Scarecrow

I saw Scarecrow at The Tank on February 14, 2026 at 7pm, and “a series of deathbed hallucinations” is truly the most fitting description for this haunting, avant-garde dance performance. It feels less like a narrative and more like a mind unraveling in real time. What unfolds onstage is fragmented, grotesque, tender, and at moments unexpectedly beautiful. For me, it was deeply moving.

Choreographer Mark Bankin crafts a physical language that feels both unearthly and painfully human. His work has been described as “grotesque and beautiful—sometimes both at once,” and that duality is on full display here. The movement swings between distortion and grace, rigidity and surrender. Bodies convulse, collapse, reach, recoil. There are moments of almost unbearable tension followed by passages of startling softness. Bankin’s choreography never settles into comfort. It keeps you slightly off balance, as if you too are drifting between lucidity and dream.

The design team builds a world that expands alongside the hallucinations. Set designer Josh Oberlander begins with a sparse stage that gradually opens into a detailed living room filled with the bric-a-brac of a fully lived life. The reveal is striking. What begins as abstraction transforms into something domestic and intimate, which only makes the unraveling more poignant. Costume designer Ian C. Gonzales threads surrealist touches through familiar silhouettes, grounding the piece in something recognizable while allowing it to slip into the uncanny.

The technical elements elevate the work to another level. Lola Basiliere creates a soundscape that feels immersive and alive, at times jarring, at times enveloping. It pulses beneath the choreography like a nervous system. Cheyenne Sykes paints the stage with shifting atmospheres that guide us through each hallucination. The lighting does not simply illuminate; it shapes the emotional temperature of the room. I found myself wanting even more of it, more darkness, more saturation, more of those electric transitions that seemed to crack the space open.

The cast is extraordinary. Every performer commits fully, filling their characters with specificity and emotional truth. There is no holding back here. The ensemble moves as if the stakes are life and death, because in this world, they are. Each body tells its own story while remaining part of a larger fever dream. The vulnerability on display is palpable. It is rare to see performers so completely inside a piece, trusting its strangeness and letting it carry them.

Scarecrow is not a linear experience, nor is it meant to be. It is an exploration of memory, fear, decay, and longing rendered through movement and design. It asks the audience to surrender logic and sit inside sensation. For me, that surrender paid off. It was thought-provoking, visually rich, and emotionally resonant. An unsettling and beautiful meditation on what the mind might conjure at the edge of life.

It has shows through March 1, 2026 at The Tank. Do go see it and support this type of art!