Curation
Building programs and creative producing performance from a background in artist services, presenting, and museum curation, with an investment in artistic experimentation, social engagement, and intradisciplinarity.
UPCOMING
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UPCOMING *
Justine A. Chambers, Leslie Cuyjet, Shawné Michaelain Holloway, Steffani Jemison, and Katherine Simóne Reynolds & A.J. McClenon
Ephemeral Organ is a series of residencies, performances, and talks by artists whose work explores choreography and bodily motion as technologies for transmitting memory, history, and Black lived experience. Each artist simultaneously navigates the ever-shifting nature of live performance and the urge to retain, return to, and generate traces of the past.
PAST HIGHLIGHTS
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PAST HIGHLIGHTS *
With Anna Martine Whitehead, Samita Sinha, Laura Ortman & 7NMS (Marjani Forté-Saunders & Everett Saunders)
Ishmael Houston-Jones, Bebe Miller, and Ralph Lemon
Co-curated with Grace Deveney, 2019
With Shamel Pitts | TRIBE, Will Rawls, and Barak adé Soleil
ADDITIONAL WORKS
On Stage: Entanglement
Mammalian Diving Reflex/Darren O’Donnell, Autumn Knight, and Kinetic Light
MCA brings back ‘On Stage’ live performances
Doug George, Chicago Tribune
Chicago Performs, 2022
Bimbola Akinbola, Erin Kilmurray, and Derek Lee McPhatter
The Necessity of Joy: Chicago Performs Debuts at the MCA
Sharon Hoyer, Newcity Stage
Frictions
With Shamel Pitts | TRIBE, Will Rawls, and Barak adé Soleil
How MCA Chicago’s ‘Frictions’ Performance Series Challenges the Dynamic of Movement: Interview
Bianca Gracie, Edition
What Remains, 2018 in the MCA Chicago Warehouse
Will Rawls and Claudia Rankine
Lauren Warnecke, Chicago Tribune
Ishmael Houston-Jones explains his inspiration behind Parallels (1982) and how he met Bebe Miller and Ralph Lemon.
Relations, 2018 and Watch Party of the performance footage, 2020
Ishmael Houston-Jones, Bebe Miller, and Ralph Lemon
Art Apart: Then and Now, Together
Tara Willis, MCA Chicago Blog
Eyes Wide, Lights Low (program notes)
MCA Chicago
Review: In ‘Relations,’ 3 Choreographers Improvise Like Family
Siobhan Burke, The New York Times
The Dreamscape, 2021
Virtual live arts programming for the exhibition The Long Dream
THE LONG DREAM ARTIST RESIDENCIES: Derek McPhatter
Laura Paige Kyber and Tara Willis, MCA Chicago Blog
Tara Willis, MCA Chicago Blog
The exhibition Groundings, 2019
Co-curated with Grace Deveney
Last Audience: a performance manual, 2020
By Yanira Castro, a canary torsi, a booklet of performance scores with two public program/performances involving local civic practitioners in dialogue with the artist
Last Audience: a performance manual (FREE PDF DOWNLOAD)
The MCA and Smart Museum provide tool kits for plague times
Kerry Reid, Chicago Reader
Make Some Noise and Move: A Choreographer Provides Instructions
Siobhan Burke, The New York Times
MCA Chicago Music Talk series
The Storefront Project
Co-curated with Olivia Lilley of Prop Thtr
The Storefront Project provides a movable feast of devised theater
Kerry Reid, Chicago Reader
Movement Research Festival Spring 2016: Hand Written Note(s)
Curated by Aretha Aoki, Elliot Jenetopulos, Eleanor Smith and Tara Aisha Willis
Photo Credits: Curation hero image, M_ _ _ER by Autumn Knight, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Photo by Jeremy Lawson Photography.