By: Mark Fitzgerald Ballets have been inspired by star-crossed lovers, a princess cursed to become a swan, and even by a toy nutcracker come to life. The idea that a ballet could be spun from the life of a newspaper reporter was apparently just too improbable a project to attempt. But that's exactly what Robin Fisher and several other Chicago choreographers have done with "The Journalist."
For a gala benefiting her Fisher Dance Foundation, which supports inner-city girls, Fisher wanted to create a dance that would tell a sweeping story of the condition of women around the world and throughout history. "I thought, how else could I do it, but by [using] this character who goes to all the troubled places on earth, and writes about it," says Fisher.
"The Journalist" follows its young protagonist Sophie from her days on a high school paper to a career reporting on women stuck in hot spots such as Bosnia and Somalia, or recalling their experiences in Communist China or the Holocaust. Fisher sheepishly admits her inspiration wasn't any real-life Christiane Amanpour, but a song by the 1980s band Tears For Fears. Still, the reporter character allowed the dance to "really bring attention to these issues, and to make changes, like journalists do."
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