MCA Chicago’s third annual Chicago Performs series to kick off on September 26

MCA Chicago’s third annual Chicago Performs series to kick off on September 26

CHICAGO— The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago is thrilled to announce the 2024 Chicago Performs showcase—an intimate festival of live arts highlighting essential local artists on a national platform. The 2024 iteration of Chicago Performs includes work by Lynkanthea, Every house has a door, and cat mahari, who will present a variety of performances across the MCA’s grounds, including the Edlis Neeson Theater and the Anne & John Kern Terrace Garden. Their works include lush and environmental musical activations that transform the MCA Stage, an outdoor performance inspired by The Carnival of the Animals that addresses climate change, and a play-inspired performance.

Each year through the Chicago Performs series, the MCA invites three to four artists to share works of performance, including pieces this year that have been developed through the MCA’s In Progress series and the New Works Initiative. Bringing together live arts from across genres, Chicago Performs supports artists who are entering a new phase of their practice—whether stepping onto a larger stage for the first time, exploring new directions, or expanding the scale of their projects—and offers the public an unprecedented chance to witness the city’s groundbreaking performance artists in action.

After cat mahari’s performance on September 28, the MCA will host an afterparty for all Chicago Performs ticketholders starting at 8:30 pm. Guests will be able to celebrate with Chicago Performs artists, enjoy music by local DJ Zeetus Lapetus, and enjoy cocktails at a cash bar. Upon arrival, guests should show electronic or printed tickets at the Marisol entrance on the corner of Pearson Street and Mies van der Rohe Way.

Chicago Performs is organized by Laura Paige Kyber, Assistant Curator of Performance.

Tickets for Chicago Performs are available by visiting experience.mcachicago.org/packages or calling 312-397-4010.

Chicago Performs Programs

Lykanthea | Some Viscera

Edlis Neeson Theater

Sep 26–27, 2024 | 7:30 pm

Lykanthea is a multidisciplinary collective led by artist Lakshmi Ramgopal whose performances and installations use pop idioms to experiment with traditional South Asian art forms. Her latest work, Some Viscera, is a live concert that features a collection of songs and movement accompanied by an immersive stage design that will transform the MCA Stage into a lush garden. The project features a multidisciplinary ensemble starring Asha Rowland, Erica Miller, Johanna Brock, and Ben Zucker. Together, they integrate elements of Carnatic music, Bharatanatyam dance, and Sanskrit and Tamil poetry, into a performance of rich, intimate dance theater. The premiere of Some Viscera occurs within the framework of the arangetram, a Tamil word meaning “ascending the stage.” It describes the arduous, long-form, solo performance through which students of classical Indian dance and music—mostly children—debut as mature artists—a celebrated but fraught rite of passage. The arangetram of Some Viscera consists of four principal movements. Each invokes avian and floral motifs from sources that include ancient classical dance and music, medieval Sanskrit poetry, the literary culture of India’s independence movement, and Indian films of the late 1990s. By creating this fanciful world, the movements reflect on cultural knowledge and breakdown.

In 2019, Lykanthea presented an early iteration of Some Viscera as a part of the MCA’s In Progress series, and has performed at the MCA’s 50th Anniversary celebration in 2017.

Every house has a door and Essi Kausalaninen | Broken Aquarium

Kern Terrace

Sep 28, 2024 | 2:00 pm

Sep 29, 2024 | 4:00 pm

Broken Aquarium takes its cue from Camille Saint-Saëns’s 1886 musical suite for children The Carnival of the Animals. Riffing on the famed Aquarium movement, this performance updates Saint-Saëns’s work for today and surveys an impossible ecosystem of endangered or extinct sea creatures. Featuring handmade costumes by Finnish artist Essi Kausalainen and live music by Tim Kinsella and Jenny Polus, this performance presents, through poetry, sound, and movement, the intricacies and particulars of non-human life as a foundation for human transformation. The performance will take place on the MCA’s Anne & John Kern Terrace Garden. Guests will be able to watch from the lawn’s center steps or from atop the terrace.

The project first started in 2018, when Every house has a door director Lin Hixson and dramaturg Matthew Goulish initiated The Carnival of the Animals with Helsinki-based artist Essi Kausalainen.

cat mahari | blk ark: the impossible manifestation

Edlis Neeson Theater

Sep 28, 2024 | 7:30 pm

Sep 29, 2024 | 2:00 pm

cat mahari’s blk ark: the impossible manifestation is an interactive performance with live, semi-improvisational sound elements that draw from hip-hop, house, dance, and film. Exploring improvisational and Black cultural strategies of play, drawn from traditions such as joanin’ (Atlanta slang for ritualized insult exchanges, otherwise known as The Dozens) and the soul clap, mahari’s performance explores forms of survival and liberation, revealing questions about what it will take to find freedom and map our collective future.

cat’s project has been presented as an In Progress program in 2022. It has been developed with the support of the New Works Initiative Chicago Commission Program, which fosters the artistic and professional growth of Chicago artists, providing consistent and comprehensive support for their development.

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