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Events & Classes

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Tuesday, December 3
6 - 8:30pm

SHAKE SHOOK SHAKEN

"SPARK"

What does it mean to be inspired

What is the first step?

How do we give an impulse to one another?

How do we initiate?

There will be time for self-reflection and sharing our experiences with the groupLet's explore and play together with games designed by Julie Meckler and Sara Zalek.

Freedom From and Freedom To

Saturday, December 7, 2024 8pm

Elastic Arts, 3429 West Diversey Avenue #208 Chicago, IL

Get Tickets

Curated by Cristal Sabbagh. FFFT returns for its third iteration of sound and movement collaborations for 2024! Freedom From and Freedom To is an exploration and celebration of artistic circumstance. Movement and sound improvisors from all around Chicago gather in front of a live audience, where they are grouped by chance. Each group performs an improvised set. We fuse diverse artistic backgrounds and practices to create unique and fleeting worlds.  Opening set with Damon Locks, Paige Brown and myself. Following that are 6 x 15 minute sets from on-the-spot lottery chosen ensembles. Don’t miss this!

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Recent Past

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November 23rd, 2024
Heritage Museum of Asian Art
3500 S Morgan St, 3rd Floor, Chicago, IL
FREE EVENT

Panelists and Affiliations:

The conversation will be moderated by Larry Lee, documented by The Dance History Project, and will be stored in the Archives of the Newberry Library.

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Side Yard Sounds

Love, Tiny Precious Object, Kim Nucci and Mabel Kwan
Compound Yellow #244 Lake Street, Oak Park, IL
October 26 2024

7-9pm

Kim Nucci and Mabel Kwan each have a solo set in store plus a new performance art/dance duet called Tiny Precious Objects by Aurora Tabar and Christine Shallenberg. I will read/sing a few poems. Brilliant humans will gather together and I will celebrate my birthday with you. 👄🎹❤️‍🔥

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Water Body aka Noguchi Taiso

Mari Osanai @Japanese Culture Center, 2940 N. Lincoln Ave, Unit 2, Chicago, IL
2024 Dates:
Friday Nov 1, 6-10pm
Saturday Nov 2, 4-8pm
Sunday Nov 3, 6-9pm

Three days of workshops, take one, two or all three days for an immersive experience into this technique. It is a body changing practice, similar to Tai Chi or Qi Gong, a moving meditation to better sense the interior body, subtle awareness, and fluid dynamics for ease in all movement. 

Registration Information

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August 3, 8pm

Shinkai no tamashīi // 深海の魂

Tadashi Endo Solo Performance

Chicago Premiere

Asian Improv aRts Midwest, 4875 N. Elston Ave, Chicago

TICKETS

Tadashi Endo, born 1947 in Peking, China, is of Japanese Nationality. He is Butoh-dancer, choreographer, director of the Butoh-Centre MAMU and artistic director of the Butoh-Festivals MAMU Butoh & Jazz in Göttingen. Tadashi Endo succeeds in expressing the field of tension between ying and yang, male and female and their everlasting alteration. He is the master of being "in between", that is Butoh - MA.

 

Butoh MA Workshop &
Collective MA Student Performance

August 6-10, 2024

@Co-Prosperity Sphere, 3219-21 S. Morgan St, Chicago

Five day intensive Butoh workshop culminating in a student performance.

Dance or movement background is not required, but a curiosity for your vulnerable parts is. Full participation recommended, not a requirement. Info and etc

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A LIVE PERFORMANCE GALA with veteran dance artists from Japan, Germany and the USA

 

Friday August 16th & Saturday August 17th

@ FIREHOUSE ARTS CENTER, Bellingham, WA

NIGHT # 1 — Friday, August 16
* DIVINEBRICK / josie j (Los Angeles, CA)

* Ginger Krebs (Chicago)

* Sara Zalek (Chicago) & Shoshana Green (San Francisco)

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Summer Soundwalk Series:

Epanding Awareness with

Norman Long and Sara Zalek

Saturday, July 27, 5pm - 7pm

11555 S. Stony Island Ave.

 

Join us at Big Marsh Park for a soundwalk full of delights.

A advertisement for Sarcoma Cycle, 3 plays in repertory at Color Club in Chicago, IL Written and Directed by Logan Berry.  Produced by The Runaways Theater, Hate/Lab and 11:11 Press. Red and White Text and Sigals on a black background.

The first repertory production in Chicago in over a decade, THE SARCOMA CYCLE is a thematic trilogy of plays set in three distinct time periods:

NANOBLADE 1998: set in the Cook County Hospital during a technological overhaul in medical practice. Romance, chaos, and madness ensue. 

SPRING BREAK 2020: a multimedia grand guignol set during the Covid lockdowns. A spectacle that spirals into strange revelations. 

THE MOURNING LIGHT 2050: set in River City, Chicago, in the distant future. About the family of a tech CEO who's invented program to communicate with the dead in Virtual Reality. Prophesies from another realm threaten to tear the family apart. 

