While Community Outreach and Education Manager at The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, I catalyzed a collaboration between Sennichimae Blue Sky Dance Club and the Black Monks of Mississippi. For three months, I facilitated communications between the two companies, communicating from Japan and the United States. When Sennichimae came to Chicago, I arranged a pop up stage at the Experimental Station, an artist’s warehouse space on the South Side. The Black Monks of Mississippi and Sennichimae Blue Sky Dance Club presented a collaborative performance grown through their exchanges. The Station was packed with a diverse audience of people from around the world and across the city of Chicago.

Click on this link to see a video excerpt from the performance.

Afro-Butoh: Spirituality in Sound and Movement

Film Viewing and Live Performance: 

Date Time: November 16, 7:00 - 8:30 PM

Join us for a unique evening exploring the intersection of Japanese and African cultural traditions through Butoh dance, live performance, and discussion. The evening will feature live performance by local master cellist Gretchen Yanover and improvisational dance by DAIPAN Butoh dancer Kaoru Okumura, followed by film screenings of Tebby Ramasike (Butoh artist from South Africa/Netherlands), showcasing a video excerpt of his work and an interview conducted by Dhyana Garcia. We’ll wrap the evening with a Q&A and discussion led by local nondenominational priestess Reverend Amelia Bolyard (Solvej Amelia Noa).

Afro-Butoh: Spirituality in Sound and Movement

Film Viewing and Live Performance: 

Date Time: November 16, 7:00 - 8:30 PM

Join us for a unique evening exploring the intersection of Japanese and African cultural traditions through Butoh dance, live performance, and discussion. The evening will feature live performance by local master cellist Gretchen Yanover and improvisational dance by DAIPAN Butoh dancer Kaoru Okumura, followed by film screenings of Tebby Ramasike (Butoh artist from South Africa/Netherlands), showcasing a video excerpt of his work and an interview conducted by Dhyana Garcia. We’ll wrap the evening with a Q&A and discussion led by local nondenominational priestess Reverend Amelia Bolyard (Solvej Amelia Noa).

Becoming Justice: Rewriting the Racial Stories in Our Bodies & Communities

Taught by Lin Lucas; Hosted By DAIPAN Butoh Collective

Description: Using a variety of creative mediums, participants will cognitively and somatically explore the intersection of Art, Education, Race, and Equity. In community, we will share, collaborate, make, and reflect on creative praxis as it relates to expanding  individual and organizational practices that heal historical and systemic wounds.

Workshop Goals:

Provide opportunities for artists and teachers to respond to questions about racial justice and equity as it relates to their work.

Explore creative applications of culturally responsive practices.

Unpack common terminology (race, racism, equity, bias, social identity, oppression, culture, cultural appropriation)

Provide resource materials to assist in further development of these skills

Build a foundation for further training and intentional conversations.

Understand that everyone has an active role to play in creating and sustaining an inclusive community.

Essential Question: 

How can we challenge prevailing cultural narratives about race through our creative praxis?

Workshop Outline:

Race, Culture, & Art: What artists present and what they take away during interactions with their audiences?

How do we bring authentic questions about racial equity into our work? What impact will cultural awareness have on our practice? On our audience? On society?

Art as Mirror: Bringing Social & Cultural Relevance to our praxisEssential Question: How can we challenge prevailing cultural narratives about race through our creative praxis?

Taught by: Lin Lucas is an educator, multi-disciplinary artist, and ritual practitioner specializing in ancestral lineage healing. Lin is adept at developing programs that enhance learning by bridging distinct disciplines through integrated practices that center creative expression. He has engaged in social justice and equity training with National Association of Independent Schools, The National Coalition Building Institute, Young Audiences of Oregon & Washington, The Right Brain Initiative, and Seattle Race & Social Justice Initiative. www.earthseedrising.com

I curated the Citizen Movement Film Series in a partnership with The Dance Center, David Dorfman Dance, the Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women & Gender in the Arts and Media, and the Center for Teaching Excellence, and Critical Encounters. The series presented films and opportunities for conversation about slavery, racism, and radical activism.

For this performance offering, I formed a community cast and worked intensely with the cast for six months leading up to the performance at he Open Flight Studio. During and between our intensives, I shared research relating to the work’s focus as well as exercises and experiences to deepen the casts’ connection to their bodies and each other.

Whether through motion capture, live processing, animation or other means of data visualization, the body is the referent and inspiration for many digital media artists working with interactive technologies. This exhibition and series of events was an investigation into this confluence. As the body is digitally reflected and reborn, are we looking towards technology to experience ourselves in a redeemed form outside of human societal constructs? When technology captures kinetic energy, is our essence embodied in the pixilation, or is our "self" lost in the process? Through dynamic works by Luftwerk, OpenEnded Group, and Troika Ranch, as well as the Synchronous Objects web kiosk created by William Forsythe, Maria Palazzi, and Norah Zuniga Shaw, we brought forward exploratory ideas that pushed and pulled at our perceptions of the body and impulses to move beyond it into uncharted cyber territory.

