Recent Events

23 November Saturday , 7pm

MEAT from NPK // AmeliaMoon // My Partially Digested Twin // Long-Zalek duo

Outer Sound
3323 W Armitage Ave

$10 at the door

Approx 30 min sets of each!
Amelia Moon Diamond: https://ameliamoon.bandcamp.com/
MEAT from NPK: npktrash.bandcamp.com,
++ Jill Lloyd Flanagan and a new duo project
++ N.w. Long and Sara Zalek

Strange and Beautiful Birds, we are excited to create waves of intimate sound to examine our deepest souls

dark and pithy smacking and licking walls until they crumble we woo you. 

RelaxStation Clinic 

Office Hours at 564 W. Randolph: 10am-5pm
Email for appointment,
 

A new office environment experiment for Bodywork sessions to promote one-on-one body/mind wellness care. Great for relief of tension, stress, and fatigue; nurture and reclaim space inside. Services are flexible to suit a schedule, and prices are based on the amount of time we spend together. More information here

15-17 November Friday, Sat nights & Sunday matinee.

The Final Doing Drugs & Dying in Space Ritual

There's No Edge to Imaginary Things

Otherworld Theatre Company

3914 N Clark St, Chicago

$10 (purchase tickets)

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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.

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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

5 November 8pm-8am

We Series: Sleep

Elastic Arts 3429 W. Diversey Ave. #208

$10 or Pay what you can

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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.*

Artists include: Joanna Jamerson Andrew Tham and Jeff Kimmel (current conditions) Sam Wagster Medina Perine Elijah Jamal Asani Mitsu Salmon Gina Hoch-Stall Sara Zalek Santina Amato Carole McCurdy Carlos Salazar Lermont

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, 3429 W Diversey Ave #208

$10 BYOB

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

12 September Thursday, 9pm

Freedom From and Freedom To

Elastic Arts, 3429 W Diversey Ave #208

$10, BYOB

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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)

10 August Saturday | 3-5pm
The Bird, the Bee, and the Tree
Comfort Station Logan Square, Chicago

FREE

This two hour outdoor movement workshop is open to ages 7 and up and all abilities. Beginning with group breath and creative body warmups to open our sense awareness, the group that gathers will explore in small groups and then create an improvisation on the lawn in front of the Comfort Station.

20 July Saturday

MSAE Summer Soundwalks: Listening for Resilience

Big Marsh Park, 11155 S. Stony Island Ave, Chicago
3-5pm
RSVP

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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.
 

30 June Sunday

@Experimental Sound Studio , 5925 N Ravenswood Ave, Chicago at 3 PM to embark; the walk will finish back there around 5 PM. Participants are then welcome to join the group at Roman Susan afterwards to discuss the experience. FREE and open to the public.

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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.

1 June Saturday
Long Poem
As a part of “What’s behind this door?” exhibition
Gallery show 12-4pm
Performance 1pm, discussion 2-4pm
@Oliva Gallery, 3816 W Armitage Ave, Chicago, IL

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.

31 May Friday
Hautnah "Close to the Skin"
Student Performance
Doors open 7pm, performance begins 7:30pm
@OuterSpace Studios, 1474 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago, IL 

$10 (suggested donation)

Tickets available online

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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.

10 May Friday

Gold Test: Intestine

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

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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.

26 May Friday
Practical Flats
7-11pm
@TCC Chicago, 2547 W North Ave, Chicago, IL

See Facebook Event

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with Sara Zalek/Samir Gangwani/L I L I T H/Al Markus
Hosted by Jill Lloyd Flanagan, an amalgamation of sound, performance, immersion, and re-imagination.

26 January Saturday

Gold Test: Ears

7:30pm doors, 8pm performance
Light Box Performance

8641 Linwood St, Detroit, MI

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Performing as a visiting artist in residence @LightBox, from a series of experiments on reflection, repair, and cyborgs. Inspired by Tatsumi Hijikata (founder of Butoh) and David Cronenberg (sci-fi filmmaker)

Also performing in the evening, Detroit-based artist, Beatrice VS!

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.

11 January Friday

Transparent Bodies
8pm
High Concept Labs, Mana Contemporary, 2233 S. Throop, Chicago, IL

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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/

30 November Friday

Formidable Dreams Film Screening and Panel Discussion with In/Motion
7:30pm
Chicago Filmmakers, 5720 N Ridge Ave, Chicago, IL 60660

Presented by Pivot Arts, the event includes a film screening and panel discussion.
Films to be screened include All by Sarah C. Prinz, Danny Rosenberg, and Amy Wilkinson; Separate Sentences by Austin Forbord and Amy Dowling; Insan by Tommy Pascal; and Formidable Dreams by Eugene Sun Park and Sara Zalek. 

The post-screening panel includes Amy Wilkinson, artistic director of In/Motion, along with artists Sara Zalek and Diana Quinones Rivera, moderated by Pivot Arts Director Julieanne Ehre.

26 & 27 October Friday & Saturday
Propositional Worlds

SITE/less

1250 W. Augusta Blvd.

Donation Suggested

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A showcase of interactionist dance and instructionist performance works, profiled in Propositional Attitudes, edited by Elana Mann and John Burtle (Golden Spike Press, LA, 2018) alongside Michael Workman’s Perfect Worlds: Artistic Forms & Social Imaginaries, (StepSister Press, Toronto). In addition, Mat Rappaport’s “range”—a delivery truck mounted with multiple external cameras— will “dock” at the SITE/less loading bay, where, in collaboration with architect David Sundry, it will become an architectural interface and interactive point of entry. During the weekend of October 26–28, artists featured in Propositional Attitudes, along with other Chicago movers, will perform a selection of the book’s scores, which also will be on display for viewers to perform. Conversations focusing on instructionist and social practice art, and politics will also take place.

