Dance Residency Open Studio Series
November 2023—June 2024, Second Tuesday of each month
Chicago Cultural Center, Dance Studio, 1st Floor North • FREE Admission
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The City of Chicago is pleased to announce the second cohort of artists for the Chicago Cultural Center Dance Studio Residency. The Dance Studio Residency provides space, time and funding for Chicago dancemakers to create new work, and each artist or group offers free public engagements – artists talks, workshops, works-in-progress and more – to build diverse intersections and welcome more dialogue between audiences and artists.
The artists will be introduced [in dialogue] at free public panels in November and December. See below for a full schedule and additional information on artists and projects.
The Chicago Cultural Center Dance Studio Residency is supported in part by a grant from the Walder Foundation. This project is also supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
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Open Studio Schedule
Public programs occur on the second Tuesday of each month through June and will feature a different resident artist. Additional programs will be held on select dates listed below.
We aim to provide American Sign Language interpretation at the majority of Open Studio programs. Please refer to the detailed listing below. To request ASL or other access services, please email dcase@cityofchicago.org a minimum of 72 hours before the event.
Open Studio schedule is subject to change. Please check website for additional updates.
Artists Panel
Current Dance Studio resident artists in an open conversation to introduce their projects and the ideas and curiosities that propel their creative investigations.
Participating artists: Chih-Jou Cheng, Helen Lee, Amalia Raye Wiatr Lewis, Amanda Ramirez
Moderator: Sharon Hoyer (Newcity)
Artists Panel
Current Dance Studio resident artists in an open conversation to introduce their projects and the ideas and curiosities that propel their creative investigations.
Participating artists: Aaliyah Christina, J’Sun Howard, Keisha Janae, Drew Lewis, Jenna Pollack
Moderator: Kellee Edusei (Dance/USA)
J’Sun Howard
A dance workshop inspired by Chen Chen's Your Emergency Contact Is Experiencing An Emergency and Luther Hughes's A Shiver in the Leaves. Through a blend of writing prompts, improvisational exercises, and partnering activities. This workshop invites you to explore, connect, and discover the beauty that unfolds when movement becomes a poetic manifestation of tenderness. No experience or advance registration required.
Amalia Raye Wiatr Lewis
Soaking is a public movement workshop that uses water as an imaginative tool to tune into slow and weighted movement in the body. Participants will be guided through moving meditations and somatic experiences. The search for enjoyment and pleasure is the cornerstone to this exploration. This workshop will borrow techniques from Qigong, Feldenkrais, and Alexander Technique. This will be open to everyone, regardless of ability.
Amanda Ramirez
Join us for an exclusive preview showcasing the evolving narrative of La Cookout! This work-in-progress features dance excerpts, music, and visuals that trace the cultural tapestry of communal gatherings across history. A guided talk-back session provides a platform to engage with the artists, share your experiences, and explore the significance of these gatherings in shaping cultural connections.
ASL is provided for this event.
J’Sun Howard
Work-in-progress showing of take carefully, a dance about how we care for each other when the world is falling apart around us.
ASL is provided for this event.
Chih-Jou Cheng
Embodied Stories Workshop: Dive into the rich tapestry of migration stories etched in our bodies. This public engagement is open to all, with a special invitation to immigrants to share and explore their unique journeys and wisdom through movement.
Chih-Jou Cheng
Work-in-progress showing of Arriving at Dawn, a wordless physical theatre piece that delves into the theme of finding belonging as viewed through the lens of immigrants' experiences.
ASL is provided for this event.
Helen Lee / Momentum Sensorium
Curiosities of Wellness in Bodies of Grief and Joy
Glimpse into the rehearsal process of building choreography in the round for 7 dancers. While this work currently has several sections from 2 previous iterations, this open rehearsal (with possible audience participation) will focus on a new section. Join us as we stumble along together to sounds written by Lee and arranged and performed by Sharon Udoh on the piano. Laughter and tears are encouraged.
Drew Lewis / House of DOV
Join House of DOV in the Dance Studio for an informal showing of a new work-in-progress by Drew Lewis, featuring music by Family Junket.
ASL is provided for this event.
Aaliyah Christina
Join the PRAISE MOTHER SQUAD and their guest coach in an open workshop to learn the fundamentals and aesthetics of the Black majorette dance style developed at Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCU). Learn more about the way choreography and movement is developed in PRAISE MOTHER.
Drew Lewis / House of DOV
Join House of DOV in the Dance Studio for an intimate view of the rehearsal process and participate in the creation of a new work by Drew Lewis with live music by Family Junket.
