Elastic Arts, 3429 W Diversey #208, Chicago, IL (2025)

12/09/2025

The first Frequency Leak DRONE READ is here at Elastic Arts this Firday! This event is intended to create an environment for listening to live ambient drone music while reading (BYOBook) and to encourage people to talk about what they are reading with friends, maybe make some new friends, or spawn a book club. Come at the beginning to read, come at the end to dance.

The space will be set with cozy reading areas and individual book lights will be provided. The evening will start with static lights and installations. Visuals and fog will be brought in after the drone read for the DJ sets.

7pm - 8pm
DRONE READ SESSION 1: KOBE DUPREE [LIVE]
bring your book and read while listening
* please be quiet in the space for reading *

8pm - 8:20pm
INTERMISSION
take a break
* casual discussion encouraged *

8:20pm - 9:20pm
DRONE READ SESSION 2: FUNCTIONLESS [LIVE]
individual reading and group listening
* please be quiet in the space for reading *

9:20pm - 2am
DJ SETS: SUITOR > INQUILAB
drone slowly paces to dance with visuals
* casual discussion encouraged *

Frequency Leak is a project meant to create modes of discourse and community through live underground electronic music.

12/08/2025

Join us at this Thursday’s Improvised Music Series featuring Heliogabulus w/ Tatsu Aoki and a duo from Carol Genetti + Riley Leitch!

Heliogabalus is Eric Leonardson, springboard; Lili Wosko, cello; Andy Cohn, piano; Christophe Preissing, flutes, voice, noise box; with special guest, Tatsu Aoki, shamisen. Heliogabalus, or Elagabalus in honor of the god his family worshiped, was a Roman emperor known for their extravagant and eccentric behavior. Sometimes celebrated as an example of an ancient transgender person, their brief reign acts as a prism into religion, gender and sexuality, ethnicity and racism presaging modern themes. Like Heliogabalus, the group’s improvisations are unrestrained, elaborate, ornate, and excessive.

Carol Genetti and Riley Leitch will perform as a duo to open the evening. Genetti is a Chicago-based vocalist whose work encompasses sound and visual art media. Her vocal palette is primordial, existing in a space where “language” and “music” have yet to be formulated into familiar cultural patterns. Riley Leitch is a composer and performer of contemporary, creative, and freely improvised music. His practice is founded around trombone playing but extends across multiple disciplines. Music at 8:30pm!

8:30 Genetti/Leitch Duo
9:30 Heliogabalus wsg Tatsu Aoki

12/05/2025

This upcoming Tuesday join us for ‘A Defiant Echo’, a multimedia play written and directed by Kyle Gregory Price. The premiere of this play will utilize Elastic Arts’ CLEAT sound system as well as multi-channel video. Britt Anderson, Richie Schiraldi, Kao, Surinder Martignetti, Gordon Fung and Justin Cavazos perform live with interspersed projections of Deirdre Harrison and Brian Shaw.

A young woman was cursed from on high by parents, by the gods, or perhaps an antiquated agenda. Eons of a forced inability to express herself leads to blurred judgement and a daily, quick-fix dosed out by a classic character we have all met. However, the realization of exploited love and the loss of a friend sparks a desire for change that most of us know is never easy. Our heroine’s journey begins pushing through detoxification of a mythic hex and upwards to an old home.

We’ll see you Tuesday 12/9 at 8pm!

12/04/2025

Join us this Saturday for our last Shake Shook Shaken of the year! SSS is a theater/movement workshop series produced by Julie Meckler. The series is designed for people to gently bring body awareness, allowing participants to open up, explore outside of their comfort zone, bond with each other, create and show. By playing with these concepts using our bodies, voices, words, and each other, we will explore our own awareness and sensitivity as artists and people. Each workshop is unique. This month we’ll have Margaret McCarthy and Julie leading on the topic of COLLAGES.
No prior dance or acting experience is necessary, just willingness to move and exhale. This workshop series is for anyone and everyone. 12pm Saturday!!

12/04/2025

It’s that time of year — DKV Trio is back for their annual two night run here at Elastic Arts December 26th and 27th! This fantastic pairing of journeymen Chicago improvisers found its roots in the mid-1990’s and has worked actively since that time. It has become an important tradition for this group to finish out the year for us here at Elastic, so we hope you can join us for one or both of these shows. Tickets on sale now! Link in bio.

Ken Vandermark - reeds
Kent Kessler - bass
Hamid Drake - drums

7:45 PM DOORS / 8:30 PM CONCERT

12/03/2025

Freedom From and Freedom To returns this Saturday for its third iteration of sound and movement collaborations for 2025 at Elastic Arts! FFFT is an exploration and celebration of artistic circumstance. Movement and sound improvisors from all around Chicago gather in front of a live audience, where they are grouped by chance. Each group performs an improvised set. We fuse diverse artistic backgrounds and practices to create unique and fleeting worlds. There will be a special opening set from musicians Caitlin Edwards, Avreeayl Ra, and Yaw alongside dancers Solomon Bowser and Rahila Coats. Following we’ll have 6 x 15 minute sets from on-the-spot lottery chosen ensembles. Don’t miss it!

