Brendan Fernandes is a multimedia artist with the mind—and the body—of a dancer. Not surprisingly, he studied ballet as a teenager and modern dance in college before settling on a career as a visual artist. A Kenyan-Indian-Canadian, his 2008 video Foe saw him trying to speak the accents of his various ancestral languages and was exhibited at New York’s Guggenheim Museum. His latest piece, The Master and Form, is part homage to, part damning critique of, the classical ballet world of his childhood. The installation and performance series, presented in collaboration with the designer Norman Kelley at the Graham Foundation in Chicago, explores “themes of mastery and discipline within the culture of ballet.” Performers dance around scaffolding intended to help them push their bod...