Performance Order

Ále Campos, Incantation for Celeste

Sunshine Lombrè, Drift

Christian Aldana, Kasamahal

Hoochie Mane, Before the Throne of the Invisible God

Symone Loudly, Pearl’s Seed

Note from Aaliyah Christina, Links Hall Associate Curator

Black Coffee + Raw Sugar has managed to find a home one way or another since 2018. As another home closes its doors, other opportunities open up for us to redefine and confirm what home means. It's not a singular place. Home moves as we do and we will continue planting seeds and growing this work into a fruitful harvest. Tonight's artists reopen a portal to reconfigure what it means to experiment with space + time. They challenge the very notion of spiritual home.

About the Pieces

Ále Campos, Incantation for Celeste

Incantation for Celeste is a short multimedia performance reflecting on the practice of stepping into drag. Specifically honoring the power of its healing properties to undo trauma, of self-discovery and of harnessing vulnerability as means to engage the range of human emotion.

Sunshine Lombré, Drift

Drift is an experience honoring how dance, music, light & visual art can be used to warm, welcome, heal, bless, empower or enchant any space.

Christian Aldana, Kasamahal

Kasama (comrade). Mahal (beloved). Kasamahal is a body of poems exploring the deep and decisive bonds between comrades. This series of letters pulls us into the moments of shared vulnerability and vision between kasamas — late night planning meetings, shared meals, linked arms at protests, karaoke and dancing. Each letter is an offering, a blessing, a promise, to sustain a radical network of care, love, and solidarity with the masses. These epistolary poems balance loss, nostalgia, and reckonings with hope, joy, and the determination to build a different world.

Hoochie Mane, Before the Throne of the Invisible God

Before The Throne of the Invisible God explores stillness in a spirituality-based movement performance.

Symone Loudly, Pearl’s Seed

Pearl's Seed is a narrative exploration of the dynamic between the ever-present material and the ecstatic spiritual through neo-burlesque, contemporary and flow arts movement.

Featured Artists

About Links Hall

For 46 years, Links Hall has played a pivotal role in Chicago, encouraging artistic innovation and public engagement by maintaining a facility and providing flexible programming for the research, development, and presentation of new work in the performing arts. Founded in 1978 by experimental choreographers, Bob Eisen, Carol Bobrow, and Charlie Vernon, Links became a National Performance Network partner in 1998 and received a MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions in 2016. Links Hall supports multidisciplinary artists through residencies, festivals, subsidized rentals, and other resources for performers at every stage of their career.

Links Hall programming is made possible by artists, audiences, and support from: Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events, Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, Heather B. Henson Fund/Puppet Slam Network, Illinois Arts Council Agency, JPMorgan Chase, the LGBTQ Community Fund, National Performance Network, The Charlie Vernon Performance Fund at the Evanston Community Foundation, The Jentes Family Foundation, The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation.

STAFF

Aaliyah Christina, Artist Programs Manager & Associate Curator

SK Kerastas, Executive Director

Mario LaMothe, General Manager

Dana Pepowski, Programs Associate

Giau Truong, Production Manager & Associate Curator

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Amy Chavasse

Jane Beachy

Vesna Grbovic

J’Sun Howard

Ross Stanton Jordan

Susan Manning

Trevor Martin

Jon Pagac

Jenna Pollack

Tina Post

Doreen Sayegh

Michael Tokoph

Patrick Zakem

ADVISORY BOARD

Cheryl Lynn Bruce

Bob Eisen

E. Aaron Greven

Tracie D. Hall

Maggie Kast

Meida McNeal

Eva Silverman

Claire Sutton

Blair Thomas

Michael Zerang