Chicago Dancemakers Forum Partners With HPAC And MCA On A Series Of Dance Dialogues With Local And International Artists

Chicago Dancemakers Forum announces a series of Dance Dialogues in partnership with two of the city's cultural institutions, Hyde Park Art Center and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.The events feature past Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artists in embodied conversation with one another and with international collaborators.

Celebrating its 15th Anniversary, Chicago Dancemakers Forum is the only organization in the city dedicated solely to nurturing the artistic advancement of dancemakers. Since inception, Chicago Dancemakers Forum has granted over $1 million to artists and is the single largest, local source of support for dancemakers which has an open call for applications. Past Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artists vary in age, gender, race and dance discipline. They work in tap, butoh, burlesque, Chicago Footwork, dance for the camera, Bharatanatyam, voguing, classical Japanese, African, contemporary, and more. Collectively they represent the spirit and power of new dance in Chicago now.

LECTURE DEMO WITH AMERICAN AND EGYPTIAN ARTISTS

Wednesday, July 18, 2018

6:00 - 7:00 PM

Hyde Park Art Center

5020 S Cornell Ave, Chicago, IL 60615

Join Choreographer and Artistic Director of Erica Mott Productions, Erica Mott (2010 Lab Artist) in conversation with Choreographer and Artistic Director of Ezzat Ezzat Contemporary Dance Studios (Cairo, Egypt) for an interactive lecture demonstration of new technologies used in the creation of their collaboration, Mycelial Street Parliament premiering at Hyde Park Arts Center July 13-15 & 19-21, 2018.

Developed through a series of one-to-one cultural exchanges between Egyptian and American musical composers, dancers, technologists and new media artists, Mycelial: Street Parliament, is an interactive exhibition that examines civic participation, social movements and interconnectedness in the digital age.

The work presented in Mycelial: Street Parliament draws on data obtained from the original digital expressions (text messages, images, emojjs, etc.) of activists involved in Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street to ask whether art and technology can create an a cultural experience that resembles the physical and emotional sensations of a social uprising. What are our embodied experiences of occupation and revolution? Where does resistance live outside of kind acts towards one-another or protests?

Stay after the lecture demo from 7:00 - 9:00 PM to tour the exhibit and enjoy a musical set mixed live by award wining Egyptian electronic music composer and Mycelial collaborator, Ahmed Saleh. Saleh's latest album is inspired by Electro-Chabbi beats developed during and inspired by the Arab Spring.

IN PROGRESS: DANCE DIALOGUES

November 27 & December 4, 2018

6:00 - 7:30 PM

Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA)

220 E. Chicago Ave, Chicago, IL 60611

Join past Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artists in the MCA Commons in live, artist-to-artist exchanges of movement, ideas, and process. These choreographers of different backgrounds and art-making practices grapple with questions that impact them each in distinct ways through embodied conversations with each other and the public.

On November 27th at 6:00 PM, Jamal "Litebulb" Oliver of The Era Footwork Crew (2015 Lab Artist), Molly Shanahan of Mad Shak (2006 Lab Artist), and Meida McNeal of Honey Pot Performance (2010 Lab Artist) address how they mine the cultural histories, embodied and genetic memory, and lived experience that surface in their dancing bodies. On December 4th at 6:00 PM, Carrie Hanson of The Seldoms (2005 Lab Artist) and Adam Rose of Antibody Corporation (2014 Lab Artist) address how they use dance to contend with the spaces and places where they perform, and to encounter the audience within them.

In Progress is a new MCA series of public programs that give visitors a glimpse into the working practices of artists. It highlights Chicago artists with a focus on live art happenings, discussions, workshops, and screenings that expose the behind-the-scenes labor of art making. This series further positions the MCA as a platform for creative culture, providing a place for artists to test ideas and push their practices to new levels through audience engagement, and creating a forum for conversation and interaction in our new space, the Commons.

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