Photo by Rita Taylor
Elaborate
Elaborate will showcase Echo Network, a dance/technology work-in-progress by Christopher Knowlton, and a concert version of the new Cuban punk rock musical frikiNation by Krystal Ortiz.
Doors at 6:45 p.m
Performance starts at 7:30 p.m.
Estimated Duration: 2 hours
Free and open to the public
Elaborate is being piloted as an enhancement to DCASE’s current artist-in-residency programs for dance/movement arts and new plays/musicals. During Elaborate, new iterations of recent projects are staged to catalyze project momentum and make visible the often invisible and extensive labor of new work development.
This event also includes an interactive lobby display by Knowlton from his series Deus Ex Machina Doctrina.
Main Program
Echo Network by Christopher Knowlton
Presented in partnership with High Concept Labs
Echo Network is a developing digital dance project that attempts to re-imagine our digital social networks as a naturalistic and embodied nexus for connection. The work pulls biomimetic inspiration from mammals like dolphins, bats, wolves, elephants and whales who use echolocation, calls and songs to navigate low-visibility environments and strengthen social bonds. With elements first hatched at the Chicago Cultural Center’s Dance Studio Residency, the work experiments with new ways to experience dance by listening to sensory data from dancers transformed into real-time spatialized soundscapes.
frikiNation by Krystal Ortiz (concert version)
Music & Lyrics by EsKoria
Music Direction by Alan Mendez
Presented in partnership with UrbanTheater Company
Using a 2002 album by Cuban punk band EsKoria (AKA EsKoria del Odio), frikiNation is a bilingual punk rock musical that tells a powerful history from the early 1990s when punks across Cuba injected themselves with HIV-positive blood in an attempt to access a higher quality of life within the government-sanctioned HIV sanitariums. This concert edition of frikiNation will highlight the score, with musicians playing the full Spanish-language album, 'al fin, por fin', composed by EsKoria and arranged by Alan Mendez, to give you a taste of this exciting new musical written by Krystal Ortiz.
Lobby Program
Deus Ex Machina Doctrina by Christopher Knowlton is a multi-component work exploring the deification of new technologies, the implications of artificial intelligence (AI) for dance and the distinction between generative and extractive AI. The project has been developed through the Artist-in-Residence program at High Concepts Labs at Mana Contemporary in Chicago.
Presented in partnership with The City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.