The Elastro series has an incredibly special event planned for March. agua viva is a collective performance by Elise Butterfield, Sofía Gabriel, Anna Johnson, Jonty Paul, and Veronica Anne Salinas that weaves together sound, movement, and live video processing. agua viva draws inspiration from the natural flow of water and the possibilities of the human body. Throughout the piece, the performers' improvisational movements and sound gestures are translated live into evolving visual projections. This interplay between movement, sound and visuals creates a dynamic conversation between performers and immerses the audience in an aquatic dreamscape.
We’ll also have a solo performance from Mauricio López F. and more TBA.
$15 / $10 w/ Student ID - Tickets Available at the Door
Artist Bios
Sofía Gabriel is a performance artist and dancer from Mexico City, based in Chicago. Trained in classical and contemporary dance, her practice evolved from technique-focused work to exploring improvisation and play. Exploring experimental dance to engage in somatic dialogues with sound, painting, and new media. She believes in feminism as a body-centered resistance to patriarchy, aiming to forge new discourses that can be equitable and just for all humans.Her practice consists in creating, performing or facilitating collective actions or cathartic experiences that can foster healing, connection, and collaboration for social change.
Jonty Paul is from Kolkata, India, and is pursuing a PhD in Physics at the University of Chicago. Jonty explores various forms of visual arts. He has worked extensively on documentary films as a cinematographer and has served as a visual manager of bands. Currently, he enjoys experimenting with new technologies, creating visual projects in virtual reality, and live interactive experiences using stereoscopic techniques.
Elise Butterfield is a mover, curator, and arts administrator. All of her work is informed by her commitment to live arts, accessibility, collaboration, and meaningful engagement between artists and audiences.
Anna Johnson is a Chicago-based multidisciplinary artist whose sound practice explores the materials of voice, synthesizer and electronic processing in order to render embodied auditory landscapes. She draws from her backgrounds in Western classical, traditional and devotional choral musics and engages improvisation, drone-based minimalism and layered repetition in pursuit of altered states of consciousness. She seeks to bring her audiences into a space of curiosity and active attention that requires full sensory participation and presence.
Mauricio López F. is a Chilean artist and composer whose practice relies on the transformative potential of sound, selecting and modifying it to create meaningful experiences. Building on his music background, he has evolved into a broader engagement with sound, often drawing from his South American roots and incorporating sardonicism that navigates the absurd.
Currently, he explores various mediums within sonic arts, including sound sculptures, performances with non-traditional instruments, and graphic scores. By combining sound with visual and kinetic elements, he challenges the listening situation, providing a more complex sensory experience that leads to an intricate set of codes and significations. His works address themes such as translation, communication misunderstandings, labor, and living in different contexts. They are deeply connected to the physical and social spaces he inhabits, revealing latent political and cultural content.
His pieces have been presented in Peru, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, the Czech Republic, and the United States. He is currently pursuing an MFA in Sound at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, supported by the New Artist Society Scholarship and the Chilecrea Scholarship from the Chilean Ministry of Cultures, Arts, and Heritage.