The School of the Art Institute of Chicago held its annual Performance Festival “Impact” on Saturday, April 6th and Sunday, April 7th. The event totaled seven hours and showcased various performances by SAIC’s students graduating with MFA and BFA degrees. The performances were intimate, experimental, powerful, used multimedia and resonated with many students and audience members.
Madison Mae Parker’s IN/TO in(to), 3.5 hours:
This durational performance took place the entire evening on Saturday, in the Base Space at 280 S.Columbus Dr., with interactive stations and ritual analyzing the feeling of belonging. Parker extended credits to: Mateo Badil, Elise Butterfield, Liz Flood, Caressa Franklin, Erin Hawkins, Claire Lobenfeld, Justine Neves, Sierra Severon, Dia Walker, and Denissa Young.
Madison Mae Parker (MFA 2024) sits with an audience member, engaging in a quiet conversation that the rest of the audience entering Parker’s installation can watch but not hear. Photo by Sidne K. Gard.
“I thought a lot about, I guess, this communal kind of space. And also all the different aspects of love and how it emerges in different people. And what it means to gather people together to try and — sort of verbalize it and call it out,” said Blaire St George, Gene Siskel Screener and a part-time SAIC student.
Kyriakos Apostolidis’ Stillness, 50 minutes:
“Stillness” put viewers in the intimate presence of a human body as the performer wore a brainwave sensor while standing on a resonant plate. Sound waves from the performer’s brain were played and projected, affecting the plate and simultaneously the performer’s body. Viewers enter the final 50 minutes of Apostolidis’ nine hour performance. Apostolidis extended credits to: Yezhou Zheng for the shown video and Juan Eduardo Flores for the sound piece.
Kyriakos Apostolidis (MFA 2024) standing in the dark completely nude on a platform. A clock that is counting the time passing projects onto one of the walls. Photo by Sidne K. Gard.
“…the envy of control that I felt and also the intensity of watching muscles quiver after an extended period of time. It was ravishing. I felt very close to him at that moment, especially at the fall,” said Anabelle Lee Dehm, SAIC student in Performance, and also a friend of Apostolidis.
Mads Reardon’s DOG SHOW FANCY, 20 minutes:
A drag performance using prop, music, and a pair of performers interacting. Reardon listed collaborators: Ari Karafiol and Eros Backus.
Mads Reardon’s (BFA 2024) performance played with aspects of gender and kink. Here Reardon uses the iconography, clothing, and power dynamics of pet play in the performance. Photo by Sidne K. Gard.
“…this felt different than it usually feels to perform because I have started performing a lot more. And so I’ve gotten to the space where I can enter into a performance without blacking out, essentially, so I can sit there and every moment I’m actively making decisions. And that’s, I don’t know, it felt really good,” said Mads Reardon (BFA 2024).
Marco Guagnelli’s Welcome Home, 20 minutes:
An interview-performance of citizenship utilizing live recording, projection, props, set, music, and movement. Guagnelli listed collaborators: Alejandra Ramos for the video shown, Jeremy Thal for the sound, and Akim Farrow for installation.
Marco Guagnelli (MFA 2024) strips out of a plain t-shirt and jeans down to a two-piece outfit printed with citizenship application papers. This moment marks the bridge between the two sections of this performance as the citizenship interview turns into a voguing performance. Photo by Sidne K. Gard.
“I really like the humor in it. I think this topic is good, and there’s not a lot of artists, even us foreign artists, we’re not really focused on the immigration topic. But for us, that’s a huge problem. It’s kind of a brutal process — I think the reality is the worst of those,” said Xinyang Xiao, a SAIC student in Painting and Performance.
Sophia Tarducci’s Outside, 15 minutes:
This puppetry performance took a playful look at sexuality and domesticity. Tarducci listed collaborator: Antonio Capone.
A close-up of Sophia Tarducci’s (BFA 2024) puppet –Ron– next to the doll that is a stand-in for the puppet’s wife who left him. The puppet and the doll sit inside the living room of the handmade dollhouse where Tarducci’s performance takes place. Photo by Sidne K. Gard.
“We were talking about how, as children, we used to play with dolls. How that kind of way of storytelling was very freeing and able to kind of go through some thoughts and feelings that maybe even as a child you’re not able to speak yourself, but through these kinds of objects and iconography, you’re able to play out your kind of thoughts and feelings,” Tyler Wynne, SAIC MFA student in ceramics said, responding to the performance.
Chelsea Swanson and Cecelie Lopez’s Iacune, 20 minutes:
Two performers moved in a sound, video, and fiber installation attached by rope tangling into lengths of fabric. Swanson and Lopez credited Charlie Thornton for costuming.
Chelsea (BFA 2024) and Cecelie Lopez (BFA 2024) sit in the center amidst large tangled pieces of fabric. Lopez and Chelsea move in tandem, mixing limbs, bodies, and fabric. Photo by Sidne K. Gard.
