CHICAGO QUEER ARTS MENTORSHIP PROGRAM

The Chicago Queer Arts Mentorship Program (CQAMP) is a partnership between emerging queer artists and industry professionals to work together over the course of a year on a project or career related goal offering guidance, information, and resources through mentorship partners and collaborators. The mission of the program is to develop strong artistic networks for building sustainable artistic practice amongst the LGBTQIA & GNC communities of Chicago.

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photo Keelan Andrews

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CQAMP Check-In, Limelight Series Planning for Center on Halsted

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ALEXA GRÆ photo by Jessie Young

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silver — with Jessie young at Hamlin Park.

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photo Jessie Young

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ALEXA GRÆ photo by Keelan Andrews CQAMP Residency - High Concept Labs 

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office for the next few months. ‪#‎HCL‬ ‪#‎CQAMP‬ ‪#‎artistresidency‬

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I’m lucky enough to be working on a few movement moments for ALEXA GRÆ’s upcoming project @High Concept Labs // Mana Contemporary Chicago

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MEET CQAMP ARTIST: ALEXA GRÆ

Photo by Modern Deity Photography 

City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) OnEdge Series & Salonathon Present: 

Golden Ticket featuring ALEXA GRÆ, Chris Knowlton, & Darling Shear 

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MEET CQAMP ARTIST: ALEXA GRÆ

POST-Q Featuring ALEXA GRÆ - QWEST 

A POST-Q world coming, is it in my head, and when/and if that times comes how will you find me?

POST-Q, curated by JRV MAJESTY Productions' Joseph Varisco, is a performance series exploring the collaborative multidisciplinary works of 10 queer artists discussing the politics of a post-queer world. What makes one more or less queer than another? What structures imitate queerness and what are authentically queer? Where has queerness succeeded or failed us? These are questions artists will be asked to answer. What does a post queer world look like?

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MEET CQAMP’S ARTIST: ALEXA GRÆ

Visit http://www.alexagrae.com/ for more! 

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mentor

December 14, 2014

this morning i heard news that my composition teacher Dr. Mary Jeanne van Appledorn passed away this morning. she was an incredible musician, soul, and probably the quirkiest person I have ever met. i haven’t seen her since i left TTU in 2007 and she retired shortly after…

i began my studies with her mostly on a whim…composing early on without a clue…how to actually get music from inside onto a page. one private lesson a week - fast forward - now I’m double majoring in composition and voice. she showed me a world that was hidden inside my heart. she taught me a new language…musical vocabulary. her attention to detail and craftsmanship were unreal. i remember those hours spent writing an orchestral score on 11x17 paper with her blue graphite pencils, no mechanical pencils…she hated when I brought those to lessons. we would sit in her tiny office jammed with books, scores, and tapes. that office. wow. it was like chaotic, but she knew exactly where every score she had ever written was. where that tape recording of her playing inside the piano during a rehearsal from the 70’s she needed to find so i could listen if i just - wasn’t getting it - ..or she would send me home with a stack of VHS tapes to watch a student recital from the early 90’s if i just - wasn't getting it. her laugh was infectious…she was always laughing…cracking herself up with a joke she came up with about a composer and their use of a modal scale - like that’s what was funny to her.

once: i rode in Dr. Van's car, she was driving, she was smoking her pipe. she took me to her apartment… (think The Cove from M.Night's Lady in the Water, on a smaller scale) her apartment was not like her office. it was cute and cozy like grandma's.

i remember asking Dr. Van about her personal life…i was genuinely interested in her story..her life..her process… she sat staring off into the distance and spouted some sage like advice.. all I can remember is her saying something like “you just do…, you improvise” which at 20years old just didn’t work for me. why isn’t she telling me the secret to life!? to music!? give me concrete things when i ask huge amorphous questions!!!

when i first began creating music it was therapy…i needed to get emotions out…music was my outlet…because back then i was not about to tell you how i was feeling…just listen to me play. ok. now you get me.

