“They trust themselves more than actors,” Jerome Robbins once wrote of dancers. “Dancers I know they will make it their own. Actors have the complication of wanting to make it their own and the horror of exposing what theirs is. Dancers always reveal themselves.”
But the dancers in “Illinoise,” Justin Peck’s reimagining of Sufjan Stevens’ adventurous concept album “Illinois” (2005), find themselves in a difficult situation. On to the show now at the Park Avenue Armory, the dancers are also the actors. And it rarely feels like they’re revealing aspects of themselves—or showing the clarity that radiates through unaffected dancing.
Instead, their interpretations are a strange hybrid. They play the dance and dance the acting. They struggle with both, in part because of their difficult task: To transform their very adult selves into younger selves on the brink of adulthood. Even the ones who seem cooler have a problem. How could they not? Peck makes them bounce between giddiness and agony, with little in between.
It’s hard to tell what “Illinoise” wants to be, though it clearly has Broadway aspirations. Is it the musical theater version of a story ballet? Dance concert? Does dancing even care, really? The show, billed as “A New Kind of Musical,” has little that looks new; it’s drowning in sentimentality, which is about as old as it gets. And it doesn’t have much of a story, but what there is – by Peck and playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury – is opaque. There is no dialogue. It’s the music that is the undisputed star here.
With new arrangements by composer Timo Andres, and featuring three fine singers, the music carries the production, often leaving the dancers with little to do but mirror the lyrics. It’s exhausting to watch them sweat through this choreography. “Illinoise” is another attempt by Peck to build community through dancing bodies, but the community is too thin, too self-absorbed for real connection.
Peck, the New York City Ballet’s resident choreographer, has been creating community dances that smack of teenage spirit for centuries. But what began as a choreographic signature, drawing on the talents of ballet dancers his age, has grown tired. His choreography, especially after the pandemic, has lost its way, its rhythm, its backbone. He has done beautiful dances, fresh and lively. “The Times Are Racing” (2017) feels like it poured out of him; His heart and drive remain unstoppable.
When “Illinoise” picks up momentum and the dancers perform as a group, breathing as one, some of that fiery groove shines through. These moments are fleeting, but they speak to the glowing spirit of what “Illinois” could have been if more power had been given to the dance. For all the in-you-face presence, here it’s more of a side effect than a tool to get the job done.
Peck is known for the rigor of his structure, but he allowed a similarity to creep in: Often in his works, dancers converge into tight shapes—like a mid-dance chat—and then spill out onto the stage. Something similar happens in “Illinoise” again and again, as the group gathers around a campfire (an arrangement of lanterns) and then falls, clearing the stage for a new scene. It feels like a church camp.
With this music, the lens focuses on a specific moment, one that seems personal to Peck, whose quest for nirvana—not ’90s Nirvana, but the wistful bliss of things—often lands him in a place full of emotion. His cast projects adolescence, with the inherent depth of emotion, but without the theatrical glue it needs: tension.
The movement in “Illinoise” is vague, giving more importance to shapes than to fully dimensional choreography. You could swear you’re watching prom, but are you? What is the? Sometimes ambiguous, sometimes literal—with gestures that reflect lyrics—the active dance, along with everyday, pedestrian movement, can seem contrived and predictable. When Henry’s protagonist (Ricky Ubeda) pulls on a jacket that immediately falls off—this happens at the beginning and end of the show—you see it coming.
There are rounded backs and deep creases, the kind that help a surfer stand up on a board, as well as punchy unison moments that involve, repeatedly, pulled knees with a backward bend and a massive step forward. Toe twirls, toe pulls, heel turns—come together not as a choreographic language, but as movement that a stylist can drape over a body for theatrical effect.
The diary is an issue of the production, which delves into issues around mental health. the program includes journal entries, written by Drury, depicting Henry’s thoughts. “I worry that I’m still a child,” he writes as Henry, letting “nervous thoughts take over more often than I’d like to admit.”
In the first act, the magazines placed at the front of the stage seem to be the inspiration to dance to Stevens’ songs. When Craig Sulstein appears in a clown suit as John Wayne Gacy, to the tune of “John Wayne Gacy Jr.,” his expression turns furious as he tears others down with systematic coldness. In another song, dancer Jeanette Delgado battles zombies and runs in place — more than once.
And Robbie Fairchild, in “The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts” transforms from Clark Kent into Superman with his hands proudly on his hips. All of them are accomplished dancers, but they can’t elevate the choreography, which seems reminiscent of 1980s music videos.
“Illinoise” owes much to “Movin’ Out,” Twyla Tharp’s musical with songs and instrumentals by Billy Joel, about a generation of young Americans in the 1960s and their experience during and after the Vietnam War . And it appears to belong to a star of that show, John Selya, a Tharp muse and real-life surfer. Selya’s attention to detail, his casual-athletic approach to the curves and turns of the movement struck me time and time again as a blueprint for his “Illinoise” vocabulary.
Bodies fly and swoon—seemingly driven more by emotional energy than steps. But aren’t the steps what make a dance breathe? Is that why this show feels so screwed up? With its swinging arms, sharp kicks, lusty eyes and hungry grins, the dance isn’t a dance at all, but the desperate backup act of “Illinois.”
Robbins, too, is a major Peck influence and a choreographer who did wonders with the idea of youthful, empowered ballets in a childish style. He was also a master of two realms, dance and theater. In “Illinoise,” Peck breaks down both, but especially the one he should be controlling the most — the choreography.