IF/THEN: New Works Festival is presented by Honey Pot Performance at the Green Line Performing Arts Center interweaving the original commissioned works of featured artists Allegra Dolores, Sojourner Zenobia, Norman W. Long, Gloria “Gloe” Talamantes, and Honey Pot Performance in a culminating performance event of divine alchemy. Works are inspired by a year long process of creative ritual. The ensemble played improvisational scores together built on themes from Cuban artist Belkis Ayon’s work, practices of spiritual guidance and intuition, and notions of ritual and ancestral connection.
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What divine instruments guide and shape our work? How do we tune in to higher plane energies? And how do we build from the power and magic of collective creative decision-making using trust and intuition in concert with structured methods?
If/Then brings HPP into conversation with artists aligned with our creative work and values to investigate the ways spirit and intuition guide our practice. We will look at aesthetics through hands-on engagement, building upon the use of binary systems and divination/divining as a central metaphor in our process.
We will engage in fluid combinations of play and ritual -- a series of incantations and spells, casting of shells, deconstructing lists of directions & tasks, sculpting a recipe book of invitation, love, & cooperative joy -- to encourage collective magic.
Phase One was an invitation to experiment, improvise, and play.
In Phase Two, HPP commissioned each of the artists to create new work inspired by the creativity generated in Phase One.
And, Phase Three is a New Works Festival featuring all of the artists in a weekend of video streamed performance April 30-May 2, 2021 staged and recorded at the Green Line Performing Arts Center.
If/Then online sharing #1:
Honey Pot Performance with Norman W. Long (April 29)
Instructions for viewing: This prerecorded online performance includes several linked videos in a playlist including: Introduction, Divining the Score, and a performance consisting of 3 videos (Movement 1, Movement 2, and Movement 3). Once you click play the playlist will automatically run. Watching them in this linked order is encouraged for the fullest experience of the process and performance as intended by the artists.
If/Then online sharing #2:
Honey Pot Performance with Special Guests (May 13)
Instructions for viewing: This prerecorded online performance includes several linked videos in a playlist including: Introduction, Divining the Score, and a performance consisting of 3 videos (Movement 1, Movement 2, and Movement 3). Once you click play the playlist will automatically run. Watching them in this linked order is encouraged for the fullest experience of the process and performance as intended by the artists.
If/Then online sharing #3:
Honey Pot Performance with Special Guests (May 24)
Instructions for viewing: This prerecorded online performance includes several linked videos in a playlist including: Introduction, Divining the Score, and a performance consisting of 3 videos (Movement 1, Movement 2, and Movement 3). Once you click play the playlist will automatically run. Watching them in this linked order is encouraged for the fullest experience of the process and performance as intended by the artists.
Video List
Intro | 1st Movement | 2nd Movement | 3rd Movement | Divining The Score
PHASE 1: Exploration
In Spring 2020 HPP launched this experimental series in conversation with the Belkis Akon exhibition at the Chicago Cultural Center. Each month features a different guest artist in collaboration with HPP working through a series of scores, inquiries, and improvisations to generate a body of choices guided by energetic connections, chance operations, and consistent practice.
Each month there were 3 closed studio sessions and a final public session hosted in partnership with the Chicago Cultural Center. The series culminated in late May in a performance featuring all the artists featured. Due to the COVID-19 public health crisis, all programming has moved to a virtual environment until further notice.
PHASE 2: Creation (Commissions)
From June-September, HPP commissioned each featured artist to create a new work based on our divining experiments. Works will be presented in Spring 2021 as part of HPP's first new works festival.
PHASE 3: If/Then: New Works Festival
HPP produces the If/Then: New Works Festival in Spring 2021 in partnership with the Green Line Performing Arts Center. The performance weaves together the original commissioned works of featured artists Allegra Dolores, Sojourner Zenobia, Norman W. Long, Gloria “Gloe” Talamantes, and Honey Pot Performance in a culminating event of divine alchemy. Works are inspired by a year long process of creative ritual, playing improvisational scores together built on themes from Cuban artist Belkis Ayon’s work, practices of spiritual guidance and intuition, and notions of ritual and ancestral connection.
March - Featured Artist
Allegra Dolores (Kimeco Roberson & Asia Dee)
Mix one-part Joy, and one-part pain; add soul - and taste the sound of Allegra Dolores. Southside Chicago-bred biological sisters with middle names that created their brand, Allegra Dolores brings a unique blend of hip hop, punk, funk, rock, and soul to their harmonies.
The sister duo has ties with the indie hip hop and performance art community in Chicago and has been featured in Chicago’s Home Theater Festival and participated in Night Out in the Parks. Their songs The Music-OK, Chemistry, Hide & Seek, and Hello are featured on the soundtrack of several Black & Sexy TV movies, television and web series.
April - Featured Artist
Norman W. Long
Norman W. Long (b. 1973, Chicago, IL) is an artist/composer. His practice involves walking, collecting, performing and recording to create objects, environments and situations in which he and the audience are engaged in dialogues about memory space, value, silence and the invisible. He earned a Master’s Degree in “New Genres” while attending the San Francisco Art Institute and Master’s of Landscape Architecture degree in 2008 from Cornell University. In 2008 Norman relocated to Chicago where he has performed and exhibited at Experimental Sound Studio, Kavi Gupta Gallery, Hungryman Gallery, Harold Washington College, Chicago Artists Coalition Gallery, Links Hall, Elastic, and the Arts Club for the 2015 Chicago Humanities Festival. Norman has received 3Arts Award for Sound Art in 2012, 3Arts Djerassi (Woodside, CA) Artists Residency Fellowship in 2014, BOLT Artist in Residence at the Chicago Artists Coalition in 2014-2015, 3Arts Fellowship at AS220 (Providence, RI) 2017 Artist in Residence program, 3Walls RaD Lab/Outside The Walls Fellow for 2017-2019 and Guest Composer at EMS Elektronmusikstudion, Stockholm, Sweden made possible in part by the City of Chicago’s DCASE grant.
May - Featured Artist
Sojourner Zenobia
Sojourner Zenobia (she/her and they/them) is a Chicago-based storyteller, performance artist. She graduated from Naropa University (Boulder) in 2006 with a BFA in Interdisciplinary Performance and a minor in Buddhist Philosophy. She studied performance at the School at Steppenwolf (Chicago) under Alexandra Billings in 2009 as well as Pantheatre (Paris) in 2011 with a focus on Vocal Training and Choreographic Theater. Sojourner is currently working on Femme Body, an exploration of phases of feminine experience through the lens of Black Queer experience. They facilitate Stillness: A meditation and ritual space for Femmes of color at Reunion Chicago.
Featuring Creative Visual Documentation by Gloria “Gloe” Talamantes
Gloria “Gloe” Talamantes is a first-generation Mexican-American graffiti artist, writer, educator and cultural worker from Chicago. Her art consists of aerosol mural painting, printmaking, photo-documenting, public art curation and organizing to promote community building, self-actualization and healing. She has self-funded several murals across the city and is the founder of the Brown Wall Project. Gloria also works as a neighborhood journalist on the South Side of Chicago.
Credit: Marcus Davis