Mycelial: Street Parliament

I am tremendously excited to develop Mycelial: Street Parliament, especially during this point in my career and in this divisive political time. Using the artistic process as a mode of cultural diplomacy has lifted me out of focusing on crisis and into building and highlighting collective resilience. With gratitude and anticipation, I am nearing the moment where my team and I get to share this work forward, expanding both our dialogue and community of participants.

Mycelial: Street Parliament is an interactive installation performance that investigates civic participation and social uprisings in the digital age. This performance will premiere in January 2018 as part of the City of Chicago’s OnEdge Festival of New Performance and go on to be presented in March 2018 at Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival in Cairo, Egypt.

Drawing on the experiences of activists during the Occupy Wall Street Movement and Egyptian Revolution of 2011, my team has implemented new and emerging technologies to dissect the collision and collusion of bodies occupying both digital and physical spaces. By harvesting data from social media feeds of these two movements, I hope to bring new information to the conversation about the links between emotion, dialogue, and action. The ambulatory performance experience allows audiences to move through the installation, interact with their movements, and participate through instructions on their mobile phones to change the projections and sound environment.

The ethos of the project centers around creating deeper dialogues and building kinetic empathy to highlight interdependence and human resilience. Ultimately, Mycelial: Street Parliament strives to be an immersive platform where embodied experience can spark conversation around “otherness” and artistic practice as cultural diplomacy.

After residencies in Chicago and Cairo, next January 2018 will mark my third and final development residency culminating with the Chicago premiere. I am fundraising to support this final residency and series of performances utilizing video, dance, sound, new technologies, and a custom mobile phone application to choreograph performers, engage audiences, and promote dialogue across cultures. Starting with a few key questions, I have built a community. With your help, we’ll extend that community to include Chicago- and Cairo-based audiences.

What does an international team residency entail? I’m glad you asked:

$3600- Round trip tickets ($900 each) for four Egyptian collaborators to come to Chicago
$2000- Lawyer and processing fees to secure visas for the international collaboration
$1600- Accommodation in Chicago for our four guests
$2100- Meals for the duration of our four guests stay
$8000- Artist fees for our eight dancer team (4 Egyptians, 4 Americans)

Yes, that’s $17,300. Every drop in the bucket counts toward getting us there. Thank you for reading and considering being a part of the Mycelial Network.