Primer for an Impossible Conversation TUE, FEB 23, 2021 Marcella Murray, David 6 PM Neumann, and Tei Blow for Advanced Beginner MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART CLICK HERE TO JOIN Group with Mikki Kendall CHICAGO Primer for an FROM THE CURATOR In the past year, many generations of racial, Impossible economic, and cultural violences came thundering into the public eye. At the historic 2021 United States presidential inauguration, the words of poet Conversation Amanda Gorman’s ringing performance lingered in many of our minds (and on our social media streams): “And so we lift our gazes not to what Running time is 75 minutes including interactive stands between us / but what stands before moderation by author Mikki Kendall. To us.” But to what extent do connection and shared participate, sign in to the chat function on Vimeo. goals require dissent and disagreement? If performance is adept at blurring fiction and reality, This performance is best experienced using creators David Neumann, Marcella Murray, and headphones. Tei Blow take it one step further. Together they imagine (virtual) theater as a place to experience –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– difficult dialogues with complexity—and uncertainty. Cocreators and David Neumann, Primer is theater as conversation, conversation performers Marcella Murray, and as theater. Just as COVID-19 has demanded new Tei Blow ways of communicating, with this newly commissioned work the artists ask one another (and Guest appearances Julius Powell and their audience) to experience each other— Hyung-Seok Jeon sometimes with discomfort—through the screen. The “social distancing” here is both spatial and Technical design Tei Blow political, and ultimately for the good of everyone. and direction This event itself blurs formats: it is our first time Assistant editor Hyung-Seok Jeon presenting a performance as a Dialogue Series conversation and our first time doing a fully virtual, Producer Boo Froebel livestreamed theatrical production. I’m thrilled that Chicago’s own Mikki Kendall, brilliant Black Guest speaker/ Mikki Kendall feminist author, advocate, and thinker, will join moderator the artists in their productive uncertainty. As Gorman recited, this society is not broken, “but Images from “How to Stage Your Show simply unfinished.” Without Being Super Racist”by Makoto Hirano are used with permission of the artist. Tara Aisha Willis Original images from Distances Smaller Than Associate Curator, Performance and This Are Not Confirmed used in Primer were taken Public Practice by Peter Richards.

PRIMER FOR AN IMPOSSIBLE CONVERSATION MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART CHICAGO 2 SOME ANTI-RACISM ABOUT THE WORK RESOURCES Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel “Primer for an Impossible Conversation is an Wilkerson. Available for articulation of two people’s desire to walk through purchase at Semicolon, fraught territories, and try to undo, even a little, a Black woman-owned, what sustains our unjust system. As we imagine Chicago-based bookstore. spaces beyond earth, we wonder if we’re able Resmaa Menakem’s practice to undo the patterns of thought we’ve inherited. of somatic abolitionism and his books Rock the Boat: How to Use Conflict When we made Distances Smaller Than This Are to Heal and Deepen Your Not Confirmed for the stage last year, Marcella Relationship and My asked: ‘What DO Black folks get out of this sort Grandmother’s Hands: of thing besides teaching someone else something Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our fundamental…again?’” Hearts and Bodies. These books are available on his — David Neumann website. Race Forward “I still cannot answer that question fully. The hope People’s Institute for is to always create less suffering. Survival and Beyond However, I do find myself learning more about how The Blacksmiths Racial I have internalized the current systems and Equity Toolkit expectations. I am unable to accept the imbalances Books by Chicago-based with the same unawareness that I once did. author and activist Mikki As we work, the cost of it becomes clearer and Kendall are available at the makes obvious what must change. MCA Store. We have found ourselves in a place where I get to explore the question of what I would do when we intentionally center my perspective. Which is new.” — Marcella Murray

SOURCES INFORMING THE ARTIST’S WORK Octavia Butler, Toni Morrison, Dr. Jill Tarter, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Richard Dawkins, WNET, astronaut accounts, Marcella Murray, David Neumann, Julius Powell, Tei Blow, Melanie George, The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, R&B from the 1980s, Janelle Monae, N. K. Jemisin, NASA, SETI TOP: David Neumann, Marcella Murray, and Tei Blow for Advanced Beginner Group, production still for Primer for an Institute, and Bill Bryson Impossible Conversation. Image composite: Tei Blow. BOTTOM: David Neumann and Marcella Murray, production still from Distances Smaller Than This Are Not Confirmed, Abrons Arts Center, 2020. Photo: Maria Baranova.