 

CAST: Dylan Fahoome, Jake Flum, Gwen Hilton, Philip Johnson, Dan Mozurkewich, Electra Tremulis, Sara Zalek

 

CO-PRESENTED BY:

HATE/LAB, The Runaways Lab Theater, 11:11 Press

Side Yard Sounds:

LEAD ROCKET FEAT. JOHANNA BROCK & S. Zalek,

DUO: EMILY BEISEL, CAROLINE JESALVA,

TINA LAFAUVE & SZ

ALLEN TURNER,

 

Saturday, July 6, 2024, 7pm to 9pm

Compound Yellow

244 Lake Street, Oak Park, IL

BYOB

Moooov Voice
Moooov Voice
May 17, 2024, 6:30 PM CDT
Chicago
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Sunday, May 19, 3-5pm
Meet at the Humbolt Park Pavillion
3000 S Howell Ave, Milwaukee, WI 53207

FREE EVENT
All are welcome

Long before European settlers set foot on the shores of Lake Michigan, Native American tribes called Milwaukee home. In fact, the name “Milwaukee” is derived from an Algonquian word Millioke, meaning “good land,” and from a Potawatomi word Minwaking meaning “gathering place by the waters.”   

 

A soundwalk is a walk that focuses on listening to the environment, and can be done individually or in groups. The term was first used in the 1970s by members of the World Soundscape Project in Vancouver, led by composer R. Murray Schafer. Hildegard Westerkamp, a founder of the World Forum of Acoustic Ecology, defines soundwalking as “any excursion whose main purpose is listening to the environment”. 

 

Led by multimedia artist Sara Zalek, those that gather at the Humbolt Park Pavillion will walk together, to observe sounds in a new and profound way. The walk will be guided slowly, with a brief introduction to Deep Listentening as a way to explore our bodies in realtion to our surroundings and our connectedness to the present moment in a collective mindful experience. 

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Friday, February 16th, 2024
Alma Art and Interiors @alma_art_interiors

6-10pm
3636 S Iron St
Suggested donation $10


Come and enjoy a unique performance experience (coinciding with Bridgeport 3rd Fridays) surrounded by wonderful art in a great gallery space with food and refreshments. The performance features an amazing lineup of dancers and musicians.


www.almaartandinteriors.com
www.kaorazen.com

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THIS & THAT
DFBRL8R & SITE/less

EXILE

Saturday, Nov 11, 7pm

1250 W. Augusta Blvd, Chicago, IL

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Bare Bones Butoh Showcase
Oct 21, 7-9pm

Studio 210

3435 Ceasar Chavez, San Francisco, CA

Exile

Created in collab with Shoshana Green, performed by us in San Francisco for the very first time.
There are knowns and unknowns, a series of shapes and atmospheres, curiosities and ways we search ourselves beyond the interior and exterior of our senses, melding and molting with the heat of our bodies then radiating, pumping, gasping for air. Meet you in the forbidden place, on our terms, you will receive your very own light. 

 

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Graphic of black silhouetted bodies of musicians and dancers with blue and purples lines radiating out. Graphic Reads Freedom From and Freedom To at Alma Art and Interiors. Saturday October 14, 2023, 3636 S. Iron St. $20. There is a list of dancers and musicians.
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Friday, July 21, 12-2pm
BUTOH BODY

Masterclass Series at

Incite Dance Center, 3915 Oakton St, Skokie, IL 60076


Butoh training is an invaluable tool for dancers, actors, creative people of all types. Zalek leads you in exercises to expand your body physically and energetically through breath and meditation techniques, vocal warm-ups, Tai Chi, Noguchi gymnastics, visual imagery and improvisational scores.


This workshop lights on ideas of the transformative body and the importance of the lived moment, in order to experience some essential concepts in Butoh. Experimenting with distortion in timing, the uncanny, and the grotesque, we explore how presence and space can be activated on different temporalities. Applying these techniques can expand the vocabulary of embodied movement. This workshop encourages participants to find beauty in the horror of the grimace, to transform ourselves from one state to another, and move from deeply internal impulses to find more unique expressions in our outer movements. 

Sara Zalek seated on the floor, a sheet of rusted metal rolled between their legs, one outstretched to a pointed foot; their arms stretch outward and holding it, their gaze down toward it with tight lips. They are a pink skinned body with ginger hair and a punkish cut, wearing a grey vest and pant suit.

There will be time for reflection using automatic writing and/or drawing exercises and short improvised showings to more fully integrate ideas into usable material for making strong choreographic and performance decisions. This is a supportive environment to start an individual and collective process of investigation through creative movement. We will open and expand our awareness, move with our subtler senses, create and witness our personal body language. 

A black graphic witha group of white lines decending from the dark to become more light, like a chandelier. The text reads A series of live action, performance, and sound art. Relative Intensity Noise. Featuring GoldGrrl, Lichen Bouboushian, Tina Lefauve, Cristal Sabbagh, John Thomure, Sara Zalek, Curated by Rin Peisert. Elastic Arts. Saturday, August 5, 8:30pm 3429 W Diversey Ave.
Hot Mess! Episode 9
Saturday, July 29
Two sets: 4:20pm & 8:00pm CST

Esteemed artists: Vanessa Skantze (Seattle)

Wannapa P-Eubanks (Chi/Thailand) Michael Zerang (Chi) Carolyn Carney (Chi) Muso (Chi) Juliann Wang (Chi) Anna Oxygen (Ithaca, NY) D Jean-Baptiste (Chi) Jinlu Luo (Chi)

$15 Elastic Arts, 3429 W. Diversey Ave. #208 Chicago, IL 60647
Streaming: https://elasticarts.org/streaming
No advance ticket sales. Debit/Cash accepted at the door

The artist Hiroko Tamano centered from the chest up, wearing a blue and pink headscarf, white facepaint, drawing a red line down the center of her face, a bright pink color pokes out from her chin, and a white suitcoat. Behind her is a stream of colorful black kite images on a stream of white paper which flows in many dimensions behind her.

