Irene Hsiao, author at Chicago Reader

Three Asian people stand with their hands clasped together before them. The people on the left and right are women, and the person in the center is male.

Theo lights up a new Asian American musical with Baked!

by Irene Hsiao September 21, 2023September 21, 2023

Happily ever after for an Asian American high school girl isn’t getting the captain of the football team to take you to prom—it’s getting into Harvard. So let’s get one thing straight from the jump: Jane Huang, a Chinese American girl from Minnesota Valley (a midwestern town that is not in the state of Minnesota), […]

Two dancers are seen from above at a slightly distorted angle, with their arms stretching away from their bodies.

Arts & Culture

Season of plenty

by Kerry Reid, Deanna Isaacs and Irene Hsiao September 21, 2023September 22, 2023

Despite rumors of its demise, live performance is still happening in abundance on Chicago stages this season. Here are just a few suggestions in opera, dance, theater, and comedy to consider in the months ahead. And as always, be sure to check out our updated reviews and features every week for the latest comprehensive coverage. […]

Two women in blue tunics are seen in a gallery at the Art Institute. One is seated in a wheelchair with one arm stretched out. The other woman stands behind her, supporting her arm.

Arts & Culture

The art of access

by Irene Hsiao August 17, 2023August 17, 2023

On Sunday, August 13, from 1 to 4 PM, the Art Institute of Chicago hosted Cripping the Galleries, a series of live gallery activations through the lenses of crip culture, access, and belonging by Chicago dance artists in collaboration with Bodies of Work: A Network of Disability Art and Culture and the Museum of Contemporary […]

A crowd gathers to watch a breaker at a past Battle 4 the Eagle in Logan Square.

Arts & Culture

Battle 4 the Eagle returns to Logan Square

by Irene Hsiao August 9, 2023August 10, 2023

Hip-hop celebrates its 50th birthday this August, when DJs, breakers, rappers, graffiti artists, friends, and fans commemorate the historic night when 18-year-old Jamaican immigrant Clive Campbell, better known as “DJ Kool Herc,” used two turntables and two copies of the same record to loop the percussion section of a song. He produced a beat that […]

A hand holding notes labeled "The Study. Drinks are visible on the table in the background.

Theater Review

Clue: A Walking Mystery misses local color

by Irene Hsiao August 1, 2023August 28, 2023

July 27, 4:58 PM, in the sweltering afternoon of a hothouse week, my friend Jeff and I arrived at a kiosk between a shuttered Starbucks and a Cash4Gold stand on the pedway level of Block 37. We were reporting for duty as Detectives Peacock, among the first set of Chicago players to officially experience Right […]

Dance

From Skokie to Spain

by Irene Hsiao June 21, 2023June 21, 2023

Skokie is a suburb on the north side of Chicago with a cemetery on one side of the street and a cosmetic surgeon on the other, where a designated forest preserve is a square patch of land about one residential block in length and width. Signage abounds: “No Trespassing” in the parking lot by a […]

An Asian American woman and man sit on a sofa that stands in for a car. He is driving, with a guitar in his lap. They both wear leather jackets and jeans.

Theater Review

Asian American renegades

by Irene Hsiao June 8, 2023June 8, 2023

When you hear “Charlie Chan,” do you think of a Honolulu police detective with a penchant for fortune cookie proverbs in pidgin English, who was made into an American icon in six novels by Ohioan Earl Derr Biggers and portrayed in yellowface by mostly white actors, including Swedish actor Warner Oland (who also played the […]

Dance

Malevolent enchantment

by Irene Hsiao April 27, 2023April 27, 2023

Through a wash of watercolor sea, as if glimpsed through a periscope, a lighted box appears, within which a poet writes lines in cursive script: “Far far out to sea, where the water is blue as a cornflower and clear as a crystal . . .” It isn’t once upon a time in Hans Christian […]

Two Black men stand facing each other. The man on the left has short braids. The man on the right is bald. The stage is mostly bare except for a stool in the far upper left corner. The setting is reminiscent of a boxing ring, and the playing area is drenched in red light.

