At this month’s Pleiades Series we we welcome two duos before we open up the jam for all femme/nonbinary/trans artists to join in. First up we’ll have a duo of Detroit based guitarist Kirsten Cary and Chicago Elastic regular Gaby Martinez with movement. Following we’ll have modular synthesist Kari Watson utilizing the 16 channel CLEAT system alongside cellist Katinka Kleijn. This will be a wonderful Sunday night Pleiades Series! Following these two sets we’ll engage our classic Pleaides jam for all femme/nonbinary/trans artists to join in with the curated guests. You can email pleiades@elasticarts.org to sign up, or sign up at the door. Free for all jammers!

Save the date for the 6th Annual Elastic Arts Benefit on Saturday May 18th!  We need your support to remain a sustainable space for creative music, art, and performance. The event will highlight many of the things that make Elastic Arts what it is, but most importantly we will celebrate togetherness. This year we recognize the achievements of Marvin Tate with the Elastic Arts Achievement Award. We’ll have performances throughout the night, delicious catered food and drink, silent auction, a raffle, interactive experiences, and so much more. Stay tuned for more information and tickets.

Minneapolis and New York converge on Chicago for tonight’s Improvised Music Series! Hanson, Hirsh, Clowser shape musical narratives in real time; Greene and Mattrey probe the limits of their instruments.

In conjunction with Experimental Sound Studio and the CLEAT Series we continue our series of artist-led introduction workshops exploring spatial audio.

The workshops are approximately 2 hours and will begin with a demonstration and discussion of each individual artist’s approach to multichannel sound. In the second half of the workshops, participants will have an opportunity to experiment with multichannel sound techniques on the 16-channel CLEAT system installed at Elastic.

No prior experience with multichannel sound necessary! You will need to bring your own laptop to actively participate in the second half of each workshop, however you are also welcome to simply listen and observe without a laptop.

The workshops are FREE but space is limited. Come to one, or come to all! Following this round of four workshops we will start planning future CLEAT workshop series in Fall 2024, Spring 2025, and Fall 2025.

Artist Guests
May 1: Anthony Janas
May 8: Dorothy Carlos
May 15: Allen Moore
May 22: Kiku Hibino

Tonight we welcome a Dark Matter Series takeover from Beats & Vibes, a four-part series of live interviews and interactive skill-building workshops that spotlights Chicago DJs and producers, providing them with a platform to share insights into their creative practices and paths to pursuing DJing and production professionally. Co-presented by Calid Bowen of AfroBang, Alexandria Eregbu of Finding Ijeoma, and Sam Brown of The Sypher Productions, Beats & Vibes continues to bring The Drum Call web series piloted by AfroBang out of the digital realm into diverse Chicago event spaces for hands-on learning opportunities and community-building.

In celebration of the Healing from Racism Through the Arts Series, we are thrilled to offer this unique experience!

Celebratory Concert: Funkadesi Unplugged & Community Drum Circle w/ Special Guest Emily Hooper Lansana

Winner of Chicago Reader's "Best of 2023" for Best World Music Group, Funkadesi has been wowing crowds with their unique blend of Bollywood, Reggae, Bhangra, Funk and Afro-Caribbean rhythms for ver 27 years.  For this unique program, Funkadesi will perform a semi-unplugged concert. There will also be a special guest opening performance by storyteller & spoken word artist Emily Hooper Lansana.  Held in an intimate setting with limited capacity, the band is inviting the audience into a community drum circle, and opportunity for optional reflections on the April workshop series from those who have participated.

We’ve got a huge month at Elastic Arts with the weekly Making Multichannel Music workshops and this two set bill! Let’s get our CLEAT on! Tonight will open with Han Lee, Justin Ortez, and Shi-An Costello performing Jack Hamill’s Manifest the Terrestrial Shifting Boundlessness, a piece for three keyboard instruments celebrating the process of FM synthesis and it’s propensity for electric, earthbound, howling vibrations. These keyboard sounds will then be diffused throughout the 16-channel speaker system. Rounding out the night will be a quartet of Yousif Alzayed, Patrick Glennon, Mauricio López F., and Steph Patsula peforming via the CLEAT. We’ll see and hear three very different approaches to the system, and we can’t wait! Sounds at 8pm.

At this week’s Improvised Music Series we welcome incredible Chicago tuba player Beth McDonald for a full night of sounds in celebration of her birthday! There will be two sets, two trios. First up we’ll hear from guitarist Andrew Clinkman and audio/visual artist Kim Alpert as they mingle with Beth’s dirging tuba and electronics. Closing out the night will be McDonald with her frequent collaborator Ken Vandermark and pianist Mabel Kwan. Both sets will highlight McDonald’s incredibly unique approach to tuba, both as a singular voice and versatile collaborator. Music at 8:30pm!