PRIMER FOR AN IMPOSSIBLE CONVERSATION MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART CHICAGO 3 tend to segregate and reconnect. Her work Neumann’s most recent work with Advanced ABOUT THE ARTISTS tends to focus on themes of identity within Beginner Group, Distances Smaller Than This a community and (hopefully) forward momentum Are Not Confirmed, in collaboration with in the face of trauma. Performances include Marcella Murray, received a 2020 Obie Award TEI BLOW (Cocreator/Performer) is a media Blacksmiths collective, and sits on the boards of The Slow Room, a piece directed by Annie Dorsen for creation and performance, and 2016’s designer and performer based in Brooklyn. Movement Research and The Poetry Project. at Performance Space New York; a workshop I Understand Everything Better received two Blow’s work incorporates photography, video, of Ocean Filibuster, which was co-created NY Dance and Performance Bessie Awards, one and sound culled from found materials and HYUNG-SEOK JEON (Guest appearance) is by the team PearlDAmour (Lisa D’Amour and for Outstanding Production and one for Out- mass media alongside live instrumentation. He a South Korean multi-disciplinary theatre artist Katie Pearl) with composer Sxip Shirey at standing Music Composition/Sound Design. In performs music as Frustrator on Enemies based in NYC. He also works as a videographer, Abrons Arts Center; I Don’t Want to Interrupt 2016, Neumann was named the the first List Recordings and is one half of Royal Osiris film-editor. In 2014, Jeon’s video work, including You Guys, which was created in collaboration performing artist in Residence at the SETI Karaoke Ensemble, whose ongoing multipart his short film Autumn (2014), was installed with Leonie Bell and Hyung-Seok Jeon during Institute and awarded a Robert Rauschenberg series The Art of Luv is a recipient of the Creative by the artistic director Robert Wilson at the RAP at Mabou Mines; New Mony, created Residency. Over the years, Neumann has Capital and Franklin Furnace Awards. He has Watermill Center Annual Benefit. In 2016, by Maria Camia at Dixon Place; and Shoot Don’t received three Bessie Awards, a Foundation performed and designed for Dmitry Krymov he performed in a dance puppetry piece, Tough Talk at St. Ann’s Warehouse/Puppet Lab, for Contemporary Arts award, an Asian Cultural Laboratory, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Jodi Melnick, the Tough (Redux: Steve), directed by David created by Andrew Murdock. Along with David Council Fellowship (Noh immersive), residencies Big Dance Theater, and David Neumann/ Neumann. In 2017, he created and performed Neumann, she recently cocreated Distances at MASS MoCA, ADI/Lumberyard, Baryshnikov Advanced Beginner Group. Blow’s work has in How a River Carries You as a part of Puppet Smaller Than This Are Not Confirmed (Obie Arts Center, Mabou Mines, MacDowell, White been featured at Hartford Stage, Dance Blok 2017 at Dixon Place. 2018, he created Special Citation for Creation and Performance), Oak, and MANCC, and support from the Theater Workshop, PS122/PSNY, Lincoln Center and performed a solo piece A Held Posture at which opened at Abrons Arts Center in Rockefeller Foundation, Creative Capital, NYFA, Festival, The Kitchen, BAM, The Public Theater, Theatre Lab, a meditation on generational January of 2020. Murray is part of an artist and National Dance Project, among others. The Broad Stage, MCA Chicago, MFA Boston, loss in relation to the sensation of sinking into collective called The Midwives. Neumann received a 2019 Chita Rivera Award Kate Werble Gallery, Baryshnikov Arts Center, deep water. He is a recipient of a 2015 Fulbright for Outstanding Choreography of a Broadway Roundabout Theatre Company, the Wadsworth graduate study award. He graduated from DAVID NEUMANN (Cocreator, Performer, Musical for Hadestown and, also for Hadestown, Atheneum, and at theaters around the world. Sarah Lawrence College in 2017 with an MFA and Founder of Advanced Beginner Group) a 2019 Tony Award Nomination for Best He is the recipient of a 2015 New York Dance in Theatre. original work has been presented in New Choreography. and Performance Bessie Award for Outstanding York at Performance Space New York, New Sound Design for David Neumann/Advanced MIKKI KENDALL (Guest speaker/Moderator) is York Live Arts, The Kitchen, Abrons Arts Center, JULIUS POWELL / JULIE J (Guest appearance) Beginner Group’s I Understand Everything Better. a writer, diversity