CURRENT

(2018-present)

 ETHOS

Project

The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago + Chicago Park District’s Night Out in the Parks present

Outdoor & Indoor Performance at the Lakefront & Agora Sculpture Area, and the Dance Center

ETHOS IV: Degrowth/Cycle/Rebirth

Have humans forgotten that we are part of nature?

Or, even the fact that the earth is the place where our bodies are from and return to ...

Bridging Reality & Dreams

Friday, April 19, 2024, 6 pm* & Saturday, April 20, 2024, 1 pm*

▶︎ *Please gather at the Dance Center Lobby at 5:30 pm/12:30 pm to travel together to the Lakefront. Or meet us at the Lakefront at 6 pm/1 pm!

@ the Dance Center Columbia College Chicago

1306 S Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL 60605 Direction to the Dance Center

in Zhigaagoong/Chicago

Free Admission / Donation

Registration is Highly Recommended to receive more details, the gathering time and weather information, before the show!

To experience ETHOS IV fully, joining the outdoor portion is highly recommended. Yet, please feel free to join from the indoor portion at your convenience by checking TIMELINE below!

End time of the show is 8:30 pm on Friday and 3:30 pm on Saturday.

*In case of increment weather, all the performance contents will happen indoor at the Dance Center. In case of light April shower, we will still perform outdoor. Notification will be sent for those who registered via Eventbrite.com.

ACCESSIBILITY: ETHOS IV with the Dance Center includes open captions and ASL. Audio Description is offered for Blind and low vision audience members, who will be offered a headset upon arrival. The path to the Lakefront and the Dance Center building are wheelchair accessible. Wayfinding assistance will be offered to Blind and low vision audience members as we navigate to and from the lakefront. Please call 312-369-8330 or email columbiatickets@colum.edu for any questions for accessibility needs. Thank you.

PLEASE GATHER at the lobby 30 minutes before the Lakefront performance or directly at the Lakefront spot shown on the map. From the Dance Center, we will head to the Lakefront together for a drumming and singing performance by the Oka Homma Singers and a Water and Soil Ceremony presented by Billie Warren, a biologist and member of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi. Afterwards, we will visit the Agora sculpture area and return to the Dance Center to experience Round Dance. Then, you will watch indoor portion of ETHOS IV at the theater!

Free Admission! Please Register on Eventbrite!!

Get a FESTIVAL PASS for both weekends and See ALL of the works by J’Sun Howard,

Erin Kilmurray & Kara Brody, and SJ Swilley!!

ETHOS IV: Degrowth/Cycle/Rebirth explores decomposing human-centered capitalistic ways of being and practicing symbiotic nature-centered ways of being as stewards of the land.

ETHOS inquires how to improve the ethical characters of contemporary beings along with historical, cultural, and environmental awareness from the fūryū (wind-flowing) perspective. Ayako, a kinetic philosopher and poet, will be deepening an aesthetic and physical practice for human dignity and beauty to evolve, following the ETHOS mantra of 8As: Awareness, Acknowledgement, Affirmation, Allowance, Action, Acceptance, Affinity, and Appreciation in harmony with the cycle of nature.

Ayako collaborates with biologist and storyteller Billie Warren, a member of the Pokagon Band of Bodewadomi (Potawatomi); Oka Homma Singers; media artist/writer/performer Andy Slater; dance artists Asimina Chremos, Rosely Conz, and Carl Gruby.

ETHOS IV: Degrowth/Cycle/Rebirth Creators

Oka Homma Singers: Niyol Spencer (Head Man), Mississippi Chata/Diné; Dave Spencer (Drum Keeper), Mississippi Chata/Diné; Paul Molina, Kickapoo/Mexican; Jordan Gurneau, Ojibwe; Jasmine Gurneau, Oneida/Menominee; Holly Spencer

Water & Soil Ceremony by Billie Warren, Pokagon Band of Bodewadomi (Potawatomi)

Movement & Content Development Collaboration by Andy Slater, Asimina Chremos, Rosely Conz, Carl Gruby, and Ayako Kato

Sound Design by Andy Slater

Film “no fish no mountain” (2014) by Ralph Kuehne

Piano (recorded improvised music) by Ayako Kato

Lighting Design by Giau Truong

Costume by Amanda Franck and Ayako Kato

Access Dramaturg/Consultant by Maggie Bridger

Technical Management by Kevin Rechner

Stage Management by Siobhan FitzGelard

ETHOS Concept Consulting by Katsushi Hikasa

ETHOS Map Illustration by Katelyn Montgomery

Conceived & Dramatized by Ayako Kato

Choreography by Ayako Kato in collaboration with cast members & Agora section developed from the solo choreography by Angela Gronroos under the theme of Degrowth

Set & Prop Design by Ayako Kato

Scenic Video by Ayako Kato

ETHOS IV will be featured as part of CHICAGO ARTIST SPOTLIGHT FESTIVAL (April, 2024) which dives into the vibrancy of Chicago’s dance community with award-winning artists: dancemaker and poet J’Sun Howard, kinetic philosopher Ayako Kato, pop-fringe creator Erin Kilmurray, and artist/activist SJ Swilley. The Festival activates the entire Dance Center building and Grant Park.

