In The Works: A Residency and Development Program

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The Department Of Cultural Affairs And Special Events Announces Its Fall Theater And Dance Schedule

 

 

In the Works is the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events' residency program and gives emerging and established performing artists the opportunity to test-drive new work in a public setting. Each residency is tailored to the needs of the artist or company and their project and takes place in the most suitable DCASE space. Each showing is a unique opportunity for audiences to get a behind-the-scenes look at new work by Chicago artists.

Applications are now open for In the Works residencies from February – August 2014. Please click here for more information and the application.

 

2013 Residencies

(schedule is subject to change)

Upcoming Showings

 

 

Jacob Juntunen

In the Shadow of his Language, A Staged Reading

In residency August 15-24, 2013 in the Chicago Cultural Center Studio Theater

Reading Date:  August 25, 2013

Reading Time: 12 Noon

RSVP Info: info@jacobjuntunen.com

Didi O’Connor must escape South Boston where her Dad scoffs, “How did you get so fat on your Ma’s shitty cooking?” She seizes her chance when she gets “a free ride” to a prestigious college in Upstate New York. But when her advisor forces Didi to change her name, accent, clothes—even her religion—will success destroy her more than her deadend home-life ever would?

 

Keaton Wooden and Don Gecewicz

The Magic Lantern

In residency September 14-29, 2013 in the Chicago Cultural Center Studio Theater

Reading Date: September 30, 2013

Reading Time: 6:30 pm

RSVP Info: kwwooden@gmail.com

Description of Work:  MAGIC LANTERN is a World Premiere production of Donald Gecewicz’s voyeuristic tale of Art’s greatest mediums and their impact on our personal lives and dreams.  Set in 1907 Italy, Ambrogio returns home to his ailing mother and magical marionette to start Italy's first film studio.  He convinces a popular stage actor and his manager to transition towards film stardom and they begin the straining process of filming. Progress is underway when Colette arrives, fleeing a messy divorce and mysterious lover.The team continues to work and struggle with this new technology as it jeopardizes their industry and gravely threatens their privacy. Told through nearly every performance style, The Magic Lantern asks if technology reveals more beauty in humanity, or simply exposes us.

 

Red Clay Dance

TransAtlantic Project 

In residency September 22 - October 6, 2013 in the Chicago Cultural Center Dance Studio

Showing Date: October 6, 2013

Showing Time: 2 pm

RSVP Info: redclaydancetransatlantic.eventbrite.com

The TransAtlantic Project unites two internationally recognized dance companies: Red Clay Dance and Keiga Dance Company, extending the collaboration between Jonas and Vershawn that began when they meet at L’ Ecole De Sables in Toubab Dialaw, Senegal in 2007. The project is a year long collaboration that includes the creation of a new work exploring the similarities and differences in their movement vocabularies and choreographic process along with shared teaching opportunities, community discussions and with a Chicago premiere of the new work in April 2014 . The new work will tour for both companies’ 2014-2015 seasons.

 

Esoteric Dance Project

Chiaroscuro

In residency June 20 - September 19, 2013 in the Chicago Cultural Center Dance Studio

Showing Date: October 13, 2013

Showing Time: 12 Noon

RSVP Info: esotericseldomskristinaisabelle.eventbrite.com

Chiaroscuro delves into the fascinating and compulsory emotional contrast of light and dark and the ultimate effect that it has on a composition as a whole, including the interplay or contrast of dissimilar qualities and the projection that they have on humans and their characteristics. Does one solely encompass one or the other or can dualities exist within one entity?

 

Kristina Isabelle Dance

The Floating City 

In residency July 29 - September 20, 2013 in the Chicago Cultural Center Dance Studio

Showing Date: October 13, 2013

Showing Time: 12 Noon

RSVP Info: esotericseldomskristinaisabelle.eventbrite.com

Kristina Isabelle Dance will present an excerpt of The Floating City, a multi-media production exploring the place within, a place of feeling stuck or in transition, the place between this world and the world in our heads.  A surreal exploration of shifting environments creating a moving landscape of time and relationships inspired by the writings of Haruki Murakami.

 

The Seldoms

Where Power Goes

In residency June 20 - September 19, 2013 in the Chicago Cultural Center Dance Studio

Showing Date: October 13, 2013

Showing Time: 12 Noon

RSVP Info: esotericseldomskristinaisabelle.eventbrite.com

This dance theater work explores the paradoxes surrounding political power, ethics and social change through the historical lens of a brilliant politician and legislator, Lyndon Baines Johnson. Through a wide lens, the piece examines power - how it is acquired, bestowed, taken, leveraged, wielded; how it is located in and expressed by the body; how it can be employed for progressive action or block progress and impede change. Its more pointed inquiry is whether that type of mighty political power employed by a masterful and effective leader – as seen with LBJ – is anywhere evident or even possible in today’s American landscape.

 

Eric Hoff & Jesse Morgan Young, Salonathon

Revival

In residency October 21-27, 2013 on the Jay Pritzker Pavilion Stage

Showing Date: October 25 & 26, 2013

Showing Time: 10 pm - Midnight; Doors at 10 pm

RSVP Info: rsvp.revival@gmail.com

No admission after 11pm.

REVIVAL completes at the stroke of Midnight.

Dance Party. Performance Art. Spectacle.

