the Function
the Function is a dance work that asks and imagines what is possible when empowered to rebuild our environments, atmospheres, futures, and realities. With a playground of choreography and object, four dancers actively create, operate, and destory their own performance worlds through DIY stage craft, iterative movement, bass driven, sonic storytelling, and house party energy. A hybrid dance event / performance work exploring the connectivity between agency, authorship, labor, and desire, Kilmurray and collaborations envision their own femme-powered universes.
Made within Chicago’s fringe performance scene, the Function is a relational practice towards artistic skill-sharing as creative mutual aid, modeling the kind of collective effort that proposes a world that is tended in community.
Kilmurray and collaborators are creating the work to be technically resourceful, allowing it to translate into to radically different kinds of venues and spaces.
PRESENTATIONS
Upcoming: Land and Sea Dept.; Friday Nights 8P, Four Shows Only — May 24 - Jun 14
Philadelphia Fringe Festival — Icebox Project Space - September 2023
Elevate Chicago Dance Festival; Chicago Dancemaker’s Forum — October 15, 2022
Chicago Performs | Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago — September 2022 (premiere)
CREDITS
Concept + Direction by Erin Kilmurray
Choreography from collaborations with performers Hannah Santistevan, Keyierra Collins, Kierah KIKI King, Maggie Vannucci, and originating dance artists Dee Alaba, Tia Monet Greer as well as Sarah Ellen Miller (assistant director / understudy).
Hannah Viti | VITIGRRL (sound) + Bran Moorhead (technical direction) + Anastar Alvarez (stage management) + Dani Wieder (dramaturgy) + Salyvat (stylist) with additional contributions from thought-partners Shannon Matesky, Quinn Tsan
The development of this work is supported by the Chicago Dancemakers Forum 2020 Lab Artists Program and the Museum of Contemporary Art’s Chicago Perform’s platform.
Creative Residencies for the Function include: The Harris Theater for Music and Dance (Chicago), Ragdale Foundation (IL), the Field Center for Performance, Dance, and Interdisciplinary Arts (VT), and Vashon Artist Residency (WA).
in the Press |
”The performance seeks to decenter authorship to model the kind of skill sharing and collective effort that an imagined utopia would require”.
The Arts Section | MCA Introduces Chicago Performs
WGNTV | New Chicago Performance Series