January Events

Presented by the Chicago Department of Cutlural Affairs
Programs for artists include: 

*Ars Scientia
*DCA Theater Incubator featuring Black Sheep Productions and TUTA Theater's run of Maria's Field
*Creatives at Work Forum with Anti Gravity Surprise
*Break on Through, a panel on making it in tough times.

All are presented by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. more...

Clancy Newman

What is it like to be an artist connected to Chicago and the Midwest? Are there certain expectations and/or benefits associated with the area?
Interview with Britton Bertran and Angie Ruiz, CAR Artist Story Editors

Chicago is a great city. It’s big, but it doesn’t belong to that proliferation of big cities on the east coast, where I spend most of my time. It has great musicians and great art, but without the east coast attitude.

What is your favorite audience? more...

Scott Illingworth

What happens next? Transitioning from the classroom to the profession.
I finished graduate school this past spring. It was great. I loved it. I also couldn’t be happier to be done. Does finishing make me a professional director? Not really. Instead it puts me in this weird purgatory. The puberty of a directing career – exciting, but awkward.

Directors spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to get from one place to another. How do we travel from an intimate scene in a kitchen to a busy street corner in 30 seconds? How can we instantly move from one scene to the next? How can I coax this actor from the hard and resistant read on this scene to a softer more open performance? It is, in no small part, our job to manage the ongoing transformations within a play and the people making it. more...

Stephanie Clemens

Why did you start re-staging historical works of choreography and how did you choose the works you reconstruct?
Interview with CAR Dance Researcher Rachel Thorne Germond

My company, MOMENTA began doing historical works in 1988 when we decided to celebrate the life and work of Doris Humphrey who was born in Oak Park in 1895. We began by going to the Dance Notation Bureau and did the first two works from labanotated scores, with a reconstructor.

Soaring  (1920), a collaborative work that Doris Humphrey made with Ruth St. Denis was one of the works that we presented. A student of the company was the granddaughter of  Marion Rice, the woman who had helped to notate that version of Soaring. In the process of reconstructing this dance we met Doris Humphrey's son Charles Woodford, with whom the company has had a close connection for almost 20 years. more...