Asian American(s) Dance in Chicago: an essay and roundtable by Irene Hsiao

Image provided courtesy of Irene Hsiao and the artists of the roundtable listed in order of appearance, top to bottom/left to right: Irene Hsiao, Laksha Dantran, Mitsu Salmon, M Wu, Helen Lee

From the Writer: “Asian American(s) Dance in Chicago” was originally written in 2022 for the forthcoming volume Dancing on the Third Coast. Due to differences in perspective, it will not appear there. This excerpt for PRJ contains three of the four parts of my original essay—the full text is available here. Part I is an introduction on the recent position of Asian Americans within the landscape of Chicago dance and some background on the Asian American movement. Part II, available on my website, is a set of case studies on experimental dances created by M Wu and Hugh Sato, Mitsu Salmon, and Helen Lee between 2018 and 2021 that explicitly name and explore Asian American identity. Part III is the transcript of a roundtable of self-identified Asian American dancemakers convened over Zoom in September 2021. Part IV is a chronological index of local dance writing from 2016 to the present that includes Asian American dancers and choreographers to exhibit sample of the range of dance continually in a process of growth beyond what any individual can witness (this section was updated for this publication in October 2025). I wrote the essay in these parts to illustrate the way that cultural identities may be imposed, defined, chosen, questioned, and surpass definition. To me, there is no such thing as “Asian American dance”—and yet we exist, and yet we dance.

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Introduction

In 2019, Sustain Arts, See Chicago Dance, Candid, and Fractured Atlas released a report titled Mapping the Dance Landscape in Chicagoland. Modeled after a 2002 Dance USA census of Chicago’s dance organizations, the study aggregated data from over a dozen sources to record growth, track trends, and reveal gaps in the dance sector. “Compared with other artist occupations, dancers and choreographers in Chicago were more racially and ethnically diverse,” says the report. “However,” it continues, “notably, Asian and American Indian dancers and choreographers were not represented in the report—although we know that they are active in the Chicago dance community.” Although the content of the report does not contain data on Asian American members of the dance community, the cover image includes a photograph of Angela Tam, founder and artistic director of Yin He Dance, back deeply arched, fingers extended to the sky, in a Dai peacock dance. 

In 2021, the Chicago Dance History Project, which “investigates, documents, and presents the individual and institutional past of Chicago dance,” presented an interview marathon, described by CDHP director Jenai Cutcher as “a microcosm of what the CDHP is overall.” “CDHP is for, by, and about everybody,” she said in the same interview. “We’re trying to be as inclusive and egalitarian as possible.” The seven-hour program, consisting of 46 interviewees with representatives of “Chicago” dance as far-flung as Germany and Spain, did not contain any interviewees of Asian descent. 

The original subject proposed by the editors for this chapter was “concert dance by Asian-American choreographers in the city… you could focus on one point of intersection, such as the A-Squared Performing Arts Festival from 2016 to 2018”—an annual festival of Asian American artists curated by Hope Kim, Cary Shoda, and Giau Minh Truong at Links Hall that included music, performance art, puppetry, sound art, spoken word, and theatre, in addition to dance—“or you could take a longer historical view and include the career of Sona Osato [sic], a Japanese-American dancer who trained in Chicago during the 1930s.” 

Although I hope Sono Osato is mentioned in the chapter on ballet, lest she be omitted, this is my paragraph about her: Born in Omaha, Nebraska in 1919 to a Japanese photographer father and a white mother, Osato moved to Chicago with her family in 1925. She joined the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo at the age of 14 as the youngest dancer in the company, the first American, and the first dancer of Japanese descent. Though encouraged by the company to change her name to sound more “Russian,” Osato refused. In 1940, she joined American Ballet Theatre. A year later, at the same time that her father was interned as an enemy alien and her brother enlisted in the All-Japanese Regimental Combat Team, Osato performed under her mother’s maiden name, Fitzpatrick, but was nevertheless barred from tours due to racism. Even so, during the war, Osato starred on Broadway as a principal dancer in One Touch of Venus, a role for which she won a 1943 Donaldson Award, and as the original Ivy Smith in On the Town in 1944, a production noted for its groundbreaking racial diversity. In 2016, Thodos Dance Chicago created an evening-length biographical work called Sono’s Journey, performed at the Auditorium Theater with no dancers of Asian descent in the cast; Sono was played in yellowface by white dancers. This piece happened to be the subject of the first dance review I published in Chicago. In an interview with WFMT the same year, Osato said, “People need to accept us as people, not because we’re of a particular race. It’s difficult for any racial minority in this country. There’s so much prejudice, and that’s not what we’re supposed to stand for.”

When contacted for interview for this chapter, one potential subject declined to be included, stating she “doesn’t feel comfortable for her dance work/what she has done as a choreographer, dancer & improviser to be written within or specifically defined/categorized by race.” Although I suggested that she might risk being overlooked if she refused, I also agreed with her: why should concert dance by Asian Americans be segregated from concert dance proper? It might make sense if the dances themselves were somehow “Asian American”—and if Asian American dancers and dancemakers are also represented in other chapters on other genres of dance. 

But who or what is “Asian American”? The designation has been continually redefined since it was first used in May 1968 by activists Emma Gee and Yuji Ichioka to name the Asian American Political Alliance, the first pan-Asian American political organization, in Berkeley, California. They chose the term to cultivate political solidarity among Americans of Asian descent and to oppose the term “Oriental,” a term laden with racist and colonial stereotypes, containing within it notions of being alien, foreign, feared, fetishized, feminized, elevated, cheapened, dismissed, discarded, overlooked, excluded, presumed wealthy, bought for less, exploited, silenced, never enough, hypervisible, invisible—above all, other. From the beginning, the organization intended to organize Asian Americans in coalition with other activist groups, notably participating in the Third World Liberation Front strikes, which united Black, Indigenous, Asian, and Latinx groups to fight for the establishment of the first college of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University. 

“There were so many Asians out there in the political demonstrations but we had no effectiveness. Everyone was lost in the larger rally. We figured that if we rallied behind our own banner, behind an Asian American banner, we would have an effect on the larger public. We could extend the influence beyond ourselves, to other Asian Americans,” said Ichioka. 

“The peace movement was led by whites, and then I tried to join the Black Panther Party in Oakland, and they told me you can’t because you’re not black. So they said you should form your own group, and I thought, ‘Well, what is my group?’” said AAPA cofounder Vicci Wong, recalling their first meeting. “I went in Oriental and left Asian-American.” 

“By choosing Third World solidarity over model minority complicity—not only during the strikes, but also in support of the United Farm Workers, Native occupations at Alcatraz and Wounded Knee, the Free Huey campaign, and other concurrent issues—Asian Americans rejected ‘the passive Oriental stereotype’ in favor of ‘a new Asian… who will recognize and fight injustices,’” writes Nina Wallace in “Yellow Power: The Origins of Asian America.”

In other words, “Asian American” was from its roots an activist and political designation, created in defiance of “orientals” as submissive foreigners, walled off from full participation in American society by laws that barred their immigration (the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, de facto in place until 1965), incarcerated people based on race (Japanese internment, 1942-1946), and prohibited voting based on race (citizens of Asian descent only gained the right to vote in 1952, with the McCarran-Walter Act). Yet the Asian American movement began with a view to its ending: “We regard AAPA as a means to an end, and a beginning toward the end itself; that end is a better society where people can live as people,” they stated in 1968.

Yet to “live as people” cannot mean to become white. Cathy Park Hong writes in Minor Feelings, “When I hear the phrase, ‘Asians are next in line to be white,’ I replace the word ‘white’ with ‘disappear.’ Asians are next in line to disappear. We are reputed to be so accomplished, and so law-abiding, we will disappear into this country’s amnesiac fog. We will not be the power but become absorbed by power, not share the power of whites but be stooges to a white ideology that exploited our ancestors. This country insists that our racial identity is beside the point, that it has nothing to do with being bullied, or passed over for promotion, or cut off every time we talk.”

When initially coined, Asian American was an umbrella term for a group that included Americans of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Filipinx ancestry. Over half a century later, the description is far more expansive and inclusive. “In the United States Census, Asian American is a racial category comprised of at least thirty different ethnic groups and potentially many more cultural groups,” wrote researchers on race-related psychological stress on Asian American students in 2010, referring to the 2002 Census. The same study suggests the following list of “Asian cultural values and beliefs”: “collectivism, conformity to norms, deference to authority, emotional self-control, family recognition through achievement, filial piety, humility, hierarchical relationships, and avoidance of shame.” 

While noting that Asian Americans comprise about 7% of the US population and Chinese, Indian, Filipinx, Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese origin groups make up 85% of the US population of Asians, a 2021 Pew Research analysis of 2019 Census data remarks, “The largest Asian origin groups in the U.S. differ significantly by income, education and other characteristics. These differences highlight the wide diversity of the nation’s Asian population and provide a counterpoint to the ‘model minority’ myth and the description of the population as monolithic.” In Illinois, most Asian Americans are of Indian ancestry (31%), followed by Filipinx and Chinese (19% each). In the city of Chicago, which contains 80% of the Asian population of the state and contains the fifth largest Asian population in the nation, Asian Americans are about 7% of the total population, though representation in politics and arts remains well below that figure—a 2021 Politico article noted that while AAPIs are the fastest growing minority group, they are also the least represented in politics, at less than 1% of elected officials—representation in Chicago dance has been almost entirely unaccounted for, as the SCD report indicates. 

Roundtable

On September 2, 2021, several Chicago dancemakers who self-identified as Asian American met on a Zoom call. We introduced ourselves by the forms of dance we had studied and the reasons we identified as Asian American. 

Irene Hsiao: I have a varied dance background. The first form of dance I studied was Chinese folk dance, which I took for an hour a week as an elective in weekly Chinese school. Since then I have studied many of forms of dance—ballet, modern, tango—but have not mastered any. I think I am Asian American in the sense of being second generation. My parents are immigrants who came here as adults. I think they still think of their home, even though they’ve lived here for decades now, as being elsewhere. I feel like I’ve grown up between cultures. 

M Wu: I have a pretty varied dance background, as well. Mostly modern, improvisational forms. I started using the term “Asian American” more recently, mostly to express solidarity with a particular movement that started in the 60s and 70s. I think it’s problematic but useful in some situations for getting people in the room and to organize around. 

Helen Lee: My background in dance was dancing like Michael Jackson, Madonna, Janet Jackson when I was a little girl. I took a ballet, jazz, and tap class at a park district, but really it was just tap class in our pajamas, I don’t remember exactly. In high school, I started training in hula and Polynesian dances, and I went to Hawaii for my undergrad; that’s where I started more rigorous training in modern, ballet, butoh, and theater. I like moving, and I don’t know if that falls under an umbrella. My dad immigrated here in the mid-70s. I don’t even have a Korean name. My cousins had Korean and American names, but my sister and I did not, because my dad was of the thinking, ‘You were born in America, so you are American.’ I wondered for a long time, ‘What does that mean? What does American mean?’ When I was in China, everybody started speaking to me in Chinese because I look like them. When I explained, ‘No, no, I’m not Chinese, I’m American!’ they’re like, ‘Yeah, but you don’t look American.’ That was the first time I was like, ‘What does looking American mean?’ People outside America, I suppose they think being American means being white. Asian American was a term I felt comforted by, because I was born here, but my family and ancestors are from Korea. It gave me a label to identify with. There some problems with it as well, but it connects me to other Asian Americans.

Laksha Dantran: I’m a trans woman. I came to the United States in 2017, so I would say I’m a new immigrant. If you are saying Asian American, I would like to add one more word: trans Asian American. Because I would like to identify myself as trans, too. My dance is bharatanatyam, an Indian classical dance, used in India in olden days a daily ritual in the temple, so you would also say temple dance. Over time, we say a classical dance form. Bha means expression, ra means melody, ta means rhythm, and natyam means dance—so a dance which uses expression, melody, and rhythm equally. I have been practicing for 37 years.

The United States is very culturally diverse. It’s better to say Asian American than Indian American, I would say, much more comfortable. Identity is very important in this country. We should have something in common. 

Mitsu Salmon: My dad is a musician and dancer, so he started teaching me Martha Graham technique when I was a child. During my undergrad in New York, I started doing contemporary, body/mind centering, release, viewpoints. Then I started getting into Butoh in New York, Germany, and Japan. Since then, I have incorporated those trainings in my dance form. My mom was originally from Tokyo, and she was told not to speak Japanese. She had to lose a lot of the language and try to distance herself from that culture to fit in here. I grew up with that, so I didn’t identify as a child as Asian or Asian American. It felt like something that was put upon me, because of my name, Mitsu, or because of how I looked. People would assume certain things about me. I didn’t know how to identify myself. It wasn’t until I went to Japan and studied Butoh and learned the language that I began to feel more Japanese in understanding what parts of me related to being Asian and what parts of me were not and felt American. So it felt like I had to leave the US to own that identity more. I identify as Asian American, and that’s fluid in terms of what that means. 

What kind of work do you make? Is it Asian American, and what does that mean to you?

