MCA Chicago’s fourth annual Chicago Performs series planned for September 18–21

MCA Chicago’s fourth annual Chicago Performs series planned for September 18–21

CHICAGO— The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago’s 2025 Chicago Performs showcase—an intimate festival of live arts highlighting essential local artists on a national platform—will kick off on Sept. 18-21, 2025. The fourth iteration of Chicago Performs includes work by Robyn Mineko Williams & Artists, Helen Lee/Momentum Sensorium, and Red Clay Dance Company. Taking place in the MCA’s Commons and Edlis Neeson Theater, this year’s performances will delve into themes of memory, remembrance, grief, and making space for joy and healing.

Launched in 2022, the Chicago Performs series invites a small cohort of Chicago-based artists to share works of performance live at the MCA, including pieces that have been developed through the MCA’s 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.

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

For interview inquiries, please contact the MCA media relations team no later than September 8, 2025.

To purchase tickets please visit the webpage at visit.mcachicago.org/chicago-performs-2025/ or call 312-397-4010.

Chicago Performs Programs

Robyn Mineko Williams & Artists | To Leave You

Edlis Neeson Theater

Sep 18–19, 2025 | 7:30 pm, approx. 1 hour run time

In To Leave You, choreographer Robyn Mineko Williams explores memory and the residue of our lives in a new, cinematic dance piece alongside dancers Jessica Tong and Jason Hortin, musician Nate Kinsella, and visual designer Julia Miller. Inspired by the loss of her creative muses, Williams and her team seamlessly and intimately blend dreamy movement, music, and film with shadow puppetry to weave a tapestry of scenes investigating the idea of the “trace:” a mapping of essences, memories, and the messages we leave behind when we exit this world.

To Leave You is supported by the MCA’s New Works Initiative, a platform that fosters the artistic and professional growth of Chicago-based artists.

Helen Lee/Momentum Sensorium | Curiosities of Wellness in Bodies of Grief and Joy

The Commons

Sep 20, 2025 | 10:30 am–1:30 pm and 3–6 pm

Curiosities of Wellness in Bodies of Grief and Joy is movement artist Helen Lee’s ongoing invitation to audiences to sit with anger and loss by exploring collective healing through somatic practice. Bringing together offerings of performance, live music, art and movement therapy, plant medicine, and shared dialogue, Lee guides audiences through a series of mindfulness rituals, inviting them to find ease, grounding, and joy. Throughout the course of the day, Lee will provide an array of somatic rituals that include meditation, interactive performance, and a walk to Lake Michigan.

Red Clay Dance Company | Freedom Square: The Black Girlhood Altar

Edlis Neeson Theater

Sep 20–21, 2025 | 7:30 pm, approx. 1 hour run time

Centered around The Black Girlhood Altar, an installation created by Scheherazade Tillet and Robert Narcisco of A Long Walk Home, the Chicago-based nonprofit focused on ending violence against women and girls, this new, choreographic performance transforms the theater into a sanctuary of utopian freedom for the Black women and girls by blending dance, song, digital media, and stage design to create a profound and resonant experience. Featuring music by Jamila Woods and choreography by artistic director Vershawn Sanders-Ward, the work is performed by a mixed cast of the Red Clay Dance Company and teens from Black Girls Dance.

The original Black Girlhood Altar, assembled by A Long Walk Home artists Scheherazade Tillet and Robert Narcisco, is a mixed-media, object-based installation created to transform public spaces from spaces of trauma to spaces of collective remembrance and power. The living altar honors eight Black women and girls: Rekia Boyd, Latasha Harlins, Ma’Khia Bryant, “Hope,” “Harmony,” Marcie Gerald, Lyniah Bell, and Breonna Taylor. Tillet and Narcisco’s Black Girlhood Altar was previously on view at the MCA as a part of the 2021 exhibition Andrea Bowers.

SUPPORT

Chicago Performs is supported by the New Works Initiative, which puts the creative process at the heart of the MCA’s relationship with Chicago by supporting the development of new performances and creative projects. Lead support for the New Works Initiative is provided by Elizabeth A. Liebman.

Lead support for the 2025–26 season of MCA Performance is provided by Elizabeth A. Liebman.

Generous support is provided by Ginger Farley and Bob Shapiro, Martha Struthers Farley and Donald C. Farley, Jr. Family Foundation, N.A., Trustee; Anne L. Kaplan; and Carol Prins and John Hart/The Jessica Fund.

The MCA is a proud member of the Museums in the Park and receives major support from the Chicago Park District.

Latest Stories

Latest Podcast

STARR Community Services International, Inc.