IMS welcomes a group featuring Jorrit Dijkstra accompanied by a quintet of Chicago improvisers along with trio set by Emily Biesel, Ro Lundberg, and Norman W. Long.

Welcome to 2025! After an amazing 2024 for our Pleaides Series, we’re ready to take on another year of excellent programming. But first, we jam.

Tonight’s the night for all femme/trans/non-binary artists to join us at Elastic and participate in an all-night jam session! We’ll get your name on a list and decide upon small ensembles on the spot. You can sign up by emailing pleiades@elasticarts.org or just show up. All levels of musicianship welcome! We can’t wait to see you for the 3rd Annual JAN JAM!

$FREE$

How can a musical community come together to emotionally process life in a changing and forever-changed environment? The three compositions premiered in this performance explore responses to this question by composers Scott Rubin, Alissa Voth and Ben Zucker, and videographer Zack Sievers. Performers seek to create a shared musical space for reckoning with themes of nature, loss, nostalgia, erosion and erasure on multiple planes. Interspersed between these pieces are short film clips exploring themes of ritual, healing, and environmental change in which both the musicians from the trio and some of their friends engage with the rapidly changing ecosystems of the Warren Dunes.

It has now been 5 years since the CLEAT multi-channel speaker system was installed in Elastic Arts. The CLEAT has proven to be one of the most versatile, exciting, accessible, and fully experimental instruments we have for our artists community to utilize. Huge thanks to Stephan Moore, Sam Clapp, and Matt Test for holding down this series for 5 beautiful years (with a short bug break, of course). We hope the system continues to be the most accessible spatial audio system in the world.

To celebrate 5 years, we have a very special January CLEAT Series planned. trace/play is a collaboration between interdisciplinary performance artist Chrissy Martin and interactive artist Owen Lowery. The work offers multi-sensory experiences for audiences through live processing with AI body tracking, sonification, and generative visualization, all imbued with a sense of curiosity and serious play. Chrissy and Owen play with the traces of change through the collaborative manipulation of physical performance and multiple tech elements. The audience is invited to contemplate, experiment, and move through the space, creating a collective artwork that is printed as a poster they take home at the end of the show. We can’t wait to see how this work translates on the CLEAT in our space.

The very first CLEAT Series show featured the legendary Chicago sound artist and organizer Jason Soliday. It seems appropriate to welcome him back after 5 years as part of the celebration, and we can’t wait to hear what he has up his sleeves! Jason will be using eurorack modular and computer synthesis to tickle the speakers with incredibly dynamic sounds.

Hatcher/Giallorenzo/Kirshner is a collaborative trio that has worked in improvised music of a free jazz character and is now beginning to delve into its members’ interests in repertory work and original composition. Their set will include pieces by Frank Wright and Cecil Taylor as well as original work and improvisation. Following their set we are having a New Year’s Open Jam led by series curators Ben Zucker and Ishmael Ali! Bring your instrument to jam! We’ll break off into small ensembles / short sets so everyone can play a bit. All ‘jam’ participants are admitted $free$ to the event!

8:30 Hatcher/Giallorenzo/Kirshner Trio

9:30 New Year's Jam led by Ishmael Ali and Ben Zucker, bring your instrument!! All welcome!

Dal Niente teams up with composer and multi-instrumentalist Macie Stewart for a free evening of music at Elastic Arts. This is the fifth in a series of shared programs between Dal Niente and other respected Chicago artists, supported by a DCASE Chicago Artists Recovery Program Grant. 

For the past year and a half, Macie has been working on new solo material involving prepared piano, field recordings, and string improvisations/compositions. For this performance, Lia Kohl, Whitney Johnson, and Zach Moore will join Macie to perform some of this unreleased material, as well as excerpts from Mouth Full of Glass alongside members of Ensemble Dal Niente. 

Getting the Detroit band back together has been difficult.. but this is the first time we're doing this in Chicago. So what better way to close out the year with extended family! 

