When Tim Miller’s Charged Bodies mentorship program at Links Hall fruited several powerful performances in 2008, I was once again enTHUSED about the work being created in Chicago. One of those mentees, Rebecca Kling, has expanded her 20 minute piece about her life as a trans woman into an hour-long theater event entitled Trans Form, December 11th-13th at Links Hall. A recipient of the Critical Fierceness Grant, I’m interested in what she’ll add to an already personal deep-share. The work in progress was filled with understandible anger – her descriptions of the invasive questions people try to pass as small talk were as telling as they were familiar. When strangers assume rights to your personal space and private life, it makes you wonder why our culture translates freedom of expression into an excuse for dehumanizing those who openly express themselves. The work in progress did contain a triumphant fierceness in its final moments, and I’m hoping this expanded version will rely less on the literal and play a little more with nuance.
Trans Form will run at Links Hall, 3445 N Sheffield Ave, Chicago. It’s between the Belmont and Addison stops on the Red Line, and right next to a 22 bus stop. Tickets available at Brown Paper Tickets.
We’ve been getting little tastes here and there, but Antibody Dance‘s evening length is finally descending on Chicago this September 25-27 at Links Hall. Artistic director Adam Rose’s drag persona Elena will be in full swing, along with a cast of dancers challenged with the task of interpreting his limber choreography in “Antitrust Circus.” I’m excited for several reasons, not the least of which is a complete snapshot of Antibody Dance’s philosophy: while most performers make objections against the dark forces of the world, or use them as metaphors for political stances, Antibody channels them. Willingly wading in “fragments of spiritual traditions as ritual acts in a circus,” I haven’t yet found a joke in one of Rose’s dance pieces. I mean, I’ve laughed during a Rose piece, but a) I was the only one doing it and b) it was mostly because I was THRILLED to be feeling like I was looking at some agent of death. Earlier this year in a TPR interview, I asked him how he was helping the world and he said, “manifesting dark energies in the context of performance can have a cathartic effect and lead to healing.” It’s his sincerity that sets Antibody apart from a simple goth pose and its his talent that can balance grim portraits with a belief in kindness.
Local queer performer JSun Howard is also on the bill.
“Antitrust Circus”
LinkUp Fall Showcase
Links Hall, Chicago, IL
September 25-27, 2009
Friday & Saturday, 8pm / Sunday 7pm
$15
Oh man it’s time for another Poonie’s Cabaret, and if you think you missing it, you are mistaken. A special appearance by TPR pal Lez Bobo the Clown will be the creepy icing on this eclectic cake. If you’ve been wanting to see what else this fab city has to offer, this is it. Also featuring trailerpilot and Sarah Weidmann, there is queerness abound on this quality stage. It’ll be the best $5 you’ll spend all month, guaranteed. Monday, June 15, 8:00 pm $5 or pay-what-you-can. www.linkshall.org 3435 N. Sheffield Ave. Chicago, IL 60657. Full line up after the jump. Read the rest of this entry ?
This Friday, Insight Arts is having a show here in Rogers Park Chicago, and I couldn’t be more excited. Insight Arts is a contemporary arts organization dedicated to increasing access to cultural work that supports progressive social change. This event, Queering the Night, will follow a standard open mic format and then segue way to a featured artist. Friday, April 10th starting at 7pm, Queering the Night will feature new work by J’Sun Howard, a Chicago-based choreographer and dancer who is currently exploring crying “to find fearlessness and freedom.” J’Sun Howard will also be starting a LinkUp residency at Links Hall this year, this show is to be a preview.
Poonie’s Cabaret was, as I had expected, thoroughly excellent. What I did not expect was to be blown away by a performer I had not heard of. Adam Rose, from Antibody Dance, performed a piece called “Mother’s Revenge,” and it was arresting. Taking the floor at Links Hall, he came out in extreme white and red Joker-face, black Gone With The Wind curly locks, a baptist church dress in teal, froofy petticoat and awkward white patent granny heels. Using wooden salad tongs and a red gas jug, he proceeded to GIVE IT to the audience with limbs thin as winter branches and a spine that arched like a bouncing letter “U.” Alternating between shy and threatening, scurry and still, limpy and violent, Rose’s Butoh-influenced burlesque was a horrifying display. Facial movement and exacting body language took the audience by the hand and showed a startling portrait of darkness. A twisted pre-feminist female symbolized the waste involved in just being: in today’s world, your lunch-time salad polluted the earth in the step by step process it took to arrive at your plate. Rose’s vision as an artist explores this underbelly and it’s really fucking bleak. Luckily he knows what he is doing —a weaker effort could have resulted in an adolescent, gothic mess. His bio reveals extensive education and depth in philosophy, but how he’ll cope with his inner torture is beyond me. In the meantime we are bystanders getting less and less innocent with each performance. I took a few moments of 26 year old Adam Rose’s time and got some answers about his point of view. Brief interview after the jump, I’ll be sure to keep you all posted about upcoming shows.