Screenshot of Hiroko Tamano zooming in from Berkeley, CA preparing for Hot Mess! Episode 8, May 27, 2023 with ribbons of white paper with black diamonds flowing behind her.

Image flyer which is a watercolor of pinks, greens, yellows, and blues. It reads July 19th at Elastic Arts, 8pm $15. 
Set 1
Musicians:
Joey Meland -sound/electronics and voice
Nick Turner -sound/electronics
Sharon Udoh -piano/voice

Dancers:
Cristal Sabbagh
Sara Zalek

Set 2
Musicians:
Naydja Bruton -drums
Luc Mosley -sax
Eric Novak -sax
Yvette Mushimiyimana -singer
Kevin Scates -bass
Sharon Udoh -piano
July 19, 8pm
Elastic Arts, Chicago

Set 1

Musicians:

Joey Meland -sound/electronics and voice, Nick Turner -sound/electronics, Sharon Udoh -piano/voice

Dancers: Cristal Sabbagh, Sara Zalek

 

Set 2

Musicians: Naydja Bruton -drums, Luc Mosley -sax,

Eric Novak -sax, Yvette Mushimiyimana -singer,

Kevin Scates -bass, Sharon Udoh -piano

Graphic of a Poster reading Soundwalks: Guided Listening in Chicago's Parks Summer 2023 An Abstract drawing including leaf like images on a pinkish background with an axis, at the top ANIMAL, to the right NATURE, at the bottom HUMAN, to the left MACHINE. To the right is a purple block with words All Events are Free, All Ages Welcome, Dates and times are subject to change, Visit MWSAE.ORG email info@mwsae.org
July 15, 5-7pm
Big Marsh Park

Join Norman Long and I for Cycles and Waves. The Soundwalk will begin at the shade structure in the front lawn, in direct view from the parking lot.

Norman W. Long and Sara Zalek lead an interactive walk using mindfulness body exercises, elements of performed sound and electronics, and listening stations for collective reflection. We renew our presence at the marsh while exploring new territories together. How do these changes affect what and how we hear?

#NightOutInTheParks #InTheParks #MyChiParks #TeensInTheParks #QueeringtheParks #soundwalk #mindfulness #mindfulnesspractice #reflection #listening #deeplistening #chicagosummer #chicagoparks #chicagoartist

Radical Joy (No Joy I’ve Seen)

Curated By Egon Schiele

Opening Reception: Friday, May 26th // 6-10PM

 

Performances by Burning Orchid x Nunn, Carlos Salazar-Lermont, and Sara Zalek. (May 26 - June 24) An exhibition of paintings, photography, and performance art exploring poisoned joy in expressing our traumas and the sweet sorrow of our consummation. As Capitalism has commodified identity, it corrupts its full expression, hiding the trauma and confusion from which it is actually built. As artists, we orchestrate the demolition of this veil by embracing the pain in our expression with a reckless joy. 
@holeboss_remix @fotodecristo @colectivomultipolar @memar__ @sweat.fm_real_dominic @csalazarlermont @01saratonin @shai_grl @efrenarcoiris @nunnband

Poster Image on a black background it reads Radical Joy. Sara Zalek looking at the viewer with hands on their feet, knees bent and pelvis in the air, a cape drapes around their neck otherwise mostly bare. Text with artist and venue info.

Saturday, May 27, 2023

Featured Artists:

MzMr @humangalaxy

Mallory Yanhan Qiu @qiumallory

Va-Bene Elikem K. Fiatsi @crazinist_artist

Riin Peisert @riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin

Hiroko Tamano @tamanokoichi

4:20pm & 8pm 

$15 Elastic Arts, 3429 W. Diversey Ave. #208 Chicago, IL 60647

In person or stream it online: elasticarts.org/streaming

No advance ticket sales. Debit/Cash accepted at the door.

Hot Mess! is a play space where we invite the chaos of the unfamiliar into our process, together. We focus on the moments of co-creation, discover new ways of working together, interacting with the audience, connecting both in person and online. Hot Mess! demonstrates the power of working together in the unknown, seeks possibilities for Queering space, and centers the joy and beauty in re-starting while making art. All ages are invited! 

VOICE MOOOOVVVVEEE---coming again in fall 2023
last Sundays of the Month, 3-5pm
at Color Club, 4146 N Elston Ave, Chicago

Sliding scale $15-$20 per class

 

Co-facilitated by Elaine LeMieux and Sara Zalek, each two hour workshop focuses on vocal technique, physical presence, freeing our bodies and voices simply together. We begin by warming up with breathing exercises, gentle repetition of vowels, consonants, bubbling, and babbling, we gradually expand our vocal range.  Listening to one another, playfully passing sound and movement, we find our unique songs and create compositions together.

No previous experience necessary, all ages and abilities encouraged.

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Graphic of poster image for Compound Yellow Side Yard Sounds. Top right, Lia Kohl, bottom right Zander Raymond and bottom left Sara Zalek and Norman Long performing in the yard at Compound Yellow. Norman is bent over a table with synthesizers and Sara is in silver in a blurred movement.
Graphic of black silhouetted musicians and dancers outlined in yellow with a blue and pink background. Reads Freedom From and Freedom To with performers and venue information.

