Links Hall is proud to announce the organization’s Co-MISSION Curatorial Residency program. The program will support its Co-MISSION Curators-in-Residence, a group of independent Chicago dance curators, producers, and social practice artists in presenting new and existing performances by and for their communities. In collaboration with Links Hall and a community organization, the 2022-2023 Co-MISSION Curators-in-Residence invite artists from their communities to present new or existing performance work both at Links Hall and a neighborhood location outside of a formal theater environment. Links Hall's Co-MISSION Curatorial Residency Program is partially supported by a CityArts Project grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events.
"Links Hall knows that vital creative practices are happening in every Chicago neighborhood, so the curatorial residency program is as big as the city. An ambitious effort for a small organization, Links Hall is driven by its commitment to make the transformative arts practices happening in communities more visible and accessible to all,” said Link’s Hall Board Vice President Ross Jordan about the Co-MISSION Curatorial Residency.
In addition to the programming at Links Hall, 3111 N. Western, the specific community partner locations and ticket prices to each event will vary and may be found within the full list of Co-MISSION curators-in-residence and their projects listed below and online at linkshall.org/20222023-artists.
Curator: HL Doruelo (they/them/siya)
Bayanihan: The Spirit of Solidarity
Links Hall performances: Friday, May 5 and Saturday, May 6 at 7 p.m.
3111 N. Western Ave.
Links Hall Event Ticket Info: Tickets will be on a sliding scale and can be purchased at LinksHall.org
Bayanihan: The Spirit of Solidarity is a variety show, community resource and health fair. It makes space for collective grief and celebrates creativity with the Chicagoland Filipinx/a/o community. Featuring a wide range of performances including dance, movement, song, poetry and immersive installation–complemented by educational discussion and resources on comprehensive health and wellness–Bayanihan takes inspiration from years of intergenerational organizing and storytelling work with AFIRE (Alliance of Filipinos for Immigrant Rights and Empowerment).
Embodying solidarity and mutual aid practices, “bayanihan” is a core value in the Philippines and across the diaspora that means people working together in a shared undertaking. In deep collaboration with AFIRE, Doruelo curates a series of events and workshops using performance and storytelling as a medium for learning about histories of oppression and resistance; transforming anti-Black racism, ableism, transphobia and homophobia within Asian communities; healing interpersonal and collective trauma and bridging people to community health resources and local grassroots, intersectional movements for justice.
Community Partner: AFIRE (Alliance of Filipinos for Immigrant Rights and Empowerment) Communities Served: Argyle (Uptown) and Albany Park
Community Event Information:
Virtual Event: PAN de MIC • Saturday, April 29 • Time TBD • Zoom link provided upon registration for event
In Person Event • Saturday, May 27
Time and Location TBD
Community Event Ticket Info: All events are ticketed on an income-based sliding-scale donation. Attendees are encouraged to buy online advance tickets to support turnout and accommodate access needs. All donations help fund the revitalization and reopening of the Rizal Center, a Philippine community center located in Lakeview, which closed in 2017.
PAN de MIC is a play on words from "pandemic", "pan de sal" (bread), and "passing the mic." Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, it has served as a storytelling space to process current events and ongoing issues within the Filipinx/a/o community. This virtual PAN de MIC storytelling circle on April 29th focuses on grief and offers members of the community the opportunity to share stories and perspectives.
The May 27th in-person community event will be a day of blended in-person and virtual community workshops on storytelling and movement-based arts
ABOUT HL DORUELO
HL Doruelo (they/them/siya) is a Filipinx organizer, scholar, artist and curator whose work is deeply invested in intergenerational kinship and queer practices of care. Gathering community through food, story and intentional movement, their cultural work and interdisciplinary research seeks to cultivate meaningful reflection and relation. They expose asymmetries in the migrant care labor industry and use storytelling as a method for mutual witnessing, collectivizing care, processing grief, protesting and transforming harm. They previously facilitated political education and arts-driven workshops as a youth and immigrant rights organizer with AFIRE Chicago (Alliance of Filipinos for Immigrant Rights and Empowerment). An NYU Sulo Philippine Research fellow, Doruelo holds an M.A. in Performance Studies from NYU Tisch School of the Arts and a B.A. in Public Policy Analysis, Psychology and French from Pomona College.