We are also returning to the scene from last year's event at Elastic Arts, and we'll be using the CLEAT System   CLEAT Listening and Performance Series,  showcase where artists present work in an immersive, multichannel audio format. This series places the audience inside the sound, through a system of 16 omni-directional Hemisphere speakers conceived and built by Isobel Audio. 

This is also a sneak peek into next year's line up into Excursions Detroit 2025. Let's GO and let's celebrate 2024!

Elastic Arts is very happy to welcome back the legendary collaborative ensemble DKV Trio for the longstanding holiday concert that they’ve done in Chicago for many years. This fantastic pairing of journeymen Chicago improvisers found its roots in the mid-1990’s and has worked actively since that time.

Ken Vandermark - reeds
Kent Kessler - bass
Hamid Drake - drums

Elastic Arts is very happy to welcome back the legendary collaborative ensemble DKV Trio for the longstanding holiday concert that they’ve done in Chicago for many years. This fantastic pairing of journeymen Chicago improvisers found its roots in the mid-1990’s and has worked actively since that time.

Ken Vandermark - reeds
Kent Kessler - bass
Hamid Drake - drums

The Improvised Music Series concludes 2024 with a pair of duos demonstrating the strength of the scene across generations.

We gather during the holidays once again to celebrate Elastic Arts, our community, and the great things that have happened with the organization over the past year. This event is free and open to members, or you can show up and sign up to be a member on the spot! We’ll have beverages, snacks, and some music! Join us!

Music at 8pm. Sign up to be a member HERE

This event is supported by our friends at Illuminated Brew Works!

NYC based label Modern Tapes will present a screening of their short documentary Between Sets in which experimental musicians, noise makers, and performance artists from all over the world share their thoughts on artistic identity, creative process, and community during the 2023 Ende Tymes Festival in New York City. Label tapes honcho Patrick Scott then peforms a live set with their project Closing followed by a solo set from Sarah Lutkenhaus and a duo of Theo Katsaounis + Kat Borderud. We’ll get things started at 8pm!

The final Elastro of 2024 will host three sets of electro-acoustic performance. Choir Siren is an experimental electro-acoustic duo from Louisville, KY, made up of TJ Cole (synthesizer & processed vocals) and Emily Ravenscraft (processed violin). Both classically trained, they mix improvisation with live processing to create unpredictable, immersive performances that break the rules of traditional music. Their sound pulls from a mix of avant-garde classical, ambient, and noise, but it’s always evolving, changing with each show depending on the space and the vibe.

Edward Breitweister will perform ‘Ecotonus For ARP-2500 synthesizer and computer’. Using the works of pioneering French composer Éliane Radigue (b. 1932) as a point of departure, Ecotonus draws from improvisations that he recorded on the ARP-2500 that was custom-built in 1971 for the Electronic Music & Recording Studio at Washington University. The 2500 was Radigue's primary instrument and is known for its uniquely noisy "matrix switch" design, which can result in quirky, unstable interaction between sounds. While improvising, Breitweister sought simple sounds that would behave unpredictably and evolve into unexpected complexity through the beauty of this rare machine.

In their new collaborative project, Liz Flood & Hunter Whitaker-Morrow use methods of radio and television scanning to create diffusion, slippage, and emergent signification.

We’ve had a wonderful year of CLEAT Series events and we’re wrapping up with a dynamic night of spatial audio work. Bakantez formed in 2022 as the solo electronic project of Chicago based experimental composer Hanna Elliott, former member of the industrial duo HOGG. The project sonically consists of electro-acoustic sampling, sequencing, synthesis, and processed vocals reminiscent of sound collage, minimal wave, and noise.

Kari Watson plays modular analog synthesizers with a customizable software they built in MaxMSP that allows them to perform with a variety of different spatial speaker arrays. The software also allows control several inputs from the modular with filtering effects, customizable algorithmic spatialization trajectories, and individualized amplitude control.

Brought up on the sonic transmissions of the underground, interdisciplinary artist, DJ, and producer PANTY (they/them) is happy to report that hardcore will never die. Enmeshing sonic landscapes from seemingly disparate ends of global bass & leftfield dance music into a cohesive and experimental whole, PANTY’s punk at heart performance antics are only enhanced by their anti-capitalist, DIY-or-die ethos, and a passion for carving out spaces for ecstatic release.