Helen Lee: When I first started making work, I wasn’t thinking about Asian American identity. I was exploring a lot of things about the senses—like the sense of smell in live performance. Asking audience to close their eyes while we guide them. Seeing ladybugs in the air, maybe one would land on them. Then I got into grad school. As I was digging for a bit of video footage of me trying to sing to my grandma in Korea, that opened up exploring my ancestry and my mother’s relationship to being American. My mom has been in America for 45 years, and she doesn’t really speak English. She doesn’t have a single friend. She doesn’t have anyone she can go and hang out with. I started to be interested in my mom’s isolation and our language barrier. I speak some Korean, but I don’t speak it well. I can say, ‘I’m hungry,’ ‘I’m tired,’ ‘I’m bothered by this or that.’ But I can’t say things like, ‘Yesterday I saw this flower, and the way the vines were moving…’ I don’t know how to say stuff like that in Korean. That’s when the work started being more about being Korean American specifically. Tracing my childhood when children have said to me, ‘You look funny.’ Or they’ll pull their eyes at me or say ‘ching chong chong.’ All those memories and stories started to come up, and I started putting them into my work. 

M Wu: My only relevance to this chapter is the one piece I made that was specifically addressing Asian American identity. Otherwise other work I’ve made really would not fit under this label at all. I feel confused about what exactly is supposed to be encompassed by this grouping. What is Asia? How do we define that? What are the boundaries here? Are you going to put this giant landmass into a chapter? How do you equate that with anything? The one piece I made was autobiographical—there was a call from the Asian American Performing Arts Festival. It was not intentional; it was just something that kind of happened. 

Mitsu Salmon: In grad school a lot of my work was about painting and performance, inspired by Gutai, Japanese avant-garde painting. After grad school, to make a living, I became a waitress. Learning my grandfather was a waiter who immigrated from Japan to Hawaii to become a waiter got me into family history. I lived with my grandparents for some time collecting these stories, relating to other things like labor, the environment. My work often starts with autobiography or family. One of those branches is being Asian American, but there are many other branches as well. 

Laksha Dantran: I started dancing at age of 10 and now I’m 47. Bharatanatyam is my work, my dance, my theater. I try to avoid religion, gods, and their stories. I would like to concentrate on energy. I’m also a visual artist. What comes into my mind, to visualize, is all based on the LGBT community. A lot of LGBT people are conflicted about whether to live on the planet or not. I want to make people mentally strong, especially the trans community. I want to give the message, you are not alone, we are all here. Even if they can’t accept your sexuality, they have to accept your energy; it is universal. My next project is curating for a global trans arts festival. Is that Asian American work? I don’t know. 

Irene Hsiao: Most of us on this call have had pretty eclectic vocabularies to draw from. Like others, at A-Squared, that was when I first thought about what would be an “Asian American” piece. Is it enough to simply look like this and then show up and do whatever my work is? I did not explore identity exactly in my piece in 2018. I made a piece inspired by the work of Tang Chang, an artist that could be identified as a member of the Chinese diaspora, but he also could be identified as Thai. His work was reminiscent of calligraphy but didn’t contain any writing in it. So there was a subtle linguistic element to it, but I don’t think that was self-evident in the piece I made. If you had asked me, ‘Is your work Asian?’—I don’t think anyone in Asia would think it is Asian. Does it have a cultural identity at all? I’m not sure I would have even considered it. Maybe we’re making Asian American work sometimes—if we’re consciously thinking about how our work is reflecting upon Asian American identity, which is a fluid and confusing thing, but simply because we are Asian Americans making work, that work is not necessarily Asian American. 

Helen Lee: When I came back from Hawaii in 2003, 2004, I didn’t get a lot of opportunities. I was just hustling around. But when things like Asian American festivals came around, it got me excited, because maybe I have an opportunity. Is it just because we look this way, does this identify the work as Asian American? That’s not necessarily the case; it’s not like white American work is being called that. I don’t have any answer. I just think representation matters. And when I see other people who look like me making work, I get excited about that. When I was growing up and saw nobody who looked like me, that was pretty disheartening, because it was like, oh, that means I’m never going to be in a position to make that kind of work or have this kind of opportunity. Maybe the labels don’t feel super snug and comfortable, but in dance in Chicago, there haven’t been a lot of Asian Americans. Maybe having a chapter doesn’t feel that great, seeing that there’s this label on it, what does that mean—maybe that needs to happen right now to make the changes moving forward.

M Wu: Representation is important, but the kind of representation that needs to happen is that people of color are well-represented in all of it, not that we have a token chapter so we can check off the box, like, ‘oh, we hit the Asians, thus our book is complete.’ If there was a chapter that was specifically about people making work about Asian American identity, political identity, history, immigration experiences, exclusion, and the things that really come to identify a lot of Asian Americans’ experiences in this country, that’s awesome. But a bigger issue is that there needs to be way more representation in dance history and its telling of what Chicago dance is about. White is unmarked and default, and if you’re a person of color, a woman, anything other, you’re marked and you can’t just do a contemporary dance piece where people are talking about the forms and the lines. By making the chapter Asian American, that marks us in some sense. But would we even be included in this book if there weren’t this chapter? 

Irene Hsiao: I have a lot of anxiety: what will I not find? Who will I leave out? And if I fail to do it, will I have failed an entire community? Will I have failed “our” history? That’s why I really wanted to consciously frame this as the beginning of a conversation we’re starting to have among each other. In this conversation, some of what’s coming out is, Yes, we’re Asian American! Yes, we make work! Some of that work is Asian American! But it is also other things. And I just haven’t seen people looking like me doing these things. That’s how I think of being Asian in America—we’re quite accustomed to not seeing ourselves. It’s normal for me to go into a room and be the only Asian, but also, unless something triggers that consciousness, I might not realize it. In a situation like A-Squared, to be watching other Asian Americans making work, presented for an audience that is mostly Asian American, it was a feeling I didn’t know I could have or that I needed. 

Helen Lee: Once I got to Hawaii, I was blown away by how many Asian Americans there were. That was something I was not used to, because I grew up here in Chicago, and I didn’t have an Asian community. I always looked different from others and tried to hide myself. Once I got to Hawaii I started to feel more comfortable with myself and my skin. I was able to find my voice, my feet, my standing, so coming back to Chicago, I felt more secure in myself. Growing up, when you don’t look like anybody else, it’s going to always be with you. I appreciate even having this conversation, this dialogue. Where it goes, nobody knows. 

Irene Hsiao: I hope we can continue talking together. Knowing that others are out there feels important. I appreciate you very much. 

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Irene Hsiao is a dancer, writer, and multidisciplinary artist. She creates performances in conversation with visual art in museums, galleries, and public spaces, a practice that includes site-specific interaction with visual artworks and experimental engagement with artists, institutions, and the public. She is a 2025 Radicle Studio Artist at the Hyde Park Art Center, inaugural Artist in Residence at the Smart Museum of Art in 2020 and 2021, 2022-23 Fellow at High Concept Labs, first Artist in Residence at 21c Museum Hotel in 2022-2023, the first Resident Artist at the Heritage Museum of Asian Art in 2024, and a 2020 Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist. Her performances have been presented at Chicago Architecture Biennial, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, Smart Museum, EXPO Chicago, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago Textile Week, Ragdale Foundation, Krannert Art Museum, Alma Art Gallery, Kavi Gupta Gallery, and more.

Guided by Another Through Grief: a response by Daisy Donaji Matias

Image captured by Ricardo Adame

Curiosities of Wellness in Bodies of Grief and Joy

Performed & facilitated on September 20, 2025 at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

Director/Choreographer: Helen Lee

Assistant Directors: Hannah Marcus, Tuli Bera

Performance Guides: Airos Medill, Ali Claiborne-Naranjo, Anniela Huidobro Castro, BelleAime Robinson, Christina Chammas, Cristal Sabbagh, Ed Clemons, Hannah Dubner, Harlan Rosen, Kezia Waters, La Mar Brown, Surinder Martignetti, Madelyn Loehr, Madison Mae Parker, Najee-Zaid, Sara Zalek, Silvita Diaz Brown, SK Kerastas, Sophie Minouche Allen, Surinder Martignetti, Xiaolu Wang

Performance Guide Assistants: BelleAime Robinson, Madelyn Loehr, Surinder Martignetti

Vocalist: Haruhi Kobayashi

Electric Guitar: Nick Turner

Viola: Scott Rubin

Composer: Wilhelm Brandl

Text: Helen Lee, J. Ruth Gendler, Rumi

Food provided by TXA TXA CLUB

Plant Medicines provided by Helen Lee from the teachings of Alex Williams at First Curve Apothecary.

Medicinal Herbs provided from the gardens of Amanda Maraist, Isabella Romero, and Sara Zalek.

Dried Flowers provided by Dayna Larson

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Silvita is a few inches shorter than me, something I notice as we dance, hug, and guide each other through walks. It feels like a radical act of love for the whole of humanity to jump headfirst into such intimacy with a stranger. Silvita is my performance guide for the day, tasked with guiding me through the series of somatic healing and meditation exercises that make up this iteration of Helen Lee/Momentum Sensorium’s Curiosities of Wellness in Bodies of Grief and Joy. Silvita is from Puebla, the state which borders my father’s home of Oaxaca, in the south of Mexico. She tells me she read what I had written in the Google Form. We had each written, in three hundred words or less, our grief story. My own feels, at times, self indulgent compared to the loss I sense through the bodies of others — under eye bags, tears which roll down faces, those that well, but remain in the eyes. No one close to me has yet died. But I feel the impending loss beginning to threaten. My maternal grandmother is ill. She was diagnosed with Double-hit Lymphoma, a rare and aggressive form of blood cancer. I signed up for the performance in the wake of this news. Despite her still being very much alive, albeit sick, grief has already begun to seep in, threatening my joy. My own knowledge of performance and embodiment have brought me to the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, with the intention of transforming some of this grief into joy, or at least an openness to life in all its phenomena. 

Following our conversation, Silvita leads me to one of the many chairs which line the walls of the museum’s atrium. Helen Lee gives a brief announcement about the significance of the piece, of their desire to make public space for a practice as private as grief, and then the music begins. The musicians, who are performing on vocals, viola, and electric guitar, set the atmosphere of the room. The vibrations serve to bring me into a calm mind-state, reorienting my body to the new space I find myself in. Across the way, I see someone I know. I give them a gentle wave, so as to recognize their grief while acknowledging that we are here for ourselves today. I am reminded of the function of relationality in worldmaking, even when it is worldmaking as personal as building anew in the wake of loss. Silvita whispers to me that I should stay where I am, before departing. I suddenly feel alone, and a bit vulnerable. Already my understanding of my own body in this space has become tied to her presence, a bond performatively enacted when she announced herself my guide. As the performance guides start to dance, the aching in my throat begins and I feel myself holding back tears. I look across the way at another participant who is crying. The guides form a cocoon, bringing participants into the center of the atrium as they flow around them, their bodies curving inwards toward each other and the grieving. Taking these few chosen ones away from the group, into a space of liminality and transformation, evokes Arnold van Gennep’s theorization of the rite of passage. As we participants pass through the phases of this performance, hidden away here in the museum, new possibilities emerge. If we’re lucky, we’ll reenter the world, shaped anew. 

Silvita approaches me at my seat and pulls me into the center of the atrium, where we dance. She tells me I can close my eyes. I do, and am met with fear. As she literally guides my body, pulling my arms this way and that, I attempt to keep a simple rhythm with my feet that matches hers. I fear that I am not doing that which she is urging me to. I recognize this fear as founded in the very bifurcation of mind and body which I work so hard to subvert as a scholar of embodiment. After all, not only am I embodied, but I am embodied in relation to others. To turn myself over to the guidance of another is to accept one of the most fundamental aspects of my embodied condition –– intersubjectivity. But these feelings of doubt continue to reemerge. Rather than pushing them down, I attempt to release them, as though in guided meditation, when you’re instructed to acknowledge a thought and let it fall away. Each time I do this, it becomes easier. For a moment, I recognize the sameness of it all: mind, body, and other, but then the dance comes to an end. Silvita asks me if I would like to participate in Sky Dance, the line dance choreographed for the performance. I tell her I do. Not all of the performance guides are trained dancers, but Silvita is. She stands in front of me and somehow manages to count off the rhythm and instruct me through the movements at the same time. I follow, as all around me other performance guides and participants go through the same motions. I observe these many private intimacies become one public, collective intimacy. And then we are dancing. In the unlikely space of a museum’s atrium, we are pushing back against individualist notions of self-care and cultivating a mutual care ethic which is tangible in the laughs and cheers of delight which echo through the space. Once the music stops and our dancing comes to an end, punctuated by applause, we return to the commons. 