Keisha Janae
Soulfully rooted in playful praise, this Praise House Language workshop will be a creative circle of expression with testimonials, dance, art-making and song. Through a guided process that centers care, participants of all experiences and backgrounds are able to step into the rehearsal process being used to develop "Praise House Ceremony". The workshop facilitation is informed by Keisha Janae's spiritual and faith-based experience.
Space in this workshop is limited.
Jenna Pollack
A lecture-demonstration showing the poetic possibilities and considerations of material engineering within the creative process. Artists will discuss the pieces’ physical features (human-sized wooden sculptures that act as characters, props, and landscapes), values-based trade-offs in construction, and prototyping with a dance partner in mind.
ASL is provided for this event.
Amanda Ramirez
Attend a preview of La Cookout! Experience a celebration of togetherness in this work-in-progress that blends dance, music, sketches, and the vibe of an outdoor family gathering. After the performance, engage with the artists in a Q&A session to gain insights into the creative process.
ASL is provided for this event.
Amalia Raye Wiatr Lewis
Soak is a dance-based performance project that emerges from a study of public bathing. This work considers how both dance and bathing practices carve out space to imagine new ways of relating to our bodies and each other. This piece explores the movements of pleasure and leisure, collectively created social space, and the relationship between body, sound, and environment.
ASL is provided for this event.
Aaliyah Christina
The PRAISE MOTHER: Reflections Circle brings participants and facilitators together to discuss and unpack their relationships with those who raise/d them and/or who they’re raising in order to develop healthy habits for coping with mental health and/or expressing their triumphs or struggles in improving harmonious relationships.
An ASL interpreter is not confirmed for this event. Email dcase@cityofchicago.org with questions.
Helen Lee / Momentum Sensorium
Curiosities of Wellness in Bodies of Grief and Joy: Oceans, Trees, Mountains, Clouds
Using lessons from the prior audience engagement in April, Helen and their collaborators will use curiosity as a performance strategy to pull apart and lean into joy and grief. They will experiment with using the dance studio space in the round, welcoming what discoveries are found in the delights and struggles that arise in the process of attempting a structure of a work-in-progress showing.
ASL is provided for this event.
Keisha Janae
Soulfully rooted in playful praise, this Praise House Language workshop will be a creative circle of expression with testimonials, dance, art-making and song. Through a guided process that centers care, participants of all experiences and backgrounds are able to step into the rehearsal process being used to develop "Praise House Ceremony". The workshop facilitation is informed by Keisha Janae's spiritual and faith-based experience.
Space in this workshop is limited.
Jenna Pollack
A work-in-progress sharing, this event will consist of both the movement- and the textual-based research explored over the course of the residency.
ASL is provided for this event.
Chih-Jou Cheng is a Taiwanese movement artist and puppeteer who is dedicated to creating artworks that illuminate the challenges and joys of the human experience through collaborative physical/dance theatre. Cheng is honored to be a part of the Chicago Cultural Center Dance Studio residency. Her recent credits include The Dream King (Teatro Vista), The King and I (Drury Lane), Newsies as co-choreographer (Music House), A Chorus Line as Connie Wong (Metropolis PAC), and Miranda as Tiger/Stella (Impostors Theatre). Cheng is also the co-artistic director of Dawn Theatre Project, she has created and performed Above the Water, and her other devised works include Violate/Space, the Arrival, and Hold Your Hand. To learn more about her work, visit chihjou-cheng.com.
Born in Ruston, Louisiana and raised across Louisiana, Maryland, and Texas, Aaliyah Christina (she/her) creates and supports performance work as an administrator, curator, movement artist, and writer. Since 2015, she has collaborated with Chicago artists like Keyierra Collins, Ysayë Alma, Darling Shear, Wisdom Baty, Ayako Kato, and Dorian Sylvain. In 2021, Aaliyah received the 3Arts Make-A-Wave grant and as of 2023 she received the Illinois Arts Council Agency 2023 Artist Fellowship Finalist Award in Contemporary New Forms. She has volunteered for community orgs and campaigns including Assata’s Daughters and Defund CPD to fight for Black liberation.
J’Sun Howard (he/him), an award-winning Chicago-based dancemaker and poet, is a 3Arts Awardee, Links Hall Co-MISSION Fellow, a Ragdale Foundation Sybil Shearer Fellow, and a Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist, among many other distinctions. He holds an MFA in Dance and a certificate in World Performance Studies from the University of Michigan.
