September 24-November 13, 2022

 

NAMED ONE OF "BEST ART EXHIBITIONS OF 2022" Chicago Tribune

For The Seldoms’ first museum exhibition, Artistic Director Carrie Hanson worked with Hyde Park Art Center curator Allison Peters-Quinn to design an exhibit and performance series based on The Seldoms’ ongoing Toolbox project (read about the history of Toolbox HERE). Toolbox entails a rigorous cross-disciplinary dialogue to invigorate dancemaking.  

“Toolbox @ Twenty” featured four pairings of a Seldoms dance artist with a Chicago-based visual or sound artist. The pairs were painter Jackie Kazarian with ensemble members Deandra Alaba and Maggie Vannucci; sculptor/builder Edra Soto with Artistic Director Carrie Hanson; fiber artist Jacqueline Surdell with ensemble member Sarah Gonsiorowski; and sound artist Sadie Woods with ensemble member Damon Green.  Additional contributors included composer/conductor Renee Baker of the Chicago Modern Orchestra Project and musician Sima Cunningham of Finom. 

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This year-long extensive collaboration yielded new choreographic tactics ("knot", "mask", "splice" and "bowerbird"), four new short dances, and new artworks by Kazarian, Surdell, and Woods. These were performed and installed in HPAC's Gallery 1, alongside videos, created by documentary filmmaker Steven Rosofsky, of the artist conversations, studio procedures, and new short dances. A video installation of "Bower Dance at Screenhouse", created by video artist Liviu Pasare and recorded at Soto’s “Screenhouse” installation in Millennium Park, was projected onto the facade of HPAC. 

 

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