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In conjunction with the exhibition Mina Loy: Strangeness Is Inevitable, The Arts Club of Chicago has invited Every house has a door to develop a new work in response to Loy’s expansive creative practice. Anchored by a reading of Loy’s prose ballet “Crystal Pantomime,” whose language projects fantastic tableaus in the imaginations of the audience as a collective dream, Every house builds a world around an oversized lamp-shade sculpture by artist Diane Simpson, wardrobe and objects by Max Guy, and enlists a company of intergenerational specialists to evoke a theater of the mind. Readers Leila Ashrafi, Daniel Borzutzky, Nakiyah T.M. Jordan, and Jenny Polus are joined in performance by Elise Cowin and Matthew Goulish. 

Presented only twice, first at the The Arts Club of Chicago reprised one week later at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, each performance is site-responsive honoring the lineage of Chicago’s rich history of experimental performance. 

Advance tickets are on sale now for both venues for $10. If you would like to attend and don’t find yourself in a position to purchase a ticket, please email jlyle@artsclubchicago.org for a discount offer.

“Crystal Pantomime,” used with permission of Roger Conover and the Beinecke Library at Yale; published in Stories and Essays of Mina Loy, Sara Crangle [Dalkey Archive, 2011]. This performance is commissioned by The Arts Club of Chicago and co-produced with Every house has a door and The Jane Addams Hull-House Museum. Every house would like to thank their individual donors for the generous support of this project. 

Image caption: 
Stephen Haweis
Mina Loy, ca. 1905
Gelatin silver print, 5 7/16 in. x 3 1/8 in. (13.8 cm x 8 cm)
Collection of Roger Conover

Graphic Design: Lucas Reif