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25 October Thursday
7-10PM

SPONSORED ARTIST SHOWCASE
Constellation, 3111 N. Western Ave.
ADA accessible
street parking available, accessible by CTA

 Facebook event page

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Sivan Cohen Elias, Mabel Kwan and I team up to create a special immersion work this winter at HCL. Support us by coming and enjoying the night at HCL’s Fall Open House: An Artist Showcase is the event of the season, a place to meet & greet dozens of current and former Sponsored Artists as they share a mix of their innovative works in progress and entertaining final pieces with you. Make new friends at Constellation and enjoy beverages, light bites, performances, installations, music, and much, much more. #HCLOpenHouse

21 October Sunday
Elevate Chicago Dance

Chicago Cultural Center

ALL DAY - 

Free and open to the public

++Formidable Dreams Film Premiere++

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Our first official showcase of Formidable Dreams, created and produced by collaboration between Eugene Sun Park and Sara Zalek in the Claudia Cassidy Theater. Program is 11am-1:30pm. Formidable Dreams at 11:55am. Installation can be viewed outside the GAR Rotunda all day. Stop by!
 

The broadly defined theme of the day explores intersections between Dance, Space, Race, and Place. Forty + Elevate Chicago Dance 2018 artists, through a diverse range of dance and interdisciplinary works, make connections with current ideas about the dynamics between race, social spaces, and personal and body histories. For artists as well as for public audiences, the cultural, political and architectural history of the Chicago Cultural Center building is a powerful setting for these relevant considerations. Dance performances will activate all the floors and multiple public areas of the landmark Chicago Cultural Center, including the Claudia Cassidy Theater, GAR Hall, the Dance Studio, and Preston Bradley Hall.

11-14 October

Thursday - Saturday 7:30pm, Sunday 4pm

Pivot Arts presents 

Charged Spaces/Changing Bodies

Performances in Historic Sites

The Institute for Cultural Affairs, 4750 N. Sheridan Road +

Lawrence House, 1020 W. Lawrence Avenue

Works by Anna Martine Whitehead
Carole McCurdy + Sara Zalek, Elaine Lemieux, Hanna Brock

Co-Curated by Julieanne Ehre and Peter Taub
Suggested Donation $20

Space is limited. Reserve in Advance HERE.

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Pivot Arts proudly presents a series of site-specific performances in two historic Uptown buildings overlapping with Chicago Architecture Foundation’s Open House Chicago weekend. The performance begins at the Institute for Cultural Affairs 4750 N. Sheridan Road with Notes on Territory written, choreographed and performed by Anna Martine Whitehead. Audiences are then led across the street to Lawrence House 1020 W. Lawrence Avenue for Les Chanteuses du Rien created and performed by Sara Zalek, Elaine Lemieux, Hanna Brock — the piece will take place in the Lawrence House lobby and culminate in the swimming pool. Five Stud Stud by Carole McCurdy will take place in the Lawrence House’s gym space.

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For more detailed information about performances and the artist bios please visit pivotarts.org/events.

14 Sept Friday

Café Mustache

2113 N Milwaukee Ave

9pm 

FREE

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Returning to the next installment of The Singleman Affair's Orpheatric Variety Show! Always pleasing mix of music, art, and comedy, hosted by Daniel Schneider.

This will be a collaborative event featuring a multimedia myriad of different performances designed to enlighten the mind, body, and soul.

Participating Artists:

Archy Arch

Mathew Clark

Sara Zalek

Bumble B & the Royal We

The Singleman Affair

Samantha Berkman

02 Sept Sunday

Elastic Arts

3429 W Diversey Ave #208

9pm $10 cover

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Norman W. Long’s Electro-Acoustic Dubcology I-IV on Reserve Matinee

Composed between 2007 - 2012, now packaged together in a limited cassette edition by Reserve Matinee and also available on Bandcamp. 

Participating Artists:

Angel Bat Dawid

Xris Espinoza

Esper Werm

Exhibitionist
NW Long

Sara Zalek

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08 Sept Saturday

The Martin

2515 W. North Ave.
7:30pm Doors, Program @8pm
$10 suggested donation

To celebrate the premiere of Mandy Work and Shannon Metelko's short, "Unknown", which is an experimental film exploring anxiety, a night filled with performance, film, and art dedicated to the light and dark of mental health, the silver linings, and what we do to feel better. 

A portion of the evenings proceeds will be donated to a local organization, ALSO conversations that result in less stigma and more self-love. 

Participating Artists:
Michelle Chorski

Les Chanteuses Du Rien (Sara Zalek, 

Elaine Victoria, Hanna Brock)
Alex Heller
Eve Rydberg
Shannon Metelko + Mandy Work Wetzel 
Ayo Viti
Jennie Ellman

09 Sept Sunday

12-4pm
6018North Kenmore &

Lane Beach 5915 N. Sheridan Rd. 

Water Music on the Beach begins at 6018 North Kenmore Avenue within the Living Architecture. At 12:30PM Balas and Wax lead us in a procession and discussion about the materiality of migration, a force which drove people from their homes in the process of creating Lake Shore Drive in the Edgewater neighborhood. From Ardmore Avenue, SPQ will lead us to Lane Beach at Thorndale Avenue and Sheridan Road for an afternoon of sound performances. 

This is a collaborative event – Water Music on the Beach is an annual project hosted by 6018North – this year, the project is co-hosted by Roman Susan Art Foundation.

Participating Artists:
Susy Bielak and Fred Schmalz
Simon Anderson

Katinka Kleijn with Jasmine Mendoza

Norman Long with Gwyneth Anderson & Sara Zalek

Steve Marquette with Aurora Nealand

James Singleton

Paul Thibodeaux

AJ McClenon

Carlos Salazar Lermont