Featuring the music of rock legend David Bowie and combining the rhythm of tap dance, the innovation of jazz dance and the story-telling capacity of ballet, Changes tells a tangled tale of space travel, alien despots and social upheaval, based on Bowie’s seminal work, “Ground Control to Major Tom.”

Changes is a revival/reimagination of a Story Show CTT first premiered five years ago. Since that time CTT has continued to learn more about narrative dance and plan to push the boundaries farther within the framework of a tap opera, a genre CTT has pioneered here in Chicago. “Two years ago we performed an earlier tap opera at the New York Musical Theater Festival (NYMF), and received acclaim as innovators within the realm of dance theater. While many companies prefer to let the story be more abstract or interpretive, we strive to tell a clear, compelling stories with characters the audience can relate and an emotional resonance for the viewer,” says Mark Yonally, Artistic Director of Chicago Tap Theatre.

“Audiences love being told a story,” says Yonally, “and that’s what we do in Changes. We have all the elements of good theatre – character, pacing, plot – as well as the best aspects of dance – fantastic music, complex movement and honest human interaction.” Although audiences are familiar with traditional forms of tap, exploring tap dance’s conceptual and narrative possibilities is still relatively new. “Using the sound of the taps to help propel the plot is an astounding gift to us as storytellers,” says Yonally. “We can reach our audiences through both their eyes and their ears.”

The previous time Changes was produced, CTT garnered critical acclaim, including a review on 848 (WBEZ radio, Lucia Mauro, dance reporter and reviewer), that included, “I was kind of blown away by the ingenuity of it, and also the tightness of it…This is very serious tapping, and what I noticed, what struck me, was how well the dancers were acting and conveying emotion through their expression. They weren’t just tapping.”