In conjunction with Experimental Sound Studio and the CLEAT Series we continue our series of artist-led introduction workshops exploring spatial audio.

The workshops are approximately 2 hours and will begin with a demonstration and discussion of each individual artist’s approach to multichannel sound. In the second half of the workshops, participants will have an opportunity to experiment with multichannel sound techniques on the 16-channel CLEAT system installed at Elastic.

No prior experience with multichannel sound necessary! You will need to bring your own laptop to actively participate in the second half of each workshop, however you are also welcome to simply listen and observe without a laptop.

The workshops are FREE but space is limited. Come to one, or come to all! Following this round of four workshops we will start planning future CLEAT workshop series in Fall 2024, Spring 2025, and Fall 2025.

Dorothy says “Feel free to bring an instrument. This workshop will cater to instrumentalists who are seeking to spatialize the sound of their instrument live during a performance.”

Artist Guests
May 1: Anthony Janas
May 8: Dorothy Carlos
May 15: Allen Moore
May 22: Kiku Hibino

We again meet on a Sunday afternoon for our AfriClassical Futures Series on May 5th! At this show we’ll be featuring Detroit based artist King Sophia(they/she) as they present the music and legacy of Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson as a profound representation of Classical Black Folk Songs. It will be a deep dive into Perkinson's Lamentations, the folk songs within, and the stories surrounding the music and composer. Interspersed between King Sophia's performances of the Black Folk/Song Suite for solo cello will be stories of Perkinson's life and community, including the cellist he wrote the piece for, Ronald Lipscomb, and their work as part of America's first integrated symphony orchestra. We’ll also hear improvised folk songs performed by series curators Julian Otis and olula negre based on the traditional Black motifs found in Lamentations. The evening will conclude with all three performers improvising folk songs based on the entirety of the work and the meaning behind it. This will be an incredibly special matinee and we hope you can join us.

Tonight Asian Improv aRts Midwest presents two sets from Chicago artists. First up we have a duo from Kishino Takagishi and Henry Wolf presenting Radio in the Well. In this debut performance from the duo, Wolf and Takagishi will utilize their cumulative experiences as musicians and filmmakers to exhibit sample-based and multi-instrumental pieces. These works will feature live instrumentation exploring curated environmental landscapes to create a duet between conductors of all varieties. Next we’ll hear Songs of the Moon Over Mountain from multimedia artist Mallory Qiu. Drawing upon the rich cultural tapestry of her roots, Mallory Yanhan Qiu intricately weaves together multimedia elements to invite the audience to immerse themselves in the essence of her cultural and artistic journey from her hometown Chongqing to Chicago. The performance is a sensory experience, incorporating a mesmerizing blend of piano and synthesizer improvisation intertwined with movement, poetry reading, and projection visuals. Divided into four distinct chapters, each segment unfolds like a poetic narrative: "一时啼" (A Momental Chirp), "万重山" (Ridge after Ridges), "月向西" (Moon Towards West), and "影入湖" (Shadow into the Lake).

Tonight we step into nombreKARI’s world via an intimate performance at Elastic Arts. Kari invites you to join him and a live band, as he takes you through staple songs, the unreleased, and bits of his upcoming EP, rebecca’s room. Stop for a night and dive into the music with Kari!

This week’s Improvised Music Series welcomes a menagerie of musicians from Chicago and the Greater Midwest.

First time quartet of guitarist Seth Andrew Davis (Kansas CIty), violinist Alex Cunningham (St. Louis), bassist Andrew Scott Young (Chicago), and drummer Weasel Walter (Chicago) share the night with a duo of saxophonist Sarah Clausen (Chicago) and pianist Erez Dessel (Chicago).

In conjunction with Experimental Sound Studio and the CLEAT Series we continue our series of artist-led introduction workshops exploring spatial audio.

The workshops are approximately 2 hours and will begin with a demonstration and discussion of each individual artist’s approach to multichannel sound. In the second half of the workshops, participants will have an opportunity to experiment with multichannel sound techniques on the 16-channel CLEAT system installed at Elastic.

No prior experience with multichannel sound necessary! You will need to bring your own laptop to actively participate in the second half of each workshop, however you are also welcome to simply listen and observe without a laptop.

Tonight Anthony Janas presents: Better Living Through Multichannel Playback An introduction to multichannel performances with Reaper.

