Performers Open Call: Jimmy Robert for Chicago Architecture Biennial

Event Type
Audition
Event Description
We are looking for performers to participate in Descendances du nu, a performance by Jimmy Robert. The 3rd edition of Chicago Architecture Biennial invites the work of French visual artist and performer Jimmy Robert who brings his interest of appropriation into his Biennial contribution. Descendances du nu, is a direct reference to Marcel Duchamp’s famous 1912 painting Nude Descending a Staircase. Originally performed at the Centre D’Art Contemporain La Synagogue de Delme in France, the performer’s body crawls on the ground, vulnerable, suggesting new approach to the space. For the performance at Le Synagogue and the forthcoming installation at the Chicago Cultural Center, the body becomes a powerful tool in reacting to the site in a way that might not have been intended by the architect.
 
For the Chicago Architecture Biennial, the artist is opening up the performance to a larger group of performers from the city to infuse the piece with their experience and propose different readings of the work by bringing different bodies, gender, colors. Performers will move through the installation in the Chicago Cultural Center with a large headpiece for the duration of the performance. The performance is as part of a larger installation within the Chicago Cultural Center, which will be on view September 19th, 2019- January 5th, 2020.
 
The 20 minute performance will run twice a week at the Chicago Cultural Center, beginning the week of September 16th through end of November (10 weeks).
 
Application Deadline: September 1st for audition sign ups
Auditions: September 9th & 10th (times forthcoming)
Rehearsals: 5 days, September 11th – 15th
*ALL PARTICIPANTS MUST BE AVAILABLE FOR ALL DATES
 
Eligibility
• Performers with background in dance/movement
• Open to non professional performers
• Must be able to perform 20 minutes continuously with covered headpiece
• All ages and genders are welcome
 
How to Apply: Please send the following information to Marguerite Wynter (marguerite@chicagoarchitecturebiennial.org).
• Name
• CV and Resume
• Full availability for all dates

 

About
The Chicago Architecture Biennial provides a platform for groundbreaking architectural projects and spatial experiments that demonstrate how creativity and innovation can radically transform our lived experience. Through its constellation of exhibitions, full-scale installations, and programming, the Biennial invites the public to
engage with and think about architecture in new and unexpected ways, and to take part in a global discussion on the future of the field. The Chicago Architecture Biennial is hosted by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events at the historic Chicago Cultural Center.
 
Jimmy Robert’s practice encompasses performance, photography, film, video, and drawing, frequently collapsing distinctions between these mediums. Using photography
as a starting point for his works on paper, Robert blurs the divisions between two and three dimensions, as well as between image and object. This interest in blurred
boundaries integrates his performative work—which includes choreographed elements in the context of an exhibition or in relationship to architecture—with his larger practice.
In previous works he has explored the politics of spectatorship by reworking seminal avant-garde performances in ways that complicate their racial and gendered readings.
Robert’s work has been featured in a solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, in commissions by Performa 17 and the Glass House, in performances at
New York’s Museum of Modern Art, at the Berlin and Dakar biennials, and in a Satellite presentation organized by the Jeu de Paume, Paris.

 

Running Time
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Location

Chicago Cultural Center

78 E. Washington St.
Chicago, IL 60602