Dance

Duels and duets

by Irene Hsiao April 12, 2023April 12, 2023

The lobby filled with the heat of many bodies on April 8 for closing night of Shamel Pitts|TRIBE’s Touch of Red, the first program of the MCA’s spring On Stage series on Blackness and movement, Frictions, curated by Tara Aisha Willis. By the spiral staircase, the short film Touch of Red: Overture plays on a […]

Dance

Trilogy of terpsichore

by Irene Hsiao March 30, 2023March 29, 2023

In 2016, the Chicago Cultural Center presented the exhibition Strandbeest: The Dream Machines of Theo Jansen. Built by the Dutch inventor since 1990 and described by their maker as “new forms of life,” strandbeests surpass their man-made material—PVC pipes—to become something animate and other, each with dozens of narrow yellow legs. Simultaneously archaic and advanced, […]

Meredith Sutton, a Black woman with long braided hair, is photographed from the waist up. She is wearing a gray V-neck sweater and silver hoop earrings. In the background on the left there appears to be some sort of screen or blackboard.

Dance

‘It’s about finding those visceral connections to dance’

by Irene Hsiao March 22, 2023March 26, 2023

On January 6, the dance department at Columbia College announced Meredith Sutton as the interim director of the Dance Presenting Series at its Dance Center. Sutton served as program manager for the Dance Presenting Series since February of the previous year. Before moving to Chicago, Sutton was associate professor of dance at the University of […]

Two men dance onstage. The man on the left is in tan pants, a pale pink tank top, and socks. The man on the right is wearing darker trousers, a light T-shirt, and blue vest. He is also wearing socks. The man on the left is bent over, his arms flung to the sides. The man on the right has his leg extended toward the right of the picture, and is reaching to the left with one hand to grasp the face of the man on the left.

Performing Arts Feature

Spring in our steps

by Kerry Reid, Irene Hsiao and Deanna Isaacs March 22, 2023March 23, 2023

Winter might have been more mild than usual this year, but spring is coming in hot with live performances to light up the season. From remounts of favorites to world premieres, Chicago stages offer an intriguing seasonal bouquet in dance, opera, theater, comedy, and more. Here are 20 shows to consider in the days and […]

Six women in goth Renaissance-like soldiers' garb are onstage. Four of them are in a cluster in the center, holding wooden daggers with red streamers suggesting blood flowing out of them. Two other women are standing on either side of the battling group, looking on with their hands outstretched, as if cheering or yelling suggestions.

Theater Review

The three faces of Joan

by Irene Hsiao March 15, 2023March 15, 2023

Joan of Arc: history or apocrypha, saint or schizophrenic, myth or martyr? We’re all mad here, suggests Trap Door Theatre’s vivacious U.S. premiere production of Matei Vişniec’s Joan and the Fire (2007), translated by Jeremy Lawrence and directed by Nicole Wiesner. Down a narrow alleyway, through a restaurant, beyond an unimposing doorway, lies a world […]

J'Nai Bridges, a Black woman with long black hair, stands on a table center as Carmen. She wears a bright-red dress, and her arms are outstretched. She is surrounded by men and women, some also on the table, some standing around the tables. Bottles and glasses are in their hands, with a bottle set on the far right edge of the table.

Arts & Culture

Bad girls, brigadiers, and bullfights

by Irene Hsiao March 14, 2023March 14, 2023

The Lyric Opera was packed to the rafters with patrons twinkling with sequins for opening night of Georges Bizet’s Carmen, with libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy. Premiered in Paris to moral scandal in 1875, the tragic opera, based on an 1845 novella by Prosper Mérimée, about a bohémienne and her fatal seduction of […]

At left, a young woman kneels in front of a case full of glass figurines. Behind her in the background on the left is a man walking across the stage, wearing a light brown coat. On the right, an older woman in a gray patterned dress is held up by five identical men in light suits and straw hats. She is holding a bouquet of jonquils. A brown staircase is visible behind them on the right

Dance

Bodies and metaphors

by Irene Hsiao February 28, 2023February 28, 2023

Downstage right is a cabinet of crystal figurines, concentrating the light to shimmer with rainbows. Their allure is hypnotic: ghostly against the dark curtain, reflection distorted on the marley; delicious as diamonds but far more fragile, they remain in place throughout the performance, surely shivering with every footfall on the floor. Stacked stage left are […]