NW. Long and I will duo, and Lia Kohl and Zander Raymond will also. 

Friday May 12, 7pm (indoors!) Compound Yellow 

244 Lake St, Oak Park, IL 60302

Freedom From and Freedom To at Family Day at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E Chicago Ave, Chicago, IL 60611 

Saturday May 13, 11am-1pm

Body Resonance with Yumiko Yoshioka
May 4-7, 2023 (Thursday – Sunday)

Thurs & Friday 6-9pm;
Saturday 1-5pm;
Sunday 3-7pm.
at Color Club,  4146 N Elston Ave, Chicago, IL 

In person only. 

The body as a receptacle of time.
A dance of metamorphosis inevitably appears.

A group of people on a dark wooden dance floor as the teacher in the back distance looks on. The wood paneling and decoration on the walls are white with light wood.

Saturday, December 10, 7pm
Freedom From and Freedom To

Curated by Cristal Sabbagh

Elastic Arts Foundation
3429 W. Diversey #208

The show begins at 7:00pm with openers, Douglas R. Ewart, Ben LaMar Gay and Coco Elysses, doing a trio,  immediately following will be 6 sets at 15 min each (with a brief intermission after the 3rd set). Audience members will be picking each set by selecting names from a bag.

More information www.ffftchicago.com

Freedom From and Freedom To Poster, including a drawing of figures dancing and playing instruments. It includes a list of all the participants and details about the event.

Tina LeFauve and I activated Spencer Hutchinson's artworks as part of TRACTATUS 2: Paintings, Combines, and Sculptures at the Intersection of Sound 

at the Opening Reception and Art Walk:

Friday Sept 9 and Friday Sept 16

ARC Gallery

1463 W. Chicago Ave.

FREEDOM FROM AND FREEDOM TO - FT. OPENING SET W/ DOUGLAS R. EWART + JAYVE MONTGOMERY

Saturday, August 27

7:00 - 11:00pm

Freedom From and Freedom To is an exploration and celebration of artistic circumstance. Movement and sound improvisors from all around Chicago gather in front of a live audience, where they are grouped by chance to perform in the moment. FFFT fuses diverse artistic backgrounds and practices to create unique and fleeting worlds. 

Tina LaFauve and Sara Zalek reaching up holding a 6 foot tree saw and playing electronics.
Sara Zalek pushing a chair across the room barebooted, with a determined look and open mouth

Watchtower


Performance on Saturday, July 16 at 4 PM 

Roman Susan
1224 W Loyola Ave, Chicago IL

Watchtower is a collaborative performance ensemble comprised of Rosé Hernandez, Ginger Krebs, Bryan Saner, Aurora Tabar and I. United by our desire to realize a fully collaborative and democratic creative process, the group met regularly from 2011 through 2012. Our work culminated in the performance video, Watchtower 12-12-12, which was performed, filmed and presented within one week at New Capital Projects. After a ten year hiatus, the members of Watchtower reunite for a one-week residency at Roman Susan July 12-18.

A group of dancers making a diagonal with their arms, performing for a seated audience in Roman Susan gallery, Chicago.

A CONNECTING PRESENCE SOUNDWALK

Thursday July 7, 5 – 7 p.m

at Big Marsh Park

Norman W. Long and I led an internal body scan for the assembled group; a meditation in finding our presence in places that may not be familiar. Together, we breathed and walked new pathways at Big Marsh Park, with an intention toward immersion, participation, and collective celebration.

Illustration of a line of people walking in nature, with trees in the background and reeds in the foreground. A quote from Sara is written here, "I always love soundwalks. They're a very different way of experiencing an environment. All together - a silent group moving through space..."

Hot Mess!

Saturday, May 28

See the live streams on Twitch until June 11!

4:20pm show: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1311706492

8pm show (even tho it says 420): https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1311862281

 

Featured artists:

Marcy Rae Henry (Chicago)
Shoshana Green (San Francisco)
Harlan Rosen (Chicago)
Meenakshi Marchione (Chicago)
SheenRu Yong (Hawaii)

 

Join us in person at Elastic Arts, 3429 W. Diversey #208 or online https://elasticarts.org/streaming to watch these artists generate a hybrid singular work woven together from their individual creations and practices. Each SET will be its own performance, two iterations with the same material with time for processing in between.. We invite both a live audience and present a live stream, come to either the early or the late show, or boldly both. We will seriously play, in a together way.

These inventive hybrids of tech / media / film / music / theater / noise / talk show / jazz / low brow / cabaret / glitch / queer family / dance score / improvs are riveting and in the moment! We set the stage for never-before-seen combinations of sounds, images, text, motion, and concepts simultaneously. Expect to flex your VR and interpersonal skills while also adapting to new tools, technology and experiences.

Watch footage from past events on our video playlist

$15 - Tickets Available at the Door

In person audience size will depend on Covid conditions, please check the current policy on Elastic Arts website

Hot Mess! is a quarterly series produced by Sara Zalek in partnership with Elastic Arts. If you are an artist interested in participating, complete this survey to get a sense of your ideas and the program. This is a paid opportunity. 

Shoshana Green typing on her phone and below it a disco ball refracting the image.