COMMUNITY PARTNER: AFIRE (Alliance of Filipinos for Immigrant Rights and Empowerment)
AFIRE Chicago is a grassroots community organization that works to build the capacity of Filipinx/a/os* to organize towards progressive change. As an organization founded by Filipino immigrants, we carry with us the legacy of People Power. We believe in supporting the leadership of people most affected by structural injustice and make space for them at the forefront of our movements. We seek to amplify the voices of those most silenced in our community: undocumented families, new immigrants and refugees, domestic workers, low-wage workers, seniors and youth.
* Filipinx/a/o is used for Filipinx/Filipina/Filipino to honor all gender identities.
Curator Marcela Torres (they/them/theirs)
Ofrendas en Sinestesia; experiments in shared dance rituals
Links Hall performances: Friday, June 2 and Saturday, June 3 at 7 p.m.
3111 N. Western Ave.
Links Hall Event Ticket Info: Tickets will be on a sliding scale and can be purchased at LinksHall.org
Marcela Torres' project Ofrendas en Sinestesia; experiments in shared dance rituals considers how communities in Pilsen and Little Village practice spirituality as ancestral technology and create contemporary storytelling through transcendent dance. The artists will blend together different cultures and their forms of ancestral connection. Indoor performances at Links Hall include dance and storytelling rooted in ceremonial research and collective practice.
Community Partner: El Paseo Community Garden
Communities Served: Pilsen
Community Event Information: Friday, June 9 and Saturday, June 10 from 5 - 10 p.m.
Community Event Location: El Paseo Community Garden, 944 W 21st St.
Community Event Ticket Information: Free; online advance registration on Links Hall website encouraged
At the El Paseo Community Garden events, Torres will curate an outdoor series of dance workshops, inviting artists–including Izayo Mazehualli and Kinniari Vora–to present traditional dances and assist in fire services. Members of the public are invited to join the artists, exploring how diasporas living in the United States create new viewpoints and new genres of performance.
ABOUT MARCELA TORRES
Marcela Torres is an artist, organizer and educator that uses strength-building exercises and community rituals, to propose forms of reparations. Using self-care methodologies to share reparative tools with others and to exercise the intergenerational trauma of colonization. Their physical research builds on Mesoamerican Indigenous rituals, racial struggles within the United States and contemporary Mexican American diaspora. Torres received a BA in Sculpture Intermedia and a BFA in Art History from the University of Utah, continuing their studies in MFA in Performance form School of the Art Institute Chicago. Torres has performed at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts (Omaha, NE), The Momentary (Bentonville, AK), Fringe Festival (Detroit, MI), Experimental Actions (Houston, TX) and Time Based Arts (Portland, Oregon). Torres has exhibited work at Recess (Brooklyn, NY), Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago, IL) UW-Parkside University (Kenosha, WI) , Tropical Contemporary (Eugene, OR) and Petzel Gallery (New York City, NY). In 2022, Torres was a Chicago Dance Maker Forum Lab Artist, a Art/Industry resident at John Michael Kohler Arts Center and a Fellow at Franconia Sculpture Park. In April 2023, they will be performing at Performance Space New York.
COMMUNITY PARTNER: EL PASEO COMMUNITY GARDEN
El Paseo Community Garden’s mission is to strengthen environmental stewardship and civic engagement while protecting equitable green space on behalf of the community. Their governance and leadership structure allows for anyone with a desire to make an impact to do so, growing not only healthy food, but community leaders as well. The outdoor space has become a community center and partner for anyone willing to share accessible community resources. Their goal is to Empower through Nature. Since 2009, El Paseo Community Garden (founded as Growing Station) has been fostering community and wellness for Pilsen residents through stewardship, conservation, placemaking, partnerships, programming and community gardening. The garden is one of many NeighborSpace protected and community managed spaces in Chicago, with over an acre of equitable greenspace maintained by volunteers and donations. The garden is a converted brownfield site and sits along a path with a native prairie and permaculture food forest on one side and raised beds and an apiary on the other.
First Row - L to R: Brianna Alexis Heath, Jovan Landry and Keyierra Collins
Second Row - L to R: HL Doruelo, Christopher Mad Dog Thomas and Marcela Torres
Collaborators
Izayotilmahtzin Mazehualli (Nahua / Purepecha), also known as Izayo, is an Indigenous/Chicanx cultural educator, dance instructor, martial artist, environmentalist, mental health advocate, and visual artist. He has spent over a decade learning from elders of the Mexican Nahua oral tradition, specifically learning the disciplines of Nahua martial arts, Mihtotilistli dance, and Kauhpowalli, Toltec time-keeping. Based in Chicago, Mazehualli has been teaching classes and conducting Nahua ceremonies since 2017, both in-person and online. Mazehualli shares mindful movements with people of all ages and abilities, emphasizing the integration of mind and body to bring greater self-awareness and understanding of emotional, physical, and mental health. He frequently travels to Mexico where he conducts anthropological research on Indigenous cosmogony, dance tradition, and oral history.
