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Friday, February 21, 2025 from 6:00–9:00 PM
Fem-utility Closet: Cohabitate | Opening Reception
Join us for the opening reception of Fem-Utility Closet: Cohabitate, Friday, February 21 from 6:00–9:00 PM in the gallery! Charlotte Street presents a new exhibition titled Fem-utility Closet: Cohabitate, curated by Melissa Dorn, February 21—April 5, 2025. This immersive installation, a cross between a utility closet and a cozy cocoon, unites the work of eight feminists who work in the realm of craft, creating physically or conceptually labor intensive works. Artists include Stephanie Alaniz (Emporia, KS), Morgan Chandler Bouldes (Milwaukee, WI), Summer Brooks (Kansas City, MO), Hadley Clark (Kansas City, MO), Melissa Dorn (Milwaukee, WI), Bernadette Negrete (Kansas City, MO), Kate E. Schaffer (Milwaukee, WI), Valaria Tatera (Milwaukee, WI). Fem-utility Closet: Cohabitate encourages people to give time and space to fully feel, engage with, and contemplate the world they’ve entered, potentially evoking a sense of wonder and delight. As they move closer to the objects and materials, they may begin to think about the everydayness of what is around them and the labor, most often unseen, that goes into our collective everydayness. Melissa Dorn aims to create a space for maintenance, which she defines as the essential act of caring for oneself and one’s community, viewing it as a necessity rather than an indulgence. She is particularly interested in how craft can serve as a form of maintenance. The featured artists share works that they believe enhance their well-being and the well-being of their community. These often soft, tactile, and repetitive pieces foster collaboration with viewers through sensory memory. Fem-utility Closet: Cohabitate is a soft place to land in a world full of indifference and the hard edges of patriarchy and capitalism. It is a place to reflect on how we interact with maintenance. CURATED BY Melissa Dorn FEATURED ARTISTS Stephanie Alaniz (Emporia, KS), Morgan Chandler Bouldes (Milwaukee, WI), Summer Brooks (Kansas City, MO), Hadley Clark (Kansas City, MO), Melissa Dorn (Milwaukee, WI), Bernadette Negrete (Kansas City, MO), Kate E. Schaffer (Milwaukee, WI), Valaria Tatera (Milwaukee, WI). Cover Image (From Top to Bottom, Left to Right): Morgan Chandler Bouldes, Stephanie Alaniz, Melissa Dorn, Valaria Tatera, Kate E. Shaffer, Hadley Clark, Summer Brooks, Bernadette NegreteSaturday, February 22, 2025 from 11:00 AM–1:00 PM
Fem-utility Closet: Lap Work
After the opening of Fem-utility Closet: Cohabitate on Friday, February 21, let’s circle up for conversation and crafting on Saturday, February 22. Please join artists Melissa Dorn, Kate E. Schaffer, and Morgan Chandler Bouldes for a public program following the opening. Participants will fortify themselves by viewing the exhibition and through chosen craft/art processes. As audience members find comfort in connecting, they may focus discussions around maintenance, feminism, and labor. Please come with any craft/art project that can be done on your lap.Wednesday, February 26, 2025 from 7:30-9:00 PM
[RESCHEDULED] EMAS Presents: Marshall Trammell’s Pedagogy of the Surveilled
EMAS Presents: Pedagogy of the Surveilled was originally scheduled for Wednesday, February 19, 2025, but has been rescheduled to Wednesday, February 26, 2025. "Listen Like Lovers: Pedagogy of the Surveilled" is Music Research Strategies' vagabond, audience-participant and active listening conduction system and shared intellectual property, graphic score developed with an Insurgent Learning Ensemble for the 2024 Sonic Acts Biennial (Amsterdam,The Netherlands). Ensemble members responded to an "open call" focusing on personal histories of navigating migration management policies and practices in everyday life as a way to resist surveillance by Levantine and North African participants in an experimental, critical improvised music performance-constellation and context. The photographic images that comprise the graphic score were made with fire, metal and wood during a tactical media-making Insurgent Learning Workshop (ILW) by respondents