Butoh Curious Chi

Episode 5

Marcy Rae Henry, SheenRu Yong, Shoshana Green, Meenakshi Marchione, and Harlan Rosen

Catch the livestream for a limited time:
4:20pm show: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1311706492

8pm show (even tho it says 4:20 ) https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1311862281

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.

Saturday, May 28 @Elastic Arts 
Two Sets 4:20 & 8pm CST
3429 W. Diversey #208 or streaming online elasticarts.org/streaming
(check the world clock for your zone)
FB event page

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

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

Meenakshi M 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.