradictory experiences. Through improvisational dance and storytelling, Chande reflects on wealth, her grandfather, the politics of art, and more. Zigzagging between the gnawing inner world and daily physical routine, The Next Cup of Tea traverses the ordinary, unsettling, and enchanting.
This premiere was originally scheduled for September 2023 as a part of the MCA’s Chicago Performs series but was postponed due to injury. The project’s longer arc has also been supported by a 2017 Ragdale Residency, a 2017-18 research year through the U.S. Fulbright Program, a commission at the 2019 Tanztage Festival at Sophiensaele in Berlin, Germany, the 2019 Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist Award, and a 2020 DCASE Individual Artist Program Award.
WHEN: March 8, 9, 14, 15 & 16, 2024
8pm (Run time 105 minutes, with possible intermission)
WHERE: At Steppenwolf’s 1700 Theater
1700 N Halsted Street, Chicago, IL 60614
TICKETS $11, $22, $33.
Sliding scale; pay what reflects your financial means at this time. Purchase here.
ACCESSIBILITY: Closed Captions on 3/15. American Sign Language interpretation & Audio Description on 3/16.
WHO:
Anjal Chande is a dancer, drummer and dragon, as well as a producer, space-maker and founder of Soham Dance Space, which she has led as a home for creative practice, live performance, critical dialogue and community gatherings since 2007. She was recently featured on Vocalo Radio’s This Is What Chicago Sounds Like. Her work has been presented/supported by the Chicago Dancemakers Forum 2019 Lab Artist Award, Ragdale Foundation, Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, the Illinois Arts Council, Sophiensaele in Berlin, the Smithsonian in Washington, DC, Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Drive East in New York, World Music Festival in Chicago and numerous stages in India. Through the U.S. Fulbright Program, she performed and studied in Berlin, Germany, researching the dance community and factors that contribute to thriving urban arts ecosystems. Trained in numerous music and dance forms since childhood, Chande draws from a wide creative range in making her art. She teaches performance art and bharatanatyam through radical pedagogies and has a desire to instill a sense of creative possibility and critical reflection within her students. As an aspiring carpenter, she is working toward learning how to build outhouses for the apocalypse. www.anjalchande.com and www.sohamdancespace.org
Sharon Udoh (they/she) is a gay, first-generation Nigerian-American composer, pianist, arranger, bandleader, and vocalist based in Chicago. Their work abandons genre and is expansive, and tells stories of human complexity, chaos, and connection. She sometimes takes the stage under the name Counterfeit Madison; their performances have been described as a warm bowl of soup, a tornado, a jalapeño pepper, a Jackson Pollock painting, a bulldozer, dangerous yet kind, and magnetic. Her work has been commissioned by New York City Gay Men's Chorus, Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles, Portland Lesbian Chorus, Atlanta Women's Chorus, and D-Composed Chicago. Find out more at counterfeitmadison.com.
Co-Presenters: Steppenwolf’s LookOut Series & the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
Social Media: @anjalchande @sharonplaysthepiano @mcachicago @steppenwolfthtr @stclookout