one of our last lessons together we headed to the practice room at the end of the hall on the right with the two upright pianos and started improvising together. we played for 30 minutes non-stop banging out themes and melodies and singing at the top of our lungs shoving more musical texture into that miniature room until finally she banged as loudly as she could with her whole arm and let out one of her infamous cackles “CawCawHAHAHAHA!!! WOW! That’s it, I’m done!” …she giggled and excused herself from the room.

improvisation: the process of devising a solution to a requirement by making-do, despite absence of resources that might be expected to produce a solution.

end

Dr. Van was the closest person to fill that mentor role for me. for me it was something i couldn’t vocalize exactly what more i could want from her. i wanted to learn, i wanted to be heard, i wanted to listen, i wanted to be understood, i wanted to be told i was understood, i wanted to be seen…

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MEET SEASON ONE'S PARTNERSHIP

ALEXA GRÆ, 2016 CQAMP ARTIST

Multidisciplinary artist ALEXA GRÆ’s work is informed by specialized academic training in music composition and opera. Rigorous training as an opera student challenged them to transcend the boundaries of various art forms and to understand cultural boundaries of art in the everyday world. They bridge these chasms by focusing on how art informs identities, socialization habits, self-expression, and the ability to create, creating genre-defying performances that incorporate multiple dance styles, theatrical personas, and experimental storytelling styles.

Themes of deconstructing classical forms, beliefs about the feminine and masculine, and channeling greater collective consciousness find an evolving presence in ALEXA GRÆ’s work. Their mission is to identify moments of pure imagination and innocent creation, harnessing the immediate kinship it creates in order to draw us all toward something divine, something as yet to be defined.

STEVE ABRAMS, 2016 CQAMP MENTOR

Boston bred and born, Steve Abrams received his degree in microbiology and spent many years at Harvard Medical School before coming to Chicago for a position with Abbott Laboratories. He then returned to school to study photography and spent the next few years working as a fine art photographer and restaurateur. Steve was recruited to Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company in 1999 where he spent seven seasons as Operations Manager. During his tenure, Steppenwolf’s production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest transferred to Broadway where it won the Tony Award for Best Revival.

In 2005, Steve moved to Millennium Park’s Harris Theater for Music and Dance to oversee operations, production, facilities and the artistic programming as Executive Vice President and General Manager. Under his leadership, programming was expanded to include many locally and internationally renowned artists and performing arts groups. In 2015, Abrams formed his own arts management and production company, The Abrams Group, LLC and Kicky Productions. In the fall of 2015 The Abrams Group provided company management services for UNSPEAKABLE: a dramatic fantasia (Broadway Playhouse), and is now producing Knife to the Heart, set to premiere in Chicago later this year.

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The Chicago Queer Arts Mentorship Program (CQAMP) supports Chicago queer arts and artists by partnering emerging artists with established industry professionals through year-long mentorships focused on project or career specific goals. CQAMP fosters artistic partnerships, invests in queer cultural heritage, supports healthy professional practices, and is modeled after similar mentorship programs in New York (Queer Arts Mentorship), San Francisco (Queer Cultural Center), and New Orleans (Queer Youth Theater).

Under the guidance of Program Director/Creator Joe Varisco (JRV MAJESTY Productions), the program aims to help mentees develop both a well-rounded understanding of the creative process and the knowledge of how to sustain one, such as budget planning and strategic funding options. Each partnership is provided with organizational support, resources, development strategies, community partnerships, venues for presenting and discussing work with the public and peers, and a partnership stipend. The aim of the partnership is not necessarily to complete the goal or project, but to elevate the professional skills and engagement of the emerging artists’ works.

By establishing a heritage that honors the distinct needs and resources of queer communities, CQAMP helps to provide a more sustainable career trajectory for emerging artists while cultivating a richer cultural discourse. Support through High Concept Labs’ Institutional Incubation Program provides CQAMP with financial support, administrative and programming assistance, as well as exhibition, performance and rehearsal space.