In the commons lunch is served. The meal is three courses, each meant to evoke a sense of contemplation of past, present, and future. When I was nineteen, my dad was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma, a rare and incurable cancer of the plasma cells. Multiple Myeloma, like Double-hit, responds best to immunotherapy. My father underwent an autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplant. It saved his life, and he has been in remission ever since. That was seven years ago. When I write it out now, it sounds so simple, but it was not. It was horrible. I was still a child at just nineteen, and I didn’t understand how life could have changed so quickly. Just nine months prior he was climbing the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan. Now he looked so small in his hospital bed. I think about this as I eat my beets and yogurt with my hands. 

For the next part of the meal, I am meant to remain in the present. Silvita instructs me to eat the next portion of food, a tiny serving of broccolini over mash, using chopsticks with my non-dominant hand. This task proves successful in keeping me in the present moment, as I struggle through the dish. Eating in these unexpected ways draws attention to my reliance on techniques of eating which have been transmitted to me socially through the performances of those around me. Within the cultural context of the United States, we are not taught to eat yogurt without utensils nor are we skilled enough with chopsticks to pass them off to our nondominant hand. Such simple changes are a reminder of the embodied nature of knowledge. 

Finally, we make our way towards the future, represented by a fruit salad. The time had arrived for me to contemplate that which I needed little assistance in contemplating. I blame my anticipatory grief upon my forward lookingness — an unfortunate side effect of my anxiety. Or maybe it is the other way around, my anxiety is a negative side effect of my forward lookingness. Either way, these feelings are the embodied effects of my anticipation of change. I explain this predicament, and how ridiculous it makes me feel, to Silvita through a cardboard tube, after we finish eating our dragonfruit and papaya. I need no help in this task. I know the future holds grief, if I am lucky. By this, I mean the obvious: the only way I will avoid grief would be through my own premature death. If I am lucky to live long enough, I’ll watch my elders, and maybe even one day my partner die. She advises me that it is natural to look toward the future, but our best hope for happiness is to remain present. I am reminded of my therapist. She too tells me such things. Both women occasionally switch into a Mexican accented Spanish that rings out clear and familiar, to offer me their most earnest advice. Silvita tells me that grief feels like it will never go away, but then one day it does.

Outside, we make bouquets of medicinal flowers and greenery, some of which are fresh and some dried. I hold my finished bouquet a few inches from my body to admire the striking mix of life and death. We sip herbal medicinal tonics made from linden, skullcap, lavender, rose, hawthorn, lemon balm, and elderflower. Each sip feels ritualized following my lesson in mindful eating. Silvita takes me out onto the concrete of the terrace. I close my eyes and she once again guides me, moving me through the outdoor space with light taps and occasional whispered instructions. Again, it is hard to let go at first, but then my attention is reoriented to this lack of sight, and it is meditative. As I walk blindly through the outdoors, I am reminded of my own proprioception, the sense which orients my body in space even without vision.

Finally, it is time for our walk to the lake. About fifty of us embark on a silent parade from the museum grounds to the lakefront. Like the mindful meal that preceded, I recognize the Buddhist roots of this practice. Both eating and walking meditations are intended to ground us in the present moment through careful attention to the embodied processes of everyday actions. The walk is less than ten minutes and feels even shorter, despite the silence. Tourists dodge us, their eyes lingering on the performance guides in their shirts of handpainted botanicals, likely wondering if we are members of a silent protest. As we walk through the underpass which delivers us across Lake Shore Drive, our steps reverberate through the space of the tunnel. These sounds wash over me as I am pulled into a new mode of attention by my own focus on the meeting of the insoles of my feet with the earth. And then we emerge back into the cloudy light, and we are standing before Lake Michigan. I am handed a milkseed pod, full of seeds attached to fuzzy floss which carries them upon the wind. I am told to envision letting go of my grief as I release each seed over the space of the lake, instructions I interpret as a somatic visualization exercise. We all stand before the lakefront, but the wind is blowing West and the seeds blow back towards us and the cyclists and pedestrians on the Lakefront Trail. Silvita and I giggle at the failure of the ritual, as the fluffs cling to our clothing and hair despite our best efforts. Then it is time for a different kind of release. We are invited to scream, altogether, out over the space of the lake. It should be noted that the part of Lake Michigan we stood before is known as “The Playpen,” a no wake zone where the party-minded rich coast their yachts for a day of drinking and socializing. So there we stand, fifty of us, screaming out our grief at Chicago’s drunken elite. Despite the one hundred feet of water between us and the boaters, a clear response rings out.“SHUT UP!” We can’t help but laugh at the anger that feels so foreign to us after our morning of meditation and wellness. We walk back to the museum grounds, our own liminality and joy protecting us against the frustrated shouts of cyclists and the glares of commuters. Back on the lawn of the museum, light rain falls as we join hands in a circle. Helen thanks us and asks us to pass the pulse. We take turns squeezing the hands of the people next to us until we lose track of who was next and laugh and hug and say goodbye, before reincorporating into the world, transformed. 

Two days later, on the morning of my twenty-seventh birthday, I receive a follow up email from Helen. “Hope you were able to rest yesterday. There was a Solar Eclipse last night and today is the Fall Equinox. This is a time of transition and change.” I hold on to these words as I look at myself in the mirror, a year older and beginning to show the subtlest signs of age. The many performances that constitute my life continue to compound into years, and with them comes loss and endings and grief but not without love and renewal and joy. As I learned from Helen and Silvita, change is inevitable but the way it manifests is dependent upon our ability to let go.

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Daisy Matias is a Oaxacan-American writer and interdisciplinary scholar from Richmond, Virginia. Daisy thinks about how people enact shifts in attention to transform their worlds from the way things are to the way things should be. As a PhD Candidate at Northwestern University, Daisy is writing about Indigenous Latin American artists and healers who use contemplative practices to transform embodied subjectivity. Daisy holds Bachelor’s degrees in Art History and Gender Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University and an M.A. in Performance Studies from Northwestern. Daisy lives on the far north side of Chicago with her partner and her bunny.

Scripture for the Soul: a response by Dionne Victoria

Image captured by Jeremiah Olatunde

Keya Trammell performed at City Winery Chicago on June 9, 2025

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Keya Trammell transformed the City Winery stage into a sanctuary of soul, storytelling, and self-liberation. With a nine-piece band behind her—including a bassist who could walk the bassline straight to the moon—Keya did far more than sing. She created a full-bodied experience of healing, freedom, and homage.

Opening with her own sultry, jazz-kissed interpretation of Jill Scott’s classics, Keya brought new textures to familiar melodies. Her take was neither imitation nor cover—it was a resurrection of spirit. Her voice, rich and fearless, seamlessly moved from buttery tones to soul-piercing scats, earning her rightful title as the Scat Queen. Paying tribute to Erykah Badu’s “On & On,” Keya summoned the ancestral feminine with a deep, hypnotic groove, while weaving her own percussive touches and vocal riffs that turned her voice into an instrument in itself.

Keya doesn’t just perform—she proclaims. During the show, she shared the vulnerable moment of reclaiming her dignity by shaving her head for the first time. As an advocate for alopecia and a champion of self-love, she told the crowd how that moment set her free. It was a powerful testimony wrapped in melody—a sermon without a pulpit.

One of the most unexpected and electric moments came during her tribute to Patti LaBelle, which she flipped with a rap interlude—yes, rap—showing she’s not bound by genre, only by truth. Her music is intergenerational and unapologetically hers. She fused jazz, soul, and hip-hop with an autobiographical flair, telling her story through poetry and lived experience.

And just when the audience thought the show had reached its peak, Keya introduced a family moment that stunned and moved the crowd: a verse by her family, which included father, Dr. Trammell, recorded and shared during the intercession of the performance. The generational blessing didn’t stop there—she also honored her mother through a vibrant mix of contemporary bangers and classic hits, including a heartfelt nod to Victoria Monét’s “On My Mama.”

But this wasn’t just a concert—it was church. Keya Trammell listens to God, and on that City Winery stage, she spoke back. Through music, movement, and message, she reminded us all that dignity, dreams, and divine alignment are worth fighting for.

Keya Trammell isn’t just singing songs—she’s writing scripture for the soul.

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Dionne Victoria is a Chicago visual and performing artist who has exhibited in the United States Congress and the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry.  She has researched the effects of using art to teach science while teaching at Art In Motion and currently holds the chair as President of the Healing Academy. Her art is a commentary on black people in history, the love we share and how we have contributed to life. Her most recent endeavor is the grand opening of the Art Center of Englewood, where artists with families are welcomed to create their dreams. 

Look Both Ways: Reflections on Bangali Meye in its fourth iteration by Maya Odim

Image captured by Ricardo Adame

Bangali Meye

Performed on June 20 & 21, 2025 at Links Hall

THE TEAM:

Tuli Bera: Performer + Director

Brice Hartmann: Project Manager + Emotional Support

Scott Rubin: Viola + Sound Artist

Bob Garrett: Composer 

Giau Truong: Lighting + Set 

Mira Raven: Vocal Teacher

Maitreyee Bera: Cooking Support

Words from Bera:

During the last 2-3 months of the [Co-MISSION] fellowship, I invited fellow artists/friends to support me during my rehearsal process. These folks have helped shape the work in ways that I could not have done alone. Their witnessing and feedback allowed the solo work to stay alive outside of my [oftentimes] chaotic brain. I am deeply grateful and feel so held: Thank you, Preeti Veerlapati, Ashwaty Chennat, Darling Squire, Tithi Bera, Helen Lee, and Zach Nicol!

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Recipes for eating are passed down in families, recipes for living are passed down in families: a ritual, a practice, an approach. Some of what Tuli Bera has printed on the card I picked up reads: How do we negotiate between what is inherited and self-defined? What rituals will it create and carry forward? What rituals has it forgotten? What rituals does it know?

Thoughts of family recipes passed down like family rituals, and family rituals passed down like answers, and answers passed down like memories, and memories passed down like invitations to open and decide how to use engulfed me that night, and continues to sit with me. Inheritance is not something done to us, it is something done with us; when we trace the influences in our lives/when we ask and answer questions about ourselves, what we decide.

At Links Hall on June 21, 2025 I witnessed the fourth iteration of Bangali Meye. At the door, there was a card, double sided: a recipe on one side and thoughts printed on the other.

Earlier this year I heard poet Diego Báez —who is living and working in Chicago— talk about inheritance as bidirectional. It awakened an understanding within me: inheritance does not just fall and land, it is caught and guided. The inheritance/s I understood Báez was talking about were ritual, behavior, and practice. In both Báez’s talk and Bera’s performance inheritance transcends the physical, bridging spiritual, emotional, and cultural places converting at the point where one meets themselves.

Image captured by Ricardo Adame

Bangali Meye emboldened within me the awareness that inheritance is not passive, it is not something you just take with you, or the act of being hooked to something; inheritance involves you, it invites you to —in the words of Bera—  trace, it tells you something has come before you and calls you to figure out where it has come from, and what it will be now that it has met you: looking back and looking forward. In the past I have carried fear about how well I was carrying on what I identify I’ve inherited from my ancestors: my great grandmother’s Sofrito recipe, my aunty’s Moi Moi recipe; my grandmother’s pickling practice and my grandfather’s fluency in Igbo. And in witnessing Bangali Meye I came to an understanding that inheritance is not mimicry, nor is it replication, it is making a place for regeneration.

What has this meant and what does it mean to me? Nothing is lost in the re-arranging or rendering of a ritual passed down; tracing requires decision-making.

The evening of the show, the first to greet me at the door was a warm smell of food. Shortly after finding a seat I was handed —though I feel too like I was gifted— a bowl of masoor dal with rice. With a full bowl of food and in a room filled with music and conversation, food and ingredients, cloth and lights, I filled up.  

The staged area was set up in front of where the audience was sitting. When entering the room there was a table immediately welcoming me in, from which Bera’s mom was serving food, and across from this table was another filled with ingredients for cooking. Filling the space between the two tables were many different pieces of cloth, of different patterns and colors, hanging in different ways from the ceiling above.

At some point I realized I hadn’t noticed when music started, or if it had been playing before I entered the room, but there was a moment when I started to notice a voice, more distant than those in the room, and I started to hear cracklings and vibrations from the speakers. Throughout the show voices, instruments, and field recordings of cooking were layered by Scott Rubin to make up the live soundscape, along with which Rubin also played viola that evening. Rubin also drew from a sample bank they’d created with a comrade musician.

Some would say this was the room before the show started, but I’d encourage everyone to think of this as the start of the show. Bera then comes on stage, behind the table full of ingredients for cooking, the lighting changes and a spotlight falls on this table. An onion is peeled.

peeling an onion

reaching to see the temperature of the pan 

hovering their hand over its surface

a  measured tap, a measuring tap 

of the fingers 

to test the heat.

As Bera continued cooking they read words that called in the ancestors of the land we were on/that Links Hall is on, calling in the spirit and memory of the First Nations Indigenous people of that land. Acknowledgements. 

Testing the heat, pouring oil and acknowledging land. 

Testing the heat.

A jar of spices opened to the air 

a sprinkle of spice

leads the laying of the onion in the pan.

It sizzles

my family chosen and blood, alive and dead.

Image captured by Ricardo Adame

Bera speaks to us (alive and dead) in that room while cooking. 

