We are on sacred ground. Northwestern University is on the traditional homelands of the people of the Council of Three Fires—the Ojibwe, Potawatomi, and Odawa—as well as the Menominee, Miami, and Ho-Chunk nations. Before it was stolen from them through colonization and forced removal, this land was a site of trade, travel, gathering, and healing for more than a dozen other native tribes. The state of Illinois is still home to more than 100,000 tribal members. In the spirit of healing and making amends for the harm that was done, we acknowledge the native and indigenous peoples who called this land home. We pledge ourselves as members of the Northwestern School of Communication to turn our statements into action and build better relationships with native and indigenous communities in Evanston, in Chicago, and throughout the region.
We have been here at the Wirtz Center in Room 203 developing a new installation for two-weeks. Thank you for being here as we contemplate action in these times and learn from being with you. Some notes:
If we are to be together in performance, I am going to insist on immersion, on our mutual complicity, in collective action and putting our bodies to the work, and as collaborator Kathy Couch said to a group gathered, “to be each other’s concern.” I want to tap into memory, sound, voice, embodiment, decision-making, grappling with refusal, resistance, abandonment and discomfort.
Performance’s calling card: Interruption. Being Unfathomable. Uncontrollable. Ungovernable. To dive into the underbelly and come out holding our guts. That can be funny.
In Room 203, we are practicing “us”: as in all of us—audience, crew, artists—the us of the room and gathered in this one moment to do one of the most dangerous, everyday things we can do: attend.
During our time in Room 203, we will make our interjections, our choices, construct our experience. We can play witness, play facilitator, play activator, builder. Unassigned and emergent, we will make impact. Non-action is impact, right?
In all of this…
Unknowing.
Trepid stepping.
Reaching out for a hand.
We will practice fumbling.
Being awkward and unsure is useful. Breaking inertia is useful.
Performance is practice. Get ready.
A multitude of thanks to the Wirtz Center team for their generosity in giving us space during an election to manifest a call to action. To Tanya Palmer for the trust and the invitation, to Val and Dylan for EVERYTHING (too many to name), to Michael and Stephen and Pete and Aziza and Jamie—what a pleasure it has been.
To an incredible artistic team—Kathy Couch, LD DeArmon, Ariel Lembeck and Stephan Moore. Each of whom is brilliant! I don’t know who better to be in a black box with on the day after an existential election. Thank you for your grace.
To my family who is holding it down without me. To Lake Michigan for being and holding and persisting. You cannot be contained. To Chicago for your kindness and spirit. Thank you for the hot dog. To all you activists and burgeoning activists out there. Thank you.
And to the original stewards of Peoria, Potawatomi, Myaamia, Kaskaskia, Kiikaapoi lands in recognition that we are performing on the unceded homeland of the Council of Three Fires (Ojibwe, Potawatomi and Odawa).
Yanira Castro — Artist
Stephan Moore — Interactive Sound Designer
Kathy Couch — Installation Designer
LD DeArmon — Stage Manager
Ariel Lembeck — Creative Producer
The work of Yanira Castro (Artist) is rooted in communal construction as a rehearsal for radical democracy. She is an interdisciplinary artist born in Borikén (Puerto Rico) and lives in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn). Castro develops performance scores and scenarios where the work unfolds in real time in response to the presence and participation of the audience. Co-creating with a team of collaborators and the public under the name a canary torsi, she investigates choreography as a practice of collective embodiment, grappling with agency and communal action as a body politic. The process of gathering, witnessing, and decision-making is where performance and civics merge and, for her, is the critical, challenging, and transformational work of performance. She has developed over fifteen projects that have been recognized with national awards, commissions and residency support. She is the recipient of awards from the Creative Capital Foundation, Herb Alpert Award in the Arts for Dance, NYSCA/NYFA Interdisciplinary Artist and Choreography Fellowships and has received two Bessie Awards for Outstanding Production. She has recently been in residence at The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, MacDowell, Yaddo, and The Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography. Her most recent work, a public art project during the 2024 election, Exorcism = Liberation, utilized campaign materials (stickers, pins, lawn signs, banners and large scale posters) to proliferate–across New York City, Chicago, and the Connecticut River Valley of Western Massachusetts–slogans and QR codes that led to immersive sonic experiences calling for mutual liberation. www.acanarytorsi.org
Kathy Couch (Installation Designer) is an artist, educator, advocate, and award-winning designer living on Nipmuc/Nonotuck land (currently Northampton, MA). Working in mediums of light, space, collaboration, and improvisation, Couch creates works in traditional and non-traditional spaces both nationally and internationally. She crafts experiences of engagement that allow audiences to contemplate moments of being and activate their vital role as contributors to the work and the world. She currently works as co-director/steward of the arts organization A.P.E. (Available Potential Enterprises, Ltd) and has ongoing collaborations with Yanira Castro/a canary torsi, Adele Myers, Deb Goffe/Scapegoat Garden, Jenna Riegel, Vanessa Anspaugh, and compositional improvisation ensemble The Architects. Kathy is a current and founding board member of the Northampton Community Arts Trust which works to remove land from the real estate market and preserve it for creative and artistic use, in perpetuity. Resist and imagine…
Stephan Moore (Sound Designer) is a sound artist, designer, composer, improviser, programmer, engineer, teacher, and curator based in Chicago. His creative work manifests as electronic studio compositions, improvisational outbursts, sound installations, scores for collaborative performances, algorithmic compositions, interactive art, and sound designs for unusual circumstances. Much of his work has been realized in collaborative projects, most notably with sound artist Scott Smallwood in their duo Evidence and with choreographer Yanira Castro in the collective a canary torsi. He is the curator of sound art for the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, organizing annual exhibitions since 2014. He is also the president of Isobel Audio LLC, which builds and sells his Hemisphere loudspeakers. He was the music coordinator and touring sound engineer of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company (2004-10), and has worked with Pauline Oliveros, Anthony McCall, and Animal Collective, among many others. In 2019, he co-founded the Chicago Laboratory for Electro-Acoustic Theater to promote and encourage the creation of multichannel audio works. He is a Professor of Instruction and Associate Director of the Sound Arts and Industries MA program at Northwestern University.