The workshops are FREE but space is limited. Come to one, or come to all! Following this round of four workshops we will start planning future CLEAT workshop series in Fall 2024, Spring 2025, and Fall 2025.

Artist Guests
May 1: Anthony Janas
May 8: Dorothy Carlos
May 15: Allen Moore
May 22: Kiku Hibino

We’re excited to welcome Michael Foster’s The Ghost to Elastic Arts for a special Sunday night performance. The Ghost is a trio that celebrates and ruthlessly probes the free jazz tradition's queer feelings, drawing inspiration from noise, reductionism, and the leather culture to unpack the masculinist aesthetics of musical catharsis. The Ghost is Michael Foster (tenor/soprano saxophones, samples, compositions), John Moran (bass), Joey Sullivan (drums). The prolific trio of Hearsay w/ Allen Moore (turntables/electronics), Ishmael Ali (cello, electronics), and Bill Harris will kick things off this evening. 8pm start.

Too many wrestlers to love, too many wrestlers to love to hate, and tons of great bassists to listen to .. and why not do the second installment for the Bass Dreams minus B. FPE has allowed me to dig into the other side of my musical life once and once again Bass Dreams minus B: OYAJI ROCK was inspired by all my favorite bassists and wrestlers --Tatsu Aoki Tatsu Aoki's super badass real cats jammed out some true trips this time around. Tiger Tanaka and Rami Atassi are unhinged on electric guitar, eating boundaries for breakfast and lunching on cosmic interconnectedness. All of it quantum interaction, particles at arbitrary distances, precision interpenetrations, flow states bouncing, excited, one mind. Rumback hitting drums to catch the jams, pushing on an impulse drive, everyone chasing the fire.

Simone Baron (NYC) / Emily Rach Beisel (Chicago) duo, followed by a fresh new ensemble presented by The Bridge blending musicians from France and Chicago!

2 sets, starting at 8:30PM

$15/$10 w/ Student ID - Tickets Available at the Door

At April’s Elastro Series we’re pleased to welcome NYC-based artist Laura Ortman, a duo from Chicago residents Kim Nucci and Ruby Que, and solo set from the inimitable Kikú Hibino.

Ortman is in town for a couple site specific performances at the Museum of Contemporary Art, so we’re so pleased they’re able to present work with us here at Elastic Arts.

This month’s Pleiades Series features a collaboration with the transatlantic ChicagoxFrance collaborative organization The Bridge! Céline and Katie are part of the this iterations *touring band* and will be playing in quartet with Chicagoans Caroline Jesalva and Al Kolot.

After the planned sets we’ll return to the classic Pleiades Open Jam where any/all femme/trans/nonbinary artists are invited to bring an instrument and get in on some improvisations with Celine / Katie / Caroline / Al + other attendees. You can sign up for the jam at pleiades@elasticarts.org or at the door when you arrive. Any jam participants are offered free admission to the show1

We’re excited to host a record release party for an Elastic friend close to our heart. Many of you know Eli Sabbagh as the charming MC of our series Freedom From and Freedom To and a drumming participant. His band Outburst on the 66 has created a new record titled The Spaceship Has Come for the Father’s Son which traveres the spaceways of jazz, funk, rock, and all the things in between. A handful of Elastic family members special guest on here as well! Tonight we’ll have two experiences for you to listen to the new album alongside a video art visual accompaniment. There will be playthroughs at both 7pm and 8:30pm, some food, some drinks, some good times. Join us as we celebrate this radical record!

HEAVENSWARE is an audio//visual experience in Logan Square featuring the best in live hardware music.

MUSIC:✶ easygoingtech✶ Padlock✶ Shadow Work (Jace Inman + Venosci)✶ WFXR (Fess Grandiose + RMM)

VISUALS:✧ Ashton Simeon

Elastic Arts, in partnership with Funkadesi and Strategic Inclusion Consulting, through a generous #HealingIllinois grant, is hosting this FREE experiential 3-hour workshop in Spring 2024. Led by Dr. Rahul Sharma & The Rhythm Ambassadors of Funkadesi, it combines multicultural drumming, self-reflection, & facilitated dialogue. The goals are to deepen self-awareness on racism’s impact, experience the joy of inclusion, and commit to collective action. No musical talented required. Registration is open!

Participants in this workshop and/or the Storytelling & Spoken Word workshop (April 13) will have FREE admission to a Celebratory Concert & Drum Circle on May 11, featuring Funkadesi & more. Also, stay tuned for a pop-up community celebration in late May/ mid-June!