Blank Box: New Dimensions in Sense-uality

Composition for multimedia ensemble

Sunday, May 22nd 
Elastic Arts 

8:00pm doors / 8:30pm show, $15

watch the stream recording

Sara Zalek - movement
Hyun Kim - movement
Sam Lewis - lighting/tech
Tselanie Townsend - video projections
Paul Giallorenzo - piano/electronics/composition/direction
Macie Stewart - violin
Hunter Diamond - reeds/percussion

Text reads, Homeroom presents BLANK BOX image of squares on a diagonal. New Dimensions in Sense-uality

Soundwalk at Northwestern University for Earth Day 2022 with Veronica Salinas.


Reviewed in the Daily Northwestern

Veronica Salinas and Sara Zalek with their arms up to the sky, demonstracting a centering exercise in front of the pond at Northwestern. University
A group of people walking down a path with grass on one side and water on the other, a line of trees in the distance and white puffy clouds in the sky.

Freedom From and Freedom To is an exploration and celebration of artistic circumstance. Movement and sound improvisors from all around Chicago gather in front of a live audience, where they are grouped by chance. Each group performs an improvised set. We fuse diverse artistic backgrounds and practices to create unique and fleeting worlds Curated by Cristal Sabbagh. More information www.ffftchicago.com

Saturday, April 2, 2022
Streaming LIVE from Elastic Arts - 7:30pm CST

Saturday, April 9, 2022
Museum of Contemporary Art - 11am
Kovler Atrium

Sara Zalek and
Two heads peer over two upturned metal garbage lids covered with wires, a babydoll head in the foreground and over a dozen guitar effect pedals. The artists pictured are Tina Lefauve and Sara Zalek

****March 16, 2022 Elastic Arts 

with @tina_lestove @pleiadesseries

Fun promo pic of two humans creating a sonic reduction utilizing movement and various metal bits including two antique trash can lids, light triggered oscillators, and a whole bunch of effects pedals.

HOT MESS! Hybrids in live and streaming environments

Quarterly Series in partnership with Elastic Arts

 

Saturday, March 5, 2022 @Elastic Arts

Featuring:
Yumiko Yoshioka @yumiko-yoshioka
Charles Joseph Smith @charlessmith702210
Carole McCurdy @carolemccurdy
Kikù Hibino @kiku.hibino
[️     ] pronounced "Hypothetical Star": M_m<M & nulltopia @mmmtvdotnet

Save the dates for May 28, August 13, November 12, 2022


<<<<<<<<< See Trailers & Archive of 2021 Hot Mess! Events >>>>>>>>>>

HOT MESS! is an opportunity to explore promiscuously inventive

hybrids of performing in physical and virtual space.

We flex our VR and interpersonal skills while also adapting to new tools,

technology and experiences. 

 

This series focuses on the moments of co-creation and gives the artists a play-space to discover new ways of working together and interacting with each other and the audience. The "double header" gives the artists space to find the power of working together in the unknown, possibilities for Queering space, and the beauty in re-starting while making art!

We are always seeking new relationships to open our perspective and learn from others. If you are interested to be involved, contact me and/or check this survey to get a sense of what it's all about.
https://forms.gle/JZ5dA6kajuF3un1u5

(Image Description: An abstract image of a face wearing glasses, a lamp post, telephone wires, a record, and a crosshatch of indigo, blue, magenta, orange. It reads: HOT MESS! 

Abstract image of a face in deep purple, blues and pinks reading Hot Mess!

January 11-22, 2022

Roman Susan Gallery

WATCHTOWER 12-12-21 (with Edited Captions) will be on view directly from the street in front of Roman Susan each evening after sunset, while the space is closed to the public. During this period, the artists will be in residence at the storefront in many capacities. 

Created together in democratic collaboration among artists Rosé Hernandez, Ginger Krebs, Bryan Saner, Aurora Tabar, and Sara Zalek, with videography by Rustel Weiss.

Five figures in red knitted caps and light blue button down shirts and black pants stand in a clump amidt tall grassy reeds with a cement wall behind them, and a metal railing around them. The text overlayed reads WATCHTOWER

"WATCHTOWER is a temporary collaborative performance ensemble. We move and use the body in alternative ways in order to challenge its domestication. We inhabit socially abnormal behaviors, for example the body as animal, aging, multi-gendered, deformed and full of contradictions. The decision to be in relation to otherness is central to the work we make. We create a way of being that allows us to be ourselves in good faith with each other and this practice is healing. Our work is responsive rather than scripted. We prioritize taking time and attending to place."

2021

Sunday, July 18, 2021. Norman W. Long and I led a soundwalk at Marian R. Byrnes park, 2200 E. 103rd St., 4-6pm. We set up listening stations with contact mics and hydrophones for participants to tune into this unlikely prairie zone. A little bit about the radical work of Marian Byrnes and how she worked to save Van Vlissingen prairie.

 

I'm not gonna lie, its a long way to come! You can take the bus from downtown, the J14103rd/Stony Island and get off about 45 minutes later at 103rd Street & Luella. Check out the full summer calendar of events with the Midwest Society for Ecology here

We played at the Comfort Station in Logan Square on August 8 and hoping to do another one really soon. Stay tuned to either of our Instagrams for those details. 

Sara Zalek in the foregroud in trucker hat and sunglasses, black shirt smiling along a curved path with a marshy landscape to one side and in the background sits Norman Long.
Graphic in pink and green which reads On the Ground, new edition live! the dance center of Columbia College Chicago

Columbia College Chicago Digital Residency

From On the Ground, the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago’s blog, I wrote "Transitions"

I want to be someone else, other than who I am. Constantly and always. Forever transforming. When I dance, I am no one. I am all energy and sensation. I am a body of cells responding to other bodies of cells, to space, to sound, to subtle forces of physics.

