Our dedication to art is a practice of spiritual, fundamental, and collective proportions. Art as liberation. The body as a site of vulnerable transgression. Curiosity guides our trajectory, and our work is a disruptive tool to keep digging and opening our sense of belonging together. We disarm and empower our audiences through sound and movement primarily. The scale ranges from 1-1 intimate settings to group public interactions, and the full spectrum in between. Forever a work in progress.

We convene national and international teaching artists with Chicago art makers across genres in the independent and fringe arenas (including dance, butoh, poetry, film, curations, productions, experimental music). We collaborate with artists around the globe to create opportunities for workshops, performances, and conversations about the body, for the body through Butoh Curious Chi

Elaine Lemieux and Zalek have a decade long collaboration that has taken many forms and continues to evolve as iterative Moov Voice classes, audio and video recordings, and intimate showings of operatic voice, classical music scores, and Butoh inspired movement.	Tina and Zalek play an 8 foot saw, bathed in red light with a projection looming behind them. This collaboration features contact mics and household objects revisioned and remade; various experiments with effect and delay pedals, mobile units, spacious machine sounds, and other ridiculous antics.	Collaborators in Hot Mess! gather around Aza Greenlee, who created this durational installation of themselves with worms and dirt. Hot Mess! is a series of events featuring a unique group of artists each time. <intergenerational transcultural multidisciplinary>	Zalek's mouth in one instance of "Gold Test" which took many forms during 2018-19, including a short film, experiments with light and contact microphones on sheet metal, and intimate performances in settings from basements to riversides to galleries.
A deteriorating wall, which used to be a steel mill, collapses over time again a blue sky and scattered clouds. Select recordings of Norman W. Long and Sara Zalek performing galleries, parks, and other Chicago settings was released by Reserve Matinee in 2018. Steelworkers' Drone is available on digital and cassette on Bandcamp.	"Gold Test" which took many forms during 2018-19, including a short film, experiments with light and contact microphones on sheet metal, and intimate performances in settings from basements to riversides to galleries.	Freedom From and Freedom To, an improvisational, multidisciplinary event curated by Cristal Sabbagh and supported in part by Elastic Arts Foundation. I have been an integral member of her rotating cast since it began in 2019. In December 2024, I opened the show at Elastic with a 30 minute solo improvised set with Paige Brown on vocals and Damon Locks on electronics/sounds.	A building and collapsing pile of humans on a wood floor, in various white and off white garments, a dark curtain behind. Various expressions and gestures intertwine, chins next to elbows, feet outstretched and hands emerging. One red high heel shoe floats to the very top. This group trained for several days with Tadashi Endo and performed with him before a live audience at Outerspace Studios, Chicago, IL 2019
An underground pool in a Chicago Uptown highrise, As part of Pivot Arts Festival, where audience toured various historical buildings where we were given an invitation to create site specific work. In the basement resides a swimming pool with exquisite tile and low lighting. Elaine Lemieux in the foreground, Sara and Johanna Brock in the background, with cheering figures from a window to the room beyond them. Picture captured during the transition from William Frederking.	Sara Zalek, Gwenyth Zelany Anderson, and Norman W. Long on a walking tour led by the trio, from White Castle to the community garden and back to Experimental Sound Studio for an installation and sharing in reflections.		Sara Zalek gestures inside the vault of Light Box, Detriot, MI. This vault is an original fixture of the building, a former bank turned church turned artist residency space. This image became the hallmark of Formidable Dreams, a film co-directed by Zalek and Eugene Sun Park of Full Spectrum Features in 2016.
Sara Zalek in white makeup and paper umbrella, gazes mournfully at a flower as two bystanders sit on the edge of the fountain seemingly engaged with the scene before them. Performed for Out of Site in the Polish Triange 2015

Elaine Lemieux and Zalek have a decade long collaboration that has taken many forms and continues to evolve as iterative Moov Voice classes, audio and video recordings, and intimate showings of operatic voice, classical music scores, and Butoh inspired movement.

Tina and Zalek play an 8 foot saw, bathed in red light with a projection looming behind them. This collaboration features contact mics and household objects revisioned and remade; various experiments with effect and delay pedals, mobile units, spacious machine sounds, and other ridiculous antics.

Collaborators in Hot Mess! gather around Aza Greenlee, who created this durational installation of themselves with worms and dirt. Hot Mess! is a series of events featuring a unique group of artists each time. <intergenerational transcultural multidisciplinary>

Zalek's mouth in one instance of "Gold Test" which took many forms during 2018-19, including a short film, experiments with light and contact microphones on sheet metal, and intimate performances in settings from basements to riversides to galleries.

"Gold Test" which took many forms during 2018-19, including a short film, experiments with light and contact microphones on sheet metal, and intimate performances in settings from basements to riversides to galleries.

Sara Zalek, Gwenyth Zelany Anderson, and Norman W. Long on a walking tour led by the trio, from White Castle to the community garden and back to Experimental Sound Studio for an installation and sharing in reflections.

Sara Zalek in white makeup and paper umbrella, gazes mournfully at a flower as two bystanders sit on the edge of the fountain seemingly engaged with the scene before them. Performed for Out of Site in the Polish Triange 2015