Orchidelirium is an outdoor interdisciplinary dance and performance connected to the history and symbolism of orchids by Mitsu Salmon with a soundscape by La Spacer.
Together, we explore promiscuously inventive hybrids of tech media film music theater noise talk show jazz low brow glitch channelling queer family dance score improvs visual collage…either way it’s riveting and in the moment- these five artists are making stunning works individually and as a collective in Hot Mess! fashion: simultaneously live-streamed and experienced in person. Audience and artists alike can expect to flex VR and interpersonal skills while also adapting to new tools, technology and experiences. This space becomes anything we want it to be.
Marcy Rae Henry es una Latina de Los Borderlands who studied stuff in Spain, India, Burma and Nepal, hitchhiked around France, Spain and Portugal and motorbiked through the Middle East. Her writing has received a Chicago Community Arts Assistance Grant, an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize nomination and first prize in Ember Chasm’s 2021 Novel Excerpt Contest. Her writing and visual art appear in The Columbia Review, carte blanche, Epiphany, The Southern Review, Cauldron Anthology and The Brooklyn Review, among others. DoubleCross Press will publish her chapbook ‘We Are Primary Colors’ this year. www.marcyraehenry.com
Marcy Rae HenryHarlan RosenMeenakshi Harlen Rosen, photo by Ji YangShoshana GreenMeenakshi MarchionePhotographs of SheenRu Yong by Michelle MishinaSheenRu Yong
SheenRu Yong is a dance artist, choreographer, and the initiator of body portal theatre. She began dancing at Wesleyan University and then trained in New York City and Taipei, where she was commissioned and inspired to choreograph evening-length shows, site-specific works, and community-based performances. While earning her MFA in Choreography at the Taipei National University of the Arts, she toured internationally with Legend Lin Dance Theatre. Through the platform body portal theatre, she works to research and develop the creative potentials of the individual, collective, and environmental bodies we inhabit. She is currently based in Honolulu. www.bodyportaltheatre.com
Shoshana Green is an experimental artist using movement and image to study “process” and “relationships” within and between the quotidian, esoteric and one’s living interiority. She works with the body as a sculptural representation, a mysterious territory of sensations and a channel for giving form to non-verbal narratives. Shoshana is a teacher, curator and presenter for Butoh Programming in San Francisco. She is also a somatic psychotherapist in private practice. www.butohsf.com, shoshanagreentherapy.com
MeenakshiM is an emerging multidisciplinary artist who has incorporated experimental video, dance, and sound art in her work. In her films, she often explores concepts around the interconnectivity of humans and our relationship with nature. As a sound artist, she frequently mixes electronic sources with live vocals to create a variety of harsh, textural, melodic, and cerebral sonic experiences. During these times, she seeks to enhance the physicality of sound and bridge the gap between virtual and in-person human experiences. As a recent graduate of Mills College, she continues to draw from the school’s rich traditions of experimental electronic music as inspiration across all facets of her work. Meenakshi is elated to be contributing to the local performing arts scene(s) here in Chicago. @mak3shine3
Harlan Rosen performs like a playful kitty, getting stuck in a variety of boxes just for the joy of plotting their escape. As a mover and shaker, they have performed in ensemble works by Tadashi Endo, Joan Laage, Carole McCurdy, Ginger Krebs, and Mitsu Salmon, and have presented their own multimedia performances at Outerspace, Hamlin Park Theater, VHS, No Nation, and Elastic Arts. They live in a rent-controlled anterior temporal nucleus in your head, where they are currently dressed in drag as a duck and trying desperately to yodel.
Hot Mess! is a quarterly series produced by Sara Zalek in partnership with Elastic Arts. View a playlist of past performances: If you are or you know an artist interested in participating, complete this survey to get a sense of your interest and the program. This is a paid opportunity.
This project is partially supported by an Individual Artist Program Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events, as well as a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency, a state agency through federal funds provided by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Open Broadcaster Software LIVE Improvising Environment Saturday, March 5, 2022 @Elastic Arts 3429 W Diversey Ave #208
TWO SETS IRL and live streaming 4:20pm & 8:pm CST
Featuring: Yumiko Yoshioka @yumiko-yoshioka (virtually from Tokyo) Charles Joseph Smith @charlessmith702210 Carole McCurdy @carolemccurdy Kikù Hibino @kiku.hibino [️] pronounced “Hypothetical Star”: M_m<M and nulltopia @mmmtvdotnet
For each set we invited a live audience and live-streamed online. In person audience size depends on Covid conditions, you must be vaccinated and wear a mask inside Elastic Arts.
This series focuses on the moments of co-creation and gives the artists a playful space to discover new ways of working together and interacting with the audience. The performance itself demonstrates the power of working together in the unknown, possibilities for Queering space, and the beauty in re-starting while making art!
Join Eiko and her diverse group of collaborating artists, living and dead, for an investigation into how artists in duet collide, converse, and express what they care about.
THE DUET PROJECT: DISTANCE I MALLEABLE Friday and Saturday, February 11-12, 2022 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets: $30 General / $15 Industry / $10 Students Run time: 60 minutes Get your tickets! This will likely sell out. *use Industry22 to get half price tickets*
ADDITIONAL EVENTS Post-performance discussion following the Friday, February 11 performance
The Duet Project: Distance is Malleable is an interdisciplinary, intergenerational series of duets between Eiko Otake and a diverse group of collaborating artists, living and dead. Collaborators come from different places, times, disciplines, and concerns. These duets will investigate how two artists collide, converse, and express what they care about. The performances at the Dance Center will include choreographer and performer Ishmael Houston-Jones, trans performance maker, writer, and artist Iris McCloughan, and interdisciplinary artist, singer/songwriter, and producer DonChristian Jones as duet partners with the renowned Eiko Otake. Their encounters reaffirm that distance is indeed malleable.
️] pronounced “Hypothetical Star”: M_m<M and nulltopia @mmmtvdotnet
Butoh Curious Chi 