Miguel Gutierrez’s “Super Nothing,” presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art, March 28-30, as part of the “On Stage” program, explores absence, both philosophical and artistic, immersing the audience in a space where identity and meaning dissolve into pure movement. It evokes the ultimate void, where the self disappears and emotion fades into the background, offering a temporary escape from grief and loss. Through this embrace of emptiness, the performance provides a moment of release, allowing the audience to transcend sorrow and find solace in the stillness.
Through fragmented movement, moments of stillness and cycles of repetition, Gutierrez crafts a realm where the boundaries between the self and performance blur, allowing identity to dissipate and a shared, collective experience to emerge. The four dancers—Jay Carlon, Evelyn Lilian Sanchez Narvaez, Justin Faircloth and Wendell Gray II—become vessels for this dissolution, their bodies shifting between disjointed precision and quiet pause. As they move, they transform the stage into a landscape of pure potential, where meaning is not imposed but emerges organically through the physicality of their motion.
The choreography resists traditional structure, embodying an existential suspension that feels both meditative and disorienting. At times, the dancers' movements feel like echoes of themselves, floating in and out of awareness. There is no central narrative to follow. “Super Nothing” is not about telling a story but about existing in the absence of one. The performance becomes an exploration of what remains when everything else is stripped away, a raw, aesthetic confrontation with emptiness at the core of being.
The piece opens with a moment of quiet tension, as Faircloth and Gray briefly connect, one resting their chin on the other’s shoulder, before they split off into erratic, personalized gestures. Gutierrez’s process, which included revisiting old rehearsal footage, informs the work’s collage-like structure, with scenes unfolding like recovered memories—some flowing fluidly, others colliding with deliberate dissonance. This rhythm of unpredictability adds to the piece’s haunting quality, where the dancers’ movements feel at once intuitive and jarring.
As “Super Nothing” progresses, moments of humor emerge, breaking the tension and adding a layer of complexity. After a brief exit, the dancers return to a burst of scattered pop beats, and vibrant lighting by Carolina Ortiz, evoking the energy of a carefree night out. In another section, the dancers form tableaus, creating the impression of casual snapshots of friends or family, their faces alight with playful expressions and their bodies settling into familiar, almost nostalgic poses. Lighthearted moments offer a sharp contrast to the piece’s more somber tone, adding warmth and depth to the overall experience.
"Super Nothing," with Wendell Gray II, Evelyn Sanchez Narvaez, Jay Carlon, Justin Faircloth; Photo by Amelia Golden
“Super Nothing” is also marked by a pervasive melancholy, particularly in moments that land with unexpected emotional weight. A recurring image calls to mind the loss of a loved one. Gray, lying on the floor, is surrounded by his companions, with Carlon holding his hand and Narvaez gently touching his chest. This image lingers long after the moment has passed, its quiet, emotional resonance echoing throughout the piece. Each time the image occurs it holds the same amount of power.
Gutierrez also draws attention to the audience’s role in the performance. Halfway through, as the dancers change from black-and-white to neon-green costumes (designed by Jeremy Wood), spotlights sweep across the theater and land onto the audience. This brief, subtle interaction forces us to confront our place within the performance. We are not just observers but participants in the "super nothing" space, implicated in the void created by the dancers' movement.
The performance concludes in a similar moment of tension as the dancers face the audience directly, their movements wild and urgent, slashing and stirring the air around them. Slowly, they retreat toward the back wall and settle into a vulnerable pose with arms outstretched. The lights do not dim to signal the end; instead, they stay on, creating a lingering sense of connection between the performance and the audience. Perhaps Gutierrez is suggesting that we, too, have become part of this space, this lingering stillness, or maybe he wants us to feel that the performance continues beyond the stage.
The stage itself, with its black floors, bare walls, and lack of curtains or backdrops, reflects the emptiness of the void that the dancers occupy. The absence of cultural context, symbolism, or decoration transforms the stage into a neutral space, allowing the dancers’ bodies to move without the weight of preconceived expectations. The simplicity of their beginning white and black costumes further emphasizes this minimalism, blurring the distinction between the performers and their environment; in their neon green, they become a contrast to the emptiness. Stripped of visual markers and distractions, the movement takes center stage, existing as a pure, unmediated expression of physicality.
In a world fractured by noise and chaos, the piece becomes a quiet retreat into abstraction and embodied presence. It creates a space where the need for resolution and clarity is suspended, and the dancers' bodies become vessels for ambiguity, contradiction and uncertainty. Instead of conforming to the pressure of simplifying the world, “Super Nothing” embraces its complexity, offering a protest not through confrontation but through acceptance of the raw, messy reality of existence. The performance becomes a refuge for the audience, a space where meaning doesn’t emerge from clarity but from the simple act of being fully present within the void.
“Super Nothing” by Miguel Gutierrez runs March 28-30 at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, 220 E Chicago. Showtimes are Fri & Sat at 7:30pm; Sun at 2pm. Tickets available at mcachicago.org.