Reserve your tickets at Eventbrite: Friday, April 19, 6 pm & Saturday, April 20, 1 pm

The Dance Center 50th Season Half Pass Now on Sale

ETHOS IV: Degrowth/Cycle/Rebirth is generously supported by the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago’s Chicago Artist Spotlight Festival, A. Montgomery Ward Foundation, Chicago Moving Company, Chicago Park District’s Night Out In The Parks, City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events (DCASE), High Concept Labs, Morrison-Shearer Foundation, 2023 National Dance Project (NDP) Grant Finalist Award made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts with funding from the Doris Duke Foundation and the Mellon Foundation, and Ragdale Foundation.

The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago’s Chicago Artist Spotlight Festival are generously supported by the, Alphawood Foundation, Chicago Dancemakers Forum, City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events (DCASE), Illinois Arts Council, and Richard H. Driehaus Foundation.

Photo: Ayako Kato by William Frederking; Asimina Chremos by XFestMA; Rosely Contz by Luis Enrique Granados; Carl Cruby by Frederking; Billie Warren; Oka Homma Singers by Seeger Gray; Andy Slater by Tressa Slater; Conz by Richard Pfister; Chremos, Courtesy of Artist

LUCA/Res Communis: ETHOS Episode III

premiered as part of Elevate Chicago Dance Festival in partnership with the Chicago Park District; Produced by High Concept Labs in Joint Residency with the Monira Foundation at Mana Contemporary

October 15, 2022 @ Palmisano Park

Dance Installation & Performance Running Time: 150 minutes

Photo by Ricardo Adame

“We all  flocked and trusted, and followed each other, leading ourselves,  

leaning 

and following in a way leaves and plants do in the wind. …

And we thought about why we dance, why we are spiritual, why we move and for what and for whom we move.“ 

— “Through Dance, For Dance, We Dance: Offering and Receiving: A Reflection About ETHOS III, A Performance at Palmisano Park” by Maya Odim (Elevate 2022 Festival Writer), Chicago Dancemakers Forum Blog, 28 December, 2022

Program

& ETHOS Journey Map & Time Schedule

ETHOS III Promotional Video by Wills Glasspiegel

Glasspiegel and Ayako will be working together on ETHOS Final Episode Film Project

Visit: Virtual Performance Map created by Mallory Qiu

LUCA/Res Communis: ETHOS Episode III at Palmisano Park is part of the ETHOS project by Ayako, that sets art practice in natural environments. Episode III draws on the land’s history as the quarry that built modern Chicago, acknowledges the past, present, and future Indigenous people and their traditional land, and is created in collaboration. It is organized as timed dances, land and water acknowledgements, and a culminating circle. Visitors choose to be guided by docents, or roam on their own.

Titled after the “Last Universal Common Ancestor”, and the common elements necessary for human life on Earth (air, water, soil), it follows To the Shore: ETHOS Episode I (2019), which used the setting of the beachfront and Colvin House at North Sheridan Road, and Inception: ETHOS Episode II (2021), set on the beach and prairieland behind the South Shore Cultural Center.

ETHOS Guidance Performers: Susana Ollin Kuikatl Tekpatzia Bañuelos (Aztec Nahua, vocal-music artist and storyteller, Aztec Dance Chicago), Danielle Gallet (water storyteller), Ambrosio Martinez (music, Aztec Dance Chicago).

ETHOS Creative Collaborator: Joseph Lefthand (of Cheyenne-Arapaho, Taos, Zuni descent)

ETHOS Team LUCA Dancers: Tuli Bera and Darling Squire (Team LUCA Co-Leaders), and Sophie Allen, Silvita Diaz Brown, Angela Gronroos, Carla Gruby, Lydia Jekot. 

ETHOS Chromosome Dance & Cell Circle Dance Music (recording): Composed and Performed by Theresa Wong and Ellen Fullman, “Harbors Part 1, Harbors Part 2, Harbors Part 3,” HARBORS (room40 2020).

ETHOS Costume by: Darling Squire

ETHOS Social Media & Virtual Performance Map: Mallory Yanhan Qiu

ETHOS Consulting: Katsushi Hikasa

ETHOS Virtual Experience Operator: Ále Campos

ETHOS Directed and Choreographed by: Ayako Kato.

