Chicago's Watershed goes to China

If you look at your right palm, you see a map of China: the rivers flow east, and most of the rest is high and dry; the arable land is like dirt collected in the lines of your palm. It is home to 1,380,868,414 of the world's population. A handful of them work at The University of Chicago Center in Beijing and Peking University. They invited Clinard Dance and EStrella Piano Duo to perform our piece, Chicago's Watershed: A 156-Mile Choreography and work with music and dance students. We leave Thursday; let's see what happens.

But before we leave, we need to reacquaint ourselves with what this Watershed business is all about.

A few intense days at Merit Music in the West Loop neighborhood is just what we needed...

We'll see you in a couple weeks when we return with many stories to share of our travels.

(sketches by Dmitry Samarov; photos by Avis Shapiro & Liz Roman)