Smoke rises   

...you are now part of this container…I invite you…

The spoon goes into the pan. 

The sounds of this forming and transforming and becoming

masoor dal. 

Spices guide a dish the way I understand what I inherit guides me (towards and away from): the making of a recipe will I follow/the following of a recipe I will make.

Tap, screw, swipe.

Spoon. 

Push, shift/in the pan.

a teacher an anchor 

tasting and thinking, ancestry, recipe, and languages.

As the food was set to cook, Bera started to move from behind “the cooking table”, dancing between spotlights on the floor, reminding me of worlds one exists between, reflecting languages and rituals Bera exists between/mother tongues, mother practices, and mother lands. Part of my family's immigration story meets me as a second generation Igbo American with Afro-Cuban bisabuelos (great grandparents). I’ve grown up around family who is constantly moving between worlds, I learned at a young age that I was from more than one place, and I continue to arrange these places within myself. 

My choices of food, adornment and communication have always been a part of this: the ways I decorate my body with tattoos are manifestations of my duality, the images in them both anchor and position me within cultural lineages; I have never been able to shop at only one grocery store because of the different kinds of ingredients I’m eating and with which I’m cooking; the different cloth I use to wrap my hair and the wrappers I use for my body are living and changing with me as I grow into understanding where I’m from in relation to where I’ve grown up (I think this is why I find more of what suits me in thrift stores when I’m in the states). Among many different experiences, witnessing Bangali Meye made me experience fearlessness about practicing rituals in the ways that are meaningful for me and not only in the ways I’ve been taught them to mean.

One of the first places Bera lands after moving from behind the ‘cooking table’ is to a place behind one of the sheerer clothes suspended from above. The contrasting blurred but visible image of Bera behind the curtain, with the crisp outline of their shadow made by the positioning of the lighting above, was an inviting interplay of elements echoing of duality. Bera behind the cloth and Bera’s shadow represented for me an example of —like theorized by W. E. B. Du Bois and Franzt Fanon— a double-consciousness: seeing oneself through our own eyes and seeing oneself through the perception of someone else.

Life is behind our eyes and spirit is behind our practices. 

Image captured by Ricardo Adame

I remember Bera talking about loss and longing. Moving from behind the cloth, Bera notices us again. Decidedly talking to us. With words yes, but with body vocabulary: with gaze, with finger tips, with head direction, all reaching us in deliberate ways. 

Plucking of the air, the strings 

of sound and thought, pluck me

hovering, knowing how to

land, and landing

and taking off, and landing.  

Bera moving behind, in between, and with the cloth draped around the stage reminded me of the elements one moves through, hangs on to/from, ducks under or approaches. Bera’s body was pulled around the space by stories of ritual, of tongues, of healing, of death. Bera lit spiritual lights (candles/conduits), and danced with the lights in the room. The colors of the lights changed as the focus of the words changed. I remember greens, reds and blues, warm yellows, oranges and yellow-white and grounding shadows on the floor and walls that created black and grey tones too.

We can’t avoid our shadow. 

I remember lightning landing on Bera, in a circle, and as the light continued to cast I noticed another spotlight light behind them, and then one shadow in the spotlight behind them and a second shadow behind the first, landing outside of both spotlights. Does lineage not look like this? Doesn’t lineage look like this: a shadow casting shadow, casting shadows…

As the temperature rises

the smell is stronger.  

A light fell on a bowl of mustard seed oil, and then another light fell next to this which Bera moved inside of. Bera talks about food rituals, and food as medicine. Food is for the body and for the spirit. Bera says: Cured by her touch. I think her is mother and that mother is many: is language, is ritual, is caregiver; is more.

From the ground. 

Healing, reaching, balancing. 

Bera talks about Bangali Meye, about awareness, about respect and about honoring through memory. The lights change.

Green, blue, red, faaaaaaaade

Reaching, greeting, pushing

holding, rising, grabbing a hold of

a holy ghost moment. 

Memory in practice

memory is a ritual.

We inherit past lives.

What we inherit is not a mandatory directive, rather an example, a guide, part of a line we trace as part of the shape of ourselves we are drawing. Bera reminds us to be bold in this tracing. Redirecting not rejection.

Image captured by Ricardo Adame

Bera's movement, the soundscape, and lightning were ingredients in a recipe/they made a story, reflecting what I understood as the experience of growing up between places, between spaces and in between expectations, illuminating and offering the need to set direction for oneself/to discover one self/to decide for oneself what shadows we will cast, what spaces we will exist between and what will drape around us. 

We can’t avoid our shadow. 

Does lineage not find us like this? 

The motions wish the body.

This is the tightrope, you constantly move back and forth/bidirectionally.We have to both learn from our ancestors and make our own rituals by being where we are and learning from where we’ve come.

Rituals, beliefs and practices. 

Seek out people from whom to learn.

We, ourselves, find people from whom to learn.

Some of the final movements of the show reminded me of what Bera had been talking about, in practice. What appears to be a single cloth starts to descend from the ceiling, which we then see is tied to another cloth, that is tied to another cloth, and another . . . an almost never-ending ribbon of cloth. Bera catches each piece and drapes them on their body, some wrapped, some hung, all piling up. Like the different cloth hanging around the staged area, I imagine the different colors and patterns of the cloth Bera is catching to represent receiving different kinds of inheritances. 

This fourth iteration of Bangali Meye reminded me of how inheritance accumulates in us, we receive and re-direct it, and there is not loss in re-direction. We carry within us all of the tools and the maps we need to be and find who we are. Bera reminds that the body is a container — and all her ritualistic tools fit inside of it. Traveling with us wherever we go, accessible whenever we need — as Bera negotiates moving throughout the room/with cloth/with sound/with memory/with story.

honor, and honoring memory finds space inside of me

not in a building or in my walk 

it's in the mind. So it can happen whenever, wherever.

How we live is made up of rituals, and 

so too is memory, a ritual. 

honor through memory

Place to place, encounters 

in space: hands reaching, greeting, pushing 

holding, rising, grabbing 

a hold of.

There were moments of calm approach, furious play, meditative force, energetic patterns, playful directions, balanced speed, holy ghost movement, loving confidence.  

Jump/twirl/spin

shaking, back and forth, and/back and forth and 

grabbing an anchor held in the body. 

Kick like a moon cycle: waxing and weaning

from there to there/point to point 

from here to here within.

Lean on lineage. Let it to us. 

Bera encourages tracing what runs through us/trace what we’ve come from, who and where;   trace what’s in our lives to understand its form(s) to understand ourselves. We have to leave what doesn’t serve us and hold on to what does. This is one way to negotiate space.

inheritances accumulate

on us

how will they lay.

Image captured by Ricardo Adame

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Maya Odim has an interdisciplinary practice rooted between poetry and movement, anchoring an artistic approach to dealing with communication. Maya overlaps symbolisms of language with vocabularies of gesture. Working collaboratively and independently, Maya has received honorable mention in the 2024 Ruth Weiss Foundation Poetry Competition, was an interdisciplinary artist in residence at Ragdale (2023) and The Poor Farm, WI (2024). Maya has self published poetry and been published in places including F News Magazine, Performance Response Journal, and Chicago DanceMakers Forum Blog. Maya is a Poet in Residence with the Chicago Poetry Center and lecturers in the English department at Roosevelt University and in Theater and Performance Studies at the University of Chicago. Some of Maya's work can be found online here: www.mayaodim.com and here: @maya.odim

The work of dance-in-progress: a response by Ameera Nimjee

Image captured by Ricardo Adame

Seen/Unseen

Presented by Ishti Collective

Artistic Co-Leads: Chitra Nair, Lauren Reed, Preeti, Veerlapati, Kinnari Vora

Performance: Chih-Jou Cheng, Ashwaty Chennat, Chitra Nair, Daniele Obiltas, Lauren Reed, Ashaand Simone, Preeti Veerlapati, Kinnari Vora

Original score: Bob Garrett

Performed as a work-in-progress at the Chicago Cultural Center on June 8, 2025 through the cultural center’s Dance Studio Residency

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The din of chatter dies away as dancer Lauren Reed pushes the curtains open, revealing the long, mirrored back wall of the Chicago Cultural Center’s dance studio. This concerted gesture marks the beginning of an “open studio” showing of Seen/Unseen, the most recent work in Ishti Collective’s repertoire. Founded in 2016 by dancers Preeti Veerlapati and Kinnari Vora, Ishti presented this work-in-progress on June 8, 2025, following a few months in residency at the Chicago Cultural Center to conceive the piece as a commentary on the labor of care work. In true Ishti form, Seen/Unseen was led collaboratively by Kinnari, Preeti, Lauren, and Chitra Nair, who designed creative prompts and choreography for an ensemble of eight dancers and a musical composer. The dancers performed “seen” versus “unseen” gestures of care along with the emotional journeys that come with doing care work, especially from the perspective of the often gendered caregiver.

Perched on stage left in the front row of the studio’s audience, I saw the piece come together from the fragments I had seen in rehearsal in the days leading up to the showing. Undetectably, four of the dancers moved behind the audience and onto the ledges that framed the studio’s four windows. Reflected almost in silhouette, they moved in angular shapes, working against the four walls of these temporary, vertical stages. I heard the familiar, diatonic melody hum emanating from them, and the rest of the dancers dispersed throughout the studio, marking this opening section’s six-beat pattern. The dancers hummed this earworm melody to keep count, a self-produced musicality that united their starts and stops as the dancers eventually melted toward the studio “stage.” Primed by the unfolding attention to care work in Seen/Unseen, I reflected on the work of doing dance—of what it takes to dance, of its toll on the body, and how much of it we show in performance. Itself a placeholder title for the piece, Seen/Unseen draws my attention to what an in-progress work reveals for tracking dance as work. What becomes “seen” within the permissive space of the in-progress showing—of performing a work that is not a finished product?

Throughout the performance, I zoned in on the vocabulary of the work, rooted in some of the stylized aesthetics that characterize “Indian classical dance.”[1] In Preeti and Chitra’s duet, I felt myself descend into their mimed expressions of motherhood, in which they showed the intoxicating love; fatigue of endless nights; and exhausting, enduring anxiety in abhinaya, where the face performs poetic exegesis in stylized movements of the eyes, eyebrows, and hands. I tapped along with the rhythmically driven sections of jathiswaram in a seven-beat “ta-ki-ta, ta-ka-di-mi,” which the dancers recited onomatopoeically as their feet articulated this pattern on the floor. Of course, these vocabularies took shape in fluid ways that are reminiscent of other Ishti works, as interspersed with the suspend-releases of contemporary technique and movement improvisations that are as multiple stylized as the diverse movement backgrounds of the Collective’s members. 

Image captured by Ricardo Adame

In the days leading up to the studio showing of Seen/Unseen, I clocked references to the piece as a work-in-progress—a checkpoint in the creative work that the Collective had done to that point. In rehearsal, the opening hum constantly slowed down, which a dancer often remedied by snapping their fingers faster, or calling out the hum’s intended tempo, counting in sixes to keep everyone moving. In the studio showing, I heard the counted sixes come through a few seconds in just below the hum, a beautifully natural moment of transparency into the aesthetic-functional role of this melody. In the jathi (rhythmically technical) section, the dancers recited the bols (words) “ta-ki-ta ta-ka-di-mi” in a driving loop of a seven-count phrase. The creative intention was for this recitation to fall away, with the dancers’ feet slaps marking this lilt to keep driving. The same bols resounded in the studio showing, as the dancers again produced their own musical texture, not yet ready to fall away and instead pointing our attention to this relentless rhythm. In rehearsal, Kinnari informed the dancers that portions of the track would be played “live” since there was no time to lay down a recording. The showing featured composer Bob Garrett seated behind his rig: a laptop, pocket synthesizer, mixer, and mic into which he improvised live on kanjira, a hand drum that provided a rhythmic counterpoint to the choreographed jathis.

These musical moments became invitations into the work as a process—as moments of seen labor that performers clean up when dance is a proscenium product. Having danced the Indian classical form kathak for almost two decades, I have found myself frustrated by the often-separated aesthetic worlds that comprise “music” and “dance” in the Euro-American West. The recitation of bols, collaborative improvisation, and the bare necessity of live music are but a few examples of the aesthetics that drive the performance of Indian classical music-dance. Seen/Unseen showed us that danced musicality is not just an essential part of Ishti’s process but allows a fuller, “seen” picture into aesthetics in spaces that are concertedly not for dance-as-product.

“What’s next?” I asked Kinnari, in a conversation we had the night before the showing. I was to moderate the artist talkback just following the performance, and we met to discuss it. She explained that the audience’s participation is a crucial part of Ishti’s creative process. In Seen/Unseen, this participation came in the form of feedback, while in other Ishti pieces, audience interview excerpts have featured in the track or the audience has been invited into design elements of a piece, like making rangoli or lighting a lamp. For Ishti, the audience must have a stake in a performance, as if they are extended members of the Collective. During the talkback, the discussion dwelled on Lauren’s introductory gesture of opening the studio mirror’s curtains, which the audience took to be significant. The dancers affirmed that it was, in many ways: as rendering “unseen” work visible and the very suggestion resulting from previous audience-ensemble dialogue. 

