Chicago, IL— The city of Chicago and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago(SAIC) host the IN>TIME performance art festival, featuring both international and local artists exhibiting in 15 diverse venues across the city. Organized by SAIC faculty member and Graduate Coordinator Mark Jeffery, the festival will showcase a diverse sampling of performance work from January 29th–March 4th, 2016.

The 4th edition of IN>TIME Festival is a convergence of performance practices in Chicago. It is borne from deep engagement: engagement with local performance practices, with friends and artists internationally, with structures and concepts of performance itself. It has evolved from a biennial to a triennial festival, encompassing venues all over Chicago, and pieces ranging from dance to performance art to experimental theatre. It’s IN>TIME because it comes just in the dead of winter, when things seem bleakest; because it provides a snapshot of what is happening in contemporary performance right now; because performance is a time-based medium that requires that we all be present with one another. IN>TIME is a coming together for a moment within performance.

Discussing the previous edition of the Festival with Caroline Picard for Bad at Sports, Festival Director and Curator Mark Jeffery said, “I think of Chicago as a place for experimentation, a place for artists to really explore and test rigorous ideas. It is a place for research to take place, and for non-traditional, informative intersections and overlaps that to spring up unexpectedly via collectives and collaborations. That is what I get excited about.”

Festival venues range in size and scope; from MCA Chicago, Block Museum and the Chicago Cultural Center, to the High Concept Laboratories, Defibrillator, 6018 North, Links Hall and Hyde Park Art Center. These venues have collaborated with Jeffery to curate and exhibit performance art, video screenings, lectures, and symposia that investigate intersections of body, text, object, sound, and technology, all within the context of performance.

Keeping with the festival’s exploration of “deep engagement,” this year the festival is supporting the cultivation of new work in Chicago by connecting artists to local residencies at the Hyde Park Art Center, High Concept Laboratories, The Bridge Performance Space, and Defibrillator Performance Art Gallery. In addition, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago will be hosting artists Vlatka Horvat, Anthea Behm, Sally Morgan and Jess Richards in a special winter course, “FROZEN IN>TENSITIES,” where students will be introduced to several performance pedagogies in three separate week-long courses.

In order to cultivate deeper conversation, artists in the IN>TIME Festival will gather on Saturdays in February at the Chicago Cultural Center to participate in the IN>TIME HUB, a series of panels and workshops which will allow audiences to engage more deeply with the artists and their work. This expanded programming is a first for the Festival, and a demonstration of its commitment to the cultivation of dialogue within the performance community both locally and globally.