Kinniari Vora (she/her/hers) shares stories of universal human conditions and emotions through movement, meditation, and theatrical practices. Her movements are rooted in Bharatanatyam (disciple of Sarmishtha Sarkar, India), various Indian folk dances and kalaripayattu martial arts. Her work is guided by ancestral energy, wisdom of nature and collaborative communion. Kinnari is Co-founder and Artistic Co-chair of Ishti Collective and a dancer collaborator with Surabhi Ensemble.
Curator Christopher “Mad Dog” Thomas (he/him/his)
Juke 4 Liberation
Links Hall performances: Friday, June 9 and Saturday, June 10 at 7:30 p.m.
3111 N. Western Ave.
Links Hall Event Ticket Info: Tickets will be on a sliding scale and can be purchased at LinksHall.org
In the summer of 2022 Chris “Mad Dog” Thomas, with creative direction by Kuumba Lynx, developed Juke for Liberation (J4L). A reconciliation of Chicago’s Juke DJs and producers and Footwork battle cliques and dance communities, J4L has engaged six Local Juke dance groups, five DJ’s and six footworking artists totaling 255+ dancers and music makers from across Chicago. Together, these premiere dance teams, battle cliques and Juke producers are stewarding a more unified and loving Chicago Juke community.
Community Partner: Kuumba Lynx
Communities Served: Lawndale
Community Event Information: Friday, May 26 from 6 - 9 p.m.
Community Event Location: The Honeycomb Network, 2659 W Division St.
Community Event Ticket Information: Free; online advance registration encouraged on Links Hall website
Co-MISSION Curator Mad Dog and the Juke 4 Liberation youth ensemble will present an all ages, open-to-the-public Juke dance battle featuring J4L’s own DJ COREY. This event is hosted in partnership with Kuumba Lynx’ Stylz & Spit open stage at Honeycomb Network.
ABOUT CHRISTOPHER “MAD DOG” THOMAS
Christopher “Mad Dog” Thomas (he/him/his) is an extremely motivated dancer, activist and youth mentor. Born and raised in Chicago’s Altgeld Gardens project homes, he was inspired to dance at age five by artists like Michael Jackson and New Edition. Throughout his youth career, Mad Dog danced with local groups K-Phi 9, House Arrest II and Second II None. He later joined King Charles’ footwork battle clique, Creation in 2005. In 2007 Mad Dog became a member of the FootworKINGz for their appearance on “Ellen’s Really Big Show” in Las Vegas. Mad Dog was also the official spokesperson for FWK during their appearance on “America’s Got Talent.” In 2009, Mad Dog joined Kuumba Lynx (KL) in 2005 and KL has mentored and influenced Mad Dog’s teaching methods. Mad Dog has become one of the organization's most sought after Arts & Restorative Justice Facilitators and he has received several awards for his arts and activism work in the community and with Chicago youth. He is the recipient of a 2020 Chicago Dancemaker Award, 2022 American For The Arts Johnson Award and a 2023 IMAN Roster Artist Award. Mad Dog’s social liberation approach to artistic creation explores the idea of codifying his style of Chicago Footwork while developing new choreographies that tell the stories of how bodies react to certain traumas, including his own. At Altgeld, Mad Dog and his family were exposed to pollutants that caused them to have respiratory problems. Imagine trying to dance at 160 beats per min when you have asthma.
Collaborators
Jaquanda Saulter-Villegas (she/her/hers), a Fly Girl Chicagoan by way of South Carolina, Saulter-Villegasis one of the three founders and a co-creative leads of the arts/education organization Kuumba Lynx (KL). Kuumba Lynx has been engaging youth and their families in Hip Hop Arts Activism and culturally relevant programming for 26 years. Saulter-Villegas gets FREE as an Arts Educator, Mentor, Yoga Instructor, Shamonic Reiki Healer, Performance Artist, Arts Administrator, International Peace Movement Honorary Ambassador and Hip Hop Theater Director and Words Beats & Life 2022/23 Fellow. As a healer, she is dedicated to holding space for community to address harm, break generational curses and interrupting systematic sabotage by re-engaging in Indigenous and African healing practices.