The talkback became an extension of what the in-progress showing afforded: a space to lay the work of dance bare for performers and audience alike. I brought up the aesthetic concepts of shauq (passion) and rasa (flavor) in the South Asian performing arts, which outline that performers and audience members construct a performance in an affective exchange of moods and emotions. A performance is a shared labor, which Ishti Collective made even more transparent as they invited us into their work-in-progress, as not yet “done.” In the final movement sequence of Seen/Unseen, the ensemble performs a series of vignettes through which they express a multiplicity of care work and the emotional journey through it. They end in a tableau that remains alive and moving. Their bodies breathe, lean, shudder, and support. They invite us to really see this labor, not just in the content they perform in the work, but in the presentation of the unfinished work-in-process. The work thrives in a non-proscenium space of shared labor, as the audience is given an intimate glance into what it takes to make dance. 

Image Captured by Ricardo Adame

[1] Indian classical dance is an umbrella term for styles like bharatanatyam, kuchipudi, and kathak. Their aesthetics emphasizes mime and the percussive use of the feet. Popular narratives of “classical dance” often refer to their ancient roots in performing Hindu devotion. These narratives have grown from the post-1947 Indian nation-building project, which saw the caste appropriation of repertoire from among courtesan vernacular dance. See, for example, Pallabi Chakravorty’s Bells of Change (2008) and Davesh Soneji’s Unfinished Gestures (2011).

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Ameera Nimjee is a musician, dancer, scholar, and educator. A member of Toronto-based Chhandam Dance Company, she performs kathak under the tutelage of Joanna de Souza. She holds a Bachelor of Music and Associate's Diploma in classical piano performance. She has also completed MA and PhD degrees in ethnomusicology. Currently, Ameera is an assistant professor in the Departments of Music; Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies; and South Asian Studies at Yale University, where she teaches courses on performance and culture. She is writing a book on creativity and labor Indian contemporary dance.

j e l l o x The Ooze: a response by Sarah Stearn

Image provided courtesty of Tuli Bera

Reciprocal Exchange in The Ooze curated by Mya McClellan, presented by the J e l l o Performance Series at Elastic Arts on May 23, 2025

Performing Artists:

Nico Rubio

Mia Barnett

Isabella Limosnero

Lucy Vurusic Riner

Jordan "J.Ro" Ordoñez

Jaclyn "Jac" Gary

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The Ooze has allowed the J e l l o Performance Series to evolve once again. It is truly exciting to witness, support, and review!

The J e l l o Performance Series was founded on the principles of artist connection, no matter where artists may be in the stages of their careers or processes of their works. The series is a platform for established and emerging artists alike in Chicago. When curating, the team (Jessica Cornish first, then Carla Gruby & Tuli Bera, then Tuli, then Tuli & Sarah Stearn, now Mya McClellan) has always either had open calls, or challenged ourselves and our curators to select at least some artists who they don’t know or who have never done a J e l l o show before. The goal is to always invite new people in, create an accessible performance opportunity, and expand our reach. Not only does it push us out of our own artistic bubbles, but it also pushes the boundaries of the series itself. What can J e l l o be? Who else will have an idea that will take the series to a new place, a new form? 

We’ve always anchored our shows in accessibility, creating spaces for artists to meet each other and share what they’re doing in a low stakes environment, for and with an audience. The Ooze is the embodiment of the above questions and goals--asking the artists to not only witness and support each other’s solo pieces, but to actually move with each other, too. Mya’s live facilitation blurs the lines between choreographer/curator/performer. It’s also a form of performing; she’s just as in it as the dancers, but from a different angle. At times, she steps inside the piece and contributes her own movement as well, before picking up the mic again and inviting another artist into the space or giving another idea for the dancers to play with.

The Ooze is collective improvisation as spontaneous choreography. Choices are made by the dancers in response to Mya, while Mya is also making decisions in real time as she’s witnessing and creating. Dancers on the side witness what’s unfolding; taking care, attuning to the space, and ready to jump in at Mya’s request. The framework and prompts are known ahead of time, but what might happen during the performance is left unknown until the moment arises. In the 15-minute sessions opening and closing the show, Mya leaves room to breathe, room for the dancers to explore the ideas before making changes and guiding the jams ever forward. 

In the first jam to open the night, Mya builds a piece starting with Mia, then Lucy, then Jac, starting with a prompt called the “arcade game,” then Mya assigns prompts to each dancer such as spill, ooze, drip, pour and more as she feels it and as the piece develops. She asks J.Ro to enter, “What do you see, what’s inspiring you right now?” At the back of the stage, he starts to explore an idea from Bella who’s at the front, moving his arms in a circular motion and each playing with their own levels and speeds. Together, they create shadows of each other, while the other dancers move and explore their own prompts in the space between them on stage. In The Ooze, the options are limitless, the space is open, and everyone's invited to connect, respond, and play. 

During the jams, Drew Lewis, a friend and collaborator of Mya’s, improvises a soundscape. Tuli Bera, fellow J e l l o tech support, improvises with the lights, responding to the sound, mood, movements, and prompts as they evolve. I’m witnessing from the camera behind the booth of Elastic Arts, zooming in on duets or solos when possible, or capturing the full view including Mya and Drew. Yoshi, Elastic Arts producer, ensures the sound levels are balanced. All elements are jamming in reciprocal exchange as the session materializes into a dance piece in front of us. The room is energized and attentive, the audience enveloped in the magic surrounding them. Even though the performance is focused on the stage, the whole room is filled with the energy of the show. I feel this is also a testament to the space of Elastic Arts, an intimate performance venue which houses the J e l l o Performance Series among many other beautiful experimental music, dance, and performance series.

In addition to the group sessions bookending the show, each artist in The Ooze performed a 5-minute solo, showcasing their movement style or sharing what they’re currently working on in true J e l l o fashion. The solos allowed space for the audience and artists to witness each other in their own artistic flows. Having the solos sandwiched by the sessions was also deliberate: the first session acting as a warm-up to the space and each other, and the last session as a way to come together anew now having witnessed each other’s individual flows.

Mia’s movement showcased a beautiful and meditative thought with contrasting dynamics, Lucy revisited a piece about self-identity with a large roll of red paper and chalk, Nico brought out his tap board and danced to a self-made DJ mix, J.Ro prompted the audience to shout out their feelings as he performed, Bella playfully repeated small gestures and flew about the space while laughing with the audience, Jac investigated vigorous and careful movement with a hand-crafted bust that slid on the floor as they pulled it across with a ribbon. 

Each solo was so unique to each artist, seeing them perform separately allowed the audience and artists to get to know them more deeply as individuals. In the final improv session, this new familiarity allowed us all to relax, breathe, and support the space in a more embodied way altogether. 

“Let me take a second to figure out how I’m gonna start this… Drew you can start the music,” Mya begins the final session. She calls J.Ro, Bella, Lucy, and Mia into the space with the prompt “call and response” and changes up the leader every so often. Eventually, Nico is called to the stage and is asked “What’s your favorite arcade game?” He dribbles and shoots an imaginary basketball. Mia joins in, showing off some dribbling skills of her own and the audience giggles. Lucy joins in and levels up the basketball arcade competition. The game evolves into some other imaginary basketball game, a frenzy of players defending and shooting and dribbling all about the space. A duet emerges between Mia and Jac that is so captivating, their investigation together feels so new and curious, and simultaneously like they’ve been longtime collaborators. Eventually, Mya calls the dancers off one by one, but they stay close and all form a circle.

“Lucy, you’re up,” and she enters the circle and finds her own jam, the surrounding dancers watching in support. Here and there, a dancer will offer a prompt ooze, drip, pour etc. as the dancer in the middle jams. When they exit the center, the next dancer transitions with movement and they transfer their energy, keeping the dance alive. This transmission of energy is similar to another prompt that comes next, the ball of energy. 

Mya passes around the ball of energy with her hands, and sometimes passes her literal play-doh, while a slowed-down version of Homebody by Nai Palm plays. The guitar and the modulated, echoey vocals create a dreamy, cozy version of the world where we are all safe to explore, play, and be together. The dancers’ movements match the vibe and Tuli dims the lights to a soft red. Mya gently and kindly circulates the group, offering her energy and ideas through her body instead of the mic this time. 

It’s like they’re all oil droplets floating in a tub of water… when Mya reaches one of the dancers, they join as kin, connecting cohesively until she breaks off and finds another oil droplet to seamlessly mesh with. She and Bella look through each other’s hands like binoculars into each other’s eyes. She then slowly breaks away and floats to Mia, joining her exploration briefly. Then slowly making her way to Nico, giving him some tactile information before slowly backing away from the group to witness. Each dancer explores their ball of energy in their own little world on stage, alone together, held by the music, the audience, the lights, and Mya in the back left corner.

The Ooze is a very exciting new format of the J e l l o Performance Series. Its embodiment of the series’ values is truly heartwarming and takes the series into another evolution. Even though we’ve been around for 8 years now, each time we bring someone new into the fold some newfound magic happens and the spark hits us all over again. We’ve had so many artists be involved in many different capacities over the years, we are so grateful for each person who has crossed paths with the series! It takes many people collaborating, exchanging energy and ideas with reciprocity to create something beautiful in the community. 

Thanks for reading! You can view the full show on Elastic Art’s Youtube page! Stay tuned for the next J e l l o show by following our Instagram: @jellodances

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Sarah Stearn was born and raised in Chicago, IL. She supports the performing arts by attending dance classes and shows, producing and administrating for the J e l l o Performance Series, and writing responses to performances. Her movement practice includes dance, yoga, walking with her Grandma Sunny, and playing with her cat, Luna.

How Could We Not Lift As We Climb?: a response by Dionne Victoria

Still of “Invisible Giants;” provided courtesy of Dionne Victoria

Invisible Giants: Honoring Black Women’s History

Shown on May 21, 2025 at the Chicago History Museum

Curated & Created by Essence McDowell

Featured Speakers: Essence McDowell, Mariame Kaba, Pilar Audain, Zetta Elliot

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On a powerful evening stitched together with legacy and love, Invisible Giants, a documentary by Essence McDowell, lit the screen with stories that too often live in shadows. The screening was more than an event—it was a call to remembrance, a charge to honor, and a celebration of the Black women who have shaped our world with quiet force and unwavering grace.

Among the honored guests was none other than Brenetta Howell Barrett, a true titan of social change. Her presence at the screening was a profound reminder of the paths that have been paved through sacrifice, brilliance, and heart. To witness her bearing witness to this tribute was nothing short of sacred.

The film deeply explored womanhood—not as a performance, but as a daily devotion to our communities. It showed us what it means to serve with our full selves, to lead while loving, and to nurture while resisting. This kind of womanhood is rooted in purpose. It is familiar. It is ours.

Equally powerful was the theme of sisterhood, tenderly woven throughout the film. We saw women holding space for one another, lifting each other in struggle and triumph, and pouring belief into each other’s dreams. This is how we survive. This is how we thrive. We build our sisters up as much as we can, because the climb is never meant to be made alone.

Still of “Invisible Giants;” provided courtesy of Dionne Victoria

The inclusion of Jenn Freeman, cofounder of House of the Lorde, brought a contemporary lens to the film’s archival strength. Her presence as a featured voice underscored how today’s movement work is a continuation of sacred, ancestral rhythms. Through healing, organizing, and creative revolution, Freeman carries the torch with boldness and care.

And perhaps one of the most invigorating and necessary elements of the evening was the voice of the children—present, clear, and full of possibility. Their energy wasn’t an afterthought; it was an essential thread. Hearing their voices—innocent, joyful, and wise—reminded us who we do this work for. They gave the night breath. They gave it wings.

This film, this gathering, was for the little girl in us—the one still looking for herself in stories, in faces, in futures. The one still healing. The one who needed to know that our legacy is rich, our lineage is deep, and our brilliance is undeniable.

McDowell’s film is deeply rooted in the ongoing work of Lifting As They Climbed, a historic preservation and educational initiative she co-authored. More than a book, it has become a movement—with an accompanying curriculum designed to teach Black Chicago history through the lens of Black women’s contributions. It’s an essential resource for schools, cultural institutions, and anyone committed to keeping these stories alive.

We are the daughters of giants, and this screening reminded us: how could we not lift as we climb?

Still of “Invisible Giants;” provided courtesy of Dionne Victoria

Want to learn more or bring the curriculum to your space?
Visit www.liftingastheyclimbed.com to explore the books, curriculum, and more.

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Dionne Victoria is a Chicago visual and performing artist who has exhibited in the United States Congress and the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry.  She has researched the effects of using art to teach science while teaching at Art In Motion and currently holds the chair as President of the Healing Academy. Her art is a commentary on black people in history, the love we share and how we have contributed to life. Her most recent endeavor is the grand opening of the Art Center of Englewood, where artists with families are welcomed to create their dreams. 

