Review: In ‘Illinoise,' a Sufjan Stevens album is choreographed into something new
CHICAGO — “Took my bags, Illinois,” wrote singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens. “Dreamt the lake, took my boy. Man of Steel, Man of Heart. Turn your ear to my part.”
That single stanza, more than anything else to be heard on Stevens’ 2005 album “Illinois,” seems to have driven the gorgeous new theatrical experience at The Yard at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Therein, Justin Peck, indisputably of the best young choreographers working in America today and an inveterate seeker of narrative and emotional truth, meditates for 90 minutes on this widely acclaimed composition by a master of electronica, or chamber pop, or however you want to describe Stevens’ esoteric yet
