Co-MISSION Works-In-Progress Fall 2023

Our Fall 2023 Co-MISSION Residents offer a split bill Co-MISSION Works-In-Progress showing featuring AiRos 頌恩 medill, Jamilah Kekulah, and Eshan Rafi.

Kekulah, medill, and Rafi present to audiences what they have been investigating and exploring while incubating in the white box studio since September.

A Note From Aaliyah Christina, Artist Programs Manager & Associate Curator:

Movement and performance are true matters of the heart and spirit. Passing Links' closed studio doors and hearing the artists working this season has transformed what it means to steward these works for me. Each maker's intentional practices mold the very essence of what Links Hall has grown into as an arts incubator for Chicago's independent artists and performance communities. As you bear witness to Eshan, Jamila, and AiRos' vulnerable offerings, consider your own divinity and the connection each of us holds together in solidarity with their tenderness and generosity.

ARTISTS’ NOTES

ESHAN RAFI | begin

Inhabiting the present political moment, I look backwards and forwards in time. I explore the relationship between making art, doing politics, and the possibility of history. I fold in an interview with my father; appropriate and enact a speech by Harry S. Truman to Congress; and use an opening title track to map questions in space.

Music by: Rovalio, Shuru Karein

Special Thanks: Emma Davis, Rafi Ahmed Khan, Jeff Hancock, Luiza Moraes and Maulikraj Shrimali

JAMILA KEKULAH | Lay Your Burdens Down: The Bridge

Lay Your Burdens Down: The Bridge is a meditation on spirit and grace. Holding the questions of when and where they’ve been experienced, the state you're in when you‘ve gone looking for one or both? How are they welcomed when they appear? 

Music: Barber, Agnus Dei

Nai palm, Homebody

Stan Walker, Ultralightbeam

Callie Day, Hear My Prayer

Richard Smallwood, Total Praise

Special Thanks: Jamila is grateful to be in residence at Links.

ZÌRÁN // 自然 | in {sharing} my solitude

metal. earth. fire. wood. water

grief. worry. joy. anger. wisdom

is a series of {7} gathered movements from songs that have come through to me since 2018  mapping my travel through the aftermath of remembering. i spent much time alone- recalculating-listening- expressing -& Billie Holiday's solitude played on repeat. i would greet the earth daily, witnessed & held. so now i share this ritual to be witnessed  weaving in of others in rebuilding.

this iteration is the beginning of this sharing

special thanks: to the ones who  are/have/ & will support this process, lending me resources, answering my many questions, being honest in your feedback, listening to where i am at, moving with me. 

gratitude to the land. to my body. to my collaborators. to my loves. to honey dog. to anyone who has sung w: me. gratitude to the circles. gratitude to my communities. gratitude to the care workers. gratitude to the corn. gratitude to the ancestors.gratitude to my families. gratitude to the water.  

Performed by: AiRos 頌恩 Medill {librettist}

Collaborators: Alyssa Vera Ramos and Crystle LiWayway Diño

PRODUCTION TEAM

Jeremey Johnson, House Manager

Katie Collins, Box Office Manager

Alé Favila, Lighting and Sound

Giau Truong, Technical Director

ABOUT CO-MISSION AT LINKS HALL

The Co-MISSION Residency is awarded to 3-4 performance artists to engage in the development & research of new or existing work, from mid-September to mid-December. Links Hall provides artists with a 12-week studio residency with up to eight hours of studio time each week), a monthly stipend, support of the Art of Rehearsal Workshop series, works-in-progress opportunities, and shared-bill performances at Links Hall’s Co-MISSION Festival of New Works. 

The Co-MISSION Fellowship is awarded to 2 performance artists to undergo an intense rehearsal process from January to May. These selected artists are veteran performance makers already past the initial research phase of the development of their new works. These individuals will be awarded: five months of studio time to complete the creation of their new projects, a monthly stipend, personalized mentoring with Art of Rehearsal coaches, a works-in-progress showing, and evening-length presentations of their new work as part of the Co-MISSION Festival of New Works.

