A video survey of Side Street Studio Arts’ 2015 season starts with two women in the backseat of a car, making fart noises into their arms and laughing. You think, Uh-oh. But what follows is a pretty impressive collection of images showing performances, concerts, gallery shows, and crowds.
The Elgin-based SSSA brings its combination of arts and brrraappps to Wicker Park this weekend, partnering with Core Project Chicago on the Going Dutch Festival. Next year SSSA is expected to take over the female-centric festival entirely.
According to Erin Rehberg, a founder of both SSSA and Core Project and one of the laughing ladies in the video, “Going Dutch was originally developed . . . to address the underrepresentation of female choreographers in the dance world. As the idea grew into a festival over the years, it expanded to include the work of self-identified female artists working in music, theater, site-specific, and visual art as well as dance.”
Along with an 11-artist exhibition, the 2016 Going Dutch is presenting a roster of more than 30 performing individuals and companies. Most deal in dance, but there’s an opening reception (Thu 5:30 PM) with music by the Jades and Beach Bunny. And the Friday 9:30 PM show is all burlesque; Storybook Heroin offers off-color versions of Disney staples like Cinderella as part of an evening (Sat 7 PM) that also features interesting local choreographers Megan Beseth and Shanna Fragen.
If I were you I’d also look out for Detroit’s Kristi Faulkner Dance (Sat 8:30 PM), Atlanta’s Zoetic Dance Ensemble (Thu 7:30 PM, Fri 8 PM, and Sat 8:30 PM), and another act from the south: sisters Babette Beaulieu and Becky Beaulieu Valls, doing an iteration of their ongoing family saga Memoirs of the Sistahood (Fri 8 PM, Sat 8:30 PM). Rehberg will be represented as well (Thu 7:30 PM, Sat 8:30 PM)—not blowing into her forearm this time but staging her latest, The Boys Could.
Going Dutch Festival 7/28-7/30: Thu 5:30 and 7:30 PM; Fri 7, 8, and 9:30 PM; Sat 4, 5:30, 7, and 8:30 PM, Collaboraction, 1579 N. Milwaukee, $8-$10. Also, site-specific performance at a location to be determined, Thu 7:45 PM and Fri 7:30 PM; free.