Openers
Dancers: Solomon Bowser, Rahila Coats
Musicians: Caitlin Edwards, Avreeayl Ra, Yaw

Dancers:
Chrissy Martin, Fabulous Freddie, Corinne Imberski, Amanda Maraist, Hannah Marcus, Wannapa P-Eubanks, Sandy Perez, Phree, Jacinda Ratcliffe, Lucy Vurusic Riner, Cristal Sabbagh, and Sharkey Zalek.

Musicians:
Emily Beisel, Micky Fares, Hasani Cannon, Erez Dessel, Carol Genetti, Kiku Hibino, Caroline Jesalva, Molly Jones, Paul Kasperzack, Quin Kirchner, Jayve Montgomery, Jessica Morrison, Eric Novak, Julian Otis, Brianna Tong, and Najee-Zaid.

12/02/2025

It is once again Giving Tuesday, and we’d like to reflect on how the arts have affected our lives this year. Through the good times and challenges, the arts are there for you to heal and dream of the world you’d like to see.

Elastic Arts provides space for our community to create that world, through adventurous programming, inspiring workshops, and warmth through togetherness.

Please consider supporting us for the first time, or increasing your support with a donation today. Your support means the world to so many, and a whole new year to create is right around the corner.

Link below to donate!

12/01/2025

This Thursday’s Improvised Music Series features groups lead by young improvisers in Chicago’s free music scene. Don’t call them up-and-coming as they’ve already more than arrived, and have the sound to prove it. We’ll kick off with Amos Egleston Quartet, followed by Banana Acid. Music at 8:30PM!

8:30 - Amos Egleston Quartet
Amos Egleston - trumpet
Garret Frees - tenor Sax
John Sutton - bass
Andy Danstrom - drums

9:30 - Banana Acid
Erez Dessel - piano
Garrett Frees - saxophones
Caroline Jesalva - violin, voice
Aaron Kaufman-Levine - saxophones
Tyler Wager - bass

12/01/2025

Winter is here, but Elastic is warm and the show goes on. We want to see you here in December! This week we have a couple of Chicago legends on the CLEAT, a heavy Improv Series show, Shake Shook Shaken, and the last Freedom From and Freedom To of the year. Come through!

WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 3 | 8:00 PM
CLEAT Series: Macie Stewart, Sen Morimoto

THURSDAY DECEMBER 4 | 8:30 PM
Improvised Music Series: Amos Egleston Quartet, Banana Acid

SATURDAY DECEMBER 6 | 12:00 PM
Shake Shook Shaken: COLLAGES w/ Margaret McCarthy

SATURDAY DECEMBER 6 | 7:00 PM
Freedom From and Freedom To

11/30/2025

TONIGHT! AACM at Elastic Arts! Streets are clear, and our space is warm. Join us! 7pm

In honor of The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) 60th Anniversary, legendary percussionist and Rhythm Testament founder, Carlos Pride, has curated an unforgettable performance here at Elastic this upcoming Sunday 11/30. The AACM Percussion Ensemble, featuring world-class talents like Paul Cotton (Muntu Dance Theatre of Chicago, Don Moye’s Sun Percussion Summit & The Chicago Immigrant Orchestra under the direction of Fareed Haque), & Felix “D-Kat” Pollard (Lionel Richie, Sheila E, & Chaka Khan). These three masters span four continents including Africa, Asia, North America & South America, to create a groundbreaking fusion of rhythms and sounds. Instruments such as The African Talking Drum, Mbira, Djembe, Himalayan Singing Bowls, Cajon, Diddley Bow, Lap Steel Guitar & Roland Handsonic will weave together the vibrant traditions of the past and the innovative spirit of the present, all under the banner of Great Black Music, Ancient to the Future.

11/26/2025

We’re pleased to host two very special CLEAT Series events in December, starting with an epic evening with Chicago artists Macie Stewart and Sen Morimoto on Wednesday December 3rd! In 2024 Macie Stewart was commissioned by Experimental Sound Studio to create a piece/installation for Florasonic at the Lincoln Park Conservatory. Following a summer spent in Chicago, “The World Doubles in Size” is a piece compiled of field recordings taken all around the city- documenting a summer spent at home. The sounds of the Chicago river, summer storms, conversations, cicadas, violin, and voice, are all featured throughout the piece in varying levels of processing. This bed of recordings creates a soundscape in which nature and the sounds of the city can be improvised alongside- a collaborator that is always present. Loosely inspired by the Mary Oliver poem, “Hurricane”, from the compilation, “A Thousand Mornings”, the piece plays with comparing the shifting of the seasons with the ever evolving nature of the self. Macie is revisiting this piece and remixing it for the CLEAT system, alongside a limited tape release.
Sen Morimoto is a songwriter / saxophonist based in Chicago. For this evening he will be exploring the system with a piece for electronics and saxophone.

It’ll be an incredible night. Join us 12/3!

Elastic Arts

12/09/2025

12/08/2025

12/05/2025

12/04/2025

12/04/2025

12/03/2025

12/02/2025

12/01/2025

12/01/2025

11/30/2025

11/26/2025

Address

Telephone

Website

Alerts

Contact The Business

Shortcuts

Share

Category