Program Order

CAMPOUT, A Night in the Woods, Kevin Michael Wesson

Un/Re/EnRooted, Dani Oblitas

FOLK, Amanda Maraist

Note from Aaliyah Christina, Associate Curator

The evolution continues as we usher in another cohort of resident artists. With hard times comes constructive criticism and brings on changing tides. Our new Fall cohort have heeded the call for incubation and reflection as we close out the first half of the season and get ready for Links' uncertain (but hopeful) future. Our time together at dress rehearsal last night felt warm, cozy, and connective. It's reminding me that Links Hall is here for all the movers to gather and share. Links Hall is here for everyone to witness and be witnessed. We hope the audience can heed this call as well. 

Artist Credits

CAMPOUT, A Night in the Woods, Kevin Michael Wesson

Theatre Nobody is a radical experimental free theatre outfit from Chicago; for updates on this piece and when it opens in 2025, please follow us on instagram: @xTheatreNobodyx. Thank you for being here tonight.

Co-creator/Puppet Design/Performer: Kevin Michael Wesson

Co-creator/Puppet Design: Maddison Wise

Performers: Michele Stine, Lily Emerson

Sound Design: Anthony Santaniello

Props Design: Emilie Wingate

Special thanks to Emma Johnson and KR Riiber.

Un/Re/EnRooted, Dani Oblitas

Choreographer: Dani Oblitas 

Movement Collaborators: Dani Oblitas, Sandy Perez, Anniela Huidobro

Original Music Composition: Aster Reyes, Craig Daniel Ymson, Lorenze Cordova 

herbal allies: linden, oatstraw, mullein, lemon balm, nettle, damiana, mugwort, tulsi

Collaborator Bios:

Sandy Perez is multigenre movement artist from Chicagoland who began her professional dance career in Nashville in 2022. she worked as a company member with DancEast Collective and Found Movement Group, presented work at Kindling Arts Festival, the Animata Arts Residency showcase, and Oz Arts’ Brave New Works Lab with Arelys Hernandez. In Chicago, she has had the privilege of working under Chih-Jou Cheng, Philip Wood and now Dani Oblitas. She is currently focusing most of her training in street styles this year while working as a work study at Rhythmhood. 

Anniela Huidobro is a Mexican dancer, choreographer, and dance educator. She graduated from the Mazatlán Professional Dance School (EPDM), which is directed by the Delfos Contemporary Dance Company. Anniela currently resides in Chicago, where she teaches dance classes at various schools and cultural centers in the area. Her work explores the affective relationships between human beings and the earth through the fusion of different movement styles and improvisation. She is also a finalist in the 2025 Lab Artists Program of the Chicago Dancemakers Forum.

FOLK, Amanda Maraist

devising + composition: amanda maraist

movement research + performance: kara brody, isabella limosnero, ali lorenz, chrissy martin

sound development + performance: haruhi kobayashi, scott rubin

lighting: giau minh truong

recorded sound credits: “Amerikaye” by Nigel Rolfe (1986); Ruth Wilson Gilmore on dismantling racial capitalism (NYU, 9/5/2024); and material sampled from Kioto + Tatsu Aoki.

special thanks to Kioto Aoki, Crystle Dino, Fabulous Freddie, Sharon Hoyer, Ysaye McKeever, and Kinnari Vora for their generous contributions to the research; to Meida McNeal and La Mar Brown for their thoughtful mentorship; to Aaliyah Christina and the Links team for all of it; to Michael Macdonald for his support for this project, and me; to Clean Air Club for donating air purifiers for the duration of this residency; and to the late Randy Martin for his work articulating the deep connection between dance and politics.

Collaborator Bios:

Kara Brody (she/her) is a Korean American movement artist based in Chicago. She is a performer, teacher, administrator, and community advocate who works collaboratively both in life and artistic endeavors. Kara practices playfulness and queer belonging in her process by approaching movement with a deep sense of tenderness and humility, imbuing a range of nuance in tandem with an explosive form of power. Her career path is multi-focused, she is truly at home within collaborative ensemble work. As a devising performer, she has had the pleasure to work with, contribute to, and uplift the works of Faye Driscoll, Lucky Plush Productions, Erin Kilmurray, Melinda Jean Myers, Ayako Kato, Helen Lee, Darling Shear, Amanda Maraist, and Erick Montes. She has performed with The Fly Honey Show, Freedom From Freedom To, Ordinary Peepholes, Dehd’s “Mood Ring” music video, and will be making her debut performance with Paramount Theater spring 2025 in CATS The Musical. Kara is a Lecturer at University of Chicago. She teaches frequently throughout the Chicago dance community, and is the Company Manager of Lucky Plush Productions.

