iegaMOVES
Dance
Chicago, IL
The artists behind Dance, Salome! Dance! and from iegaMOVES were part of a Themed Residency at Ragdale from June 9-14, 2025. Dancers, choreographers, playwrights, and other artists converged on the Ragdale campus to work together towards a Saturday workshop performance of Dance, Salome! Dance! for an audience in the Sybil Shearer Dance Studio.
Dance, Salome! Dance! is a play set in the rehearsal studio of a premier ballet company. It plays off of Oscar Wilde’s decadent reinterpretation of the biblical story of Salome, the original text of dance and patronage. Like Wilde’s play, this piece is a full-length work in one act where the question that propels it is: “Salome, will you dance for me?” This points to the ethical limits of what it means to desire and collect. We know the price of the dance: the head of John the Baptist on a silver platter.
Dance, Salome! Dance! examines the perplexing entanglement of patronage, commodification, and desire. There is a twist to the play. In this meditation on the arts and society, the principal dancer is a Black ballerina. Through text and dance, this play explores questions of patronage, politics, and race to ultimately ask: Why do we create art? What is its meaning?
The artists who participated in the iegaMOVES themed residency are:
Men Ca, Daniel Cantor, Adji Cissoko, Ghrai DeVore-Stokes, Tanya Jayani Fernando, Jennifer Gibbs, Runako Jahi, Kevin Iega Jeff, Rebeka Kuczma, Troy David Mercier, Nurit Pacht