Witness the creations of this evening artists and the spring Fellows at the Spring 2024 Co-MISSION Festival of New Works.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Eshan Rafi is an interdisciplinary artist working across performance, expanded photography, and video. Their works deal with the intersection of political events and personal archives, often staging the impossibility of representation. Their work has been exhibited, performed, and screened internationally including at SummerWorks Lab, Toronto; Sharjah Film Platform; M:ST 9 Performance Art Biennale, Calgary; and neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst, Berlin. Rafi holds an MFA in Art, Theory, and Practice from Northwestern University, Evanston.

Jamila Kekulah is ever evolving. They are a mover, an observer, a movement creator, a lifelong learner, and a deep listener of the body. Jamila is interested in investigating how we inhabit ourselves and each other in this human experience.

AiRos 頌恩 medill is a yellow hapa nonbinary trans Taiwanese american circle keeper, care worker, storyteller, facilitator, bodyworker, and culture bearer who is moving to organize abundance in the ecology of home. AiRos practices with the 5 elements (water, wood, fire, metal, earth) to align bodies to heaven and earth in reciprocity and reverence of feeling and the distribution of energies. As part of the diaspora air has a lifelong practice of traveling, moving through and shifting culture.

ABOUT THE COLLABORATORS

Alyssa Vera Ramos (collaborator, ZìRán // 自然) (she/her/ella) is a Boricua devising artist, theatre director, cultural strategist, and blossoming intimacy director dedicated to dreaming and practicing a liberated world. Her artistic work includes shaping many collaboratively written, often participatory plays, and explores themes of reproductive and racial justice and getting in right relationship with ancestors and each other. Alyssa is a curator of Swarm Artist Residency and a student at La Escuelita Bombera de Corazón.

Crystle LiWayway Diño (collaborator, ZìRán // 自然) is a Pinay Chicago native guided by her passions in the visual, performance, and healing arts rooted in community and her cultural upbringings.  She unearths herstory and investigates time, place, and relation by incorporating elements of the body, participation, and memory and by creating movement using repetition in patterns immersed in personal stories, collective experiences, and folklore.  She practices as a folk art therapist, performance and visual artist, mover & dancer, cultural worker, and youth development worker. She embodies her freedom by training in Filipino Martial Arts and dance and utilizes the concepts of Chicago House culture of freedom, love, and empowerment, as well as the Babaylan consciousness as foundation and impetus for her practices.

ABOUT THE ART OF REHEARSAL COACHES

Meida Teresa McNeal is Artistic and Managing Director of Honey Pot Performance. She received her PhD in Performance Studies (Northwestern) and her MFA in Choreography & Dance History (Ohio State). Awards include an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in New Performance Forms, Field Foundation’s Leaders for a New Chicago, 3Arts Award in Dance, Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist, and the Links’ Hall Co-Missions Fellowship. An Independent Artist and Scholar at the intersection of performance studies, dance, and critical ethnography, Meida also teaches at University of Chicago and Columbia College Chicago. Meida also works with the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events' Executive Administration team as the Senior Manager of Arts & Community Impact Investments building and implementing artist recovery programs and creative placemaking grantmaking initiatives. Prior to this role, Meida worked with the Chicago Park District as Arts & Culture Manager supporting community arts partnerships, youth arts, cultural stewardship, and civic engagement initiatives.