consultant, and occasional Central Park SummerStage, Celebrate Brooklyn, is a New York City based performer, writer, Blow is currently a Baryshnikov Arts Center feminist who talks a lot about intersectionality, Symphony Space, The Chocolate Factory, and and drag artist. They have performed in various Cage/Cunningham Fellow. policing, gender, sexual assault, and other the Whitney Museum of American Art. ABG theaters in New York City including Ensemble current events. Her essays can be found at Time, has also performed at the Walker Art Center; Studio Theater, TADA Theater, The Dixon Place, BOO FROEBEL (Producer) is an independent The New York Times, The Guardian, The Carolina Presents; Alverno College; MASS The Secret Theater, Hudson Guild Theater, producer, curator & creative consultant, currently Washington Post, Ebony, Essence, Salon, The MoCA; The Fusebox Festival; The Ringling and The Acorn Theater (Off-Broadway) and general manager for Tamizdat; consultant for Boston Globe, NBC, Bustle, The Islamic Monthly, International Arts Festival, and the American Abrons Arts Center. Internationally they have Bloomberg Philanthropies’ AIM/Arts Innovation and a host of other sites. Her media appearances Dance Institute/Lumberyard, among others. performed at Spazio ZUT!, La Mama Umbria, & Management program; and producer for include BBC, NPR, The Daily Show, PBS, Good and in the 2019 Prague Fringe Festival. Julius’ David Neumann & Marcella Murray’s projects for Morning America, MSNBC, Al Jazeera, WVON, Neumann worked as a performer for many created work focuses on cultural insertion, Advanced Beginner Group (Distances Smaller WBEZ, and Showtime. She has discussed years alongside Mikhail Baryshnikov; Big Dance relationships between history and identity, and Than This Are Not Confirmed, 2020 Obie Award, race, feminism, education, food politics, police Theater; Doug Elkins; Doug Varone; and Sally the tactics of escape utilized by marginalized and Primer for an Impossible Conversation). violence, tech, and pop culture at institutions Silvers among many others. Recent non-ABG bodies. They are currently developing work Previously, Froebel served as producer of Lincoln and universities across the country. She is the projects include: Tony-nominated Choreographer that combines drag performance, dance, and Center Festival and The Onassis Festival; author of Amazons, Abolitionists, and Activists: of Hadestown (Broadway / National Theater experimental modes of storytelling. They are executive producer of the Imagine Festival A Graphic History of Women’s Fight for UK / New York Theatre Workshop); The Total a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and of Arts, Issues & Ideas (Obie Award); curator/ Their Rights (illustrated by A. D’Amico) and Bent (Public Theater); War (Lincoln Center have studied at Upright Citizens Brigade and producer of live art at The Whitney Museum; Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Theater III/LCT3); Futurity (Ars Nova / Soho La Mama Umbria’s Directors Symposium. In and artistic director of Galapagos Art Space Movement Forgot, both from Penguin Random Rep); An Octoroon (Soho Rep/Theater for January 2021 their episodic drag show FAULTY (Obie Award). Froebel has nominated, evaluated, House. a New Audience); directing Geoff Sobelle in DEFENSE MECHANISMS premiered in the and served on panels for foundations and The Object Lesson (BAM / New York Theatre digital ether, or in layman’s terms, on YouTube. cultural councils including Creative Capital, the MARCELLA MURRAY (Cocreator/Performer) Workshop); Hagoromo at BAM with Wendy CalArts Alpert Award, US Artists International, is a New York–based theater artist from Augusta, Whelan and Jock Soto; and Movement Director ADVANCED BEGINNER GROUP (ABG) is a Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the Georgia. She is a playwright, performer, for Noah Baumbach’s film Marriage Story. collection of artists across many disciplines and Lambent Foundation, the French Cultural Services, collaborator, and puppeteer. Murray’s work is Neumann is currently professor of theater at approaches that come together for specific and the MAP Fund. She is a member of The heavily inspired by the observed ways people Sarah Lawrence College. projects such as Distances Smaller Than This Are