We’ll get started at 8pm!

An evening of powerful protest in song and dance, and an ensemble full of multicultural, cinematic grooves.

The final Pleiades Series of the year will include a solo cello and electronics set from series alum Erica Miller. We’ll then have multidisciplinary artist Ruby Que present light projection work with sound artist iph.

After the planned sets we’ll return to the classic Pleiades Open Jam where any/all femme/trans/nonbinary artists are invited to bring an instrument and get in on some improvisations

Elastic’s Africlassical Futures Series foregrounds the under-recognized achievements and challenges of African American composers and performers working in classical music.

In our final iteration of 2024, AfriClassical Futures will present H/ARBOR, a vocal project assembled by series co-curator olula negre in honor of the Black American Classical tradition of the Hush Harbor reflecting on grief, respite, and the renewal of our commitment to liberation for all of our people.

Artists:

olula negre
Paige Brown
Muso
Zahra
Kezia Waters

This is a matinee, so meet us here at 4:00pm for a beautiful Sunday gathering.

$15 / $10 w/ Student ID - Tickets Available at the Door

AfriClassical Futures is made possible in part by a generous grant from the Paul M. Angell Family Foundation.

FFFT returns for its third iteration of sound and movement collaborations for 2024! Freedom From and Freedom To is an exploration and celebration of artistic circumstance. Movement and sound improvisors from all around Chicago gather in front of a live audience, where they are grouped by chance. Each group performs an improvised set. We fuse diverse artistic backgrounds and practices to create unique and fleeting worlds. There will be a special opening set from musicians Paige Brown and Damon Locks alongside dancer Sara Zalek. Following we’ll have 6 x 15 minute sets from on-the-spot lottery chosen ensembles. Don’t miss this!

Dark Matter Resident Leah Lara has amazed us throughout their time in the Dark Matter Residency, bringing us into the magical realm of puppetry.

In the final presentation of their Residency, they continue their exploration of the archetype of the mermaid, Blackness, religious ritual, and the rise of a digital reality in:‘P.K.’ In Progress Interactive Showing.

Come make electronic music with the mystical sound-weaving theremin, and see props and puppets from past works Fish Sermon (developed in the Chicago Puppet Lab) and LightH0us3 ScreenSaver (debuted at Elastic Arts’ AfroFuturist Weekend 9). Also on view will be models and sketches from the overarching and in progress show P.K.

Let’s celebrate Leah’s Residency here at Elastic Arts and support them in developing what’s to come!

Doors at 7PM

$15/$10 w/ Student ID - Tickets Available at the Door

Welcoming back expatriate Akio Jeimus back from Japan with some old collaborators along with a set from some recent Chicago arrivals.

Shake Shook Shaken is a theater/movement workshop series produced by Julie Meckler. The series is designed for people to gently bring body awareness, allowing participants to open up, explore outside of their comfort zone, bond with each other, create and show. By playing with these concepts using our bodies, voices, words, and each other, we will explore our own awareness and sensitivity as artists and people. 

Shake Shook Shaken is a dream of what a safe space could allow. A vision of a place for everybody to gather, look at each other, play and create in a non judgmental, trauma-informed way. It’s an invitation, a journey within and out, a surprise. Each workshop is unique. This month we’ll have Sara Zalek and Julie leading on the topic of SPARK!

No prior dance or acting experience is necessary, just willingness to move and exhale. This workshop series is for anyone and everyone.

Tonight we host FPE Records as they present an album release party for Yea Big and Tatsu Aoki. The Hand and the Moon is the first duo recording from Yea Big and Tatsu Aoki, two improvised sets on their favorite instruments: bass clarinet (Yea Big), shamisen (Tatsu Aoki, Part One), and bass (Tatsu Aoki, Part Two). Its floating, nighttime vibes showcase a comfortable conversation between two musicians who are loving the process of getting acquainted.

