The Ragdale Ring Summer Performance Series will be held outdoors behind Ragdale House, a historic Arts and Crafts style home designed in 1897 by renowned Chicago architect Howard Van Doren Shaw. The area of the Ragdale Ring is mowed lawn and includes some uneven terrain.

Additional activities may take place at other locations on campus, and Ragdale staff and volunteers can help direct you. Pathways between buildings include paving, crushed limestone, and stone. Ramps are installed at the buildings’ points of entry and exit. Building restrooms are available.

Smoking and vaping are not permitted anywhere on the Ragdale campus, including all buildings and outdoor spaces.

To request an accessibility service please email info@ragdale.org a minimum of 72 hours before the event.

Parking and shuttle service between downtown Lake Forest and Ragdale’s campus (1230 N Green Bay Road, Lake Forest, Illinois) will be available, with updates posted online and details emailed to ticket holders by May 1, 2026. Shuttle service will also be available to Metra riders and local residents. Limited parking is available on Ragdale’s campus.

Ragdale House is located at 1230 North Green Bay Road, Lake Forest, IL 60045.

Metra riders should use the Union Pacific North service (UP-N) between Chicago and Kenosha and ride to the Lake Forest stop (691 N. Western Ave., Lake Forest). Visit Metra.com for current schedule.

Metra riders are welcome to use the free shuttle operating from the Oakwood lot, a 5-minute walk from the train station.

Walking to Ragdale from the Metra station takes about 25 minutes.

Program Notes‍ ‍

Circle of Apathy is a collaborative performance project by Chicago-based dance ensemble House of DOV and music group Family Junket. This two-act devised ensemble work is an environmental study that explores the cycles of growth and disintegration intrinsic to nature. The images created in the work are metaphors for how it feels to navigate the current and cyclical ecosystems of dance, environmentalism and activism in our country.

Through creative process, we’ve sought to understand our own place within the greater ecology of our landscape, and to experience the human body as a metaphor and microcosm of the natural world. Our hope is to activate our audiences to a greater sense of responsibility, belonging and connection to the land they live on through touring to outdoor venues (with indoor options) across the Midwest region.

During a duration of approximately 90-minutes (with no intermission), various scenes unfold in an atmospheric and abstract story of transformation. Seven dancers and five musicians work together to build physical structures which increase in precarity as the group strives toward expansion. The movement consists almost entirely of ensemble partnering, with very little phrasework. The performers work in redefined unison: not simultaneous and identical, but together and toward a common goal, as with a congregation singing or protesters marching. The music is dense soul with moments of ambience: voices wail, altered by a vocal pedal; saxophone, flute and violin harmonize over precomposed loops; djembe, drum kit and percussion punctuate echoing acoustic piano. The piece is built from a deep improvisational lexicon and interest in play, polyrhythm, dynamic contrast and durational studies of nature.

In Circle of Apathy, something new emerges from a crumbling landscape over and over. Towers, ships, land-bridges and mountains are built and destroyed in inevitable cycles of growth and disintegration which performance curator Peter Taub (formerly of MCA Stage) described as “hypnotic.” Dancers push against seemingly immovable forces, find new hand and footholds, and creep forward like a vine up a brick wall. A woman walks through an increasingly dense wood until the brush closes around her entirely. When all paths disappear from sight, a figure steps blindly forward, trusting that there will be a stepping stone beneath their foot.