Fifth City Revisited
Video, color, stereo
74 minutes 55 seconds
2024
Fifth City Revisited tells the story of a radical community movement from the 1960s-1990s on the Westside of Chicago. Part memoir, part history lesson, and part urban planning critique, Fifth City Revisited explores how we create healthy communities while also considering the scale at which we must do this work in order to grow and sustain it.The work uses dance, story, and media to consider the impact of Fifth City's community power against the backdrop of city planning systems that have all but erased its work. What lessons does the Fifth City movement have to teach us in our current and cautiously hopeful era of grassroots change where a renewed commitment to neighborhood investment is bubbling up across Chicago’s West and South sides?
Preview this work in the trailer below; to view the full film, please set an appointment to visit our media room. Also recommended: visit the online exhibition that serves as a repository of information to accompany Meida McNeal’s solo performance, Fifth City Revisited, which is co-presented by Honey Pot Performance and First Church of the Brethren. If you are interested in booking a screening of Fifth City Revisited, please contact hpp@honeypotperformance.org.
Meida McNeal is Artistic and Managing Director of Honey Pot Performance. Over the past two decades, she has produced numerous creative projects as both a solo artist and with Honey Pot Performance, with works performed in Illinois, Rhode Island, Ohio, California, and Trinidad. Positioning her work as an Independent Artist and Scholar at the intersection of performance studies, dance and critical ethnography, she has taught courses in dance, critical performance ethnography, and black diasporic cultural production at Northwestern University, Brown University, Governors State, Columbia College Chicago, and University of Chicago. Meida also works with the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events as the Deputy Commissioner of the Cultural Grants & Resources Division. For more information and work, please visit honeypotperformance.org.
This project is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency in addition to funding from Foundation of Contemporary Arts, Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events Year of Chicago Theater microgrant, 3AP project donations, and a Columbia College Faculty Development Grant.
This work is shared by Roman Susan as a part of Evergreen at 4750 N Sheridan Road, Chicago IL.