Marketing & Communications: SAIC Hosts IN>TIME 2016

CHICAGO—The city of Chicago and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), one of the nation’s leading art and design schools, host the IN>TIME performance art festival, featuring both international and local artists exhibiting in 15 diverse venues across the city. Organized by SAIC faculty member and Performance department Graduate Coordinator Mark Jeffery, the festival will showcase a diverse sampling of performance work from January 8–March 4.

The 4th edition of the IN>TIME Festival is a convergence of performance practices in Chicago. It is born from deep engagement with local performance practices, international friends and artists, and the structures and concepts of performance itself. It has evolved from a biennial to a triennial festival, encompassing venues all over Chicago, and pieces ranging from dance to performance art to experimental theatre. It is IN>TIME because it comes just in the dead of winter when things seem bleakest, because it provides a snapshot of what is happening in contemporary performance right now, and because performance is a time-based medium that requires that we all be present with one another. IN>TIME is a coming together for a moment within performance.

Discussing the previous edition of the Festival with Caroline Picard for Bad at Sports, festival director and curator Mark Jeffery said, "I think of Chicago as a place for experimentation, a place for artists to really explore and test rigorous ideas. It is a place for research to take place, and for non-traditional, informative intersections and overlaps that to spring up unexpectedly via collectives and collaborations. That is what I get excited about."

Festival venues range in size and scope, from Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Block Museum and the Chicago Cultural Center; to the High Concept Laboratories, Links Hall, Defibrillator, and Hyde Park Art Center. These venues have collaborated with Jeffery to curate and exhibit performance art, video screenings, lectures, and symposia that investigate intersections of body, text, object, sound, and technology, all within the context of performance.

Keeping with the festival's exploration of "deep engagement," this year the festival is supporting the cultivation of new work in Chicago by connecting artists to local residencies at the Hyde Park Art Center, High Concept Laboratories, The Bridge Performance Space, and Defibrillator Performance Art Gallery. In addition, SAIC will host artists Vlatka Horvat, Anthea Behm, and Sally Morgan in a special winter course, "FROZEN IN>TENSITIES," where students will be introduced to several performance pedagogies in three separate week-long courses.

In order to cultivate deeper conversation, artists in the IN>TIME Festival will gather on Saturdays in February at the Chicago Cultural Center to participate in the IN>TIME HUB, a series of panels and workshops which will allow audiences to engage more deeply with the artists and their work. This expanded programming is a first for the festival, and a demonstration of its commitment to the cultivation of dialogue within the performance community both locally and globally.

Participant highlights include Forced Entertainment (United Kingdom), Ingrid Fiskdal (Norway), Sally J Morgan and Jess Richards (New Zealand), Anna Martine Whitehead (Chicago), Vlatka Horvat (United Kingdom), Jillian Pena (New York), Eva Meyer-Keller (Berlin), and Every House Has A Door (Chicago).

IN>TIME Performance Festival

January 29–March 4, 2016

Locations and times vary. For more information and for a complete schedule of events, please visit in-time-performance.org.

IN>TIME HUB

Chicago Cultural Center

Every Saturday in February, artists from the festival will discuss their work and relevant issues with local and international curators. Highlighted events include:

• February 13: Speculative Black Bodies
• February 20: Contemporary Performance Curation

IN>TIME RESIDENCIES

• The Bridge (Elise Cowin and Dao Nguyen, Chicago)
• Defibrillator Performance Art Gallery (Sally J. Morgan and Jess Richards, New Zealand)
• Hyde Park Art Center (Marie Cool and Fabio Balducci, France; Beitiks, Benedict, Enzs and French, USA)
• High Concept Laboratories (Anna Martine Whitehead, Nicole Mauser, USA)
• Sullivan Galleries (Sally J. Morgan and Jess Richards, New Zealand)

HIGHLIGHTS

Museum of Contemporary Art:

• February 4–7: Ingrid Fiksdal (Norway)
• February 20: Forced Entertainment (UK); Speak Bitterness

Defibrillator Performance Art Gallery:

• February 6: Sally J. Morgan and Jess Richards (New Zealand)

High Concept Labs at Mana Contemporary:

• February 11–13: Anna Martine Whitehead (USA)

Poetry Foundation:

• February 20: Every House Has A Door (Chicago)

About the School of the Art Institute of Chicago

For 150 years, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) has been a leader in educating the world’s most influential artists, designers and scholars. Located in downtown Chicago with a fine arts graduate program ranked No. two by U.S. News and World Report, SAIC provides an interdisciplinary approach to art and design as well as world-class resources, including the Art Institute of Chicago museum, on-campus galleries and state-of-the-art facilities. SAIC’s undergraduate, graduate and post-baccalaureate students have the freedom to take risks and create the bold ideas that transform Chicago and the world—as seen through notable alumni and faculty such as Michelle Grabner, David Sedaris, Elizabeth Murray, Richard Hunt, Georgia O’Keeffe, Cynthia Rowley, Nick Cave, and LeRoy Neiman. For more information, please visit saic.edu.