MCA Chicago Announces Fall 2019 Performances

Mca Chicago Announces Fall 2019 Performance Season

PROP THTR: The Storefront Project

September 14-15 and 21-22, 3 pm and 7 pm, Tickets: $15

The Storefront Project is a collaboration between the MCA and PROP THTR that celebrates Chicago's long tradition of storefront and underground theater and its penchant for taking place in unusual and unexpected spaces all over the city. Several Chicago-based directors-Mikael Burke and April Cleveland, Sydney Chatman, Dado, Coya Paz, Denise Yvette Serna, and Lucky Stiff-create new works to perform at the PROP THTR and in utilitarian spaces at the MCA, from the wings of the stage to the museum's loading dock. Over two weekends, the directors adapt their performances to the two different venues, highlighting the innovations that are possible when theater-makers experiment with shifting settings and circumstances. An exercise in 'devised theater'-in which works take a novel, plot, or a single line as a point of departure to build something new-the directors each chose a text to imaginatively reinvent for Chicago audiences. The Storefront Project is co-curated by MCA Associate Curator of Performance Tara Aisha Willis with Artistic Director of PROP THTR Olivia Lilley.

Kim Brandt: Level

October 1 at 12:30 and 6 pm, October 2-3 at 12:30 pm, Admission is free

Extending her research on large-scale sculptures and Chicago's architecture, Kim Brandt creates four new site-specific performances for the MCA's front steps, atrium, and public spaces. A large cast of performers loop through various pathways in the museum spaces, collapsing the distance between audience and performer. Brandt's modular, score-based choreography is informed by the building's planes, surfaces, and volumes, as well as the performers' effects on their surroundings. Accompanied by composer Nate Wooley's live sound and visual artist Strauss Bourque LaFrance's wardrobe styling, Level is organized by Associate Curator of Performance Tara Aisha Willis and explores the relationships between bodies and their connection with architecture and shared spaces.

Between Gestures: Trajal Harrell and Ola Macijewska

Sunday, October 27, Admission is free

The MCA presents solo performances in the museum's public spaces by global artists Trajal Harrell and Ola Macijewska as part of Between Gestures, a one-week festival of performances, workshops, conversations, and screenings that connect Chicago to the international landscape of performance and dance. Known for his juxtaposition of voguing and postmodern dance traditions, Harrell presents his latest solo work Okidoki in a series made for gallery spaces. Harrell's performance brings together his research on the surreal and radical style of Tatsuma Hijkata, the founder of butoh, or Japanese dance theatre, with early vogue and runway forms. Macijewska's performance, Loie Fuller: Research, uses movement and costume to examine the relationship between action and object, and the agency of each. Inspired by Dancing Dress-an iconic performance by modern dance pioneer Loie Fuller (1862-1928)-Macijewska dances with a large cloak, creating sculptural forms as she swoops, glides, and swirls the fabric around her body.