Previously a teaching artist and Alumni of Columbia College Chicago, Keisha taught house dance on the west and southside of Chicago. She is a well-established improvisational movement artist, accompanied as a soloist for “ Black Monument Jazz Ensemble,” “Sebau,” Katherine Davis, and Ben LaMar Gay. She’s also performed for the Instigation Festival, Freedom From Freedom Too, BraveSoul Movement, and Project Tool. Keisha has been honored as the 2021 3arts Make a Wave awardee, 2021/22Links Hall resident artist, BeBe Millers Solo/Duo Dancing Project Mentee, and Featured in Chicago Takes 10. Passionate about community engagement, Keisha is a Housing Case Manager helping the homeless and underprivileged populations stabilize their housing and health and also personally develop. A creative care community facilitator, she encourages her audience to discover themselves and find release through artistic forms of self-expression. Her aspirations are to rebuild the bonds between family and community through the creative arts and the spiritual upliftment of praise.
Helen Lee (they/she) is a Queer Asian American Chicago-born interdisciplinary artist raised by immigrant parents from South Korea. They received an MFA in Performance (The School of the Art Institute of Chicago) and a BA in Dance and Theatre (University of Hawaii at Manoa). They formed Momentum Sensorium in 2007, a company that has created for See Chicago Dance, Out of Site, APIDA Arts Festival and elsewhere. Helen has performed in the US and internationally, been an international Artist Resident and held local residencies at Links Hall, Chicago Artist Coalition (CAC) and High Concept Labs. Helen was selected for 2022 Newcity Breakout Artist, was a finalist for Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist and awarded a SPARK Grant from CAC.
Amalia Raye Wiatr Lewis (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist working with living beings, experiences, and objects. Rooted in ecological wonder and an exploration of the sacred, she works with dancers, non-dancers and sound artists to create site-specific performances and public interventions. She holds a BA from Bennington College in Vermont, where she studied choreography, visual art and anthropology, and an MFA from the Trondheim Academy of Fine Art in Trondheim, Norway. She has performed with national and international artists at galleries and museums and has shown her own work in the U.S., Mexico, Norway, France, Germany and Pakistan.
Drew Lewis (he/him) is a performer, choreographer, composer and educator originally from Oak Park, IL. He graduated magna cum laude from Cornish College of the Arts in 2016. Drew has performed extensively with Sidra Bell Dance New York, C-LS, Project 44, Attack Theatre, The Joel Hall Dancers, The Lyric Opera of Chicago and in projects by Lucy Riner and Erin Kilmurray. In 2020, Drew formed his own small ensemble, House of DOV, whose debut performance was selected as a finalist for the Chicago Reader’s Best of 2021. House of DOV has since performed throughout Chicago, including the full-length Heavy Objects, commissioned and presented by Steppenwolf Theatre, and Drew has created works for many other venues and projects.
Jenna Pollack (she/her) is a community-engaged researcher, dance professional, cultural organizer, urban planner, and educator. Recently she was a guest choreographer for Hedwig Dances, an Arts Envoy to the U.S. Embassy of Colombia, a Bessie Schonberg resident artist at The Yard, Boston Center for the Arts Dancemaker Resident. Jenna's collaborative teams have been commissioned by the Olin College of Engineering, New Movement Collaborative, Hubbard Street Professional Program, and The National Parks Service. Individually, she has choreographed for Bridge Repertory Theater, InDance Barcelona, Theater Felina-Areal Mannheim, Urbanity Dance Company, for various college dance and theater programs, and in NYC focused on immersive performance with The Center for Innovation in the Arts at Juilliard and Dau al Set Productions. Additionally, she served as The Davis Sisters' dramaturg and rehearsal director. From 2017 - 2021 Jenna was an Assistant Professor of Dance at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee, Salem State University, and the Boston Ballet.
Amanda Ramirez (she/her) is a Chicago-based dancer, movement director, and choreographer who creates genre-bending performance works centered around her Chicana culture. Ramirez is a graduate of Texas Tech University and has performed professionally throughout the country spanning from theatre, modern-contemporary dance, improvisation, latin dance, salsa, and flamenco.
Since 2016, Amanda has presented original choreographic works throughout the Midwest at Links Hall, Loyola University, College of Lake County, The Croft, and more. She has directed, choreographed and produced several evening length shows with her latest titled, “Nuestra Tierra” which will premiere at Rad Fest 2024. She is currently in post-production for her first dance film, "Tierra", which she directed, produced, and choreographed.
She is recognized as a choreographic grant recipient of Women Who Create, Cliff Dwellers, and more and is a recipient of several choreographic residencies and fellowships including Links Hall CO-Missions, The Croft, See Chicago Dance, Keshet Makers Experience, Synapse Arts New Works and more. In 2021, she began her certification in Intimacy Direction & Coordination for theatre & film.