Join us for an evening of community, film and conversation as we unveil a new film series and festival called Flex Obscura!

Flex Obscura Series & Festival celebrates the breadth of creative modes of visual expression and film.  We love weird and things that live in the in-between spaces.  The event is structured to allow for expansive play across a season of visual, sonic and film exploration. We curate 4 events that offer audiences an unique experience, each with a particular focus in collaboration with Elastic Arts’ existing programming.  Our passion is to celebrate new voices and new vocabulary in visual and sonic forms that are expansive and experimental with a focus on fostering inclusivity and promoting emerging talent. Flex Obscura Series and Festival embraces a wide range of genres, styles, and perspectives. It acts as a catalyst for change, inspiring a new generation of filmmakers to challenge conventional norms and push the boundaries of storytelling. From each series emerges juried and audience choice winners who are invited to a culminating festival event showcase and highlighting the best of the series. 

Improvised Music Series is excited to welcome the Sun Ra inspired collective 9th Gate Sonic Research Society (N.G.S.R.S.), and amazing performance artists Kezia to the series!

We’re excited for Visual Gallery Curatorial Resident Zoey Dalbert’s second exhibition. We’ll be hosting work from two artists Zoe Gac and Karla Biery as they present Night Vision. The work focuses on the present – emotions, relationships and experiences that are grounded in a particular moment. Both Gac and Biery use their art as a reflection on the dynamics of intimacy and attachment. Join us tonight for a first look at the exhibition and a chance to speak with the artists and curator.

2020 Elastic Arts Achievement Awardee Nicole Mitchell is a professor at the University of Virginia and teaching a class on telematic performance, a live performance (art, dance, music, etc.) which makes use of telecommunications and information technology to distribute the performers between two or more locations. In this class she has connnected with Elastic Arts to organize rehearsals and a culminating performance tonight! Nicole and students will connect with Adam Zanolini, Avreeayl Ra, and Muso here in our space over the airwaves from their location in Charlottesville, VA. Join us for this experiment in sound! We’ll start promptly at 7pm with a set of just around an hour. Please do note, Nicole Mitchell will not be here in our Elastic space physically, but will indeed be here sonically!

Jandek at Elastic Arts. SOLD OUT.

corwoodindustries.com

Today’s Storytelling & Spoken Word workshop will be led by Emily Hooper Lansana and Dr. Rahul Sharma, and will provide participants with activities to share in both written and verbal form. In this session we will share, listen and reflect on stories . We will reflect on our personal experiences and collective memories. We will consider how our unique, racial and cultural identities are disparate and connected. Much of who we are is grounded in the multiple stories that inform our perspective and outlook. Registration is live.

Participants in this workshop and/or the Multicultural Drumming workshops (Apr. 6 or Apr. 20) will have FREE admission to a Celebratory Concert & Drum Circle on May 11, featuring Funkadesi & more.

Shake Shook Shaken is a monthly theater/movement workshop series produced by Julie Meckler. The series is designed for people to gently bring body awareness, allowing participants to open up, explore outside of their comfort zone, bond with each other, create and show.

Shake Shook Shaken is a dream of what a safe space could allow. A vision of a place for everybody to gather, look at each other, play and create in a non judgmental, trauma-informed way. It’s an invitation, a journey within and out, a surprise. Each workshop is unique. This month we’ll have Ivan Pyzow and Julie leading on the topic of TIDE

No prior dance or acting experience is necessary, just willingness to move and exhale. This workshop series is for anyone and everyone.

April’s CLEAT Series will present three sets from artists all close to the Elastic community. Dark Matter 2023 resident Carissa Lee will offer up their first performance on the CLEAT system where we’ll hear her use of field recordings, writing, Black southern culture (that includes medical histories, stories, music etc.) and voice to materialize emotions of grief, and isolation. Old friends and collaborators Regina Martinez and AJ McClenon work together on the CLEAT to present voice recordings, electronics, and abstract tape music textures. The artists parse through voice memos sent over the past five years. "How can the sonics of a friendship be pieced together through disembodied communication that's full of laughter, full of sighs and what we ate today? How have we held space for each other in between the pauses, in between the aparts while listening to the same weather?” Christophe Preissing will present Deconstructivism I: Plume, his first foray into combining cut up texts, phonemic deconstruction, and vocal tics, materials often left on the cutting room floor with recordings made inside a piano and detritus from various other projects. The CLEAT Series focuses on work composed for the 16-channel speaker system in our space, allowing audiences to experience different approaches to spatial audio.