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How Broadway’s ‘Illinoise’ Used Sufjan Stevens’ 2005 Album to Create a ‘Silent Film’ Told Through Dance


Tony Award-winner Justin Peck directed and choreographed "Illinoise," a 90-minute show that uses dance to tell its story—instead of words.

The main cast, which includes Brandt Martinez, Ricky Ubeda, Jeanette Delgado and more, don’t speak a single word in the entire musical. It has music, dance, story, lyrics, song, singing, but all those things are sort of shattered and then put back together in a very unique way that suits the show.” Ubeda, one of the main dancers in the show who previously worked with Peck on Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story” and Broadway’s “Carousel,” says he relies a lot on gesture and emotion to carry his performance.

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