Dream Devis: two responses from Devika Ranjan & Radia Ali

Image captured by Ty Yamamoto

Dream Devis was hosted as part of Steppenwolf's LookOut Series on April 4, 5, 12, & 13.

Curated by: Abhijeet Rane

Featured performers: Abhijeet Rane, Leha as The Salamander, Masala Sapphire, Gulabi Sapphire, Shruthi Kannan and DJ RIYA RIYA

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divinity by Devika Ranjan

In the green hills of northern India, in a state that has been torn apart by tanks and special rule, I needed to use the bathroom. Actually, several of us did. We had been on a bus for hours: them, performers, about to perform the folk tale of Bawa Jitto in an open-air theater for a crowd of hundreds of people; and me, a researcher, trying to understand how theatre was useful in times of crisis.

Right now, the crisis was the bathroom. We had held it for hours. We were invited into one person’s house, that we would use as the women’s dressing room. Her house was simple, and she led us through it as we waited for each of us, one by one, to use the toilet. She set up the actresses in the puja room. On the wall were photos of deities. Krishna, in his blue-skinned beneficence, a half-smile at his lips while he holds up a flute. Shiva, with his snarl and lifted leg, eternally in the cosmic dance. And next to them, those who are equally revered: Katrina Kaif, Hrithik Roshan, and other Bollywood superstars who were carefully cut out of tabloids. They, like the ancient gods around them, were scantily clad and lavishly posed.

This is not me exotifying this little village house, like, look at these backwards rural people worshipping Bollywood stars. I am saying that Hinduism, like Bollywood, is CAMP. Have you ever been to a Hindu temple? Our gods are BLUE. They are decked out in jewelry. They are larger than life; their mythologies doubling as morality and entertainment. Even the concept of our multiple gods is campy, queer, allows for disbelief and telenovela-like drama. My grandmother makes little outfits for Krishna (her namesake) out of gold lace and scraps of leftovers from Joanne Fabrics.

The parallels between divinity and Bollywood make sense to me. They are both omniscient, ever-present in the lives of Indian-Americans. They are larger than life. They change with the political moment – gods and goddesses outfitted to serve patriarchal norms, actors bowing in the name of nationalism in this recent rise of patriotic fervor. And, most importantly, they are all perceptions. Performance, at core. There is no reality. 

How do I bring you to this show – the euphoria of the room, songs that have been in my body since before I knew language, to learn from the people who have taught me to embrace queerness and Desiness and Chicagoness so fully? A black box theater – named so because of its ability to be anything, to transform, for the audience to be anywhere and the performance to have full flexibility. A cloud of silver foil mounted to the wall, the only set piece, its irregular form and DIY ethos already adding sparkle to the darkness of the theater. The hiss of the fog machine – on and off and on and off, like any good drag show. Surprise reunions – I thought you moved away! – and hugs given over seats and other audience members, our bodies meeting (as they have met many times, sweat-ridden, wet, drunk, thrumming on the dance floor of Hydrate). We screech at each other, and my smart watch warns me that being in this loud of an environment for over 30 minutes can damage my hearing. It chirps this reminder every time I’m at the club, too, and often when I’m with my family. We are a loud people. I need a culturally competent smart watch.

Our generation of Indian-American diaspora, we are so deeply conditioned by these Bollywood moments – our most direct connection to “home,” or, at least, what our parents called home. So we learned how to be Indian, or woman, or whatever, from these movies – sexist, classist, Islamophobic as they were. These are films we have teethed on, gender identities that we have been shaped by. I want to learn about gender from the trans femmes of our community. I want to learn that we all have been worshipping at the altar of movie stars. I want to learn about our deities, broken as they are. 

After the show, we embraced each other – the Dream Devis themselves, sweating in their grand final costumes, the kings, the friends that I haven’t seen since the Item Girl Competition, the new friends who I follow immediately on Instagram. We touch each others’ outfits in careful reverence and scream in hyperbole about how much we love each other. We promise to create together. We promise to go to each other’s gigs, to take dance classes together. Most likely, we will – like we have for years – just meet on the dance floor.   

Image captured by Ty Yamamoto

A Journey Into Magic by Radia Ali

On April 11th I went to see Dream Devis and from beginning to end, I was glued to my seat. I laughed, cried, fought inner demons, slayed the patriarchy, triumphed through societal norms and made it to the end like a heroine emerging from a successful quest.

Yes, that was my journey through this rich tapestry of storytelling, poetry, dance, comedy and love.

Ushered in by warm and friendly theatre staff, we were seated in the cozy 1700 Theatre. Once seated, I noticed a silver TV-like prop embedded in the backdrop. When I took a good look my heart warmed up. It was a window in which there were clips of Bollywood movie songs playing in a loop. The sound was muted, so it was more of background entertainment. 

As someone who grew up with the mesmerizing influence of Bollywood movies, I was immediately locked in. The movie clips on the screen all featured famous Indian actresses, who not only have huge fan followings, but who have defined beauty and grace for generations of Asian cinema lovers.

As the show began we were introduced to our narrator, Leha. I truly enjoyed Leha, how she wove the evening together with poetry, cultural references, and clever and witty jokes. This created a golden thread that united all the characters and smaller stories within the show. 

Dream Devis might have some of the elements of a variety show, but the difference is in its interconnectedness. Each act shared a common theme - that our dreams can be wild yet attainable. From the Ingenue who glides through cinema and society alike, to the Rulebreaker who demands her worth, to the little queer boy who dreams of silks and sarees. Everyone has an act, everyone is unique, and everyone belongs. One cannot help but feel that all the ideas about self that we have pushed deep within us, have free reign in this plot. I felt that the characters were both telling their own stories and also ours.

Other flights of fancy were the beauty queen goddess (Gulabi Sapphire) who ruled over hearts, a poignant and powerful songstress (Shruthi Kanaan) who mesmerized with her voice, the roguish heartthrobs who made us chuckle at their antics. Oh yes, the demure yet hilarious Mother (Masala Sapphire) slayed with wits and charm. And how can we ever forget the many characters of Bon Abhijeet. The glamorous swirl of colors, dresses, vivid expressions and nonstop energy!

Every element on stage was intentional and helped tell the story. When telling stories unique to a certain culture, at times it can be a challenge to make the set relatable to mixed audiences. But here that was not the case - the stage art and props definitely enhanced the storytelling experience.

I believe Dream Devis appeals to all communities and individuals for a variety of reasons. For myself, a queer South Asian raised on two continents and in four countries, it was magical and revolutionary. Growing up I could only imagine a production like this in my wildest dreams. 

Queer visibility in many cultures is a difficult and treacherous journey, so it made my heart soar to see all these versions of Devis (goddesses) manifested on stage. 

This show makes us realize that concerns of identity, sexuality, creativity, societal and patriarchal pressures, and self-actualization are universal. Anyone who has ever had a longing to be seen, to be heard, to be held and understood has a place in that audience. 

Image captured by Ty Yamamoto

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Devika Ranjan is a writer, ethnographer, theater-maker, and educator who tells stories about migration and technology. Devika infuses joy and justice in community-based work, using performance to cultivate communities of care. She specializes in devised immersive performance and has facilitated workshops with refugees and migrants internationally. Her work has been commended by the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, for critical storytelling about immigrants worldwide. Devika also teaches at the intersection of migration, performance studies, and cross-cultural practice. Devika studies the goddess, fitness culture, and urban farming at the Performance Studies PhD at Northwestern University, as a 2025 Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow for New Americans.

Radia Ali, also known as Noori, is a multi-disciplinary performing artist, poet, and fire dancer. She performs an array of styles from South Asian classical & folk, belly dance, flamenco, samba to bachata, salsa, and burlesque. She uses props such as silk veils, Fire fans and swords to tell stories across cultures with her movements. Radia is currently an organizer at the Chicago Full Moon Jam, performs with Egyptian indie artist NAXÖ, and other live music acts. She teaches fire performance, as well as fusion movement classes.

Consistently curious, honestly open: a response by Sarah Stearn

Image captured by Ricardo Adame

The Invitation Situation

Performed on February 23-24, 2024 at Links Hall

Choreographer: Jeanine Durning

Performers + Collaborators: Heidi Brewer, Clare Croft, Andee Scott, and Mary Williford-Shade

Technical Crew: Ale Favila, David Camargo, + Giau Truong

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In Links Hall’s brightly lit and intimate space, Jeanine Durning and dancers Heidi Brewer, Clare Croft, Andee Scott, and Mary Williford-Shade move fluidly, softly, with curiosity brimming at each gesture, each pass, each choice, inviting us into The Invitation Situation. Starting from scratch, from movement, and evolving by inviting new elements into the score(s): wall and floor interactions, vocalization, and various household items such as a chair, a pole, a plant. The dancers’ exploration of their environment at hand created a soft, smooth, curious relationship to the space with their bodies. What a joy to witness creative exploration in real time - I wanted more and didn’t want it to end. 

At first, I didn’t know what to expect. How would this situation unfold? Dancing and exploring softly in silence for the first moments while audience members trickled in, the five dancers established a curious, attuned, connected world for themselves. A metronome beat signaled a change - entrances and exits are invited into the situation. Some dancers leave, some stay, one stays, many leave, one leaves, many stay. One faces a wall. One explores the floor space. All linked with the metronome, they have an unspoken bond holding them together as the score builds. 

My ears perk up when one dancer begins to vocalize and move. The voice is now invited into the situation, opening up another element for the dancers to explore in their time and space together. Openness begets openness: the more elements are invited into the space, the more the dancers are able to explore, the more open they can be with themselves, each other, and the audience. 

Something about vocalization and movement brings an emotional (often comedic) element. Now, not only do we see the dancers move, but we can hear them, too. “I’m leaving,” says a dancer as they walk toward the door. “Stay,” exclaims another dancer, who’s standing with the rest of the group across the stage. The first dancer turns around… then turns back, “Nah I’m leaving.” I can’t help but chuckle. They repeat in this vein – vocalizing “do doing did, do doing did,” entering and exiting, emotion now unfolding into the mix. 

Reverberations from the vocalizing and the audience’s reactions made the space feel more supportive as the dancers re-entered with movement, making the movement breathe easier. Consistency gives the performance space to breathe. Consistency in movement, connection, curiosity… sticking with it, with each other in the space allows for ease and breath within, allowing the unconscious to unfurl. Durning’s use and practice of this methodology, known as nonstopping, invited the audience into the whirlwind of the world that was emerging outward into the space from deep within the dancers. 

Image captured by Ricardo Adame

Eventually, various props are brought into the space, including a plant, a pole, a chair… now the dancers explore setting and resetting these items while stating what they want. Something like, “I want green I want green grass I want grass I want to smoke all the grass I want you to be green I want green grass I want green,” as they hold a pillow on a chair and the other four dancers move around and with the set. Each dancer gets a turn exploring their desires through an associative stream of consciousness as the set and props are set and reset, almost revolving about the space from downstage, stage left, upstage left. This revolving and taking turns gives the feeling of a revolving door… time is passing, constantly moving forward, but the repetition almost reflects a feeling of stuckness – stuck in a loop perhaps. Stuck inside (literally, as I understand these dancers worked together while the world was in lockdown during the covid pandemic.) Stuck inside their spaces and their own heads. However, the practice of nonstopping together, communally, inherently opens their minds and allows the “stuckness” to “unstick.” With consistent practice together comes breath, relief, expression, and, ultimately, a release to move forward. 

The sound speaker set on stage left was constant the whole time, but set and reset throughout the last section. It played the metronome, and later played some soft classical music… for some reason it added to the randomness of the situation, and somehow felt human and logical - a grounding element in their world. Not only was the practice consistent, having this grounding prop centered their world. Seemingly random, perhaps not random at all, the speaker’s purpose set the stage by centering all of the dancers as their internal worlds unfolded in the space together. 

The last vignette was particularly striking to me. A dancer clad in black coveralls with short blonde hair explores the back wall of Links Hall. Top lights illuminated their body so that at different points within the movement, it looked like this dancer had wings. Perhaps the wings signified the dancer finding freedom from continuously entering and practicing in this ever-evolving and revolving situation. 

Image captured by Ricardo Adame

Ultimately, this situation was grounded in humanity. Through the use and practice of nonstopping, Durning invited the dancers to externalize their internal worlds, find release and relief within stuckness, and laugh throughout the process. The whole spectrum of human emotion is inherently available through this practice, and what I witnessed on this night was curiosity, confusion, joy, and humor. Allowing the unconscious to unwind, being open and available to possibilities of expression from deep within, The Invitation Situation reminds us of the importance of our innate humanity and collective conscience.

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Sarah Stearn was born and raised in Chicago, IL. She supports the performing arts by attending dance classes and shows, producing and administrating for the J e l l o Performance Series, and writing responses to performances. Her movement practice includes dance, yoga, walking with her Grandma Sunny, and playing with her cat, Luna.

super nothing: a response by adanya gilmore

Image captured by Maria Baranova, Courtesy of New York Live Arts

Super Nothing

Performed on March 28-30, 2025 at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

Choreographer: Miguel Gutierrez

Dancers: Wendell Gray II, Jay Carlon, Justin Faircloth, & Evelyn Lilian Sanchez Narvaez

Composer: Rosana Cabán

Lighting Designer: Carolina Ortiz Herrera

Costume Designer: Jeremy Wood

Production Stage Manager: Evan Hausthor

Manager: Michelle Fletcher

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Empires collapse suddenly, but they die in a slow, bleeding out kind of death. 

