Unfinished Business
Created and Performed by
Melinda Jean Myers & Kurt Chiang
October 20-22 @ 7:00pm | Links Hall
3111 N Western Ave
Running time 75 mins, presented without intermission
live-stream available for the October 22 performance
WORKSHOP available October 22 from 11-2:30pm
“Finishing the Business”
includes 1 in-person or live-stream ticket
About the show
Mindy and Kurt have always wanted something. They wanted to dance (Mindy), and to act (Kurt). Eventually, they got what they wanted, whether it was a role, a part, a job, a career, and so on. But it wasn’t what it seemed to be. What they wanted was different. Or it could be, or should be. What they wanted – from dancing, from acting – was changing all the time, from year to year, or from the time it took to walk across the room. In the meantime, they wound up here, in front of you, the audience.
Unfinished Business is a two-person dance and theater performance created while the artists lived in different cities. Mindy and Kurt exchanged voice memos, archiving a lively exchange of thoughts, opinions, knee-jerk reactions and free-wheeling associations. The memos serve as a soundscape in a show woven together with elements of dance, movement, theater and gesture. Stage actions derive from the show’s title – reaching for something out of reach, moving the body in ways it doesn’t move anymore, climbing ladders that lead to nowhere. Mindy and Kurt question their own trajectories, challenging each other along the way, in an attempt to create a moment with the audience that is honest and entirely present.
Unfinished Business was originally produced by the artists, premiering in the spring of 2022 at The Englert Theatre in Iowa City, and further developed through a residency at The Yard in Martha’s Vineyard with Lucky Plush Productions. It is made possible through seed support from Lucky Plush’s Embodied Research Program and the Performance Subvention Fund from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at University of Iowa.
Meet the artists
Melinda Jean Myers joined Lucky Plush in 2012, originated roles in Cinderbox 2.0, The Queue, SuperStrip, and Happy Returns, and joined the touring cast of Rink Life. Mindy is a dance artist, choreographer and Assistant Professor of Contemporary Dance and Choreography at University of Iowa. She earned her MFA from the University of Iowa where she received a Stanley Graduate Award for International Research and Iowa Arts Fellowship. She earned her BFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Mindy was honored to perform internationally with the Trisha Brown Dance Company for four years (2006-2010), and currently re-stages their repertory. As a member of The Cambrians, her collaborative work Clover (2015) was named one of Chicago Tribune’s Top 10 Dances of 2015. She was chosen to produce her one woman cabaret greatBIGworld through High Concept Laboratories’ Sponsored Artist program at Mana Contemporary in 2014. The Chicago Tribune said “Myers has proved herself a winning performer, boasting a brilliantly unstudied comic touch.” Her interdisciplinary dance works have been presented in South Korea, Germany, NYC and throughout the Midwest.
Kurt Chiang is a theater artist, writer and performer. He is Artistic Director Emeritus & Ensemble of The Neo-Futurist Theater, where he wrote/performed over 300 very short plays in the prolific weekly show, The Infinite Wrench. He continues to write, create, teach, and collaborate with artists and companies in Chicago and elsewhere. Ongoing & Past credits include: The Neo-Futurists, PlayMakers Laboratory, The Arts Club of Chicago, Lucky Plush Productions, Mocrep, Write Club, The Paper Machete, Free Street Theater, The Annoyance, Salonathon, We Series, Drinking & Writing Theater, The Hypocrites, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Abrons Art Center, The Theatre School at DePaul University, Lily Mooney, Melinda Jean Myers, Jenna Horton, Hal Baum, Lucas Baisch, Livia Chesley, John Pierson, The NY & SF Neo-Futurists, and as a bedside teaching artist for hospitalized youth with Snow City Arts. He is currently writing and collecting imagery for his project, Chicka-Dee-Dee-Dee!, an original series of videos on grasslands and riparian zones.