The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) has been awarded two major grants for museum programming. A $200,000 two-year grant from the Joyce Foundation
will support a series of new projects by African-American artists. The first of these, “Works by Gary Simmons,” opens Feb. 16. In addition, the National Endowment for the Arts is providing a $60,000 grant in support of the MCA’s performance programming.
The MCA is a lot more than a museum of avant garde art—its performance center presents the best in contemporary performance programming. The new spring schedule underlines that fact with programs planned in drama, dance and music. Most of these events will be held in the Museum’s 300-seat theater located on the ground floor of the building at 220 E. Chicago Ave.
The spring season opened with a series of monthly live dramatic readings which are a part of WBEZ’s “Stories on Stage.” The readings, which will continue through
July, present some of Chicago’s most talented actors and directors and feature stories written by well-known authors. Individual tickets are $15. Directors of these programs include, among other well-known names,
Michael E. Myers, Steve Scott and Cheryl Lynn Bruce.
Among the dance companies featured at the MCA this
spring are “Dumb Type,” a Japanese company which will offer a work titled “Memorandum,” a kaleidoscopic program concerned with human memory, Feb. 28 through March 3. The John
Jasperese Company will perform a new work titled “Giant Empty” April 5 through 7. It will explore the way in which people define their personal experiences through opposition and boundaries—and how they react when those boundaries are dissolved.
The work “Iceland” by Roger Guenveur Smith will be offered March 15 through 17. As the MCA’s artist-in-residence, Smith presented a staged reading of this
work-in-progress during December of 2000. It’s a one-man theater piece set in Brooklyn. Smith previously wrote and performed the work “A Huey P. Newton Story” in 1999 at the MCA, which met with great popular and critical acclaim.
Film, and particularly digital art, are also included in the program schedule at MCA. There will be a three-day display of panels, installations, screenings, concerts and
performances featuring film makers, designers, computer programmers and musicians, April 18 through 20.
Finally, MCA will present chamber music programs performed by the Chicago Chamber Musicians. These Chicago Symphony Orchestra players will offer the works of contemporary composers George Perle, Joan Tower and John Corigliano. The three-concert series will be performed on Mondays during May.
The composers, whose works are considered to be among the best in contemporary music, offer differing views of the direction in which classical music might go over the next decades. Pre-concert lectures will be held to explain the music and the aims of the composers.
The MCA theater is located near the ground floor entrance at Mies Van de Rohe Way and Pearson St. For information on tickets, call (312) 397-4010. Most series tickets are discounted from the single admission price and availability is somewhat limited, so call in advance.
Specific program details are available by phoning the same
number. Admission to the museum’s exhibitions is $10, but Tuesdays are free. MCA also operates a Web site with additional information at www.mcachicago.org.
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