Series Archive

• 2025

  Chicago Performs returns to the MCA for its fourth year with a four-day festival of dynamic, electrifying performances by artists Robyn Mineko Williams & Artists, Helen Lee/Momentum Sensorium, and Red Clay Dance Company. Taking place within and outside of the museum’s walls, this annual festival of performance puts the wealth of revelatory live arts made by the Chicago creative community front and center, inviting a small cohort of local artists to share new performance works, including those developed through the MCA’s In Progress series and New Works Initiative.

  In 2025, three movement-based artists explore themes of remembrance and grief to make space for joy and healing. At a social and politcal moment of heightened turmoil and precarity, these works offer somatic rituals for reflection, celebration, survival, and reprieve. Robyn Mineko Williams creates a new cinematic dance piece with live music and shadow puppetry that considers the imprints we make on those we encounter.  Red Clay Dance Company, led by Vershawn Sanders Ward, envisions a utopia for Black girls in new work with an altar to missing and murdered Black women and girls at its center. Finally, choreographer and somatic guide Helen Lee offers a series of participatory workshops featuring sound bowls, a walking meditation from the MCA to the lake, and a communal meal shared with an intimate audience for those curious to explore techniques for processing grief.

  Chicago Performs 2025 is organized by Laura Paige Kyber, Assistant Curator of Performance.

• 2024

  Chicago Performs returns to the MCA for its third year with a four-day festival of dynamic, electrifying performances by artists Lin Hixon and Matthew Goulish, Lykanthea, and cat mahari. Taking place within and outside of the museum’s walls, this annual festival of performance puts the wealth of revelatory live arts made by the Chicago creative community front and center, inviting a small cohort of local artists to share new performance works, including those developed through the MCA’s In Progress series and New Works Initiative.

  Chicago Performs 2024 is organized by Laura Paige Kyber, Assistant Curator of Performance.

• 2023

  Chicago Performs returns to the MCA with new works by three artists: Jonas Becker, Anjal Chande, and Irene Hsiao. This annual festival of live arts celebrates the wealth of innovative work being made by Chicagoans today by inviting three to four local artists to share new works of performance, including pieces developed through the MCA’s In Progress series and New Works Initiative. Bringing together work across genres and career-stages, Chicago Performs supports artists who are entering a new phase of their practice—whether stepping onto a larger stage for the first time, exploring new directions, or expanding the scale of their projects—and offers the public an unprecedented chance to witness the city’s groundbreaking performance artists in action.

  Chicago Performs 2023 is organized by Tara Aisha Willis, former MCA Curator, with Laura Paige Kyber, Curatorial Associate.

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  View this season’s Curatorial Note.

• 2022

  From an underground utopian dance party, to a cyberpunk rock opera, to a seven-hour Electric Slide marathon, join the MCA on September 15 and 16, 2022, for the debut of Chicago Performs an annual celebration of performance highlighting the wealth of innovative work being made by Chicagoans today. 

  This two-day festival invites attendees to gather for three new performances by local artists live at the museum. Your ticket includes museum admission and access to related programs. Between performances, festival-goers can attend an engaging public conversation with the artists, stroll through the galleries (including Nick Cave: Forothermore), grab a drink and other refreshments at the MCA’s Marisol Restaurant & Bar, and then celebrate with the artists in a happy hour and concluding dance party. 

  Chicago Performs is organized by Tara Aisha Willis, Curator, with Laura Paige Kyber, Curatorial Assistant.