The four dancers in Super Nothing (2025) communicated a kind of arduous process. It builds and it dissipates, like an exasperated sigh. 

It takes time to make dances, as it takes time for something built to last and endure and seep into architecture and institutions. Miguel Gutierrez, who is warm and generous in sharing insight into the scaffolding that took place, made something lasting and durational. The piece was like a container of progression and regression, one that made similarities to what I see people going through every day. There is a section in the middle called “the working material” that took eight months to get it to where it was on stage. Gutierrez is usually in his own work, but decided not to perform in super nothing meaning all that time he was using his brain differently– having to understand the structure, not as a performer, but solely as the choreographer. The skill of being able to communicate with the body so intricately is an incredible gift, one that should be funded and more widely recognized as one, not just in Gutierrez, but by all the dancemakers who give that to us.

Image captured by Jeremy Lawson, Courtesy of Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

The dancers: Jay Carlon, Evelyn Lilian Sanchez Narvaez, Justin Faircloth, and Wendell Gray II show the audience how to show up. They show us in many ways what it looks like to sit in confusion and discomfort with someone for a long time. They brought out the tenderness in each other when there was frustration. They gassed each other up and brought each other out of different waves of passion, grief, and hopelessness. I was reminded of the sharp, harsh reminders in everyday life through their bodies’ generosity and vulnerability. I related to their ability to tap in and out of what was silly and sexy and funny. I was moved by their depiction of what it’s like to maintain presence as a community member and uplift others in a way that is impressively embodied and performed. 

In recent months, the social landscape of my home country and more largely, Planet Earth has me in a perpetual state of what feels like despair, and then deeper despair again, and then fear and more despair. It’s funny because these concepts may not be something you would think could be performed so perfectly and gracefully before your eyes, but movement has that unique ability. Dance pulls me out of the swirling anxiety and degradation. Amidst cruelty and destruction of the innocent and sacred, dance reminds me that I am normal, and I do, in fact, need to dance, because it has a purpose for the world. I need to do it with other people. My idiosyncrasies are my strengths, and it is part of why I belong in the world with everyone else. 

As the National Endowment for the Arts cuts funding to the arts, experimental dance in Chicago and widely in the U.S. is being defunded and threatened. These are not the only actions by the government that lead me to believe that the people who have recently risen to power would be happier if I were dead. In a way, I felt Gutierrez was communicating that feeling to his audience and then telling us in a way, “us still existing together is kind of cunty.”

I left Super Nothing thinking about how learning to be a dancer prepared me for being there for other people. Growing up going to rehearsals and sitting through tech runs, hours of running dances, then taking care of my body for the next day made me a person who can show up and be in my body when I really do not want to. I became someone who can rebound, bounce back, get back up stronger, observe, be patient, someone who can hold the weight of another person when they need me to. I can provide the strength of my body for what is necessary. 

I was thrown by their commitment and way of showing to each other the work at hand and what felt like a feat of exactitude. They gave all of themselves to each other, effortfully delivering a vision of possibility. 

I was reminded again what brings out my love for being all in something with people, and why I chose the path I chose. I’m reminded why I love dance and why I love to watch dance. 

When the revolution comes I hope dancers will be there, because I know we are needed.

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Adanya Gilmore is a teacher, writer and movement artist born in Washington DC and currently living in Chicago. Drawing from multiple intersections of histories and experiences she investigates different forms of divergence from the perspective of being a Black femme. She recently graduated with an MFA in Dance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she met incredible people, performed in cool dances and learned how to teach. They have worked with artists such as Jennifer Monson, Tere O'Connor, Dr. Cynthia Oliver, Gina T'ai, Christine Johnson, Ching-i Chang and jess pretty. Her writing has been published by the Chicago publication Sixty Inches From Center and the Humanities Research Institute at UIUC.

Digging through Softness: a response by Tianjiao Wang

Images taken by Tianjiao Wang with courtesy of Taitai x Tina

Digging through Softness was a performance by TAITAI+/-/x/÷Tina, presented as part of the program of Alana Ferguson’s exhibition SLAPHAPPY at Comfort Station on Friday, April 25, 2025.

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The objects in the show may appear to lack practical function, yet their textures, colors, shapes, and even sounds and incidental physical mechanisms seduce viewers into lingering. TAITAIxTina’s performance is both a response to these works and a new layer of interaction, coexisting in harmony through similar elements and a shared sensibility.

I felt myself drawn into the performance through a delicate and unconventional use of a familiar, functional object. It was a common floor lamp—the kind often found in domestic spaces—typically composed of three or four tubular segments stacked vertically, but Taitai had disassembled the lamp. The electrical cord still threaded through all the pieces as one continuous line, but the segments were laid out horizontally on the floor, each one suspended just above the ground, trailing along the wire in a straight line. My relationship with Taitai's performance resembles that of a stretched and restructured floor lamp—still retaining a certain ‘floor lamp-ness.’ I found myself unexpectedly and continuously discovering elements that felt both familiar and unfamiliar—narratives, gestures, perceptions, sensations.

Images taken by Tianjiao Wang with courtesy of Taitai x Tina

Taitai’s performance kept me on edge. You don’t know if the lamp’s bulb, submerged in water, might suddenly electrocute her. You don’t know if the fruit knife in her hand might slip, if she’ll forget for a moment which side is sharp and which is blunt. You watch as she closes her eyes and runs the dull side across her skin. It’s sensory—deeply so. Beyond the psychological tension brought by the visual shocks, there’s also an unwelcome olfactory layer. The gelatin jellies—shiny, seductive, slippery as they appear—carry a repelling scent, a byproduct of processed animal bones. And then there’s the sound. The aluminum foil screeches underfoot. The gelatin jellies hit the floor with a thud, over and over, a violence you can hear.

Performance differs from film in that it is open—unframed. It allows for gaps in vision. Like a temporary sculpture, it is impossible to see from all angles at once. There’s no room to zoom out—each gesture unfolds so quickly you’re reluctant to look away, even briefly, even when nothing is “happening.” It is unlike film also because the performer knows you are watching her—not just an abstract “audience,” but you, specifically. The act of witnessing is mutual. I’ve been trying very hard to recall this performance as a durational work—what it resembles and what it truly is. I am an experienced long-haul flyer. Flying is a purposeful durational thing. The relationship, I think, between Taitai and the concept of durational work is this: I need to follow Taitai’s practice, especially the practices she will undertake in the future, in order to gain insights that can illuminate past moments. Or perhaps, it is in the interval between this performance of hers and the next that I will naturally obtain more lived experiences—ones that retroactively inform the past and open up new anticipations for the future. With Taitai, durational doesn’t seem to describe a single performance’s unfolding, but rather a broader stretch of lived time—time in which I must carry the memory of this performance forward, letting it subtly shape the days to come.

Images taken by Tianjiao Wang with courtesy of Taitai x Tina

In the end, I must admit—
there is a struggle in remembering.
To recall what happened,
what truly unfolded,
eludes the neat clarity of description.

So I offer this instead,
a small poem within my capacity—
to recount,
however faintly,
what it was that happened.

She wore a mint-green silk dress,
with what seemed like a nude-colored swimsuit underneath.
She stepped into the bathroom and rinsed a transparent bag under cold water.
She bathed with the gelatin jellies.

Her entrance was marked by throwing the gelatin jellies onto the floor of the main room.

A soft gelatin jelly—
Could something soft cause damage to a hard floor?
No.

That soft thing seemed to hold a strange resilience.
It wasn’t deformed, though small fragments chipped off its edges.

Would bending the gelatin jelly with one’s knees cause damage?
Maybe—if you also dug your fingers into it.

It was a clawing motion.
The last time I thought of this gesture was in giving birth,
when a doctor separates the placenta by hand.

Inside the gelatin jellies were embedded a dollar bill, a coin.
The mouth works better—like spitting out a fishbone—
to expel the coin encased in jelly.

Are the jellies still of use?
Perhaps—they’re still carefully wrapped in aluminum foil.
Tucked with the discipline of a soldier folding a blanket.

There are still jellies in the pool of the bathroom.
They must all be taken out.
They rub against the body, soft to the touch.

It feels as if one might stand atop them.

As if they could absorb the weight.

The knees become independent fulcrums.

She enters the bathroom again,
retrieves the last jellies from the pool.
By now, the mint-green dress is completely soaked.
By now, her hair is drenched too.

A jelly clamped between her lips—
Her limbs are then free to wriggle.

The aluminum foil on the ground is both path and bedsheet.
She lies on it, writhing.
Her feet kick the foil like tossing off a blanket.
Both hands pillow the back of her head.

At last, she can close her eyes,
meditate,
listen to the sound of air,
listen to the sound of her own breath.

She spits out the gelatin jelly from her mouth.
Finds the previously folded jelly-blanket.
Continues—flips it, folds it tighter.
Adds this new one in.
All of them, folded in.

Ah! The mint-green wax that's been heating—
she hasn’t yet enjoyed it.
Now is the time.
She pours it out, bit by bit—like thick, sticky honey.
Applies it to her feet,
fixes one foot to a plastic lid,
the other on artificial grass.

It dries.
It sticks.

Shoes!
She puts them on.
She strides—
bold, unbothered.
Foil flies.
The room explodes into a storm.

The foil becomes a dress.
The space re-forms.
The beginning?
Gone.

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Tianjiao Wang is interested in acknowledging the presence of things. She is a practicing artist focusing on photography and film. She was born in Beijing and now lives in Chicago.

Response to Lauren Warnecke’s Review of Deeply Rooted Dance Theater’s Season Opener by Kevin Iega Jeff

Nyemah Stewart as "Sister Soul'Jah" (dancer) in Flack, choreographed by Kevin Iega Jeff, photographed by Jennifer Jackson, provided courtesy of Deeply Rooted Dance Theatre

Deeply Rooted Dance Theater’s season opener was performed on November 16, 2024 at The Auditorium Theater featuring choreography by Artistic Director Nicole Clarke-Springer, Emmy-nominated director and choreographer Jeffrey Page, Ulysses Dove, and Co-Founders Kevin Iega Jeff & Gary Abbott.

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Lauren Warnecke’s November 2024 review of Deeply Rooted Dance Theater’s season opener at the Auditorium Theatre, titled “Deeply Rooted Dance Theater need not cling to the past when its future is so bright,” offers a perspective on the evening’s performances that warrants a thoughtful response. While I appreciate the attention given to our company’s work, there are significant points in the review that require clarification and contextualization, particularly regarding the nuances and historical underpinnings of Black Dance and Deeply Rooted’s mission.

First and foremost, I must express my deep appreciation and respect for the gifted leadership of Artistic Director Nicole Clarke-Springer. Her brilliant choreography, tireless leadership, and impassioned vision were evident on that stage. In taking on the artistic mantle of the company, Nicole has not only upheld Deeply Rooted’s mission and values, but has also infused the company with fresh energy and innovation.

Also deserving of recognition is Makeda Crayton, Deeply Rooted’s new Executive Director. Working behind the scenes, her leadership has been pivotal as the company continues to grow, including the expansion of its artistic programming, the breaking of ground for the new Deeply Rooted Center for Black Dance and Creative Communities, and the cultivation of community engagement efforts that deepen its impact in Chicago and beyond.

Deeply Rooted’s work is grounded in authenticity, shaped by the enduring legacy of Black Dance, and propelled by a mission that extends well beyond the stage. My intention in responding to Warnecke’s review is not to engage in a contentious debate, but rather to open a respectful and collegial dialogue with valued colleagues. This is a cordial attempt to set the record straight, particularly where certain inaccuracies were expressed in the review. While we welcome and value critical discourse, it’s equally important to address misconceptions in order to offer a fuller and more accurate picture of the company’s journey and vision. This response is expressed in the spirit of honoring our legacy, the truth of our work, and the best inspired interests of the Chicago dance ecosystem at large.

On Jeffrey Page and the Black Dance Ecosystem

Warnecke opens with a sense of incredulity about how Deeply Rooted secured Jeffrey Page’s commitment to create a world premiere for the company. She writes, “It’s tempting to wonder how Deeply Rooted got Page to say yes.” This sentiment reveals a limited understanding of the interconnectedness within the Black Dance ecosystem. Page himself has expressed how profoundly inspired he has been by Deeply Rooted’s legacy, noting our company’s role in influencing his artistic journey. His collaboration with us reflects the mutual respect and deep ties that exist within the Black Dance community—a network that often goes unrecognized or undervalued by critics and the broader dance world.

This lack of awareness underscores a larger issue: mainstream critics frequently lack the curiosity or initiative to learn about and appreciate the histories, relationships, and aesthetic values of Black Dance. Without this knowledge, reviews such as Warnecke’s fail to fully capture the depth and significance of what they critique. As someone who has dedicated over fifty years to this art form, I see this as a missed opportunity to honor the vast contributions of Black Dance and its progenitors.

