Water Music on the Beach is an annual series of live performances in Edgewater. Water Music on the Beach: Persephone is a collaboration between 6018North and Tria Smith, as part of ongoing research in sustainable strategies for Art Design Chicago 2024, an initiative of the Terra Foundation for American Art investigating and elevating Chicago’s rich visual art and design histories and creative communities.
On Sunday, September 17 the performance begins at 5:30 PM at Lane Beach with a sound wash by Sakai Parker. Neighbors who have been transforming trash into lanterns, gathered from monthly cleanups with Edgewater Environmental Coalition, will meet at 5:00 PM at the Broadway Armory and begin a procession to Lane Beach at 5:15 PM.
Performers include Simon Anderson, Braeden Barnes and Michelle Meltzer, Whitney Bradshaw and OUTCRY participants, Coco Elysses, Elaine Lemieux, Ella Schultz, Angie Tillges, and Trevor Nicholas and the Senn High School Choir.
Initiated in 2012, Water Music on the Beach series highlights Chicago’s proximity to Lake Michigan through compositions and scores that reflect, react to, or personify the sounds of water. Free and open to the public – just like the lakeshore in Chicago – this event features experimental musicians and artists. Performances happen without a formal platform – the sand is our stage, the water and sky our backdrop.
Tria Smith is an artist creating work that brings together performance, writing, and design to facilitate deep engagement and promote community. She trained as an actress at the Piven Theater, Interlochen, Oberlin, Northwestern University, and was a principal collaborator at Redmoon Theater since its inception. For 25 years Redmoon pursued Spectacle + Wonder through adaptations of great novels, pageantry + circus. She creates programming and produces events at Guild Row Chicago, a social club for people who Give a Damn. She's the co-creator of The Persephone Project which uses the Persephone myth to create pageants to address climate change.
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6018North thanks The Puffin Foundation for their support of Water Music on the Beach: Persephone.
And thank you to Emanuel Congregation for sharing power to the beach!
6018North is an Illinois not-for-profit corporation dedicated to the promotion of culture and the arts in Chicago. This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency through an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. This program is partially supported by a CityArts Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events. 6018North projects are partially supported by a Gen Ops Plus Grant from the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, IL Humanities, The MacArthur Funds for Culture, Equity, and the Arts at the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, Terra Foundation for American Art, and individual donations.
Image: Persephone, photo by Eileen Ryan