Ariel Lembeck (Creative Producer) is an interdisciplinary artist working inside of installation, performance and video. As Creative Producer for a canary torsi, her work and collaboration is focused on how to gather people in space, call on them to enact and make decisions and participate in collective embodiment as a radical practice for showing up for oneself and others. Sourcing materials and designing how these physical objects inhabit the various installation environments is a key role to her work with a canary torsi. Ariel has collaborated with a canary torsi | Yanira Castro since 2021. She lives and works in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn, NY).
LD DeArmon (Stage Manager) worked in New York City from 2008-2020 in the field of dance as a performer, stage manager, production manager and lighting designer. Now they live in Richmond, VA and tour and travel for a handful of artists and colleges as a lighting designer. When they’re not on the road, DeArmon works for Virginia State Parks as a maintenance ranger.
We thank our donors who make it possible to develop and sustain the quality of productions at Northwestern University. The following individuals and institutions have made gifts to one or more of the following areas: the Virginia Wadsworth Wirtz Center for the Performing Arts, American Music Theatre Project and the Music Theatre Funds. All gifts were made between September 1, 2022 and August 31, 2023.
Donate online at giving.northwestern.edu.
Thank you for supporting Northwestern University Theatre and Dance!
E. Patrick Johnson, Dean of the School of Communication and Annenberg University Professor
Lori Barcliff Baptista, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs and Advising
Roderick Hawkins, Associate Dean of External Affairs and Chief of Staff
Molly Losh, Associate Dean for Research
Bonnie Martin-Harris, Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs
Rick Morris, Associate Dean for Finance and Administration
Rayvon Fouche’, Associate Dean for Graduate Education
Tanya Palmer, Assistant Dean & Executive Artistic Director
Thomas Bradshaw, Radio/Television/Film
Leslie DeChurch, Communication Studies
Joshua Chambers-Letson, Performance Studies
Henry Godinez, Theatre
Bharath Chandrasekaran, Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders
Melissa Blanco Borelli, Head of Dance
Tracy Davis, Associate Chair of Theatre
James Schwoch, Associate Chair of Communication Studies
Jacob Smith, Associate Chair of Radio/Television/ Film
Jorge Silva — Managing Director
Michael Constantino — Associate Managing Director
Pete Brace — Marketing & Development Manager
Heather Basarab — Production Manager
Valerie Tu — Production Manager, Chicago
Gianna Carter — Production Coordinator
Aziza Macklin — Audience Experience Manager
Jamie L. Mayhew — Box Office Manager
Lynn Kelso — Imagine U Artistic Mentor
Ryan T. Nelson — Music Supervisor
Dylan Reyno — Technical Coordinator
Shannon Perry — Technical Supervisor
Emily Baker — Assistant Technical Supervisor
Dylan Jost — Scenic Carpenter
Micah Hoffert — Scenic Carpenter
James Weber — Scenic Artist
Eileen Rozycki — Assistant Scenic Artist
Chris Wych — Properties Supervisor
Kathy Beach Parsons — Properties Assistant
Eileen Clancy — Costume Shop Supervisor
Jessica Donaldson — Assistant Costume Shop Supervisor
Kristy White — Cutter/Draper
Pamela Brailey — Cutter/Draper
Renee Werth — Stitcher/Crafts Supervisor
Eli Hunstad — First Hand
Peter Anderson — Lighting & Sound Supervisor
Michael Trudeau — Associate Lighting & Sound Supervisor
Stephen J. Lewis — OGMC Arts and Media Producer
Stephanie Kulke — OGMC Fine Arts Editor
Alexander Gemignani — AMTP Artistic Director
Brannon Bowers — AMTP Producing Director
Denise McGillicuddy — AMTP Program Assistant
Arawen Alberg, Crom Amaya, Maya Avery, Sarah Bock, Alex Branka, Josaphina Brinkerhoff, Aydn Calhoun, Sydney Chan, Daniel Cho, Gemma Cohen, Ryan Cooke, Olivia Czyz, Ciara Farris, Nora Fox, Yui Ginther, Zoryah Gray, Jessica Cuo, Kiara Hill, Sebastian Holifield, Nicholas Hollenbeck, Katherine Horton, Miracle Idowu, Yelim Kim, Ghino Lee, Sarah Lewis, Morgan Marin, Owen Meehan-Egan, Sophia Mitton-Fry, Mario Montes, Alexander Myres, Ezra Osburn, Yooha Park, Michael Peterson, Seidy Pichardo, Elle Pierre, Haley Randall, Ayla Richardson, Henry Rohrback, Ava Romero, Jack Shadden, Anah Shaikh, Louise Sims, Poseybelle Stoeffler, Amelia Sullivan, Amanda Swickle, Millie Rose Taub, Walter Todd, Mariah Waters, Alex Yang, Gavin Yi, Yehuda Zilberstein