 

Read the post here

It is related to a poem I wrote under another name, published in the gorgeous new zine called The Understory (Winter 2021)

Image on page 24, poem on pages 59-61

graphic of cover of Understory Quarterly winter 2020 with tiled mirrored mosiac

OOPS! POW! SURPRISE!
Archive of Performance Premiered April 15, 2021 

Dance and Music performance with Cristal Sabbagh, Erin Peisert, Scott Rubin, Keisha Janae, & Ramah Malebranche, and myself.

 

OOPS! POW! SURPRISE! takes a deep look at Cristal Sabbagh’s interdisciplinary practice that includes traditional portraiture, ceramics, and performance. While movement is the spine of her practice and the core that all her other work emanates from, intentional spontaneity, reverence, and bliss are threads woven throughout.

ONLINE Performances

Freedom From and Freedom To

Archive of Performance
April 2-3, 2021
Cristal Sabbagh production in partnership Elastic Arts

(All the sets are archived on the Elastic Arts YouTube channel)

photograph of two dancers, Keisha Jenae and Cristal Sabbagh wearing silver and entwined in movement.

Secret Rivers:
Hosted Yumiko Yoshioka April 9-11on zoom

Yumiko Yoshioka in a vibrant red dress reaches out with both hands and arms outstretched toward the viewer, her mouth open her face painted white and her black hair blowing around her face

Friday, February 26, 2021

The Quarantine Concerts: OUT OF SITE in collaboration with Experimental Sound Studio PRESENTS FLOW

ARCHIVE OF PERFORMANCE

When making a live work, as a performance, as an artist who poets and sounds and makes movements and moments as rituals, as possibilities for existence, in this work I used sound and video images from the island of Oahu, Hawaii, mixed with live moments from my home, asking for input from my audience, to questions about secrets and holding and requesting space. The performance is a live poem, a song; with the artist as mixer, as presenter, as witness, as dancer, conspirator and space creator. 

the roots of a banyon tree and the ground, the faint image of Sara Zalek dancing among them

2020

Virtual Soundwalk curated by Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology.  Marian R. Byrnes Park, previously known as Park No. 562 or Van Vlissingen Prairie, is located in the Jeffery Manor neighborhood. At approximately 135 acres, it is one of the largest natural areas in Chicago. The site includes marsh, wet prairie, prairie, savanna, and woodland and is a great place to observe wildlife including frogs, snakes, birds, and deer.

 

By 1982, the steel industry in Chicago was only a skeleton of what it once was, and thousands of people lost their jobs. This industry crash affected workers in diverse sectors that either relied on the steel plants for business or served the employees of the steel plants and their families. Aside from mills and processing plants, stores, restaurants and country clubs all went out of business, leaving vacant lots, industrial grounds and many open spaces that remain today.

 

The video provides a brief history of the park and neighborhood from Norman W. Long’s personal perspective as a local resident of Jeffery Manor. Norman and Sara guide us visually and sonically in a relaxation and sensation, listening to the sounds provided by this diverse ecology.

November 7

Artist Focus: Random Acts

Conversation with Carron Little with Out of Site, Chicago
 

Archive of conversation: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/795339631

October 4
TAPE RELEASE PARTY

@Elastic Arts, Chicago

A series of duos with me and these fellow brilliant artists, musicians, available on bandcamp.

Espinoza/Long Duo

Steelworkers Drone

 

Archived Performances:

Norman & Sara: https://youtu.be/DxrfEqP-0lo
Norman & Xris: https://youtu.be/eq0KQKg00rQ
Xris & Sara: https://youtu.be/66Co-rowD5A
Norman, Xris, & Sara: https://youtu.be/hjxJAiKWdig
 

X. Espinoza
Chicago based artist, multi-instrumentalist and resident at The Hunter Radcliff House, Espinoza explores art and music as technology for self-transformation and liberation, consciously obliterating distinctions between mediums. Member of David Boykin's Sonic Healing ministries, The Participatory Music Coalition, Angel Bat Dawid's Brothahood, . He has performed with Sura Dupart's Side Pocket Experience, MicroCosmic Sound Orchestra and Chicago Modern Orchestra Project.

Norman W. Long
An artist/composer. His practice involves walking, listening, collecting, improvising, performing and recording to create objects, environments and situations in which he and the audience are engaged in dialogues about memory space, value, silence and the invisible. Norman has performed with Angel Bat Dawid's Brothahood, Standing On The Corner, Sara Zalek, Chicago Phonography, Todd Carter, Carol Genetti, Eli Namay, Peter Maunu, Jim Baker, Damon Locks, Dan Bitney, Isaiah Spencer, Lia Kohl, and Andrew Clinkman.

