Pivot Arts Announces Lineup for 2025 Festival

Pivot Arts has announced the artists and projects featured in its 2025 Pivot Arts Festival, a curated collection of interdisciplinary performances presented in Chicago's Streeterville neighborhood.

This year's festival showcases four distinct works that explore themes of friendship, memory, transformation, displacement, and queer futurism. In collaboration with Northwestern University's Wirtz Centers, the slated works mark a commitment by Executive Artistic Director, Jorge Silva, to experimental works by global majority artists.

“It is a distinct point of pride to play a role in new works development. Wirtz and Pivot Arts are providing the creative capital that allows artists to develop work when resources and institutions are in retreat,” he said, commenting on the current political state of affairs that has affected the arts and culture sector. “We remain committed to artists of color and to the notion of risk-forward experimentation.” 

In Friendship, playwright and director Katherine Dean Horton crafts a tender portrait of teenage friendship unfolding over one summer at a New England sleep-away camp. Through a tactile narrative that incorporates the act of making traditional friendship bracelets, the piece explores how relationships are formed, remembered, and left behind—with humor, heart, and emotional resonance for teens and adults alike.

Visual artist and immersive storyteller Alonso Galue transforms the Wirtz Center Chicago into a gallery site of myth and rupture in Paradise Aliens, a series of monumental murals confronting the trauma of displacement and the chaos of border politics. Drawing from Andean cosmology and folkloric symbolism, Galue renders exile as both psychic and spiritual terrain — inviting viewers into dreamlike landscapes inhabited by gas-masked figures, macaw-winged deities, and fractured monuments.

International theatre director Denise Yvette Serna presents from SUNSET 60 MINUTES — a multidisciplinary performance influenced by the diaries of Jan Fabre and inspired by queer legacy and survival. This genre-defying piece blends choreography, voice, soundscape, and symbolic design to explore identity, inheritance, and the metamorphosis of artist into art. The sun and moon become a central presence in a world where gender, memory, and embodiment collapse into ritual transformation.

Renowned puppeteer and designer Tom Lee presents The Great Zodiac Animal Race (Year of the Snake version), a solo puppetry performance that blends traditional shadow techniques with Japanese kuruma ningyō figure work. Originally commissioned by the Art Institute of Chicago, this solo performance retells the zodiac myth through Asian pictograms and Lee's own childhood recollections of Lunar New Year celebrations in Hawai'i. A joyful work for all ages, it fuses ancestral storytelling with contemporary visual invention.

All of the Pivot Arts Festival 2025 presented works will be featured at the Wirtz Center Chicago's venue, a wheelchair accessible venue. 

Wirtz Center Chicago

170 N Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, IL 60611

Event details and tickets available at: https://pivotarts.org/festival/

FRIENDSHIP

Saturday July 12 & Sunday July 13 

7:30 PM CST

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1427848867399?aff=oddtdtcreator

SUNSET 60 MINUTES

Sunday July 27th 

2:00 PM CST & 7:30 PM CST

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1428414629609?aff=oddtdtcreator

THE GREAT ZODIAC ANIMAL RACE

Saturday July 19 

1:00 PM CST & 7:30 PM CST

Sunday July 20

1:00 PM CST

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1428538279449?aff=oddtdtcreator

PARADISE ALIENS

Available for exhibition at any of the above events, July 12 - 20.  

About the Artists

Katherine Dean Horton is a theatre artist and third-year student at Northwestern University, where she serves as Artistic Director of WAVE Productions and will be directing The 83rd Annual Dolphin Show. She is committed to using theater as a tool for social reflection and emotional truth.

Alonso Galue is a Venezuelan multidisciplinary artist, puppeteer, and muralist whose work explores exile, mental health, and ancestral memory. His projects have been presented across the U.S. and Latin America, including at the Chicago Cultural Center and Museum of Contemporary Art of Zulia.

Denise Yvette Serna is an international director and arts activist whose work spans the U.S., UK, and Europe. She co-founded Global Hive Laboratories and has worked with leading institutions including Steppenwolf Theatre, Goodman Theatre, and the Latinx Theatre Commons.

Tom Lee is an acclaimed puppet artist and co-director of Chicago Puppet Studio. He has performed at the Metropolitan Opera, La MaMa, and international festivals. His work blends puppetry, projection, and ritual design rooted in Asian and Pacific traditions.

ABOUT PIVOT ARTS:

Pivot Arts, a decade-old, multidisciplinary organization, serves as a vital hub for diverse artists and audiences. By fostering a dynamic environment that blurs traditional artistic boundaries, Pivot Arts empowers BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and female-identifying artists to create groundbreaking work. Through innovative programs such as the festival, artist incubator, and collaborative performance initiatives, the organization provides a platform for emerging talent, nurturing their growth and amplifying their voices. Pivot Arts' commitment to accessibility and community engagement is evident in its diverse programming, which ranges from high-quality, mainstream productions to experimental, boundary-pushing performances. By bridging cultural divides and fostering meaningful connections, Pivot Arts enriches the cultural landscape of Chicago and beyond.

Chicago Awards - Live Stats

Best Musical - Top 3

1. HAIRSPRAY (Uptown Music Theater of Highland Park)

7.4% of votes

2. RENT (Highland Park Players)

7.3% of votes

3. THE WIZARD OF OZ (Up and Coming Theatre/Elgin Summer Theater)

6.6% of votes

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