Experimental Sound Studio and Links Hall are pleased to announce the recipients
of the second year of Crosscut grants. Crosscut is a partnership of the two
organizations, supporting new collaborations between local movement artists and
sound artists. Four new collaborations have been selected to each receive $5,000
awards:
Asimina Chremos and Fred Lonberg-Holm will explore duet collaborations in a
variety of different spaces and environments — inside a van, under a tree, in
a kitchen, in an office building, in an empty theater, or wherever they find
something that interests them. Both artists are interested in the idea of
scale in both choreography and sound: “microchoreography” dances where very
slight gestures have significance, and experiments with sound sources that
contradict the actual size of the performance space.
Karen Christopher and Mark Booth plan to create a new multi-media movement and
sound work. Throughout the process, the artists will not be bound by their
roles as “movement artist” and “sound artist,” but will jointly contribute to
all movement and sound components of the project. They will begin with an
assignment to explore the theme of memories which act as ligatures or bridges
that connect materials which have no previous connection, but should.
Rachel Damon and Dan Mohr aim to develop a new cross-disciplinary vocabulary,
rather than compartmentalize the sound and movement elements of their work.
Inspired in part by “stridulation” – the practice of rubbing one part of the
body against another to produce sound, as crickets do – the artists aim to
develop a compositional relationship that treats the voice and the moving body
as a single instrument through partnering, movement experiments, exercises in
ensemble singing, and the shared application of musical and choreographic
terminology.
Jessi T Walsh and Patrick Scott will develop a video installation to explore
aspects of their relationship as two long-term partner artists who experience
frequent disruptions to their domestic connection due to career-based travel.
Movement-based sound and video will distill “moments of suspension” in their
lives, as they seek to sustain intimacy without immediacy. Using contact
microphones and close-up video to record everyday activities and movements, the
installation will explore the closeness of apartness in moments where reaching
for one another cannot physically be satisfied due to distance, and the body’s
experience as it works through a prolonged distance without constant
companionship.
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In 2007, Links Hall and Experimental Sound Studio launched the Crosscut program,
with the goal of fostering new collaborations between Chicago-based sound
artists and Chicago-based movement artists who have never previously worked
together. Joint proposals are invited annually, from which pairs of newly
collaborating artistic partners are selected for support with a monetary grant
of $5,000 per pair. The proposal review panel for 2008 included composer and
media artist Gustavo Matamoros (Miami), choreographer Morgan Thorson
(Minneapolis), choreographer Ginger Farley (Chicago), Links Hall Executive
Director CJ Mitchell, and ESS Executive Director Lou Mallozzi.
Each selected pair of artists will now co-create a work, to be publicly
presented before the end of 2009. Funds may be used as best suits the artists:
for production costs, to pay for research materials, as leverage to seek
funding for large-scale projects, or to subsidize daily living as artists focus
on their work.
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Links Hall encourages artistic innovation and public engagement by maintaining a
facility and providing flexible programming for the research, development, and
presentation of new work in the performing arts. www.linkshall.org
Experimental Sound Studio (ESS) is a nonprofit organization supporting the
production, promotion, presentation, and preservation of innovative and diverse
approaches to the sonic arts, and to the integration of these art forms into the
community. ESS provides programs for artist development, public presentation,
technology access and training, outreach, and archiving and interpretation of
historically significant sound works.