La Mar Brown is thrilled to be a Co-Mission Artist Coach for the second year with Links Hall, and to co-lead the Art of Rehearsal process this year. He is an arts manager, producer, dancer, and singer. He currently serves as the Operations Manager for Chicago Dancemakers Forum, where he manages functions to support administrative, fundraising, and programming activities. After relocating to Chicago from Dallas, TX, he completed his Master of Arts Management at Columbia College Chicago in 2016. He also is a 2022 Leadership Institute cohort member of YNPN Chicago. La Mar’s other administrative credits include Project Coordinator, The Ruth Page Center for the Arts; Box Office Supervisor, Writers Theatre; Company Manager, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago; and Associate Patron Services Manager, the AT&T Performing Arts Center (Dallas, TX). His performance credits include Dallas Black Dance Theatre, The Ruth Page Civic Ballet, Porchlight Music Theatre, Dallas Metropolitan Ballet, Uptown Players, Garland Summer Musicals, and The Dallas Opera. 

Luiza Moraes is a performance and movement artist currently based in Chicago, IL. Born in Porto Alegre, Brazil, she earned a Bachelor’s Degree in History from UFRGS. Following extensive training in Contemporary Dance with a special focus on somatic practices, she obtained an MA in Performance and Dance from CNDC/Angers and the University Paris 8. She is a certified Feldenkrais Practitioner by the Feldenkais Institut Wien in Vienna, Austria. She lived and worked in Europe for 12 years, participating actively in festivals across Western and Eastern Europe. Her current interests orbit around accessing and reclaiming traditional knowledge, grief technologies, healing, migration and decolonial existing.

ABOUT LINKS HALL

For 45 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: Arts Midwest GIG Fund, Association of Performing Arts Professionals, Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events, Exelon, Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, Heather B. Henson Fund/Puppet Slam Network, Illinois Arts Council Agency, JPMorgan Chase, Microsoft, National Performance Network, The Charlie Vernon Performance Fund at the Evanston Community Foundation, The Jentes Family Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, MacArthur Fund for Culture, Equity, and the Arts at Prince, The Martha Struthers Farley & Donald C. Farley, Jr. Family Foundation, The Prince Charitable Trust, Robert R. McCormick Foundation, and The Weasel Fund.

STAFF

Aaliyah Christina, Artist Programs Manager & Associate Curator

Katie Collins, Marketing & Development Manager

SK Kerastas, Executive Director

Mario LaMothe, General Manager

Dana Pepowski, Programs Coordinator

Claire Sutton, Special Projects

Giau Truong, Production Manager & Associate Curator 

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Amy Chavasse - Artistic Director, Chavasse Dance & Performance and Professor of Dance; the University of Michigan

Kim Davis - Founder and Principal, Five/6teen Consulting

Alyssa Gregory - Communications Manager, The University of Chicago and Marketing Associate; Associate Choreographer, The Fly Honey Show

Raj Goel -  Senior Enterprise Architect, Microsoft 

Ross Stanton Jordan - Curatorial Manager, the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum

Trevor Martin -  Executive Director of Exhibitions and Exhibition Studies and Senior Lecturer in the Performance Department, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Dan Nichols - Former Associate Dean for Finance in Social Sciences and Associate Dean for Operations in Humanities, the University of Chicago

Jon Pagac - Executive Director, J.P.Morgan

Tina Post - Assistant Professor of English and Theater and Performance Studies and affiliate of the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture at the University of Chicago

Doreen Sayegh - Producer/General Manager, Pemberley Productions and Board Vice President, the League of Chicago Theatres

Michael Tokoph - Associate Director, Product Strategy at Huge

Tara Aisha Willis, Ph.D. - Curator in Performance & Public Practice, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

Patrick Zakem - Creative Producer, Steppenwolf Theatre Company

ADVISORY BOARD

Cheryl Lynn Bruce - Ensemble Member, Teatro Vista

Bob Eisen - Founder of Links Hall 

E. Aaron Greven - Owner, AG Design Works

Tracie D. Hall - Artist, Curator, & Librarian

Maggie Kast - Author, Founder Chicago Contemporary Dance Theatre

Eva Silverman - Project Director, Art Design Chicago 

Blair Thomas - Founder and Artistic Director, Chicago International Puppetry Festival 

Michael Zerang - Musician, Former Links Hall Director