Catapult Dance at the Orpheum Theatre -- March 15.
Saturday, March 15, 7:30 p.m.
Orpheum Theatre, 57 South Kellogg Street, Galesburg IL
Featured on season eight of America’s Got Talent, the exquisite talents of Catapult Dance deliver the premiere performance of their 2025 tour at Galesburg's Orpheum Theatre on March 15, the artists employing interpretive dance and amazing acrobatics to create visual stories for the whole family all through expressive light and shadow.
Catapult Dance founder and director Adam Battelstein has traveled the world as a professional performer and director, soloed at Carnegie Hall, performed at the 2007 Academy Awards, danced on the Oprah show, and absolutely blew audience’s (and the judges') minds as finalists in Season eight of America’s Got Talent. Now, he and his company of eight dancers are spending two weeks in a rural town of 50,000 this March, preparing, creating, and perfecting their new show as they use the “Jewel of Galesburg," the Orpheum Theatre, as the launching point for this brand-new tour.
The company prides itself on melding cutting-edge technology with classic technique, with dancers using their bodies to mutate into everything from a dragon to a helicopter and everything in between. The family-friendly performances are full of humor, emotion, and engaging stories, and feature contemporary and classical music choices alongside the shadow-illusion dance. These incredible dancing visionaries tell stories by creating a series of shadows with light projected from the back of the theatre towards a scrim on the front of the stage, and shadow dancing is all about the body and its ability to transform with pinpoint specificity and precision.
“To some degree, the shadow shapes are illusion,” says Battelstein. “They come together a little like a magic trick. It’s kind of an improbable art form, it’s not even the dancer you’re seeing, it’s the shadow of the dancer. It is kind of a magic moment when it comes together.”
Beyond the premiere performance in Galesburg, Catapult's two-week residency at the Orpheum Theatre will also include two special shortened shows for local school groups, providing an opportunity for 1,800 area elementary students to experience this once-in-a-lifetime performance live.
Catapult Dance begins their 2025 spring tour in Galesburg on March 15, admission to the 7:30 p.m. show is $30-35, and more information and tickets are available by calling (309)342-2299 and visiting GalesburgOrpheum.org.
