Co-MISSION Works-In-Progress Fall 2023
Our Fall 2023 Co-MISSION Residents offer a split bill Co-MISSION Works-In-Progress showing featuring AiRos 頌恩 medill, Jamilah Kekulah, and Eshan Rafi.
Kekulah, medill, and Rafi present to audiences what they have been investigating and exploring while incubating in the white box studio since September.
AiRos 頌恩 medill is a yellow hapa nonbinary trans Taiwanese american circle keeper, care worker, storyteller, facilitator, bodyworker, and culture bearer who is moving to organize abundance in the ecology of home. AiRos practices with the 5 elements (water, wood, fire, metal, earth) to align bodies to heaven and earth in reciprocity and reverence of feeling and the distribution of energies. As part of the diaspora air has a lifelong practice of traveling, moving through and shifting culture.
Jamila Kekulah is ever evolving. They are a mover, an observer, a movement creator, a lifelong learner, and a deep listener of the body. Jamila is interested in investigating how we inhabit ourselves and each other in this human experience.
Eshan Rafi is an interdisciplinary artist working across performance, expanded photography, and video. Their works deal with the intersection of political events and personal archives, often staging the impossibility of representation. Their work has been exhibited, performed, and screened internationally including at SummerWorks Lab, Toronto; Sharjah Film Platform; M:ST 9 Performance Art Biennale, Calgary; and neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst, Berlin. Rafi holds an MFA in Art, Theory, and Practice from Northwestern University, Evanston.
Art of Rehearsal Workshop Series Coaches
L to R: McNeal, Brown, Moraes
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Meida Teresa McNeal is Artistic and Managing Director of Honey Pot Performance. She received her PhD in Performance Studies (Northwestern) and her MFA in Choreography & Dance History (Ohio State). Awards include an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in New Performance Forms, Field Foundation’s Leaders for a New Chicago, 3Arts Award in Dance, Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist, and the Links’ Hall Co-Missions Fellowship. An Independent Artist and Scholar at the intersection of performance studies, dance, and critical ethnography, Meida also teaches at University of Chicago and Columbia College Chicago. Meida also works with the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events' Executive Administration team as the Senior Manager of Arts & Community Impact Investments building and implementing artist recovery programs and creative placemaking grantmaking initiatives. Prior to this role, Meida worked with the Chicago Park District as Arts & Culture Manager supporting community arts partnerships, youth arts, cultural stewardship, and civic engagement initiatives.
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La Mar Brown is thrilled to be a Co-Mission Artist Coach for the second year with Links Hall, and to co-lead the Art of Rehearsal process this year. He is an arts manager, producer, dancer, and singer. He currently serves as the Operations Manager for Chicago Dancemakers Forum, where he manages functions to support administrative, fundraising, and programming activities. After relocating to Chicago from Dallas, TX, he completed his Master of Arts Management at Columbia College Chicago in 2016. He also is a 2022 Leadership Institute cohort member of YNPN Chicago. La Mar’s other administrative credits include Project Coordinator, The Ruth Page Center for the Arts; Box Office Supervisor, Writers Theatre; Company Manager, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago; and Associate Patron Services Manager, the AT&T Performing Arts Center (Dallas, TX). His performance credits include Dallas Black Dance Theatre, The Ruth Page Civic Ballet, Porchlight Music Theatre, Dallas Metropolitan Ballet, Uptown Players, Garland Summer Musicals, and The Dallas Opera.
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Luiza Moraes is a performance and movement artist currently based in Chicago, IL. Born in Porto Alegre, Brazil, she earned a Bachelor’s Degree in History from UFRGS. Following extensive training in Contemporary Dance with a special focus on somatic practices, she obtained an MA in Performance and Dance from CNDC/Angers and the University Paris 8. She is a certified Feldenkrais Practitioner by the Feldenkais Institut Wien in Vienna, Austria. She lived and worked in Europe for 12 years, participating actively in festivals across Western and Eastern Europe. Her current interests orbit around accessing and reclaiming traditional knowledge, grief technologies, healing, migration and decolonial existing.