PIVOT ARTS FESTIVAL ADDS PREVIEW PARTY,
INCUBATOR WORKS-IN-PROGRESS AND MORE
TO WORLD PREMIERE LINEUP MAY 31–JUNE 9
Search Party
(Matthew Gregory Hollis)
Pivot
Arts, which celebrates innovative, multidisciplinary performance, has
expanded the lineup for its seventh annual Pivot Arts Festival,
including five world premieres by playwright/director Seth Bockley,
BraveSoul Movement, Chicago Fringe Opera, choreographers Ayako Kato and
Erin Kilmurray, musician/actor Ahmed Moneka making his U.S. debut and
more. The Festival runs May 31–June 9 at various locations in Chicago’s
Uptown and Edgewater neighborhoods.
A Festival Preview Party fundraiser takes place May 22
at 6 p.m. at Francesca’s Bryn Mawr, 1039 W. Bryn Mawr Avenue. Festival
artists join Pivot Arts board members and supporters for Italian
cuisine, drinks and entertainment, supporting the Festival through
tickets and a silent auction. The party also features the first-ever
Pivot Arts Awards: the Award for Artistic Contribution, to playwright
and artistic associate Isaac Gomez, and the Award for Community
Contribution, to Francesca’s Bryn Mawr, which has supported Pivot Arts
with significant in-kind contributions since 2014. Tickets are $55 in
advance at pivotarts.org/project/festival-preview-party-2 or $60 at the door.
Po' Chop/Jenn Freeman
(Greg Inda)
The Pivot Arts Incubator Program,
a partnership between Pivot Arts and Loyola University Chicago’s
Department of Fine and Performing Arts now in its seventh year, awards
artists the opportunity to develop new, multidisciplinary works during a
three-week period at Loyola. Artists receive a stipend, mentoring and,
for the second consecutive year, a showing of excerpts from their
works-in-progress during the Festival. A post-performance discussion
with the artists follows each showing. This year’s showings include:
Jenni Lamb and Ethan Parcell, June 5 at 7:30 p.m., Loyola University Chicago’s Mundelein Center for the Arts, 1020 W. Sheridan Road. Lamb’s play Jumble of Bones
uses movement and puppetry to tell the story of a friendship between a
therapist-in-training and her client, exploring the ways we are all
bound together on this planet. Parcell’s A Pleasant Come-Across, or A Dozen-or-so New Rags
is a collection of new revisionist ragtime compositions, performed by
an instrumental ensemble with a cartoonish commitment to silent-film
slapstick and circus antics. Tickets are $10, $5 with student ID.
Po’Chop/Jenn Freeman and Courtney Mackedanz, June 9 at 3 p.m., the Edge Off Broadway, 1133 W. Catalpa Avenue. Po’Chop/Freeman’s The People’s Church of the Ghetto
is a multidisciplinary (dance, poetry and music) project that creates
spaces to learn, edify and worship the legacies of black women. Clusterfuq,
a new performance art piece by choreographer Mackedanz, portrays a
group of friends who discover they change one another’s blood types as
they disclose their personal traumas. Tickets are $10, $5 with student
ID.
The previously announced 2019 lineup, comprising almost entirely world premieres,
follows with updated information and ticket packages.
Chicago Fringe Opera and Brave Soul Movement
(William Frederking)
Chicago Fringe Opera and BraveSoul Movement present The Rosina Project: May
31 at 7:30 p.m., June 1 at 8 p.m. and June 2 at 7:30 p.m.,
Alternatives, 4730 N. Sheridan Road. A contemporary adaptation of
Rossini’s opera The Barber of Seville
that mixes hip-hop MCs, opera singers and street-dance artists with a
live DJ and beatboxer to perform an original story of female empowerment
and interracial friendship as an immersive house party. Originally
developed in the 2018 Pivot Arts Incubator Program at Loyola University.
Tickets are $15.
