Water Music on the Beach: Boulevard Dreamers

June 25, 2023 at Lane Beach, 5915 N Sheridan Rd

Boulevard Dreamers Portrait Preview 3PM at 6018North, 6018 N Kenmore Ave

3:45PM walk to the beach!

This event connects two performance series – Water Music on the Beach and Boulevard Dreamers – to create a community-focused variety show that celebrates Chicago’s location on Lake Michigan and connects the community of talent and audiences from Edgewater, Rogers Park, and Uptown. 

Water Music on the Beach is an annual series of live performances initiated by 6018North in 2012 to highlight Chicago’s proximity to Lake Michigan. Compositions and scores reflect, react to, or personify the sounds of water.

Boulevard Dreamers is a traveling musical variety show and installation that seeks out and highlights the talent within the communities it visits. This collaborative project, created and developed by artists Lise Haller Baggesen and Kirsten Leenaars, consists of three elements: studio portraits of all performers, a stage set/installation, and live performances.

On Lane Beach in Edgewater, the installation of a stage frames the view of Lake Michigan. With tinsel, glamour, glitter, and the allure of the spotlight, Boulevard Dreamers embraces the gathering of performers, the staging of the set, and the theatrical spectacle of the performance itself, all as a labor of love that connects strangers through sharing in the production of a spectacle. Boulevard Dreamers blurs make-believe and reality; professional and amateur; and artists and audience. All performers are treated equally as stars with a studio photo shoot, and are paid equally for their 15 minutes of fame to challenge persistent social constructions and barriers. The acts unfold over three hours on the openly accessible Lane Beach, welcoming passersby, and bringing together a wide ensemble of neighbors on the lakeshore. We’ll see you on the beach!

Thank you: The Crew: Leila Ghasempor, Eleanor Ross, Natia Ser, Soph Schiavone; Sound/Tech: Jonathan Ross; Videography: Ellie Hall; and Photography: Ji Yang.

Boulevard Dreamers is a traveling musical variety show and installation that seeks out and highlights the talent within the communities it visits. This collaborative project, created and developed by artists Lise Haller Baggesen and Kirsten Leenaars, consists of three elements: a stage set/installation, a show of live performances, and studio portraits of all performers. Leenaars and Baggesen perform the roles of organizers, talent scouts, community builders, set designers, portrait photographers, stage managers, and event MC's. While the line-up is being confirmed, earlier presentations of Boulevard Dreamers at The Poetry Foundation, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Franklin, and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.

The project intentionally blurs distinctions between professional and amateur; make-believe and reality; and artists and audience; since all performers play and are paid the same for the same 10 minutes, and are all treated equally as stars to challenge persistent social constructions and barriers. On Lane Beach in Edgewater, the installation of a curtained stage frames the view of Lake Michigan. With tinsel, glamour, glitter and the allure of the spotlight Boulevard Dreamers embraces the gathering of performers, the staging of the set, and the theatrical spectacle of the performance itself, all as a labor of love that connects strangers through sharing in the production of a spectacle. The acts will unfold over a three-hour event on the open, accessible public space of Lane Beach, welcoming passersby, and bringing together and connecting a wide ensemble of neighbors on the lakeshore. More details soon – we’ll see you on the beach!

Leenaars and Baggesen perform the roles of organizers, talent scouts, community builders, set designers, portrait photographers, stage managers, and event MC's.

Lise Haller Baggesen (1969) is a Danish-born, Amsterdam-raised, Chicago-based, interdisciplinary artist. Her hybrid practice includes writing, installation, performative, sartorial, and textile-based work. Her book and multi-media installation “Mothernism” (2013-) toured extensively, and spawned the international symposia The Mothernists. “​refuseniks” (2017) materialized at the residency ‘Body as Site’ at The Banff Centre (AB). The portable and wearable TAZ (Temporary Autonomous Zones) visited The Suburban (WI) Le Confort Moderne (F) 6018North (IL) and most recently the MCA Chicago. “HATORADE RETROGRADE” (2016) debuted at Threewalls (IL) with an Artforum Critic’s Pick. “HATORADE RETROGRADE: The Musical” (2019) was produced by Southern Exposure (CA) and reviewed in Art Practical. The show was reimagined as “THE MUSEUMS OF FUTURE PAST TIMES PRESENT” (2021) for Gallery 400, UIC (IL).

Kirsten Leenaars is an interdisciplinary video artist based in Chicago. Various forms of performance, theater, and documentary strategies make up the threads that run through her work. She engages with individuals and communities to create participatory video and performance work. Her work oscillates between fiction and documentation, reinterprets personal stories and reimagines everyday realities through shared authorship, staging and improvisation. Leenaars examines how we relate to others and explores how new forms of relating, seeing and imagining can be created through the collaborative production of moving images. She was recently awarded the Artist Response Grant from DCASE for a public video project with Circles & Ciphers for which they also received a Direct Grant from Illinois Humanities. Leenaars shows nationally and internationally, most at the Broad Museum of Art MSU East Lansing; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and the Kamloops Gallery in Kamloops (CAN). She is currently a Professor at the Contemporary Practices Department at the School of the Art Institute.

Press

WBEZ “A weird, wonderful beachfront variety show pays tribute to Chicago culture,” June 23, 2022 by Isabella DeLeo

Chicago Reader “Edgewater arts nonprofit 6018North hosts a free community variety show on the beach,” June 21, 2022 by J.R. Nelson and Leor Galil

WBEZ “Guide to the best free things to do this summer,” June 9, 2022 by Isabella DeLeo

This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.

6018North is an Illinois not-for-profit corporation dedicated to the promotion of culture and the arts in Chicago. 6018North projects are partially supported by an anonymous donor advised fund at The Chicago Community Foundation, a CityArts Innovation Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events, a Gen Ops Plus Grant from the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, Field Foundation of Illinois, Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, IL Humanities, Illinois Arts Council Agency through an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, Illinois Arts Council Agency Youth Employment Grants, Joyce Foundation, The MacArthur Funds for Culture, Equity, and the Arts at the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, Terra Foundation for American Art, and individual donations.