Lisa Dershin LINKUP RESIDENCIES

Links Hall’s Lisa Dershin LinkUP program supports independent artists and collaborations in the research of ideas and development of new innovative work in their movement based practices. The six-month residency program annually gives four emerging artists free weekly studio time and a fully produced showcase to perform their work; a stipend to support their endeavors; and peer support/feedback with work-in-progress events.

The deadline for proposals has passed.

Lisa Dershin danced at Links Hall and MoMing before her death in 1988. Her family started the Lisa Desrshin Creative Dance Foundation in her memory and have generously decided to use the fund to underwrite the LinkUp artist stipend. The LinkUp program began under the artistic leadership of Asimina Chremos in 2002.

Emma Draves Lisa Dershin LinkUp artist 2010
Emma Draves Lisa Dershin LinkUp artist 2010 Lily Emerson Lisa Dershin LinkUp artist 2010

Image for Lily Emerson Lisa Dershin LinkUp artist 2010

Links Hall presents its Fall Showcase 2010 Lisa Dershin LinkUP Artists in Residence Lily Emerson and Emma Draves, September 24 through 26.

Purchase tickets here

Lily Emerson is a Chicago-based performer, teacher, and sometime puppeteer. Over the past few years she has developed a series of original performance works with her theatre company, Lucid Street Theatre, and its collaboration with The Anatomy Collective as Lucid/Anatomy. These works have: followed a scattered collection of memories through the process of Alzheimer's in 2009's Gone, or Who is it That Can Tell Me Who I Am?; explored one zombie’s journey from primordial ooze to full-on man-eating madness in 2009’s Monster/Girl; wandered through the surreal, ensemble-devised dreamscape that was 2008’s A Humechanical Nightmare; and witnessed the deteriorating series of solo vignettes that made up 2007’s i’m worried my body is falling apart. She is a proud member of the Stridulate Ensemble, a movement and sound performance group. Throughout 2008 and 2009, she explored improvisation as a contributor to Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting, a weekly meeting of Chicago-based experimental movers. In addition to her current Lisa Dershin LinkUp Residency, Lily is serving as Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum's Artist in Residence. More information about her work can be found at lucidstreet.org.

Lily’s mentor

Based in Chicago, Tyler B. Myers often works collaboratively: with Cupola Bobber and until recently with Lucky Pierre. Venue highlights for his collaborative work include; PS122 in NYC, CUE Art Foundation in NYC, Fusebox Festival in Austin, Arnolfini in Bristol, Battersea Arts Centre in London, Eurokaz in Zagreb, and Belluard Bollwerk International in Switzerland, Kunstlerhaus Mousonturm in Frankfurt, Kananack in Estonia, and Kunsthaus Graz in Austria. Individual and one-off collaborative projects have been shown at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, the Cleveland Performance Art Festival, Yokohama’s Theatre Fonte, and PSI 15 in Zagreb. His published writing includes; “The Dictionary of Endurative Actions” in The Drama Review, Way Out West, the Sea Whispered Me: A Reading Companion, Cupola Bobber exhibition catalogue, “Letter to Count Tolstoy” in Make: A Chicago Literary Magazine, and “Letter to Leatherface” in Frakcija Performance Journal. Tyler received a Presidents Fellowship at Northwestern University, an International Artist Fellowship at the Nuffield Theatre Lancaster, UK, and received a 2010 MacDowell Colony Fellowship.

Emma Draves is a native of Marion, IN. Since settling in Chicago, she has performed with Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Orchestra in Pritzker Pavilion, in Lookingglass Theatre's production of Sita Ram and Victory Gardens' production of The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, and several Chicago choreographers, including Jan Bartoszek, Jen Meek, Martha Mulligan, Kairol Rosenthal, and Lucy Virusic-Riner. Emma is currently in her sixth year with Natya Dance Theatre and fifth year with Mordine & Company Dance Theatre.
Emma's experience in Chicago has left her negotiating the gap between Modern and Bharata Natyam. And is looking forward to this LinkUp opportunity to explore some persistent inquiries.

"I hope to use this time and great space to negotiate between and around the disparate techniques of modern dance and classical Bharata Natyam, which yet, lie close together in my heart. This work will be primarily a movement study. But there seems no denying the subject of Identity: The question of my own identity when a white girl from Indiana finds such satisfaction in South India, nor the broader picture of individual identity in this world where one can so easily find themselves dropped in the middle of a culture they aren't familiar with and must manage" says Draves.

Emma’s Mentor

Colleen Halloran is a Chicago-born choreographer and filmmaker. She currently teaches in the Dance and Film Departments at Columbia College Chicago where she has been on faculty since 1997. Her dance work has been commissioned by such local companies as Mordine & Company Dance Theatre, The Dance COLEctive, and Same Planet, Different World Dance Theatre. Her short films have screened in Chicago, San Francisco, Oklahoma, Palm Springs, and Tokyo, Japan. Her feature screenplays have been finalists for The Sundance Screenwriters Lab in 2009 and 2010.

LinkUp artists in residence:

2010 / 2011

Justin Cabrillos

Marc Frost

Molly Jaeger

Ni'Ja Whitson

2009/2010

Tif Bullard
Emma Draves

Lily Emerson

Ginger Krebs

2008/09
Tess Dworman
JSun Howard
Carole McCurdy
Adam Rose

2007/08
Caitlin Marz
Renata Sheppard
Meghan Strell
Christian Bambara
Angeline Gragasin
Szewai Lee