Mats Rudels
Four dancers of different ethnic groups stand in a close group on a black stage.
Rakhi Winston, left, Cuauhtli Ramirez Castro, Abbi Stickels and JP Alejandro in 'Here Lies the Truth,' 2026.
Erasure…
Deportation…
Members of minority groups nonetheless taking up their share of space by word and deed…
UW-Madison dance professor Li Chiao-Ping’s hour-long dance HERE LIES THE TRUTH provokes thoughts on these topics so recently in the news. The performances, Feb. 5-7, in the Margaret H’Doubler Performance Space in Lathrop Hall, 1050 University Ave., are to be the final ones of a work that has developed and changed over a decade. The dance has been influenced by President Trump’s 2016 campaign and first term, by the protest movement after the murder of George Floyd in 2020, by violence toward Asians during the pandemic, and now President Trump’s second term, targeting immigrants of color for deportation.
UW-Madison professor Douglas Rosenberg, Jacob Li Dai Loong Rosenberg and Hong Huo have created an intricate series of visual projections that accompany the dances, sometimes consisting of text, sometimes black and white photos or videos of protests. John G. Frautschy created the original lighting including vivid backdrops of saturated color. Tim Russell created throbbing electronic soundscapes.
HERE LIES THE TRUTH is an ambiguous title. It could be a phrase on a tombstone: the truth is buried here. Or it could be a hopeful declaration: I have found the truth! The dance begins with the darker perspective. Li Chiao-Ping, dressed as an American patriot circa 1776, addresses the audience through a bullhorn reciting sometimes dubious verities. Then Mariel Schneider comes onstage alone and looks off into the direction of a light shining down from the sky. One by one dancers join her, looking where she looks, pointing where she points, moving in a group, first this way, then that, in a dance called follow the leader.
A dance with many layers and vivid moments comes next. The full cast performs to the surreal child nonsense rhymes of the dance The house that Jack built this is a dog/whose truth? Movement motifs appear that are threaded throughout the evening. One of my favorites reminds me of a contact improvisation class: one person kneels and another falls backward rolling over the proffered back. We hear Tibetan throat singing. Dancers toss themselves about the stage and then the sound is thrown in reverse and sucked into a vacuum as dancers uncoil from the floor and snap rigidly into line.
One can think of the dancers as divided into two groups: four dancers of color and four white women. At one point the white women dance together. Abbi Stickels tries to join, running towards them, but they link arms and Stickels is blocked as if in a game of Red Rover. Shortly afterward a magical moment occurs. Dancers rolling on the floor defy gravity and fly up into the arms of other dancers who hold them like babies as the group takes turns telling stories of violent crimes against people of color who had been peacefully going about their lives.
Is truth out of reach? The answer is unmistakably no, in the dance Separate, but not equal musical chairs.
As in the traditional game, the dancers fight for the one seat. Elisa Hildner wins by sitting on top of Stickels’ back and tells a story of calling the police, for no legitimate reason, on a Black man in a park. In the dance erasure she continues her villainous role by erasing words of self-affirmation as fast as dancer Rakhi Winston can write them on three chalk slates. In desperation Winston battles to write them on her body. The two exit in a cloud of chalk dust.
In Jack jump over the candlestick, Stickels and Winston each perform achingly beautiful solos that tread weightlessly on a sheet of plastic spread onstage. They are joined at times by dancers Cuauhtli Ramirez Castro and JP Alejandro. The dance seems to be a metaphor for the pressure the majority can place on members of minority groups to make no mark on the land.
The show pivots emotionally in the dance See us here. It begins with a duet of mirrored moves between Castro and Katelyn Altmann. At the end the two walk hand in hand to the rear projection screen colored blue, sit on the stage, their backs to the audience, and remove their shirts. Stripped to their bare backs, it is as if they are stripped to their raw selves. Transformed by their honesty with each other, they have become people who can see the world through each other’s eyes. This transformation is symbolized by the act of putting on new shirts.
In the last movement of the final dance, holding space and place, the dancers of color are in plank positions, the top of a pushup. They shuffle to each other, link arms and struggle upright as if they are raising a flag — only the flag is themselves.
HERE LIES THE TRUTH meets the difficult moment we are living through, offering the audience perspective — and a way to heal.
