Tending to the M{other}
1224 W Loyola Ave, Chicago IL
July 29, 2025 - August 2, 2025
Individual Movement Sessions
Free – with childcare provided!
July 29 to August 1 by RSVP
Performances
Saturday, August 2 at 3 PM
Saturday, August 2 at 7 PM
We invite you to witness and participate in the labor of caregiving. Celebrate these private, intimate moments in a public space!
Experience the collective power of embodied fly-as-hell m{others}. We have all cared for others. We have all been cared for by others. We wonder how radical love and caring might be a roadmap for a more interconnected world.
Have you rocked someone to sleep?
Has someone cried out for you?
Have you helped others get dressed?
Has someone you love thrown a tantrum?
Do you have dishes to wash?
Do you have to pack bags and unpack bags and pack bags and. . . ?
Do you worry that your loved ones need you to feed them?
This performance is for you!!!
Performers: Christine Shallenberg, Aurora Tabar, Chad Hagedorn, Wannapa P-Eubanks
Music: Jess Baldissero
Christine Shallenberg is a teaching artist and mom. Her work ranges in mode from electronic textiles to light and sound installations to participatory choreographies for audiences (and sometimes her child). Her long-time collaboration with Jenn Cooper, JCSpaceRadio, engaged in a casually critical dialogue with frequencies through workshops, performances and interactive installations. Her work has been seen at Links Hall, High Concept Laboratories, Experimental Sound Studio, Hume Gallery, Tritriangle and No Nation in Chicago, as well as Movement Research, Galapagos Art Center, Williamsburg Arts Nexus, and Triskelion Arts in NYC. She also worked as the Lighting Designer for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company for whom she designed Second Hand, Antic Meet, Nearly 902 and more than 30 unique Event performances seen around the world. She continues to design for performance with Every house has a door. More info at christineshallenberg.com.
Aurora Tabar is a Chicago-based performance artist, occupational therapist, and multi-tasking mom. She creates live performances and public actions that meld contemporary dance forms with research, storytelling, and audience participation. She wonders how the experience of live art can be a catalyst for healing. From 2018-2020 she facilitated The Existential Coat Check, an interactive popup booth that invited participants to shed their psychic baggage via writing and drawing activities at venues across the midwest. Her last evening length performance, Tiny Vibrating Strings, explored the life of Mileva Maric, Einstein’s first wife, whose contributions to the field of theoretical physics were overshadowed by her domineering spouse. Aurora has presented solo and collaborative performances in Chicago at Links Hall, Elastic Arts, High Concept Laboratories, Prop Theater, Chicago Cultural Center, and Roman Susan Gallery, and nationally at Movement Research (NY). More info at auroratabar.com.
Jess Baldissero is a seasoned multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, songwriter, improviser and mother based in Chicago, IL. Whether supporting other artists as a side player on tour, arranging and producing recorded work for artists around the country, writing scores for live theater and art installations, or self-releasing original work with her songwriting project, Joybird, her impact is authentic and dynamic, elevating any project she has a hand in. With a background in social work and a passion for teaching youth, Jess is deeply inspired by communal, connection-centered art. This has led her toward making music as a therapeutic tool, fiddling for social dance and community events, and nearly a decade teaching at Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk music before founding her own private teaching studio, Heart Strings Chicago. Jess’s playing has been featured on NPR, XRT, and the BBC, among other local and national broadcasts, and she can be seen touring currently with experimental blues artist, Buffalo Nichols (Austin, TX), or daytimes frequenting most any playground on the northwest side of Chicago with her precious two-year-old daughter. More at @jess__baldissero.
Wannapa Pimtong-Eubanksis a Butoh Artist, choreographer, movement coach, improviser, and actor. She is a mother of two children, and at the same time also a caregiver to her special needs daughter. Her work often stems from a personal experience or a specific memory that grows into a poetic image that she imbues with the memory of the moment. She was selected to be showcasing for Dance/USA showcase 2011 at the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago. From 2010-2021, Wannapa was a former Artistic member of Erasing the Distance, a non-profit arts organization based in Chicago that uses the power of performance to disarm stigma, spark dialogue, educate, and promote healing surrounding issues of mental health. Since then, she has been passionately focusing on exploring relationship between mental condition and movement. More at @wannapapeubanks.