Feder: Former Tribune critic Howard Reich writes ballet about Japanese-Canadian internment

For more than 40 years Howard Reich covered music and the arts for the Chicago Tribune with passion and sensitivity, adding six books and three documentary films to his prodigious credits as an award-winning critic.

Now, nearly one year after he accepted a buyout from the Tribune, the treasured Chicago journalist is about to unveil perhaps the most inspiring project of his career - to be presented in an entirely new realm.

Reich has written the stage scenario for "Kimiko's Pearl," a new multidisciplinary work to be performed by principal dancers of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet.

Commissioned by the nonprofit Bravo Niagara! Festival of the Arts based in Ontario, Canada, "Kimiko's Pearl" tells the fictionalized family story of Bravo Niagara! co-founders (and mother-daughter team) Christine Mori and Alexis Spieldenner, whose Japanese Canadian ancestors were interred during World War II.

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