“I was interested in their interactions with each other. And when they kind of became enmeshed. So there were moments when I couldn’t really understand their configuration. And I saw a mass,” said Raine Young, SAIC student in Film Video and New Media Animation.
EmmyShell Barnes’ Pageantry, 30 minutes:
The narrative performance showed a southern Beauty Queen who robs a bank after missing out on the grand prize after she’s named as a runner up. The performance used paint, cardboard props, music, and dance.
EmmyShell Barnes (BFA 2024) stands smiling at the crowd, wearing a runner up sash in front of a wall tapped with strips that read, Crime Scene, and a sign reading: “First Tennessee.” Photo by Mya Nicole Jones.
“I was just drawing a lot of inspiration from pageant culture and southern culture as well, and also the kind of hip hop scene of music,” said EmmyShell Barnes (BFA 2024).
Tilcara Webb’s It draws you in and mends the part of you that has a hole, 15 minutes:
This performance drew from interviews conducted with strippers in the Chicago area and showcased pole dancing, stripping, and specific sound that mimicked moaning.
Tilcara Webb (MFA 2024) sits in front of a pole under a spotlight surrounded by various pieces of lingerie, heels, and other accessories while people enter the room surrounding her before the performance begins. Photo by Mya Nicole Jones.
“As a gay person — Oh, I loved it. I just found it amusing, in a good way. I think it was like teasing sex — performing sex, but in an asexual way,” said Havi Millar, SAIC student in Painting.
Makayla Lindsay’s Equipment Uses, 3 hours:
This performance took place the entire evening on Sunday in the Base Space. Various performers interacted with the space in multiple acts. The performance included ceramic, glass, fiber, and video installation.
At the entrance of the Base Space a performer hands out sheets of cardstock with a picture of one of the sculptures in the space and an order of the performances to take place throughout the evening. Photo by Mya Nicole Jones.
yiyisogreen’s Spring Dream, 20 minutes:
A video game server played live. Yiyisogreen listed collaborator: G0rb.
yiyisogreen (MFA 2024) and collaborator G0rb stand at tables across from one another with game controllers in hand while playing in an active video game server fighting, flying, and playing funny sound effects projected onto a wall for audience members to watch. Photo by Mya Nicole Jones.
Natanael Rivera Vargas’ this territory is isolation / este territorio es aislamiento, 12 minutes:
The poetry reading of one poem in multiple languages —English & Spanish— utilized an audio looping system to add layers and distortion to the voice reciting the poetry.
Natanael Rivera Vargas (MFA 2024) stands in a kiddie pool filled with water and feathers under a halo of light reading a poem in English and Spanish. Photo by Mya Nicole Jones.
Lizzie Strongson’s Gravedigger, 8 minutes:
A confrontation with grief and death using dirt and spoken word. The performance began inside the performance space then moved into the garden as Strongson was laid in the dirt. Strongson listed collaborators Eros C. Backus and Mary Elizabeth Rocha.
Lizzie Strongson (BFA 2024) sits in Child’s pose on a white sheet digging her hands into a pile of dirt while describing the losses in her family. Photo by Mya Nicole Jones.
Mary Elizabeth’s WERDERANGED, 30 minutes:
This two performer movement piece took place inside an installation of sound, video, and ceramic. A figure representing mother earth slowly began to undress the other performer, gradually covering her with dirt and trash burying her or returning her to earth. Elizabeth listed collaborator Vinny Haberman.
Mary Elizabeth (BFA 2024) crawls into the performance space in a beam of light as collaborator Vinny Haberman crawls towards her from out of the darkness at the start of the performance. Photo by Mya Nicole Jones.
Charlie Thorton, Vanishing Point, 20 minutes:
Charlie Thorton (BFA 2024) looked at dissolution and integration in their performance asking: “What does it mean to create something intricate and then let it go?” With the use of sound, water, steel, and embroidery stabilizer, Charlie investigated this question. They asked that no photographs be taken.
“I thought it was beautiful. It was something else — like cicadan,” said Felix Severino, SAIC student in Film, Video, New Media, and Animation.
After the last performance on the final day, a couple of the organizers of “Impact” 2024 shared their thoughts on the importance of this annual festival.
“The kind of interdisciplinary nature of our students at SAIC means that we have a combination of artists in the show that bring in all the disciplines through performance, I think it is absolutely magical. I think that the festival is a perfect example of the way in which performance exists within the school,” said Vanessa Damilola Macaulay, Assistant Professor in the Performance department, and one of the organizers of Impact 2024.
“It’s pedagogy in motion pedagogy, performing pedagogy I would say, but a lot of it is — the whole festival, in many ways, is a laboratory, an extension of the studio, an opportunity to get ideas on their feet, so to speak, in front of an audience. And that’s the real learning moment,” said Trevor Martin, Senior Lecturer at SAIC in the Performance department and one of the organizers of “Impact” 2024.