Haruhi Kobayashi is a Chicago-based sound artist and vocal performer from Tokyo. Originally a J-pop singer-songwriter, she now explores the themes of identity, tradition, love, fear, and humanity while seeking to liberate sound from its fixed meanings. Her work intersects experimental pop, classical composition and avant-garde songwriting through voice, bass, and electronics. She invites audiences to engage with both familiar and unexpected sonic textures. She is currently the High Concept Labs AIR resident 2024.

From Ohlone land known as Gilroy, CA, Isabella Limosnero (they/them) works as a GYROTONIC® instructor and freelance multidisciplinary artist, using dance as their primary medium. Since moving to Potawatomi; Kickapoo; Myaamia; Očhéthi Šakówiŋ; and Peoria land, known as Chicago in 2021, Limosnero has had the privilege to work with Project Bound, Momentum Sensorium, LittleFire Artist Collective, House of Dov and was Khecari’s Resource Share Resident in 2023. 

Ali Lorenz (they/she) is a transdisciplinary artist person based in Chicago. Originally from the PNW, their experimental + task-based work has been presented by Queer Spectra Arts Festival, Short Stack Film Festival, We Are Collective, and Deseret Experimental Opera. Ali works as a company member with Project Bound Dance in addition to being an independent/freelance artist. They hold a BFA in Modern Dance from the University of Utah and have almost 50 houseplants.

Chrissy Martin is a transdisciplinary performance artist and educator with roots in contemporary dance forms, contact improvisation, Afro-Caribbean dance, postmodern experimental music, vocal jazz, and physical theater. Chrissy blends these forms to rigorously examine her intersecting queer and neurodivergent identities. Martin is an avid member of the global contact improvisation community and has facilitated and taught workshops across the Midwest. Chrissy’s integrated movement style is deeply informed by a lifelong somatic practice. She has taught dance and somatics at Cleveland State University, Columbia College Chicago and DePaul University, and is currently an Assistant Professor at Northwestern University.

Scott Rubin is Chicago-based interdisciplinary artist and improvising violist whose work interrogates relationships between sound and movement through analog and digital means. His recent projects have involved collaborations with musicians and dancers, often incorporating interactive acoustic/electronic improvisation, expanded performance practices, motion-sensing data, and live video. In these projects, he engages themes of intimacy, control, and the sublime.

Co-MISSION Resident Bios

Kevin Michael Wesson (he/they) is a proudly unrepresented puppeteer/playwright based in Chicago. Originally from Tampa, FL, he received a B.A. in Theatre Arts from the University of South Florida. His recent credits include: Where We Go Together or The Flashlight Play (Theatre Nobody), Dog or Cats; Augmented Body (Steppenwolf LOOKOUT), House of the Exquisite Corpse (Rough House Theater), All is Blue & Yellow (Collective Summ), CHRISTMAS PAGEANT (Hot Kitchen Collective), Elements of Style (The Neo-Futurists), and The Dr. Seuss Experience (Kilburn Live). His works have received mention in American Theatre Magazine, NPR, No Proscenium, & nomination for the National Puppet Slam. Currently, he is an artistic associate of the Chicago-based puppet theatre company, Rough House Theater, a founding ensemble member of the performance art company, Stop Motion Plant, and an ensemble member of the physical theatre company, Theater Unspeakable, and the voice of the experimental free theatre company, Theatre Nobody.

amanda maraist is a chicago-based movement deviser + improviser from the texas gulf coast, and co-directs bim bom studios. she works collaboratively with movers, musicians and artists; most recently with Helen Lee, Irene Hsiao, Gina Hoch-Stall, Chrissy Martin, Freedom From and Freedom To, Khecari, Ayako Kato / Art Union Humanscape and independently. her movement work exists as both dance-making and physical space-making. using authentic movement practices and meticulously rendered improvisational scores, her work is process-forward with a do-it-together demeanor. she is a Links Hall co-MISSION Artist in Residence for 2024 and has been awarded a residency at Ragdale Foundation in 2025. 