HIPPY HOLY DAZE Music & Art Holiday Celebration returns for its 7th year featuring a night of standout performances by some of Chicago’s elite musicians and performers.

Curated by Poet, Rapper, and Performance Artist, Kao Ra Zen.

The Bridge, a transatlantic organization connecting jazz and creative musicians in Chicago and France, returns with a their group #2.11. The band includes Greg Ward, Nicolas Peoc’h, Hélène Labarrière, and Isaiah Spencer. They have organized a string of shows in Chicago and nearby midwest featuring the quartet, but also these 4 musicians collaborating with various other local musicians. Tonight ensemble member Hélène Labarrière represents from #2.11 in a trio with Ishmael Ali and Katinka Kleijn. Opening we’ll hear from a trio of Ernest Dawkins, Kioto Aoki, and a non-Bridge related French musician Jean-Luc Cappozzo who just so happens to be visiting at that time. We’ll kick things off at 8pm. Join us!

HEAVENSWARE is an audio//visual experience in Logan Square, Chicago, featuring the best in live hardware music.

○ ○ ○ ○ MUSIC:

✶ Cool Miles and the A.D.H.D.I.S.C.O.
✶ Cryym
✶ DJ Paradox
✶ God's Drugs (MN)
✶ La Spacer

VISUALS: ✧ Jace Inman v2v Oracle

$15 PRESALE / $20 DOORS 

HEAVENSWARE is an experience by Night Logistics and NFC Records, celebrating the diversity of machines used to produce and perform electronic music. Along with realtime audio performances, HEAVENSWARE features cutting edge live visuals to enhance and amplify the sounds. 21+ / BYOB

At this Friday’s Elastro series Ále Campos presents a second iteration of a collaborative, live audio/visual performance project titled onto a skin, highly reflective. This iteration's collaborators include Bun Stout, Magnus, and Will Mitchell. onto a skin, highly reflective is an abstraction or rather a refraction of drag; it possesses a desire to free the drag persona from any one singular articulation. It muses over the multitudes of a projected psyche, the fluid range of emotional states experienced creating versions of the self, seeing oneself through the eyes of others, as well as the care inherent in holding and witnessing each other as queer agents. Performed in green screen suits, the performance incorporates a live stream of visually mediated bodies both in space but also video. This iteration will be set to a score of live sound by Will Mitchell and samples of original text written by me. ​ This project's first iteration was created for and performed at SITE/less and was crafted with the format of the SITE/less’ stage in mind. This iteration will adapt to and harness Elastic's 16 channel CLEAT system to bolster the poetics inherent in this project.

'a skin highly reflective, a surface with sharpened edge' 'a muse is a muse, is a muse, my muse, for us, for my my muse, only for you, for us, for them, a muse over muse'

Joining the evening will be performances from Ruby Que and Claire Staples x Hunter Whitaker-Morrow aka ASTROMETRICS.

2 Sets of improvised music welcoming Jean-Luc Capozzo from France paired with some Chicago favorites.

Meditations: Reflections on John Coltrane

Curated by Angelo Hart, piano

with

Greg Artry, drums
Sarah Clausen, saxophone/bass clarinet
Hunter Diamond,  electronics/sax
Marion Mallard,  bass

More info TBA

Join us this upcoming Monday for November’s Pleiades Series featuring the shredding rock trio Barbiefoot and a duo of computer synthesis/guitar from Hedra Rowan and Alex Maerbach.

After the planned sets we’ll return to the classic Pleiades Open Jam where any/all femme/trans/nonbinary artists are invited to bring an instrument and get in on some improvisations

Join Homeroom for an exciting evening at Elastic Arts as we premiere a documentary-style short film created by Rhizomes Films capturing the artistry of Spectralina (the audio-visual performance project of Dan Bitney and Selina Trepp), created with footage from Spectralina’s Homeroom Residency earlier this year.

The film features Spectralina collaborating with a range of special guests, including Ben LaMar Gay, Frederick Wells, Ayako Kato, Jason Roebke, Norman Long, Amalea Tshilds, Lia Kohl, Chér Jey, and Mabel Kwan.