Program Order

ABORT, KIKI King

Praise Music Sonogram, Julia Barbosa Landois

Note from Aaliyah Christina, Links Hall Associate Curator

The time is ripe for necessary action. KIKI & Julia’s expressions of vulnerability, irony, anger, and reflection generate palpable and electrifying responses to our vexing political climate. Their stories intertwine and complement each other with irreverent play and internal questioning. From an abortion as an adolescent to mothering in your early 40s, sharing the full scope of your reproductive history has been treated as controversial these last few years, but it only proves to be a sign of steadfastness as our realities have always remained present and true. 

The loss of abortion access in so many states and threats of cultural censorship jeopardize the very rights our forebears fought to gain. This moment requires us to take on new roles in the fight to keep our stories alive. As a spectator, what role do you take away from these material conditions and how will you own up to the assignment?

About the Pieces

PRAISE MUSIC SONOGRAM

Julia Barbosa Landois’s Praise Music Sonogram is a live performance that combines spoken word, video, and experimental sound to tell a story of motherhood, miscarriage, and abortion access across national and state borders. Contrasting an unexpected experience in a European haven for healthcare seekers with the medical scarcity and the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade in the U.S., Barbosa Landois delivers a narrative that is both deeply personal and unexpectedly comedic.

Praise Music Sonogram exists where storytelling, community medicine, and transnational healthcare persist as resistance to geographic borders and limits on bodily autonomy. In development as part of a 2023 NPN Creation Fund grant from August 2023-December 2024, the work premiered at DiverseWorks before traveling to the Stanlee and Gerald Rubin Center for the Visual Arts at the University of El Paso and Links Hall.

Support for Praise Music Sonogram

Praise Music Sonogram is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation & Development Fund Project co-commissioned by DiverseWorks, The Stanlee and Gerald Rubin Center for the Visual Arts, and NPN. The Creation & Development Fund is supported by the Doris Duke Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency). For more information: www.npnweb.org

Praise Music Sonogram is supported in part by the Alice Kleberg Reynolds Foundation. Additional program and general operating support is from the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance, Texas Commission on the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, The Brown Foundation, Inc., Cullen Trust for the Performing Arts, the George and Mary Josephine Hamman Foundation, Houston Endowment, Ruth Foundation for the Arts, Teiger Foundation, the Wortham Foundation, and DiverseWorks patrons and members, including the DW Arts & Climate Partners.

ABORT

ABORT is a multifaceted choreographic work that draws inspiration from realms of club culture and the influential contributions of Black Women in rock music. At its core, the project explores the nuances of visibility and self-expression from our Birth until the Present and delves into themes such as sensuality, desire, resilience, and individual agency.

The work creates a landscape, challenging societal labels and their impact on womxns bodies. It endeavors to provide solutions for finding liberation within one's own physicality, embracing both the freedom to express and harnessing the power of silence and solitude. The work is an ongoing journey that investigates the intersection of birth and choice while fostering a sense of community and personal empowerment.

ABORT is a manifestation of a collective Community exploration into freedom within our bodies, as well as the strength of individual choices. It examines the concept of resilience and asks the question: “What does it look and feel like if I have agency in my life?”

Artist Credits

ABORT

Kierah {KIKI} King (they/them, creator & performer) holds a BFA in Dance with a minor in Black World Studies from Columbia College Chicago (2020). Homeschooled in their family’s café, Kiki developed a deep appreciation for service, education, and creativity. Their work intertwines social justice, activism, and community building through media, performance, choreography, and workshops.

Rahila Coats (she/her, collaborator) is an improviser, dancer, musician and educator who loves to eat up space and eat with her community; her work focuses on black femme experiences and joy.

Lucy Williams (she/they, collaborator) is a movement artist born and bred in the Midwest. She is a lover of good food, time spent with friends, playing outside, and dancing to really loud music. They have a background in community care work, specifically providing support for people accessing abortion care through their work with the Chicago Abortion Fund. She is thrilled to be re-centering her movement practice, and honored to have incredible collaborators and mentors such as KIKI King, Erin Kilmurray, Kasey Alfonso, Alix Schillaci, and more.

Isabella Limosnero (they/them, collaborator) works as a freelance multidisciplinary artist from Ohlone land, known as Gilroy, CA. Since moving to the Chicagoland area in 2021, they have had the honor of working with other Chicago artists such as the folks who fuel Project Bound, Momentum Sensorium, House of DOV, and more. To read more and connect with them, you can find Isabella at @isabellalimosnero on IG, or at www.isabellaglimosnero.com.

Professor-Wrecks (she/they, audio designer) is a Chicago-based DJ and new media artist specializing in music and sound production as well as animated, text-based digital compositions. A formally trained saxophonist, she began studying music in childhood, which laid the foundation for her self-taught journey into electronic music and DJing. Since 2016, Wrecks has performed across Chicago and beyond, using her background in music theory and composition to craft dynamic sets, remixes, and sample-based soundscapes. Her production work spans original dance tracks, remix compositions, podcast themes, web series scores, and sound design for live performance, including PRAISE MOTHER and ABORT. In February 2025, she launched 10PMRadio, an internet radio station that uplifts African American dance music traditions and features weekly programming focused on praise, soul, and funk music. The station serves as a digital sanctuary—bridging community, history, and celebration.

Praise Music Sonogram

Julia Barbosa Landois (creator & performer) is a Houston-based multidisciplinary artist whose work teases profundity and absurdity from the everyday and examines the relationship between the intimate and the public. Landois’s performances have been presented at Fusebox Festival (Austin), Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Blaffer Art Museum (University of Houston), and Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, among others. Her awards include residencies in the USA and abroad and grants from National Performance Network, National Association of Latino Arts & Cultures, and Houston Arts Alliance. https://julialandois.com

Candice D’Meza (director) is an African American-Haitian Queer Mother of three and Spiritist whose artistic body of work spans across theater performance, multiple literary genres, activism, dance, critical pedagogy, ritual, social practice, documentary, experimental and short film. Collectively, her work has been featured, grant funded, commissioned, published, screened and archived at institutions across the nation. https://www.candicedmeza.com

Eddie Guzman (accompanist) is a Chicago-based musician. As a multi-instrumentalist he blends ideas from an eclectic range of influences including post-punk, country, and shoegaze. His work maintains a focus on lush melodies and experimentation.

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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