Every house has a door
Chicago-based performance company Every house has a door was in residence at the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry January 5 through 25 to develop and present 9 beginnings: Bristol & 9 beginnings: Chicago. This performance engages with the Live Art Archives of The University of Bristol and Arnolfini in the UK, and the Randolph Street Gallery archives at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. 9 beginnings restages the beginnings of nine performances by nine different artists or companies, and reimagines them as a single new composition.
9 beginnings was undertaken as a commission by Performing Documents, a major collaborative venture with The University of Bristol and Arnolfini Gallery in the United Kingdom, in 2012. There, Every house has a door was asked to create a new performance work in response to the Live Art Archives housed in Bristol. With the support of a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation International Connections Fund in 2013, Every house has a door was able to expand the Bristol project to include the Chicago-based archives of Randolph Street Gallery. Performers from the UK performance— hailing from the UK, Croatia, and Panama—will travel to Chicago to fuel exchange between the US and UK communities, and highlight a critical examination of the material in both the archives, as well as questions surrounding the documentation and archiving of performance.
Lin Hixson, director. Matthew Goulish, dramaturg. Selma Banich (Croatia) and Sebastián Calderón Bentin (Panama), performers. Nik Wakefield and Annalaura Alifuoco, choreographed stagehands. Nicki Polykarpou, assistant director. Daviel Shy, project manager. Fred Schmidt-Arenales, lighting.
Supported in part by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation International Connections Fund.