Root Reflections brought into focus the essence, rebellion, and soulfully embodied technique reflected in Breaking, Human Beatboxing, Voguing and Capoeira, back to back on one stage. The program featured performances by Chicago*s Awesome Style Konnection (A.S.K.), the Brickheadz- an internationally known professional breakdancing group, Gropu Axe Capoeira, Darrell Jones- presenting his current voguing inspired work, human beatboxer Yuri Lane and BraveMonk as MC with DJ Man-O-Wax. Presented in the Chicago Cultural Center’s Preston Bradley Hall on a catwalk under a beautiful tiffany dome and chandelier.

Techno-Sensual: Human Nature in Digital Reflection was co-written by Sara Slawnik and I for the exhibition publication for the Digital Incarnate Exhibition. Sara Slawnik and I curated the exhibition, along with a series of cross-departmental community outreach and engagement programs through the exhibit’s duration and in response to the exhibition after it ended. To view, click here.

In this experiential workshop, Scholar Andrew Harvey shared history and poems by Rumi as Persian Master Dancer Banafsheh Sayyad led participants through ancient mysticism in hypnotic trance, directed movement and deep listening. The workshop also offered access to the Sufi meditation of Sema, allowing people to experience levels of whirl for a sustained period with ease.

hope (em)body: David Dorfman's Radical Provocation is an article I wrote after a conversation with Master Dance Artist David Dorfman. During his residency at The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, I created a series of community engagement programs from a Art & Democracy Movement Workshops to a Citizen Movement Film and Discussion Series, and Video Glimpses of his workshops which were shared on-line. To view full article, click here.

In the Teaching Full Circle article, I was able to highlight the teaching apprenticeship program I developed at The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, as well a offer one of my apprentices an opportunity to write and publish an article about her experience teaching movement integration in Chicago area Public Schools. To view full article, click here.

Working with a class at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, we designed a community engagement project with an aim to share information with commuters stopped at the city’s bridges. When bridges along the Chicago river rise up to let boats through, citizens have to wait on the sidewalks. This seemed like a perfect time to engage people in facts about the river, water usage and effects of pollutants. The cards would often spark conversation and interest in acting toward positive change and spreading more conscious awareness.

I created this handout while I was serving on the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee for Thornton Creek Elementary School. It was distributed to every family at the school.

This panel discussion investigated the body and its cultural context through the realm of technological intervention. It featured a conversation among pioneering artists whose work engages the body and digital media, including: Grisha Coleman (composer, performer and choreographer; Assistant Professor in Arts, Media and Engineering at Arizona State University); Marianne Kim (artist and educator working in dance, theatre and video art; Assistant Professor at Arizona State University's Humanities, Arts and Cultural Department); Maria Palazzi (co-creative director of Synchronous Objects; Director of the Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design, and Associate Professor of Design at The Ohio State University); and Dawn Stoppiello (choreographer and dancer; Executive Director and Artistic Co-Director of Troika Ranch), and moderated by Raquel Monroe, Assistant Professor at The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago.

For Anima, I curated an evening of dance theater and film at Sugar Space in Salt Lake City. I also designed the postcard and wrote copy for the show. The evening presented works that raised awareness about the lives of women and children in Afghanistan, the rise of violence and hate directed at Muslims in the post 9/11 era, and the necessity to revisit our relationship with the source and treatment of the food we consume.

For Anima, I curated an evening of dance theater and film at Sugar Space in Salt Lake City. I also designed the postcard and wrote copy for the show. The evening presented works that raised awareness about the lives of women and children in Afghanistan, the rise of violence and hate directed at Muslims in the post 9/11 era, and the necessity to revisit our relationship with the source and treatment of the food we consume.

In partnership with the Jane Adams Hull-House Museum, David Dorfman Dance, and the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, I organized a series of Art & Democracy in Movement workshops that reached students, staff, faculty, and many others throughout the city. Each workshop was full of people ready to move and learn how to utilize dance as activism.

To view full article, click here.

As Program Coordinator at Snow City Arts Foundation, I worked with a team of artists to bring together an exhibition of artwork created by children in the hospital. Through an exploration of animal symbolism and their mythical roles in cultures around the globe, we inspired children to create art about their self-identity and human experience. We also wanted to provide the kids with an opportunity to showcase their work outside of the hospital walls, surrounded by the beautiful nature of Ryerson Woods. The children’s works filled the exhibition space at Ryerson Woods with the grace and wonder of the human spirit.

The From the Ground Up exhibition investigated food production, its interconnection to the environment, and our well-being as a society. Before the exhibition, artist handed out business size cards with different food production facts and a glimpse of their artwork. Cards were also intentionally left on library and supermarket shelves, on buses, coffee tables and other places where they could be found and shared. During the exhibition, a series of dinners were held in the gallery. The dinners were prepared by artists using locally grown ingredients and served on one of the exhibiting artist’s, David Banga, dinnerware sets. The extra community engagements furthered catalyzed discussion, connection, and action,

To view full article, click here.

To view full timeline click here.

While at Snow City Arts Foundation, I co-coordinated the launching, implementation, and creation of a global photographic engagement project that reached over 500 children from the United States, Italy, Pakistan, Ghana, and Australia. I wrote and received grants from Epson, the Illinois Arts Council, and the Chicago Humanities Festival to support the purchase of cameras and artist residencies in each of the participating countries. Saving Ourselves was an exhibition of some of the photographs taken by pediatric patients who participated in the project from around the world.