Dance Party. Performance Art. Spectacle. REVIVAL is an immersive, sweaty, & visceral experience featuring 10 of Chicago’s hottest performance artists, dancers, and DJs. The chrysalis is in formation.

 

Stephanie Diaz

Mariposa Nocturna

In residency October 1-28, 2013 in the Chicago Cultural Center Studio Theater

Showing Date: October 28, 2013

Showing Time: 7 pm

RSVP Info: stephcosmos@gmail.com

Employing handcrafted tabletop and shadow puppets, featuring original music/sound design, and showcasing precision manipulation, Mariposa Nocturna is a trilogy of short-form pieces combining traditional technique with postmodern sensibilities. Universal themes of loss and rebirth emerge via ideas and images rooted in Guatemalan culture and its unique, often humorous preoccupation with death: a child’s wish for her dying grandmother to have “a happy sleep” results in a bawdy, Japanese shadow-dream; a pair of bird-headed spinsters suddenly find themselves custodians of a large, glowing egg; a lonely toy carriage embarks upon a jaunty odyssey in search of buried dreams. Inspired and influenced by the Quay Brothers, Marta Carrasco, Ukiyo-e, Grey Gardens, silent-era film and Butoh, this work strives to present a contemporary, interdisciplinary approach to both classical puppetry forms and Latin-American folklore in a performance setting that walks the line between theatre and performance art

 

The Inconvenience

Currently Untitled

In residency October 29 - November 30, 2013 in the Chicago Cultural Center Dance Studio

Showing Date: December 7 & 8, 2013

Showing Time: Saturday at 6:30 pm, Sunday at 2 pm

RSVP Info: TBA

Description of Work:  Using puppetry and dance, this workshop presentation aims to explore the themes of memory, loss, and the uncanny, by juxtaposing the familiarity of the personal body with the unearthly form of the Bunraku Puppet. A peek into the cellar of the self, this fusion of forms seeks to bring out the haunted in the homely.

 

Jillian Soto

The Conviction of Pearl Dakota

In residency October 4 - December 14, 2013 in the Chicago Cultural Center Studio Theater

Showing Date: December 14 & 15, 2013

Showing Time: Saturday at 6:30 pm, Sunday at 2 pm

RSVP Info: jilliansoto@gmail.com

The Conviction of Pearl Dakota is a performance created and directed by Jillian Soto that is inspired by Soto’s observations of the traffic courts located at the Chicago Daley Center over the course of six months in 2012-13. This project visualizes this particular heart of the City as a potent yet unlikely site of investigation for patterns of movement, which attempt to speak about relationships to travel and each other.

 

Synapse Arts

Swath

In residency August 5 - September 4, 2013 in the Chicago Cultural Center Dance Studio

Showing Date: December 16, 2013

Showing Time: 6:30 pm

RSVP Info: TBA

Swath explores the clash of the accepted brutality of nature with order and urbanity. The rub between instinct and propriety is investigated through movement, text, and handmade projections. This inquiry into nature's presence in contemporary life brings attention to the cultural divide between urban and rural living, and in so doing, allows us to learn more

about our own histories.

Past Showings

 

 

Blair Thomas & Company

Moby-Dick

In residency from January 12-20, 2013 in the Storefront Theater

Our narrator Ishmael recounts his journey on the Pequod as Captain Ahab’s relentless pursuit of the White Whale leads the entire crew to the depths of the ocean’s great unknown.  The words of this great American novel are brought to life on the stage through bunraku puppets, rolling paper scrolls and a unique combination of the folk songs of Michael Smith and the ambient sound of percussionist Michael Zerang.

 

Cock and Bull Theatre

VOOLF

In residency from January 22 - February 3, 2013 in the Storefront Theater

While Papa is off at war,  Peter, Grandmere, and Red Riding Hood (played by the 19 century actress Sarah Bernhardt) must deal with their own fears of love and lust while confronting the iconic fairytale villain…the wolf.  Is the wolf the real villain or victim? Voolf explores the world of fairytales with a voracious appetite.

 

New Millennium Orchestra

Der Kaiser von Atlantis

In residency from March 8-10, 2013 in Jay Pritzker Pavilion Stage

The New Millennium Orchestra and conductor Francesco Milioto present Der Kaiser von Atlantis: a hopeful parable influenced by Weill, Mahler, and Berg, written in 1943 by Viktor Ullmann at the concentration camp Theresienstadt.

 

MegLouise Dance

Watching Brief

In residency April 15 - May 4, 2013 in the Chicago Cultural Center Dance Studio

Watching Brief gives viewers a rare and intimate experience of contemporary dance and visual art. It exposes then excavates physical and mental boundaries, contexts and movement artifacts for an intentionally small gathering of guests.

 

The Q Brothers

The Q Brothers’ Christmas Carol Project

In residency June 6 - July 10, 2013 in the Cultural Center Dance Studio

Known internationally for their add-RAP-tations of Shakespeare, the Q Brothers reimagine Charles Dickens’ Christmas classic through the lens of modern music and rhyme.

 

Every house has a door

Testimonium

In residency June 10-18, 2013 in the Chicago Cultural Center Dance Studio

Testimonium responds to the poet Charles Reznikoff’s unfinished masterwork, Testimony. This performance reimagines Reznikoff’s poems as fragmented texts infused with biography and philosophy.  The performance alternates between movement, courtroom transcript recitation, and original songs performed live onstage.