using Underground Railroad (UGRR), hosted by 2024 Sonic Acts Biennale curator Maud Seuntjens and co-developed with Ghenwa noiré of SALWA Foundation.. The metal used are branding irons from Music Research Strategies' collection of UGRR quilt code-inspired ILW elements. Corresponding to the image-array, or the ILW-generated, interculturally-situated new codes, are the subject of the conceptual and Improvised performance of narrative of the "Pedagogy of the Surveilled." Offering an array of 14, 2'X2', double-sided, graphic scorecards that make up the of "Listen Like Lovers: Pedagogy of the Surveilled" and three active listening directives. Active Listening directives are in place throughout the performance-curriculum to transmit performance-worker instructions for both the Insurgent Learning conduction and performing ensembles to a) perform their individual dynamics or disciplined practice, with scorecard or instrument (vertical, y-axis); b) perform while looking and listening collectively (horizontal, x-axis); and, c) perform your discipline within the full, voluminous, three-dimensionality of the performance container (z-axis). On February 19, Music Research Strategies' continues the quest to generate new narratives of critical discourse and Improvisational cultural weaponry to "Listen Like Lovers," "Listen Like Lawyers," and "Listen Like Wolves" in the Pedagogy of the Surveilled, with the support of the Extemporaneous Music and Arts Society (EMAS), and Charlotte Street. The "Listen Like Lovers: Pedagogy of the Surveilled" program invites audiences to participate as conductors to form the "Insurgent Learning Conductor Ensemble - KCMO" in two iterations. First, audience-conductors will perform the debut conduction for Music Research Strategies' solo percussion, performance-composition practicum of the "Pedagogy of the Surveilled," with a static set of original "sound-events" (referencing Wadada Leo Smith's nomenclature) corresponding to each scorecard image for an unpredictable and ever-changing narrative determined by an ever-changing, active listening prowess of Insurgent Learning Conductor Ensembles as the work tours indefinitely. After a brief intermission, the, now tempered, Insurgent Learning Conductor Ensemble - KCMO will perform the conduction for a second time, but to an Insurgent Learning Ensemble - KCMO curated by members of EMAS, joined by Music Research Strategies. Self-styled Music Research Strategies is, simultaneously, the Creative Music percussionist Marshall Trammell cultural work persona and community engagement platform. ILWs are an ongoing interculturally-situated, Performing Political Education platform designed to amplify the voices, experiences and celebrations of oppressed and discontented communities through Critical Improvised Music technologies, praxeologies (complexity theory and project management), field and case studies in Research Justice, Participatory and Collaborative Research and collective reimaginings of the tactical media from Underground Railroad-era for today's political landscape. Performances are led by self-styled Music Research Strategist and percussionist Marshall Trammell communal archival practice where participants sharpen their ‘cultural weaponry’ by expanding the breadth and depth of their beloved culture and heritage, supporting the intercultural life in their host countries and sharing their expertise garnered through their own stories as a form of collective research on immigration in relation to technological developments and the current political atmosphere.Saturday, March 1, 2025 from 9:00 AM-12:00 PM
Level Up!! Light Right w/ Micah Thompson
Level Up!! is a series digital tech workshops for artists across six Saturday intensive workshops for artists and by artists seeking support in producing digital media content. In the third workshop, Light Right, Micah Thompson will showcase traditional and affordable approaches to lighting live staged performances for video/streaming production on a budget. Participants will learn terminology and equipment required/ hands-on LED light kit operation, lighting placement, proper complexion lighting.Maximum of 10 Artists.
