This year’s performance art season opens with a sense of relief and renewal.
Randolph Street Gallery, long the city’s premier performance space, was shuttered last winter because of financial woes but returns with a surprisingly strong and varied fall schedule.
And the Museum of Contemporary Art’s new performance space, which in its premiere season programmed several acts that had previously appeared at Randolph Street, has booked a completely original program for its second year.
Here is a closer look at some events, in chronological order:
– Kathy Acker and The Mekons, Sept. 19-20, Museum of Contemporary Art. Acker is an influential post-punk novelist known for her brash experimentalism and radical politics. Her works include “Blood and Guts in High School,” “Don Quixote” and “Pussy, King of the Pirates” (on which the weekend’s performances are based). The Mekons, who exploded on the punk scene in 1977, are currently based in both Chicago and London and feature local musicians Sally Timms and Jon Langford.
– Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Sept. 26, Randolph Street Gallery. Collaborating with Roberto Sifuentes these days instead of Coco Fusco, Gomez-Pena presents “The Mexterminator,” what he likes to call “a techno-diorama.” Begun in 1995 from an Internet project, the performance results from e-mail suggestions of how to represent the mythical Mexican and Chicano of the ’90s.
– The Wooster Group, Nov. 12-16, MCA. The wildly experimental New York performance troupe makes its Chicago debut with six shows of “HOUSE/LIGHTS,” based on Gertrude Stein’s “Dr. Faustus Lights the Lights.” Interdisciplinary, ironic and smart, this program is likely to sell out before opening.
– Root Wy’mn Theater Company’s “No Mo Blues,” Nov. 21-23, RSG. This Austin-based African-American women’s performance project uses ritual, sound and movement to explore life and love.
– Bryn Magnus in “Dictator Light,” Dec. 4-6, MCA. A series of live performances is combined with classic Hollywood films that focus on Hollywood life. A core member of the Curious Theater Branch, Magnus is best known for quirky, often bloody shows that examine desire and possibility. Working with Michael Zerang, whose musical collaborations with Redmoon Theater are the stuff of local legend, Magnus’ piece will be a world premiere.
– A Real Read, Dec. 12-13, RSG. This local “lesbigaytrans” performance group takes a wry, penetrating look at race, gender and identity in a show conceived in conjunction with Trace, a multidisciplinary project at the gallery running Oct. 17-Dec.13.
