ddn-050126-go-big family

Brandon Berry

There’s a Japanese concept called ikigai — a reason for being, or a reason to get up in the morning. It represents the intersection of what you love, what you’re good at, what the world needs and what you can be paid for. For Big Family Business, that purpose is performance.

The local collective of performing artists is rooted in family ties and shared values: spreading joy, reaching out, challenging behaviors and living a life beneficial to all. This time, that purpose takes shape as a three-part, multi-disciplinary concert. 

Big Family Business is at it again, offering performance art rooted in tradition, but alive in the here and now. Performances run Saturday, May 2 through Sunday, May 3 at the Foundry Theater, 920 Corry St., Yellow Springs.

Led by Sharon Leahy and Rick Good, the Family will share two new works in this show. One is John Ciardi’s modernized retelling of Aesop’s fable “The Ant and the Grasshopper,” titled “John J. Plenty & Fiddler Dan.” The piece is visually punctuated by master puppeteer and mask-maker Tristan Cupp, of Dayton-based Zoot Theatre Company. The second work is a percussive dive into the concept of “staying at the table” — exploring life’s cycles, over the mountains and into the valleys — featuring an original banjo score by Good and theatrical dance by Leahy.

Rounding out the trio of pieces is a suite of classics and favorites from 25 years of the Rhythm in Shoes tap repertoire, accompanied by a band of swing musicians. Over the years, Rhythm in Shoes became a local institution, a theatrical organization rooted in traditional forms of American music and dance — swing tunes and tap, hoedowns and clogging. Led by composer Good and choreographer Leahy, Rhythm in Shoes toured 48 states as well as Canada, Japan and Ireland, pursuing the company’s mission: to engage the world in music and dance.

The Big Family Business collective includes many former Rhythm in Shoes dancers and musicians, along with an extended family of collaborators from around the country. Artists include Kevin Anderson, Addie Bakan, Ben Cooper, Tristan Cupp, Rick Good, Becky Hill, Sharon Leahy, Melissa Proffit, Chris Westoff, Beth Wright, Violet Wright, Emma Young and Linzay Young. Six children will be part of the “John J. Plenty and Fiddler Dan” piece, alongside life-sized puppets.

In the original fable, “The Ant and the Grasshopper,” Aesop argues that hard work and preparation are essential, while living only for the present leads to ruin. The ant’s diligence in gathering enables survival; the grasshopper’s choice to sing and play results in hunger. With Ciardi’s retelling, the results are reversed, suggesting maybe working and preparing is not what life is about; maybe music makes everything worth it.

“Those experiences, they bring people together,” Leahy said. “They lift your spirit, they save the collective soul of a community. Dance also encourages involvement on a physical level. Think of all the amazing things it does for you, your heart, your mind. I’m not worrying about anything when I’m dancing. And that’s invigorating. Even if people don’t understand that on an intellectual level, people feel that. They see it and just feel it. When a dancer is so in the zone, you just feel it in your body.”

Leahy calls the new pieces works in progress — when you share something new for the first time, you learn what can be done better next time.

Big Family Business aims to surprise, educate, comfort and entertain through work rooted in life’s rhythms. 

“Maybe you don’t hear tone in everything you do, but everything has a pulse or a rhythm to it,” Leahy said, of that idea. “And you feel that throughout your day and throughout your week and your life. I especially feel that now, on the longer end of a life. You just see things that ebb and flow. You see those rhythms when they return. You see what stays throughout the whole thing, and what’s the underlying pulse that really keeps everything going.”

Brandon Berry covers the music and arts scene in Dayton and Southwest Ohio. Reach him at branberry100@gmail.com.

HOW TO GO

What: Big Family Business

When: 7 p.m. Saturday, May 2; 2 p.m. Sunday, May 3

Where: Foundry Theater, 920 Corry St., Yellow Springs

Cost: $25 general admission, $5 student admission

Tickets: antiochcollege.edu