As details begin to emerge surrounding EXPO Chicago and the Chicago Architecture Biennial, this latest announcement brings together one of Chicago’s favorite artists with one of its favorite architects. Scheduled to debut during EXPO’s vernissage on September 13th, Jeanne Gang and her office Studio Gang Architects have teamed up with artist Nick Cave to produce a new performance piece.
Entitled Here Hear, the collaboration will have performers “intersect and respond to a field of dynamic, custom-fabricated objects.” Dressed in Nick Cave’s fantastical “Soundsuits,” performers will enact Cave’s latest choreographed Up Right Chicago as well as his HEARD performance. All of this will presumably take place in an environment designed by Studio Gang, all to the music of Chicago Jazz musician Kahil El Zabar.
“Up Right Chicago is a call to arms, head and heart, with each performance preparing the initiates’ mind, body and spirit to face the forces that stand in the way of selfhood,” said Cave in a press release. “Through movement, ritual and song, performers enter a world they have complete control over, like warriors of their own destiny.”
The new Up Right Chicago performance involves ten “initiates”—members of the community—as well as ten “practitioners,” including Cave and his partner Bob Faust.
“Like Cave’s works, the objects blur the boundary between audience and performer,” said Gang. “People will engage with the objects, making them performative and expanding the collaboration to the city of Chicago.”
After the first performance, the show will be moved to the outdoors to Navy Pier’s Polk Bros Performance Lawn to be performed on September 16th as part of the Chicago Architecture Biennial. EXPO has also hinted that there may be additional performances, saying a full schedule will be released later in the summer.