Poonie’s Cabaret, consistently an inexpensive venue to see a variety of performance, is kept interesting and without a doubt, important, by Jyl Fehrenkamp. As curator for the last few years, she draws from her friends and colleagues to group together the edgiest performers in Chicago, both up-and-coming and veteran. This Monday March 2nd, Poonie’s and Links Hall will host an excerpt from Peter Carpenter’s evening length piece My Fellow Americans. This work will explore “the shifting identity of Ronald Reagan from the perspectives of the “special interest groups” that his rhetoric and policies consistently admonished. At stake is a targeted historical revision designed to interrogate the discrepancy between his optimistic political speeches and the negating effects his policies had on the Americans who deviated from his conception of morality.” Awarded the 2008′s Chicago Dancemaker’s Forum grant, he’s been giving us bits and pieces and for the finished product I am waiting with baited breath. Chicago is BUH-Blessed to have Carpenter living and working here, Poonie’s Cabaret is the place to be this Monday night.
Poonie’s Cabaret was created by Selene Carter and is named in loving memory for Poonie Dodson, a much-loved Chicago dancer/choreographer who died of AIDS in the early 90s. Audience members are asked for a $5 donation. Proceeds from the cabaret go to the Links Hall Duncan Erley Coming Out of the Closet Fund, which is periodically awarded to artists whose work explores the realms of healing, gay activism, and spiritual and sexual transformation.
Tim Miller‘s work can be described as if “Gay White Male” were a genre of self-aware, edgy, fey, political performance art. It’s personal and sometimes vulgar and always centered on himself. These qualities make an interesting premise for this weekend’s “Charged Bodies” at Links Hall:
The results of a four month mentorship by Tim Miller of three Chicago-based performance artists, all self-identified as queer or addressing queer-related themes in their work. Using studio space at The Center on Halsted and resources provided by Links Hall, the three artists have developed new solo pieces under Miller’s guidance. Tim Miller will also perform a 15 minute excerpt from a new work in progress.
Awilda Rodriguez is a Chicago-based, queer Puerto Rican immigrant and multi-disciplinary artist. She keeps a blog over at Boricua Cheerleader, and is primed to be a midwestern landmark in the feminist area of today’s queer rights movement.
Tim Miller’s Charged Bodies Residency Program
Awilda Rodriguez Lora, Sentell Harper, & Rebecca Kling Friday & Saturday, November 21 & 22, 8pm
$15Buy tickets now!
The “Studies N Black” festival has been going on at Links Hall for most of October, if you are lucky, then you have already seen some of it. Curated by Baraka de Soleil, the fest showcases a mix of media and art about how “people perceive blackness.” On Saturday, Chicago film-maker Kortney Ryan Zeigler’s Still Black, a documentary about six black trans-men, will screen. In an interesting interview (for next week’s podcast) Zeigler and (partner/producer) Awilda Rodriguez talked about how it is a misconception that black people are less accepting of LGBTQ lifestyles. This film underscores that idea with an exciting take on documentary film-making. Check out their website blackstarmedia.org for more information about the movie and go to Links Hall this weekend to see the movie.
Oh man sorry about the lack of posts. Summer is good busy.
Anyway, Tim Miller is coming to Chicago July 21st-27th. At the tiny Links Hall, it might already be too late to get your tickets, but you can try showing up. They are usually pretty good about letting in as many people as they can, even sometimes seating people on the floor. But Tim Miller is a very out spoken queer performance artist, and his shit is real personal. For his Chicago shows, he’s doing a piece called “Us,” From the site:
I am VERY buzzed about this new show. I finally come out as a big musical show queen! Us ricochets between my love affair since childhood with Broadway musicals crosscut to an exploration of home, exile and the injustices lesbian and gay couples face in the good ol’ USA. “Us” is a funny, sassy and pissed-off exploration of these most American contradictions as the piece careens from memories of a ten year old’s plan to flee to Canada to escape the war in Viet Nam (“Man of La Mancha”) , to a meditation on why a Southern California child spoke in an English accent (Oliver!”), to a surreal tug-of-war at the edge of America as the Niagara Falls rushes between my legs (Don’t Rain on My Parade”!)
In addition, he’s also holding a workshop for performance artists:
The one week intensive explores modes of corporeal discourse and performance making. Participants will be led through exercises to excavate movement-driven and spoken stories to create original performance work exploring the charged border between body and society.
Check out Links Hall’s site for ticket info and go to Tim’s for his work history.