Jacinda Bullie (aka Jah da Amp Mouth) (she/her/hers) is a practicing mom of three Growing in Love with a mathematical genius. An activist by temperament and daughter of a Choctaw, this sage burning Muslim seeks to practice gratitude and presence. Prior to making rhymes, Buillewas a natural critique of circumstances, interrogating the world through an Uptown Chicago upbringing. In 1996, alongside Jaquanda Villegas (Jaquanda V) and Leida Garcia-Mukwacha (Leyda GM), , she co-founded Kuumba Lynx, a Hip Hop collective dedicated to amplifying and loving all that is sweet.
COMMUNITY PARTNER: KUUMBA LYNX
Kuumba Lynx (KL) is an urban arts youth development organization founded in 1996 by three women, Jaquanda Villegas, Leida Garcia-Mukwacha and Jacinda Bullie. For two decades, alongside many of Chicago’s artists, activists, educators and youth communities, KL has honed an arts-making practice that presents, preserves and promotes Hip Hop as a tool to reimagine and demonstrate a more just world. KL’s Program Facilitators are a collective of artists, activists, educators and healers.
Curator Take Some Leave Some
The Shwang Out and Tati’s Butter Joint
Links Hall performances: Friday, May 19 and Saturday, May 20 at 7 p.m.
3111 N. Western Ave.
Links Hall Event Ticket Info: Tickets will be on a sliding scale and can be purchased at LinksHall.org.
The Shwang Out is an intimate, experimental gathering at Links Hall that gives "a-call-to-your-girlfriend-before-going-out" and "playing-in-your-grandmother's closet.” This is an offering to Black women in the community to commune with others in preparation for the “get down” at Tati’s Butter Joint. Both experiences will feature the works of four local and international Black women artists and create space for Black women to explore their relationship to joy, sexuality, spiritually, friendship, sisterhood, mothering and belonging.
Community Partner: Pullman Arts and Block House Gallery
Communities Served: Pullman
Community Event Information: Tati’s Butter Joint • Thursday, June 29 and Friday, June 30 at 7:30 p.m.
Community Event Location: Block House Gallery, 11137 S Langley Ave.
Community Event Ticket Information: Suggested donation of $10; advance registration encouraged on Links Hall website
Tati's Butter Joint is an immersive house party in a home in the Pullman neighborhood that includes performances, a live DJ and food from local Black vendors.
ABOUT TAKE SOME LEAVE SOME
Take Some Leave Some is a multidisciplinary performance collective that uses original sound, choreography, film and installations to create experiences reflecting and celebrating Black women in our lives—their labor, courage and wisdom even in their imperfections.
Collaborators Keyierra Collins (she/her/hers), Brianna Alexis Heath (she/her/hers) and Jovan Landry (she/her/hers) intentionally create experiences inside homes and neighborhood spaces on the Southside of Chicago to reference “home” as a kind of safe space, a place for community where Black women learn foundational lessons and are taught to be resilient and unapologetic.
Collaborators:
Constance Strickland, Performance Artist, Los Angeles, California
Alivia Blade, Visual & Installation Artist, Louisville, Kentucky
Oluwabukunmi Olukitibi, Dance Artist, Abuja, Nigeria
Alysha Monique, Vocalist, Chicago, IL
COMMUNITY PARTNER: BLOCK HOUSE GALLERY
The Block House Gallery is the home of PullmanArts, bringing together arts & culture on Chicago's far south side. We believe that everyone deserves access to art, and that creators should be treated like family.
ABOUT LINKS HALL
For almost 45 years, Links Hall has been a home for performing artists of all kinds to fearlessly explore and invent, creating new works of explosive imagination. Links has remained a pillar of Chicago’s cultural ecosystem by staying nimble and responsive, funneling resources equitably and directly to performing artists. As a small non-profit venue and creative laboratory, Links provides a place for a wide cross-section of Chicago to gather for expectation-defying art experiences.
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. In April 2013, Links and musician/presenter Mike Reed created a collaborative arts venue on N Western Avenue as the shared home of Constellation and Links Hall. 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, The Arts Work Fund at The Chicago Community Trust, 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, Links Commissioning Collective, 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, Walder Foundation, and The Weasel Fund. Links Hall's Co-MISSION Curatorial Residency Program is partially supported by a CityArts Project grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events.