About the Show...

Beserra Dance Theater presents The Jenkins Farm Project September 4-7 at Theatre Building Chicago. The Jenkins Farm Project transforms the real stories of eight siblings born and raised on a family farm in rural North Carolina between 1922 and 1938 into a dance-theater installation about home, family, memory, and mental illness against the backdrop of 20th century U.S. history.

Audience members walk through this interactive multi-media performance environment immersed in the fluid fragments of the farm as it resurfaces through the video images and voices of Jeanette Jenkins, who still lives on the crumbling remains of the family farm, and Glenn Jenkins, who restlessly traverses North America, putting as much distance as possible between him and the little white house he used to call home. The disparate experiences of these siblings provide the theatrical framework for innovative choreography, powerful visual imagery, and poignant melodies developed by the cast and creators through a collaborative process that included visits to the real Jenkins Farm and a weeklong creative intensive in the North Carolina mountains.

Beserra’s choreography plays within, against, and around an original score by Matt Reed and Colby Beserra.  Developed in close concert with the movement, the bluegrass-blues-hymn-folk-inspired score captures the longing and conflict that are irrevocably bound to the history of the Jenkins home and the secrets that are buried there.