Dani Oblitas (she/they) is a dance artist and educator currently based in Chicago, IL. Dani graduated from St. Olaf College with a BA in Dance and Environmental Studies. She is passionate about making movement accessible to all, and views dance as a life affirming act of both community cultivation and individual embodiment. Dani has collaborated on a dance film for the P.O.W.E.R. Collective CYPHER for Restorative Justice that was featured in the 2023 Short Stack Film Festival and is a choreographer for the One Hour Project in 2024. They have additionally danced with Liz Sexe Dance, KLJ Movement, We Are Collective, 773 Dance Project, Helen Lee, Sildance/Acrodanza, and Albany Park Theater Project’s Port of Entry. Dani is currently completing the Spiral Body Techniques® teacher certification with Molly Shanahan.

About the Co-MISSION Program

The Co-MISSION Residency is awarded to three to four performance artists to engage in the development & research of new or existing work, from mid-September to mid-December. Links Hall provides artists with a 12-week studio residency with up to eight hours of studio time each week (valued at $2,400), a $400 monthly stipend ($1,200 total award), support of the Art of Rehearsal Workshop series, works-in-progress opportunities, and shared-bill performances at Links Hall’s Co-MISSION Festival of New Works in Spring 2025.

About Links Hall

For 46 years, Links Hall has played a pivotal role in Chicago, encouraging artistic innovation and public engagement by maintaining a facility and providing flexible programming for the research, development, and presentation of new work in the performing arts. Founded in 1978 by experimental choreographers, Bob Eisen, Carol Bobrow, and Charlie Vernon, Links became a National Performance Network partner in 1998 and received a MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions in 2016. Links Hall supports multidisciplinary artists through residencies, festivals, subsidized rentals, and other resources for performers at every stage of their career.

Links Hall programming is made possible by artists, audiences, and support from: Arts Midwest GIG Fund, Association of Performing Arts Professionals, Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events, Exelon, Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, Heather B. Henson Fund/Puppet Slam Network, Illinois Arts Council Agency, JPMorgan Chase, Microsoft, National Performance Network, The Charlie Vernon Performance Fund at the Evanston Community Foundation, The Jentes Family Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, MacArthur Fund for Culture, Equity, and the Arts at Prince, The Martha Struthers Farley & Donald C. Farley, Jr. Family Foundation, The Prince Charitable Trust, Robert R. McCormick Foundation, and The Weasel Fund.

STAFF

Aaliyah Christina, Artist Programs Manager & Associate Curator

SK Kerastas, Executive Director

Mario LaMothe, General Manager

Dana Pepowski, Programs Associate

Giau Truong, Production Manager & Associate Curator

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Amy Chavasse - Artistic Director of Chavasse Dance & Performance; Professor at University of Michigan

Jane Beachy - Artistic Director of Illinois Humanities

J’Sun Howard - U.S.-Japan Friendship Commission Creative Fellow; Professor at Northwestern University

Ross Stanton Jordan - Curatorial Manager of the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum

Susan Manning - Bergen Evans Professor in the Humanities at Northwestern University

Trevor Martin -  Executive Director of Exhibitions and Exhibition Studies at SAIC

Jon Pagac - Executive Director at J.P.Morgan

Tina Post - Assistant Professor of English and Theater and Performance Studies & affiliate of the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture at the University of Chicago

Doreen Sayegh - Producer & General Manager with Pemberley Productions

Michael Tokoph - Associate Director of Product Strategy at Huge

Patrick Zakem - Creative Producer at Steppenwolf Theatre Company

ADVISORY BOARD

Cheryl Lynn Bruce - Actor, Playwright, Director, and Ensemble Member of Teatro Vista

Bob Eisen - Co-Founder of Links Hall

E. Aaron Greven - Owner of AG Design Works

Tracie D. Hall - Former Executive Director of the American Libraries Association

Maggie Kast - Author and Founder of Chicago Contemporary Dance Theatre

Meida McNeal - Director of Honey Pot Performance and Deputy Commissioner of Cultural Grants and Resources at the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events

Eva Silverman - Project Director at Art Design Chicago

Claire Sutton - Former Director of Special Events at Links Hall

Blair Thomas - Founder and Artistic Director of Chicago International Puppetry Festival

Michael Zerang - Musician and Former Links Hall Director