A view of the retaining walls at Steelworkers Park shot from below with the blue sky and cumulous clouds overhead

August 21
Cruising Poem for Walt Whitman


August 28
Funeral Disco

Two events co-sponsored by Touchless Entry & Red Rover Series

Site-specific outdoor events designed with safety concerns in mind. 

at the Formal Garden in Humboldt Park

near the intersection of Sacramento & Division

Writeup on sixty inches from centerhttps://sixtyinchesfromcenter.org/touchless-entry-a-socially-distant-art-collective/

An image of a human with one arm raised in blue jeans and yellow shirt next to a sign I am LARGE

August 21

Heavy Air Happy Hour
Experimental Sound Studio (ESS)

ARCHIVED PERFORMANCE: https://youtu.be/eazbzORaLAU

Heavy Air Happy Hour was a monthly series at Cafe Mustache

hosted by Andrew Scott Young centered around strictly acoustic

small-group free improvisation. Today it happens online.

Featuring:
Cristal Sabbagh
Sara Zalek
Tuli Bera
Luc Mosley
Quinlan Kirchner
Andrew Scott Young

Aug 22 & 23

Freedom From and Freedom To

Elastic Arts

Archive of Night One, Set One: https://youtu.be/M1axTSCEP7c

all curated and produced by the brilliant Cristal Sabbagh.

Dancers:
Lorene Bouboushian
Keisha Janae
Ed Clemons
Carole McCurdy
Erin Peisert
Cristal Sabbagh
Michael Strode
Sara Zalek

Musicians:
Angel Bat Dawid (clarinet, voice)
Johanna Brock (violin, voice)
Olivia Harris (cello)
Ramah Malebranche (guitar)
Janice Misurell-Mitchell (flute)
Luc Mosley (saxophone)
Ugochi Nwaogwugwu (voice)
Julian Otis (voice)
Scott Rubin (viola)
Eli Sabbagh (percussion)
Jeffrey Thomas (guitar)
Adam Zanolini (multiple instruments)
 

Event Homepage : https://www.ffftchicago.com/

A graphic with black figures silouetted with a yellow outline, with blue and pink energetic lines all around reading Freedom From and Freedom To an Improvisational Cross Medium Event

July 24

Random Acts: Out of Site Chicago

in collaboration with ESS

Remote performance and discussion with Cristal Sabbagh and Scott Rubin

ARCHIVED PERFORMANCE (In three parts):

First: https://youtu.be/-6HqOb3ibYo

Second: https://youtu.be/lZC32kLvbDY

Third: https://youtu.be/W2tKYQestoU

Screen Shot 2020-12-16 at 10.51.28 AM.pn
The Quarantine Concerts
ESS


April 9

Homeroom presents Comfort Music

Duet with Cher Jey

ARCHIVED PERFORMANCE: https://youtu.be/eGjMU3Vt9oM

April 24
Acorn Series, curated by Nomi Epstein

ARCHIVED PERFORMANCE: https://youtu.be/uMUdkQlAnq4

OPEN VOICE
Saturdays 3:30-5:30pm
March 28, April 4, April 11


OPEN VOICE is a voice and body workshop focusing on vocal technique and improvisation, hosted by the performance group, the Trickster Quartet. If the sound of your voice is always something you've wished to explore, come and join! Discover the possibilities and uniqueness of your voice, individually and with a group. Learn to deepen your listening skills. Get in touch with your inner child and create through playful improvisation. No previous experience necessary. Everyone is worthy of expression!

 

A picture of a hand and pencil drawing on a paper pad with bright colors of red blue dots, yellow and green leaf shapes

2019

12 December

Elastic Arts, 3429 W Diversey Ave #208

Chicago

Freedom From And Freedom To is an an Improvisational cross-medium event curated by Cristal Sabbagh. Due to the overwhelming response from the first performance it will be a quarterly event, look out for us in April, August and beyond!! Over 20 musicians and dancers will converge, and audience members will pair them into small groups by chance. Buckle up for a wild ride!

"It's so deeply moving when improvisers open themselves to risk, fully revealing without hiding anything or pretending to be somebody" - Erin Peisert

Visit www.ffftchicago.org for more information.

20191213-5G2A0131Liina_Raud-FF_FT-decemb

15-17 November

The Final Doing Drugs & Dying in Space Ritual

There's No Edge to Imaginary Things

Otherworld Theatre Company

3914 N Clark St, Chicago

The Runways Lab is thrilled to announce the THIRD & FINAL DOING DRUGS AND DYING IN SPACE RITUAL. I will be performing in one play out of thirteen, "There's No Edge to Imaginary Things by Olivia Cronk & Philip Sorenson, directed by the illustrious Logan Berry. It is GORGEOUS.

13 short plays about DOING DRUGS and DYING IN SPACE by: Corie Anderson, Lizzie Bourne, Shani Bensman-Correa & Maximillian Correa, Olivia Cronk & Philip Sorenson, Logan Hart, Colton McCarty, Jessie Mccarty, Daniel Mozurkewich, Nic Park & Alissa Guerra, Barbara Reedy, Gannon Reedy, Casey Toney, Samantha Westlake

Directed by:
Aaron Arbiter, Logan Berry, Dakota Brown, JD Caudill, Niky Crawford, Seraphina Violet Cueller, Danielle Elizabeth, Daniel Mozurkewich, Jillian E. Mueller, Alec Martin Plant, Steak Richardson, Gwen Wiegold

Image of Sara Zalek luminously lit in a black background, long lavender sheer gown, holding their hands out, with a wide smile and head to one side.

5 November 8pm-8am

We Series: Sleep

@Elastic Arts

Archive: https://youtu.be/MbF3aMnetIc

This chapter is a ritual for rest, sleepers, and insomniacs. Also lullabies, existential exhaustion, cuddling, dreams, sleeplessness, nightmares, snoring. Guests are invited to sleep over, but it is not a requirement.*

We Series is a festival presenting live art that blurs the boundary between performance and reality. Every Tuesday in November, the We Series offers rituals, participatory performance, and immersion in artist-led experiences.