The “Underdog” Label and Structural Inequities

Warnecke’s characterization of Deeply Rooted as a “bit of an underdog” reveals a broader misunderstanding of the systemic inequities Black Dance companies have historically faced. While we have never seen ourselves as underdogs, we have strategically navigated a funding landscape that has disproportionately favored white-led institutions.

The 2019 report Mapping the Dance Landscape in Chicagoland highlights stark funding disparities, noting that over 56% of grant dollars go to just three majority-white institutions, while only 9% support dance rooted in non-white or ethnic traditions. In this inequitable environment, many smaller, Black-led companies are left to operate on shoestring budgets—making the achievements of organizations like Deeply Rooted all the more remarkable.

Despite these challenges, we have consistently upheld impeccable artistic standards, nurtured world-class talent, and maintained a commitment to cultural integrity. Our work is not about competing with the so-called “big dogs” but about aligning with our mission to educate, uplift, and inspire through dance. This is our form of “big dogging,” rooted in service to our community and the preservation of our artistic legacy.

Cultural Integrity and the Weight of Legacy

Warnecke describes Deeply Rooted as a “late bloomer,” citing the upcoming $20 million South Side dance center as evidence that we are no longer “underdogs.” While I celebrate this milestone alongside our co-founders, new leadership, staff, and board, it is important to provide deeper context about the foundational work that made this achievement possible.

The vision for the Deeply Rooted Dance Center took shape in 2018—first during my tenure as Artistic/Executive Director, then evolving as Creative Director. As is often the case, the company faced a dual challenge: upholding artistic excellence while building the infrastructure needed to support a growing organization and envisioned institution. Wearing both artistic and executive hats, I worked tirelessly—fostering relationships with key stakeholders who shared our vision, and securing initial funding to help bring that vision to life. This effort laid the groundwork for establishing a permanent home for Deeply Rooted and its partners on Chicago’s South Side.

By the time I completed my tenure in 2022, the vision for the dance center and the foundational funding to support it were established. This strategic groundwork positioned the new Artistic and Executive Directors to work alongside the development team, board, and capital campaign committee—on which I continue to serve—to bring this project to fruition. The dance center is not simply an infrastructure milestone: it is the culmination of years of visioning, planning, and overcoming systemic barriers to ensure that Deeply Rooted and its partners have a sustainable home for future generations.

Our work has always been grounded in authenticity, shaped by the lived experiences and teachings of Black Dance pioneers such as Bernice Johnson, Lee Aca Thompson, and Alvin Ailey. These foundational influences inform my commitment to cultural integrity and the deliberate pace at which we build our legacy. Achieving sustainability in this framework requires patience and resilience, especially given the systemic inequities that delay access to funding and resources for Black-led organizations.

Warnecke’s suggestion that we are “no longer underdogs” because of a single capital achievement oversimplifies the decades-long effort it has taken to establish a foundation for Deeply Rooted’s growth. Although essential, our trajectory has never been solely about reaching financial or infrastructural milestones; it has been about aligning every step with our mission to preserve cultural authenticity, uplift our community, and create opportunities for the next generation of artists. This is a legacy built on more than buildings: it is built on the values, teachings, and perseverance of a community committed to artistic and cultural excellence.

On the Misrepresentation of Aesthetic Values

Warnecke’s description of Jeffrey Page’s Lifted is telling in what it omits. While she highlights the gospel-infused music and elements of vernacular jazz, she fails to acknowledge the African aesthetic at the heart of Page’s work. This omission is significant as it reflects a broader tendency within mainstream criticism to overlook or minimize the African roots of contemporary Black Dance—and its profound influence on both classical and contemporary mainstream dance forms in every sense.

Critics should share what they know with knowledgeable clarity—and approach what they don’t know with genuine curiosity and a willingness to learn.

Similarly, her evaluation of legacy works like Gary Abbott’s Desire and my own Flack misses the mark by failing to contextualize their African aesthetic within Deeply Rooted’s broader mission, the ways in which these works contribute to the artistic growth of the company’s dancers, and the value our audience places on them. Warnecke dismisses these pieces as “dated” while praising Ulysses Dove’s Urban Folk Dance for its timelessness. This comparison reveals a bias that elevates so-called minimalist Western forms—such as those associated with George Balanchine and Alfred Hitchcock, both referenced in Warnecke’s review—while overlooking their foundational connection to African aesthetics. Additionally, should critics be the ones to determine which elements of a company’s repertoire are deemed worthy of preservation or celebration?

On the Audience and Community Response

Warnecke’s critique of the evening’s “long night” overlooks a crucial detail: the audience’s overwhelming enthusiasm. The joy and energy in the Auditorium Theatre were undeniable, with nearly 2,000 people fully engaged and deeply moved by the performances. This response speaks to the community’s connection to our work and their recognition of the authenticity and integrity we bring to the stage. Kathy D. Hey’s review in Third Coast Review offers a more insightful reflection of the diverse audience’s experience that night.

The Need for Informed Criticism

In closing, I’d like to address the broader implications of Warnecke’s review. While critics are entitled to their opinions, they are not entitled to misrepresent or minimize the historical record or significance of Black-led institutions. Black organizations deserve to be reviewed by writers who understand our aesthetic values, honor the communities we serve, and approach our work with curiosity and respect.

The fact that Deeply Rooted is in the process of achieving a significant capital campaign, continues its legacy in commissioning works by celebrated choreographers, and actively inspires new generations of dancers is a testament to our resilience, vision, and enduring impact. My hope is that critics approach these achievements with an understanding of their depth, rather than filtering them through personal or cultural misinformation or biases.

Deeply Rooted’s legacy is not only about presenting inspiring, life-affirming dance—it is equally about advancing equity, preserving cultural integrity, and catalyzing meaningful change. These are the values that guide our work, and they deserve to be understood, honored, and uplifted.

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Kevin Iega Jeff is an accomplished dancer, award-winning choreographer, acclaimed artistic director, respected dance educator, and innovative executive leader. He creates transcendent works while inspiring those around him to foster extraordinary lives, onstage and off, through dance/art-making.

Hot, live and otherwise: an interview & response by Rachel Lindsay-Snow

Image captured by by Robbie Sweeny

Hot, live and otherwise

Performed on November 16-17, 2024 at The Drucker Center

Creator + Performer: Sophie Minouche Allen

Sound Designer + Performer (Chicago): Chien-An Yuan

Lighting Designer + Technical Director: Arabella Zurbano (Chicago), Del Medoff (San Francisco)

Prop Designer: Arabella Zurbano

Costume Designer: Sophie and Karin Minouche Allen in collaboration with Crimson Moeller

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I was first drawn to Sophie Minouche Allen when I saw an image advertising her forthcoming dance piece Hot, live and otherwise: Allen is leaning back, holding a cinder block, balancing it on thigh and chest. Years prior, in my own movement and studio-art practice, I had also worked at length with a cinder block: thinking through concepts of weight, tension, precarity, and grief. When Allen agreed to my writing about the work, sent over a description of the piece, and we had a post-performance interview–the threads of connection in our interests were delightfully overwhelming. 

Hot, live and otherwise is a dance solo by Sophie Minouche Allen with soundscape collaborator Chien-An Yuan. A first draft was shared on May 17, 2024 in bim bom’s TIN CAN (Chicago). The solo officially premiered at the ODC Theatre in FACT/SF’s 2024 Summer Dance Festival Program 2. An extended, second iteration was shared November 16-17 at the Drucker Center in Chicago, IL. The work is inspired by the 1981-2000 anti-nuclear protests in the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp in Berkshire, England and is catalyzed by divergent familial tracings and other unsettled life fragments that get stuck between rocks and hard places. The work navigates degrees of separation and holds spontaneity, grief and pleasure in proximity to disaster (from the project description). 

Image captured by McCall McClellan

Allen and I began our conversation discussing the use of objects and materials in Hot, live, and otherwise, their function as placeholders, and this concept as a throughline throughout the piece. “I’m a gatherer”, states Allen, “The cinderblock began as a stand-in for the hourglass object (which was being fabricated by collaborator Arabella Zurbano). I’m really bad at pantomiming and there was a cinder block used to prop the door open in the space I was rehearsing in and I looked at it and thought, “oh this’ll work”. …[Then] it became integral to what I was doing…and weight became more important in the piece as a thread.”

Image captured by Gabriela Chavez

The cinder block functioned literally as a placeholder, but also conceptually. The porous, coarse, heavy block taught Allen’s body how to hold something else. I began to see parallels of the ways our experiences of love and loss can function as teachers to help us hold future desires or trauma. Allen also brought to Hot, live and otherwise the recent passing of their maternal grandmother: Yvonne Hulscher Bernstein. Oma (meaning grandma in Dutch) is someone Allen described as both a lover and a fighter, a trinket lady, and a survivor. The cinder block materialized a weight of loss that Allen had already been holding within herself, and also served as a portal to learn how to hold that same weight differently. Allen states: “There were lots of opportunities to placehold. [My grandmother] donated her body to science, so we don’t even have her remains. …When I was in rehearsals, I had this realization that the cinder block is around the size of an urn. When I am really cradling it, and spinning with it, there are even moments of joy in the motion of the spinning–this is when I was like “every object is Oma, every object is weight, every object is grieve, every object is time.”. …When I would start the spins [with the cinder block], I would actively think “oh good, I’m hugging my grandma.”

Image captured by Gabriela Chavez

The cinder block was a placeholder for the hourglass object, which in turn was also its own type of placeholder. “There was something about the silhouette shape…that reminded me of a nuclear explosion’s mushroom cloud and also on its side looks like an infinity symbol. …One of the direct actions that the women in the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp did was to make fake blood as partial commentary on what bloodshed looks like during conflict and also challenging the public and private sphere through references to gender and menstrual blood. They would throw this concoction (red paint and/or a mixture of flour water and food coloring) onto the windshields of vehicles leaving the base. The sand/gravel in the hourglass was meant to reference the red from that.” At the same time Allen states, “my relationships to the objects and what they mean and what they could mean is very fluid, even through the moment of performance.” This expansion of symbolism exists for Allen at a moment when a portion of the audio shifts to a poem Allen had written that Chien decided to include in the soundscore. Allen had given the poem to Chien, thinking it would be distorted, but when full portions were included, with a reference specifically to ashes, it is at that moment that the dust and rocks filling the hourglass object become for Allen like the ashes of her grandmother. “Hearing my voice saying those words made those moments of picking up the hourglass even more charged for me,” states Allen.

Image captured by by Robbie Sweeny

Allen ends our discussion with this final, lovely sentiment: “when I first started thinking about the piece, Oma was still alive, but had memory loss, and now has passed, so [Oma] is haunting the work: in the most loving way.”

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You can read the full interview between writer, Rachel Lindsay-Snow & performer Sophie Allen here.

Rachel Lindsay-Snow is a Chicago-based artist and writer working in performance, installation, drawing, poetry, memoir, and essay. They received an MFA from UIUC in Visual Arts, with a graduate minor in Dance in 2020. They are a Luminarts Fellow with select solo shows at Krannert Art Museum, Swedish Covenant Hospital, North Park University, and The Front Gallery New Orleans. They are a member of Conscious Writers Collective and Out of Site Chicago Artist Collective.

Khecari's TEND: a response by Deidre Huckabay

photo by Kristin Weinberg of Tend directed by Julia Antonick - pictured performers Helen Lee - audience member pictured Robin Davis -  furniture by Jonathan Meyer & Heather LaHood - costumes and upholstery by Jeff Hancock

Tend directed by Julia Antonick - Khecari

when : Jan 10th - 26th 2025

where : John Michael Kohler Arts Center

and

August - October 2023

where: Nature Play Center & Gunder House -  Chicago

photo by Kristin Weinberg of Tend directed by Julia Antonick - pictured performers Enid Smith, Helen Lee and Gina Hoch-Stall - furniture by Jonathan Meyer & Heather LaHood - costumes and upholstery by Jeff Hancock

photo by Kristin Weinberg of Tend directed by Julia Antonick - pictured performers Gina Hoch-Stall and Helen Lee - furniture by Jonathan Meyer & Heather LaHood - costumes and upholstery by Jeff Hancock

photo by Kristin Weinberg of Tend directed by Julia Antonick  - furniture by Jonathan Meyer, Heather LaHood, Jeff Hancock

photo by Kristin Weinberg of Tend directed by Julia Antonick - pictured performers Chih-Hsien Lin and Gina Hoch-Stall - audience pictured Deidre Huckabay - furniture by Jonathan Meyer & Heather LaHood - costumes and upholstery by Jeff Hancock

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Deidre Huckabay (they) is an artist, writer, and flutist. Their artwork, work-for-money work, lifework, and everyday habits and rituals flow from a belief that liberation is possible in every lifetime, for every living being. They are a Co-Artistic Director at Mocrep and co-owner of the record label Parlour Tapes+.