Research Project

Arts Labs

Project Team:

2024 – 2025

A man in a soundproof room, seen from below. — Soundproof room for acoustical research, Bell Telephone Laboratories. Photo by Keystone/Getty Images.

Key Question

What spaces are most effective at nurturing creative projects that require dialogue among scholars and artists?

Project Summary

Six independent but linked initiatives will shape and support a culture of experimentation and critical analysis around arts research on campus.

Topics

Research Team

Leslie Buxbaum

Associate Professor of Practice in the Arts, Committee on Theater and Performance Studies; Faculty Affiliate, Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality

University of Chicago

Leslie Buxbaum is a writer, director, and creator, often working on devised theater productions, which bring together different performance languages (dance-theater, circus-theater, clown-theater, music-theater). Current projects include being book writer and co-lyricist for Out Here (in ...

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Theaster Gates

Professor of Visual Arts and the College; Director of Arts + Public Life

University of Chicago

Theaster Gates is professor in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Chicago. Gates creates work that focuses on space theory and land development, sculpture and performance. Drawing on his interest and training in urban planning and preservation, Gates redeems spaces that have been ...

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David Levin

Alice H. and Stanley G. Harris Jr. Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Germanic Studies, Department of Cinema & Media Studies, the Committee on Theater and Performance Studies, and the College

University of Chicago

David J. Levin is the Alice H. and Stanley G. Harris Distinguished Service Professor of Germanic Studies, Cinema and Media Studies, and Theater and Performance Studies at the University of Chicago. His work focuses on the aesthetics and politics of performance in opera, theater and cinema. From ...

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Tina Post

Associate Professor of English, Creative Writing, and Theater and Performance Studies; Affiliate Faculty, Department of Visual Arts and Art History

University of Chicago

Tina Post's research is preoccupied with racial performativity, especially (though not exclusively) the ways that black Americans perform racial identity. What modes of embodiment assert belonging or dis-belonging, and how? When do racialized subjects confirm and when do they subvert the ...

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Srikanth "Chicu" Reddy

Professor of English and Creative Writing

University of Chicago

Srikanth Reddy is a poet and literary editor interested in poetry across a range of forms, historical periods, and regions. His latest book of poetry, Underworld Lit, was a finalist for the Griffin International Poetry Prize, the Poetry Society of America’s T.S. Eliot Four Quartets Prize, and a ...

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Julia Rhoads

Director of the Dance Program and Assistant Senior Instructional Professor, Committee on Theater and Performance Studies

University of Chicago

Julia Rhoads is the founding Artistic Director of Chicago-based Lucky Plush Productions, a dance-theater company that creates original productions with a signature blend of technical choreography, casual dialogue, surprising humor, and socially relevant themes. Her work for Lucky Plush has been ...

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