JENKINS DEBUTS DUKAKIS COLLABORATION ON AGING.

CHICAGO--The Margaret Jenkins Dance Company honors memory, personal history, and the passage of time with the world premiere of Breathe Normally at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, March 24 to 27. With the piece, the twenty-five-year-old San Francisco-based company boldly asserts: "we've changed and are forever changing."

Breathe Normally was jump-started by a series of discussions with actress Olympia Dukakis. Jenkins and associate artistic director Ellie Klopp met Dukakis during American Conservatory Theatre's 1995 staging of Hecuba in San Francisco. The talks, which revolved around issues of memory, aging, and being artists, led to a series of workshops investigating the same topics. Dukakis told and retold her stories until a theme emerged, which was an archetypal story of shared memory and the impact of a pivotal event on familial relationships.

"What is the nature of the contributions that people give when they're older?" asks Jenkins, 56, who returns to the stage after an eight-year absence. "Not only do you look different, the nature of things that interest you is different." Adds Klopp, 41, who also performs the piece: "The piece is about who and where we are at this point in our lives."

"In the past," says Jenkins, "we worked with a central idea. In Fault, the nature of the material demanded a younger virtuosity. Breathe Normally asks for experience and knowledge." Also new for Jenkins is the use of actors, props, and costume changes. Although the company has worked with writers in the past, the appearance of Gerald Hiken as an actor onstage represents new territory.

At press time, it remained to be seen how Dukakis's creative consulting would manifest itself in the piece--as voice, as visuals, or both. Regardless of the outcome, her presence, Jenkins and Klopp affirm, will be evident. Other stops on their spring tour include New York City's Joyce Theater, March 30 to April 4; and university theaters in Kansas, Arizona, Illinois, and Texas.