I am a Chicago-based performance artist and costume designer dedicated to process-oriented theatrical research and creation.

On Monday, May 21st at 7:30 PM I am curating DANCES TO SONGS I HATE at Links Hall featuring the original work of dancers, movers, choreographers and performers who create a piece to a song that they just plain – hate. The program is comprised of solo and collaborative work by artists of all levels whose song choices will not be disclosed to the audience until the performance begins.

The curatorial spark of DANCES TO SONGS I HATE arose from the aspect of challenge and its ability to open up new ways of looking at performance process – having inspiration come from something that repulses, rather than compels to make bold, innovative work. The process hopes to encourage the artist to pull from uncomfortable resources and face the possibility of failure.

Featured performers include: Tif Bullard, Core Project Chicago, Jade Daugherty, Jen Guglielmi, Courtney Mackedanz & Ziad Nagy, Cara Newman, Cruz Nowell with Stephen Michael Dunstan Richardson, Liana C. Percoco, Rebecca Sohn and Cayne Collier, Stefanie Cohen and Corey Gearhart – Upended Teacups.

Tickets are $10 and available at Event Brite.

I have also recently uploaded a few new videos to YouTube:

thoughts like waves a video piece from my solo performance "after that, later, then" (2012).
cardinalogy a video piece from my solo performance "after that, later, then" (2012).
Caption: Decoded at Salonathon (2012).
"Clock Dance" from the live performance of my solo performance "Detail of Double Escapement" (2010).

I am also pleased to be costuming "Troublemaker" at Berkeley Rep in Berkeley, CA and "Disconnect" at Victory Gardens in the Zacek McVay Theater in Chicago, IL this winter 2012-13.

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My solo and collaborative performance work has appeared throughout Chicago at Links Hall (after that, later, then, The DIALogues, FEEDBACK, Detail of Double Escapement, Surround, 1400 of anything, Caption: Decoded, and echo chamber), MCA (The DIALogues curated by Dexter Bullard, and Periphery with Plasticene), Looptopia (Caption: Decoded), Performing Arts Chicago’s PAC/edge Festival (AirTactLight with Brian Torrey Scott and Discarded Landscape with Weather Talking), Rhinoceros Festival (Decline of Ballooning with Brian Torrey Scott, and my own solo performance piece, echo chamber), Chicago Artists Month, Chicago Humanities Festival, Salonathon at Beauty Bar, Sonotheque, Heart of Gold, The Artistic Home, En3my Gallery, The Reconstruction Room, SAIC New Blood Performance Festival, Betty Rymer Gallery, and The Sullivan Galleries, as well as in New York City at the Joyce SoHo for the New Dance Alliance Performance Mix Festival. In 2009, I received my MFA in Performance at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and was a recipient of the James Nelson Raymond Fellowship award. I have a BA in Liberal Arts with a focus in Creative Process in Performance Art from DePaul University’s The School for New Learning. I am also the recipient of a 2010 Illinois Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship, and was a 2009-2010 LinkUP Residency Artist at Links Hall where I premiered my solo work, Detail of Double Escapement. I am currently curating an evening of dance and performance called DANCES TO SONGS I HATE at Links Hall in May 2012.

My costume design aesthetics are grounded in the functional and hyper-naturalistic with attention to details that enhance the conceptual elements of the overall design. My design process is unique in that I create my design in rehearsal, working directly with the actors – looking at the way the body creates shape into character through motion in space. I have costume designed internationally (Reverie for The Second City at Montreal’s Juste Pour Rire festival), Off-Broadway (Mistakes Were Made at Barrow Street Theatre, and Lady at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater), regionally (Circle Mirror Transformation at Victory Gardens, The Big Meal for American Theater Company, Gas For Less at Goodman Theatre, Grace at Northlight Theatre), and Off-Loop in Chicago (Odradek for The House Theatre of Chicago, Mistakes Were Made, Hunger & Thirst, and In the Solitude of Cotton Fields at A Red Orchid Theatre (and PAC/edge Festival), Killers for Mary-Arrchie, Will He Bop? Will He Drop? at National Pastime, Florida Styx for Hypatia, Savage/Love for Moving Dock, and Psyche for New Theatre Collective). I have costumed numerous independent films, including the feature film, Oh My Soul that has appeared at Echo Park Film Center in Los Angeles, Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago, and at the Rotterdam International Film Festival in the Netherlands. I am also a freelance stylist work and have a client list including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Momix Dance Company, Ward and Ames Events for Kohler, Three Arts Club, and DePaul University’s Graduate Showcase. I also design and construct costumes for my solo and collaborative performance work. My costume design work for Gas For Less at Goodman Theatre is featured in a theater design text book demonstrating “hyper-realism” design for the stage.

From 2005 to September 2009, I worked as a teaching artist with the Shanti Foundation for Peace, integrating the practice of non-violence with the arts in public schools.

I enjoy garment construction, knitting, Shibori felting, jewelry making, cross stitch and embroidery. Diagnosed with several food allergies, I live a wheat-free, gluten-free, soy-free, and mostly vegan lifestyle. Never willing to compromise taste, I embrace the obstacles that vegan, gluten-free baking and cooking create, and tackle them with extreme creativity. It is a goal of mine to bring my own gluten-free baked goods to public coffee and bake shops for folks like me to enjoy their lifestyle without compromise.
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View video documentation of my performances on my YouTube channel.
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[photo credit: Danny Hsu]