Experimental dance troupe, The Seldoms reinvigorate their program by partnering with visual artists to create unique multidisciplinary art installations that are activated by choreographed bodies. Titled Toolbox, the program pairs a dance artist with another creative practitioner to collaborate on a new combined work and share their processes, techniques and values with one another. From this conversation, the dancemaker identifies one essential word that undergirds the visual artist’s practice, and translates it to a choreographic one.

This performative installation and exhibition marks the Seldoms’ twentieth year of performance in Chicago. The dancer/ artist pairings include Damon Green/Sadie Woods, Sarah Gonsiorowski/Jacqueline Surdell, Carrie Hanson/Edra Soto, and Maggie Vannucci and Dee Alaba/Jackie Kazarian. This exhibition is curated and choreographed by Carrie Hanson, Director of the Seldoms in collaboration with Allison Peters Quinn, Director of Exhibitions at Hyde Park Art Center.

About Jackie Kazarian:

Jackie Kazarian's paintings, works on paper, and installations have been exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide and are in many permanent collections, including the State of Illinois Art Museum, Rockford Art Museum, DePaul University Art Collection and the United States Embassy, Armenia.

Kazarian served as an art envoy for the U.S. State Department in Syria (2011) and Kuwait (2017) and was a 2009 fellow at the Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media at Columbia College. She received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BS from Duke University.