Julianna Rubio Slager first heard the Mexican legend of La Llorona as a scary bedtime story. After she grew up and became a mother herself, she came to be fascinated by the tragedy of a woman who drowns her children in a jealous rage. Inspired by her own struggles with postpartum depression, Slager, artistic director of the Orland Park–based dance troupe Ballet 5:8, reimagines the myth in a full-length piece debuting at the Harris Theater.

“I tend to reevaluate stories about women, knowing that a lot of those older cultural myths were told from this perspective where women are either turned into cautionary tales or they’re objectified,” Slager says. In this case, she transforms La Llorona into the physical manifestation of a young mother’s postpartum ordeals, visualizing how the hormonal cocktail intensifies her emotions. “I extrapolate those sensations into a movement that is giving that feeling of anxiety or depression: the weight of it, the heaviness of it, the feeling of not being able to get out of bed or like you’re trudging through mud.”  

Working with an ensemble of 28 dancers, Slager spent months exploring the central concept from multiple angles. The cheating husband of the original story, for instance, is now an ill-equipped caretaker struggling to console his paranoid wife. Slager hopes these new perspectives help audience members process their own feelings, just as the undertaking has for her. “I’m able to cope better when I can let those emotions have a physical form. They’re able to say their piece, and it’s easier for them to be at rest.”

Ballet 5:8 performs La Llorona on October 5 and 6 at the Harris Theater.