Ayako Kato
(Sally Cohn)
Art Union Humanscape presents “To the Shore: ETHOS Episode I” by Ayako Kato:
June 1 at 11 a.m., June 2 at 1 p.m., Colvin House/Creative Co-Working,
5940 N. Sheridan Road, culminating at Thorndale Beach. This meditative
performance combines dance, movement and music to illuminate the
connection between everyday human gesture and wisdom from the past. Part
one of a three-part project, ETHOS reflects upon how contemporary humans have evolved both spiritually and physically from ancient times. Tickets are $15.
(L) 1940s family photo courtesy of Brittany Harlin; Brittany Harlin (By Melissa Morely)
Brittany Harlin presents Don’t Forget Your Mother:
June 6 at 8:30 p.m. and June 8 at 8 p.m., the Edge Theater, 5451 N.
Broadway. Harlin’s choreographic memoir is dedicated to her mothers here
on Earth and her ancestors beyond. Using storytelling, poetry, song and
dance, accompanied by a live band, the performance by four dancers and
four musicians connects Harlin’s personal experience with trauma to
pieces of African Diasporic culture, granting herself the heritage that
threatens to be erased over time. Tickets are $15; a combined ticket for
Don’t Forget Your Mother and Search Party on June 6 is $30.
Search Party
(Matthew Gregory Hollis)
Search Party by Erin Kilmurray:
June 6 at 7 p.m., June 8 at 9:30 p.m. and, closing the Festival, June 9
at 8 p.m. at the Edge Off Broadway, 1133 W. Catalpa Avenue. This live
dance work by Kilmurray, creator of The Fly Honey Show, exists
somewhere between a nightclub and a sports arena. Featuring a group of
women, this performance relentlessly challenges and reconstructs the
boundaries we face during this charged political moment by
investigating agency, freedom and societal expectations. Tickets are
$20, $15 with student ID; a combined ticket for Don’t Forget Your Mother and Search Party on June 6 is $30, and a combined ticket for Search Party and Gilgamesh and Enkidu on June 9 is $35.
Nancy Garcia Loza and Isaac Gomez
Girasol: An Evening of Latinx Performances curated and hosted by Isaac Gomez and Nancy Garcia Loza: June 7 at 9 p.m., the Edge Theater, 5451 N. Broadway. Girasol
is a 90-minute cabaret-style event featuring comedy, poetry, music and
more in celebration of the robust and pivotal work of Latinx artists in
Chicago. The lineup to date includes comedian Melissa DuPrey; poets
Davon Clark, Keren Diaz de Leon and José Olivarez; and storytellers
Jasmin Cardenas, Wendy Mateo and Karari Olvera, with musicians to be
finalized . Tickets are $15, $10 with student ID; a combined ticket for Girasol and Gilgamesh and Enkidu on June 8 is $30.
Ahmed Moneka (L) and Jesse LaVercombe in Gilgamesh and Enkidu
(Bruce Silcox)
TRIA Theatre presents Gilgamesh and Enkidu by Ahmed Moneka (U.S. debut), Jesse LaVercombe and Seth Bockley:
June 7 at 7 p.m., June 8 at 3 p.m. and June 9 at 6 p.m. at the Edge Off
Broadway, 1133 W. Catalpa. A collaboration between Toronto-based
musician/actor Ahmed Moneka, an internationally acclaimed artist from
Canada, where he sought political asylum, and actor/writer
Jesse LaVercombe with Chicago playwright and director Seth Bockley. This
two-man epic reanimates the world’s oldest written narrative with maqam-style Iraqi music and 21st century biography, highlighting Moneka’s own exile from Baghdad. Gilgamesh and Enkidu
fuses highly physical theatre, soul-filled musical expression, ancient
text and intimate storytelling, illuminating the tale’s eternal
mysteries of mortality and the universal balm of friendship. Tickets are
$25, $15 with student ID; a combined ticket for Gilgamesh and Endiku and Girasol on June 8 is $30, and a combined ticket for Search Party and Gilgamesh and Enkidu on June 9 is $35.
Storytown Improv
(Courtesy of the artists)
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