PRIMER FOR AN IMPOSSIBLE CONVERSATION MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART CHICAGO 4 Not Confirmed (Obie award-winning), I Understand SUPPORT FOR THIS Everything Better (Bessie award-winning), and MCA STAGE PROJECT RELATED PROGRAMS Big Eater. ABG makes work that is at its core Deep gratitude to Kendall an irrational response to our perceived place in Karg for her early producing the universe. ABG makes pieces from scratch, work to bring this project –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– bringing to word, action, and proximity a delighted to fruition, and for her DIALOGUE SERIES 2021: DISSENT Sat, March 27, 4 pm embrace of our contradictory lives. Words recommendation of Mikki andactions can only point to experience. The MUSIC TALK: JUSTIN VIVIAN BOND collection of artists actively attempts to create Kendall’s work. This presentation marks the start WITH JIM HODGES experiences that are difficult to describe. ABG’s of the MCA’s 2021 Dialogue Series, most recent work, Distances Smaller Than This Many thanks to the staff Are Not Confirmed, premiered in January 2020, at Gotham Artists for a museum-wide commitment Acclaimed singer-songwriter, author, cocreated by David Neumann and Marcella Murray, bringing Mikki Kendall into to sustained inquiry about museum painter, performance artist, and cocommissioned and copresented by Abrons this project. practice, equity, and inclusion. actor Justin Vivian Bond chats, riffs, Arts Center and The Chocolate Factory Theater, and associate-produced by Mabou Mines. SUPPORT FOR THE The annual series includes eminent and improvises with longtime friend ARTISTS speakers presenting innovative, cross- and collaborator, installation artist Primer for an Impossible disciplinary work, panel discussions, Jim Hodges. Conversation has been and opportunities for open dialogue co-commissioned by MCA Chicago and the Wisconsin between local arts professionals MCA Music Talks pair powerhouse Union Theater at the and audiences. This year we focus musicians pushing the boundaries of University of Wisconsin- on the topic of dissent and how musical genres with prolific artists, Madison, with additional pushing against existing structures activists, writers, and thinkers to take major support from the David and Leni Moore strengthens our social bonds. We’ll on big ideas in art and culture. These Foundation. A complete consider how we talk with each intimate evenings of performance donor list may be found on other, nurture each other, call each and conversation reveal their art advancedbeginnergroup.org. other out, and ask more of each world anecdotes, shared ideas, and Special thanks to Kendall other and the structures around us. creative inspirations. Karg, Tara Aisha Willis, Laura Paige Kyber, Matt March 19 Sharp, Matt Test, and the Open Dialogue: adrienne maree MCA Chicago production crew, Chanel Blanchett, brown on Talking With Each Other Erica Sweany, Montana Lampert Hoover, Melanie April 6 George, Murray Family, Open Dialogue: Jason Hammel and Montana Blanco; Abrons Arts Center, the Diana Dávila on Feeding Each Other Chocolate Factory Theater, Mabou Mines, MassMoCA, April 20 Maggie Allesee National Dialogue Keynote: On Dissent with Center for Choreography, PS21 Chatham, Baryshnikov Zainab Salbi Arts Center, the Rauschenberg Residency/ Click here for more details on the Robert Rauschenberg Dialogue Series. Foundation, the SETI Institute (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), and the Advanced Beginner Group board of directors (Amanda Brandes, Sue Killam, David Neumann, Margo Sweany). PRIMER FOR AN IMPOSSIBLE CONVERSATION MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART CHICAGO 5 SUPPORT FOR MCA ABOUT MCA BUY TICKETS ZOOM HELP CURATOR TICKETING SYSTEMS PERFORMANCES AND PERFORMANCE AND January Parkos Arnall MANAGER PUBLIC PROGRAMS PUBLIC PRACTICE ONLINE Questions about getting Casey VanWormer mcachicago.org/experience connected or questions ASSISTANT CURATOR Lead support for the The Museum of about virtual events at the Gibran Villalobos ASSISTANT BOX OFFICE 2020–21 season of MCA Contemporary Art Chicago BY PHONE MCA? Visit mcachicago. MANAGER Performance and Public is committed to fostering 312-397-4010 org/virtual-help to learn ASSOCIATE CURATOR Phongtorn Phongluantum Programs is provided by social connections more. Tara Aisha Willis Elizabeth A. Liebman. and presenting the most AT THE MCA BOX OFFICE VISITOR EXPERIENCE thought-provoking creative 220 E Chicago Ave ACCESSIBILITY THEATER PRODUCTION MANAGER ACCESSIBILITY ACCESSIBILITY Major support is provided arts of our time. 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