6 October Sunday | 9PM

Akiyama/Boyd, Krausbauer/Suzuki, Inglizian/Faber, Brock/Alvarez/Zalek/Young

@Elastic Arts

Maverick improvising guitarist Tetuzi Akiyama joins conceptual sound artist Mykel Boyd and many others for an exciting lineup of innovative new music. 

Abstract image of red blurry lines  on a pale background

12 September Thursday, 9pm

Freedom From and Freedom To

@Elastic Arts

Freedom From And Freedom To is an an Improvisational cross-medium event curated by Cristal Sabbagh.

Participants (Dancers): Cristal Sabbagh Jasmine Mendoza Andrea Wukitsch Wannapa P/ Eubanks Sara Zalek Peter Redgrave Zach Nicol Erin Peisert Ed Clemons Keisha Bennette

 

Participants (Musicians): Eli Sabbagh (percussion) Ramah Malebranche (guitar)

Angel Bat Dawid (clarinet, voice) Adam Zanolini (Bass) N.w. Long (electronics/sound effects) Janice Misurell-Mitchell (flute) Ugochi Nwaogwugwu (voice) Dan Schwarzlose (trumpet, theremin) Lia Khol (cello)

A graphic with black figures silouetted with a yellow outline, with blue and pink energetic lines all around reading Freedom From and Freedom To an Improvisational Cross Medium Event

20 July Saturday

MSAE Summer Soundwalks: Listening for Resilience

@Big Marsh Park, 11155 S. Stony Island Ave, Chicago

Norman W. Long and Sara Zalek lead an exploration of resiliency through Big Marsh Park. Includes exercises which ready the body for listening acutely and sharing our encounters. Presented by Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Night Out In the Parks brings arts and culture to over 500 parks across the city, free and open for public participation.
 

Various people sittiing in a natural setting captivated by their listening

30 June Sunday

@Experimental Sound Studio

5925 N Ravenswood Ave, Chicago

 

 

A silent walk focusing on listening to the diverse soundscape of the west Edgewater neighborhood. Led by artist trio N.w. Long, Gwyneth Zeleny Anderson and Sara Zalek.

Artists Gwyneth Zelany Anderson and Norman Long hold a hand lettered sign that says This Moment does not need Documentation to Hold Value in front of a part entrance. In the foreground we see Sara Zalek from the back

1 June Saturday
Long Poem
As a part of “What’s behind this door?” exhibition
@Oliva Gallery, 3816 W Armitage Ave, Chicago

 

We add                      water to wine
                    art to life                        wine to ideas
      water to art                                                     art to words

We will ask each other and you about the ways our art-making
reflects, influences or resists the world we live in and vice versa.

Collage image, on the left Sara Zalek with their mouth open reaching out and holding a metal sheet with their legs, on the right an abstract figurative image of black white blues and yellows.

31 May Friday
Hautnah "Close to the Skin"
Student Performance

Six day Intensive Butoh Workshop culminating in a student performance.

 

Truly a family experience, we will provide light snacks and beverages, feel free to BYOB.

Screen Shot 2019-05-16 at 10.31.29 AM.pn

10 May Friday

Gold Test: Intestine

The Inside is Not Different than the Outside
5:30pm
The International Museum of Surgical Science, Chicago, IL

Spend the evening awake in your senses with three visceral Butoh performances by Jon Poindexter, Sara Zalek, and Holly Chernobyl.

 

This is from a series of improvisations on reflection, repair, and cyborgs. 

In this work, I explore relationships between metal and body, iteration and instance, presence and absence.  I aim to create mythologies which question the nature of how stories are created and reiterated, and examine our human condition to search for the magic elixir.

05102019_Museum of Surgical Science_066.

26 January Saturday

Gold Test: Ears
Light Box Performance

Detroit, MI

Performing as a visiting artist in residence @LightBox, from a series of experiments on reflection, repair, and cyborgs. In this work, we explore relationships between metal and body, iteration and instance, presence and absence. There will be both sound and movement created in the moment which aim to question the meaning of our lives together in the moment of creation. This performance suggests a story rather than narrates one - we invite viewers to find their own relevance and meaning in the work. We aim to create mythologies which question the nature of how stories are created and reiterated, and examine our human condition to search for the magic elixir.

49344754_2179192362147989_53015179128870

11 January Friday

Transparent Bodies

Sivan Cohen Elias, Mabel Kwan

Transparent Bodies is an exploration of hybrid theater that unifies the physical and sonic dimensions of performance using movement, sound, objects, and sensory technological interventions. The project is a collaboration between composer/multimedia artist Sivan Cohen Elias, butoh dancer/choreographer/artist Sara Zalek and pianist/performer Mabel Kwan. At its heart: the theme of secrets. Hidden secrets, revealed secrets, reflections, distorted truths, illusion, hyperrealism and the in-between.

We invite you to come investigate with us, this world of secrets, created during our unique residency period of December 24-Jan 12. Our incubation period is brief, so through our performance, your interaction, and the in-between, we create stories that begin with diamonds in haystacks, and end as forgotten dust bunnies under the bed.

http://highconceptlabs.org/operabutohlab/

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