Performance Work

Grit (upcoming)

Premiering March 6-8th, 2025 for Steppenwolf Theatre's LookOut Series

Created by Maggie Vannucci in collaboration with Rahila Coats, Laura Baumeister, Kate Laughlin, and Hannah Marcus
Dramaturgy by Courtney Mackedanz
Sound development by Michael Cunningham
Produced by Patrick Zakem and Lauren Steinberg
Technical support by Matthew Chapman

"Grit is a live dance work that interrogates the underbelly of achievement by exploring the isolating cost of competitive natures amongst four female performers. By blurring the lines between exhaustive pleasure and exhaustive pressure, the four performers move through tension-filled repetition, playful provocation and amorphous structures to suggest an emergent collective."

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Helen Lee/Momentum Sensorium (2023-Present)

Photos by Ricardo E. Adame

Curiosities of Wellness in Bodies of Grief and Joy directed by Helen Lee/Momentum Sensorium.

The Retreat at Ragdale Residency | December 20th, 2024
The Dinner at bim bom studios | December 1st, 2024
Open House at Ragdale Residency | October 20th, 2024
Open Studio Series at the Chicago Cultural Center | April 7th, 2024 and June 11th, 2024
Open Lab at High Concept Labs | December 17th, 2023

Supported by residencies at the Chicago Cultural Center (2024), Ragdale (2024), High Concept Labs (2023), and Chicago DanceMakers Forum (2024).

Performed by Tuli Beri, Kate Laughlin, Hannah Marcus, Amanda Maraist, Chaz Pierson, Scott Rubin, Nick Turner, BelleAime Robinson, Kara Brody, Isabella Limosnero, Deandra Alba, Sharon Udoh, Isabelle Taylor, SJ Swilley, Dani Oblitas, Kiki King, Anjal Chande, Catherine Helper, Kiku Hibino, Anna Hu, Robin Kim, Dabin Han, Jill McDufee Wade, Wannape P-Eubanks, Cristal Sabbagh.

" 'Discovering more joy does not, I'm sorry to say, save us from the inevitability of hardship and heartbreak. In fact, we may cry more easily but we will laugh more easily too. Perhaps we are just more alive. Yet as we discover more joy, we can face suffering in a new way that ennobles or elevates rather than embitters us. We have hardship without being hard. We have heartbreak without being broken.' "

- Archbishop Desmond Tutu

House of DOV (2021-Present)

Photos by Ricardo E. Adame, Chloe Hamilton, Matthew Gregory Hollis, Andrew Weeks

Directed by Drew Lewis

Circle of Apathy (2024)

Performed by Isabella Limosnero, A Else, Isabelle Taylor, Hannah Marcus, Chaz Pierson, Mya McClellan, Morgan Reed, Dareon Blowe

Supported by residencies/fellowships at the Chicago Cultural Center (April 2024), Ragdale (October 2024), and the Arts Club of Chicago (2025)

"Circle of Apathy is a humanist, ensemble-driven, two-act dance and music collaboration between House of DOV and Chicago band Family Junket. Built thematically on cycles of destruction and regrowth (or growth as destruction) the piece regards all human machinations (even war) as natural processes. Identifying a link between the evolving nature of Earth’s landscape, our own human social evolution, and the emergent nature of individual identity, the work attempts to depict this churning process on all three scales. 'You don’t live on Earth, you are the Earth; you don’t live on the landscape, you are the landscape.'"

*approx 90 min.

The creation of Circle of Apathy was made possible by a grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events with funding from the Walder Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts

Heavy Objects (2023)

Steppenwolf 1700 Theatre | February 11th & 12th, 2023
Presented through the LookOut Series as part of Work Around curated by Kara Brody & Amanda Maraist

Performed by Maddy Joss, Drew Lewis, Isabella Limosnero
Rehearsal Assistance & Understudying by Hannah Marcus
Costuming by Jeremy Miller

delirium (honesty) 2021

Adler Planetarium | July 23rd, 2021
Fulton Street Collective | October 3rd, 2021

Performed by Maddy Joss, Ingrid Ferdinand, Hannah Marcus, Ali Webb
Rehearsal Assistance by Hannah Marcus
Costuming by Jeremy Miller
Live dj set by DOV

Orange Noise (2024)

A group exhibition curated by Chris Reeves at The Capsule | November 9th, 2024

"9 historical figures, chosen for the ways in which they retuned what a voice could be, are paired with artists as a speculative attempt at making an ensemble that is temporarily unbound. The tuned-out-of-tune of this ensemble shares symmetry with orange noise, defined loosely as the sound of noise making together (think: an orchestra warming up). Archives and material ephemera collide with unique response works, takeaway objects, performances, covers, and all manners of creative research that hinge on the history of 'making it new.'"

I improvised a movement & violin looping solo responding to the work of Dick Higgins (1938-1998).

unpredictable, yet insistent: an evening of mutually made music (2024)

Photos by Eugene I-Peng Tang; Graphic by Ray Madrigal

Part of Ray Madrigal's solo exhibition Fear of Losing, Love of Having at Comfort Station | October 20th, 2024

"Fear of Losing, Love of Having probes our daily attempts at safety-making, dysfunctional and humane alike. The show is a material hypothesis of noticing as resistance, of slowness and widened eyes as crucial tools in the creation of gentler futures. Rather than positing an answer, the works within hold up objects, moments, and efforts like flash cards, images connected to questions: How did this way of life come to be? Who decided so? And how might we nudge our collective reality towards more humane, more loving methods of safety-making?"

Improvised by Ray Madrigal, Hannah Marcus, Madeleine Aguilar, Natasha Tseng, and Zhuyan Ye

Soak (2024)

Photos by Patrick L. Pyszka/City of Chicago

Created by Amalia Raye Wiatr Lewis through the Chicago Cultural Center Dance Studio Residency | June 5th, 2024

"In Soak, six dancers move through a series of choreographed scores derived from the physical gestures found in bathing spaces. Soak treats the sauna, hot springs, pools, and lakes as sites of research for social interaction. These interactions are distilled into simple pedestrian movements that evoke relaxation, spectatorship, kinship, competition, and play. Set to a score of modular synth and vocals."

Sound design by Kari Watson

Performed by Amalia Raye Wiatr Lewis, Lucian Noel, Maggie Vannucci, Courtney Mackedanz, Hannah Marcus, Isabelle Taylor

Costumes and set design by Paige Fetchen