ETHOS is a multi-year project that explores 8As: Awareness, Acknowledgement, Affirmation, Allowance, Action, Acceptance, Affinity, and Appreciation with its cyclical nature. Ayako has designed it as an aesthetic and physical inquiry about an ideal ethos of humanity and how it is perceptible through dance. It is a study of fūryū, Japanese for “wind flow,” nuance, from four perspectives about the movement of humanity: looking at the past moved along with Eurocentrism from the present day (Episode I); looking at the present day from the past by recalling the ancient and ancestral human relationships with nature (Episode II); standing in the present day and perceiving the past though the future as one, bridging the internal cellular and external cosmic moving fractals, yet with gravity of human history (Episode III); and being the ones to carry cyclical nature-centric contemporary ethos with the beauty of diversity. (Final Episode).

LUCA/Res Communis: ETHOS Episode III is generously supported by High Concept Labs, the Chicago Park District, the Reva & David Logan Foundation, 3Arts, Artist Communities Alliance, Montalvo Arts Center, the Chicago Moving Company, the Chicago Art Department, an Individual Artists Program Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events, and a grant from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.

ETHOS Presentation

Claiming Space

Refiguring the Body in Landscape

Friday, July 15, 2022, 7:15 pm & 8:15 pm at Montalvo Arts Center, Saratoga, CA

Ayako Kato, as the 3Arts Residency Fellow & the LUCAS Artist Program Guest Artist, presented LUCA/Chromosome Dance with Tuli Bera and Darling Squire as a part of Art on the Ground Festival. Music: Harbors (2020) by Theresa Wong and Ellen Fullman.

Inception: ETHOS Episode II

Premiered as part of Night Out in the Parks, Co-Presented with the Chicago Park District

“… ‘Inception: ETHOS Episode II’ offered a timely (and timeless) meditation on evolving practices of environmental stewardship that are crucial for our collective survival. The poets of ‘Inception’ thoughtfully drew together a sensibility from fūryū (wind flow)—the traditional Japanese aesthetic within which Kato is known to work—and a relationality central to Traditional Ecological Knowledge.

A compelling combination that simultaneously embraces both the molecular and the cosmic; ‘ETHOS’ is a feat made possible through an abundance of integrity evident in Kato’s work that embodies a gentle power and divine beauty paralleled only by nature itself.””

Allen, Sophie. “In communion with nature, 'ETHOS' a moving reminder about stewardship.” See Chicago Dance, 14 October, 2021

Listen to Ayako’s Interview through MEANS of PRODUCTION 9/17/21 Episode hosted by Sharon Hoyer on Lumpen Radio

Monday, October 11, 2021/Indigenous Peoples’ Day

South Shore Cultural Center Park

7059 S South Shore Dr, Chicago, IL

LOOK FOR Upcoming “Inception: ETHOS” Dance Film!

A nature walk style music and dance installation Inception: ETHOS Episode II is the second iteration of the ETHOS project that reflects on humanity’s ancient and ancestral relationships to nature. 

The pandemic has been teaching us to appreciate the ordinary moments of our lives and to reflect on what matters most to us, including just being, moving, and breathing. Inception invites audience members on a 105-135-minute aesthetic and physical inquiry about an ideal ethos of humanity and how it is perceptible through movement and the way of being. This project envisions the intangible and invisible ETHOS into the tangible and visible.

The ETHOS performers: Tuli Bera, Lesley Keller, Amanda Maraist, Danielle Ross, Darling Shear, Aaliyah Christina, Xochyl Perez, Maryam Salem. We will be joined by musicians Michael Zerang and Mabel Kwan.

Sense the wind and allow just to be yourself

and

Find sound, movement, and the relationships within and around us

Inception: ETHOS Episode II Photos by Ricardo Adame

To the Shore: ETHOS Episode I

Premiered as part of Pivot Arts Festival 2019

“. . . an intimate and one of a kind experience . . . generous and full of heart . . .”

Oelerich, Jenny. “Ayako Kato Art Union Humanscape To the Shore: ETHOS Episode I Review– Enlightened Story-Telling.” Picture this Post, 4 June, 2019

Watch Video

Excerpts Full

"To the Shore: ETHOS Episode I," reflects on the ethical journey of humanity through westernization/Euro-human-centrism. "Inception: ETHOS Episode II" focuses on humanity’s ancient and ancestral relationships to nature. It will be premiered at the 65-acre South Shore Cultural Center Park on October 10, 2021 as an outdoor music and dance installation performance.

ETHOS Solo

First Step of the Project at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France in 2018

As a 3Arts Residency Fellow, Ayako stayed at the Camargo Foundation in summer 2018 and created a ETHOS Solo. The environment and experiences shifted her to pursue Multi-Centrism/Whole-Centrism as the humane way of being for the future through a bird’s eye view.

©️2022 ETHOS Project by Ayako Kato/Art Union Humanscape