To express interest in participating in this workshop or other workshops in the Level Up!! series, please fill out this form. Participants will be notified of registration status prior to the date of the workshop.Tuesday, March 4, 2025 from 6:00-7:00 PM
2025 Studio Residency Info Session
Interested in applying to our Studio Residency Program but need help getting started? We’re hosting an in-person info session next Tuesday, March 4 to answer your most burning questions about the jury process, how to apply on Submittable, tips for your application, and more. Join us for an additional campus tour of Charlotte Street’s new studio and rehearsal spaces with Charlotte Street Studio Residency and Program Manager, Pat Alexander.ABOUT CHARLOTTE STREET’S STUDIO RESIDENCY PROGRAM
Charlotte Street’s Studio Residency Program provides free studio and rehearsal spaces to a mixed-disciplinary cohort of exceptional artists for two-year-long terms. Charlotte Street encourages creative production, artistic experimentation, professional development, and community building. The program fosters CSF’s values of risk-taking, openness, excellence, and collaboration by creating an environment where artists use the platforms and resources available to meet personal goals and career milestones. The 2025 Studio Residents are selected through a competitive juried portfolio process. Learn more here. Applications are due Friday, March 21, 2025, at 11:59 PM (CST) The two-year term begins June 22, 2025.Saturday, March 15, 2025 from 9:00 AM-12:00 PM
Level Up!! Projection Mapping: Bringing Digital Art to Life w/ David Steele Overholt
Level Up!!, a series digital tech workshops for artists across six Saturday intensive workshops for artists and by artists seeking support in producing digital media content. In the fourth workshop, Projection Mapping, David Steele Overholt Thompson will guide participants through the process mapping digital artwork onto physical surfaces for a variety of purposes, utilizing the projectors in the black box theatre. Working in small groups, participants will experiment with free and accessible software to create dynamic, site-specific projections. This hands-on session is perfect for artists looking to explore the intersection of digital art and immersive environments.Maximum of 10 Artists.
Wednesday, March 26, 2024 at 7:30 PM
What Came With Spring: Documentary Screening
𝘞𝘏𝘈𝘛 𝘊𝘈𝘔𝘌 𝘞𝘐𝘛𝘏 𝘚𝘗𝘙𝘐𝘕𝘎 is a documentary which follows Christian Warner’s multidisciplinary choreographic premiere in Kansas City, performed by Owen/Cox Dance Group & musicians The Black Creatures. The artists engage with the community in conversation about the Black experience and Black liberation through the choreographic medium and music. The premiere challenges the audience to take the conversation beyond the theatre, and out into the world. Through Christian Warner’s choreographic exploration, he leans on his research of the history of vaudeville and minstrelsy in Kansas City, weaving his narrative within the alluring score by The Black Creatures. Each artist dissects their character roles within the production, pulling from their ancestors, their supportive creative process and their own life experience. RSVP : Eventbrite details to follow This screening is supported in part by the City of Kansas City, Missouri Neighborhood Tourist Development Fund @kansascitySaturday, April 5, 2025 from 9:00 AM-12:00 PM
Level Up!! AI for Beginners: Creative Tools for Artists w/ David Steele Overholt
Level Up!!, a series digital tech workshops for artists across six Saturday intensive workshops for artists and by artists seeking support in producing digital media content. In the fourth workshop, AI for Beginners: Creative Tools for Artists, David Steele Overholt will unlock the power of AI in your art with this hands-on workshop. No coding—just creativity! Learn how to generate unique images, refine compositions, generate ideas, styles and color palettes, and enhance details using intuitive AI-powered tools. Held in the black box theater, this interactive session is perfect for artists eager to expand their digital toolkit and push creative boundaries.Maximum of 10 Artists.
Saturday, April 19, 2025 from 9:00 AM-12:00 PM
Level Up!! From Coop to the World w/ Cody Boston + Flew the Coop Crew
Level Up!!, a series digital tech workshops for artists across six Saturday intensive workshops for artists and by artists seeking support in producing digital media content. In the sixth workshop, From Coop to the World, Cody Boston will begin with a glimpse into Flew the Coop Sessions' streaming platform of featured artists. The crew will share some insights into producing the videos. Workshop attendees will have the opportunity to produce a hands-on approach to recording live music for video pre-production on a budget. Staging, marks, microphone and camera placement, and affordable post- production software and streaming platform requirements will be addressed in Charlotte Street’s Stern Theater.Maximum of 10 Artists.