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player ready...With a full month of programming, there’s even more to enjoy at the Going Dutch Festival this year.
“Last year we did two weekends, all outside. This year we worked really hard to accommodate crazy artist schedules and that led into a full schedule starting the last weekend in May with an awesome workshop in our lab about breaking and then building art out of breaking,” festival founder/Co-artistic Director Erin Rehberg said.
“People are encouraged to bring anything they want to break it down and then the artists are going to work together to build an installation in the window of our lab for the duration of the festival.”
Performances and workshops fill the weekends that follow, with the final performance June 24 and visual art exhibit closing June 25.
The Going Dutch Festival, which runs through June 25, is a curated celebration of the female voice in the arts, with performances, workshops and more taking place at various locations in downtown Elgin and at Spring Bird in West Dundee. Now in its 12th year, the festival originally focused on just dance, but then expanded to include music, theater and the visual arts.
“We’re working with so many artists and so many mediums, we’re really trying to listen to what those artists are needing,” Rehberg said. “Just as we kind of started with a female voice and moved to female identifying. Now we make sure we’re supporting female identifying and trans artists as well.
“It’s about who needs more inclusion, who needs to get their artwork out there, who needs that support to be seen and established as well as bringing quality, interesting, thought-provoking work to my hometown. That’s what’s just so exciting about all of it and continuing to pay attention to who’s not getting seen as much as they should be when being kept behind the scenes of the performing and visual arts world.”
This year’s festival includes returning and new artists from around the country, as well as a couple of new venues, including Still Life Meditation in downtown Elgin. Featured artist Ishti Collective, a dance and storytelling ensemble, will perform there June 5.
“They’ve performed at Going Dutch before, but were accepted as a featured commissioned artist this year and are finishing and premiering a piece that had been a work in progress during COVID and not been able to see a performance and see its finished stages, so we’re really excited to bring them back,” Rehberg said. “They’re always very dynamic and working in very interesting ways.”
A partnership with the Eastside Neighborhood Garden June 12 features a performance of traditional Latin American music as well as original compositions by A Flor de Piel.
“We’re finding different collaborations and partnerships as people start to get moving and want to have creative experiences again,” Rehberg said.
A few events are outdoors and free, and a festival pass that allows people to “do almost all of these experiences – workshops, performances – (is) only $10,” he said.
The only performance not covered by the pass is MsPixy Productions’ burlesque show at Martini Room, which costs $15. MsPixy has “a super feminist production that she always brings classic burlesque and comedians and drag kings and queens and performers of all sorts,” Rehberg said.
MsPixy’s is the only program with an age restriction of 21 and older. However, many of the shows will have mature content so parental guidance is encouraged, he said.
All of the Going Dutch performing artists and workshop instructors receive stipends, and the festival does not take any commission from any of the visual art sold.
“We have a really great lineup of visual artists this year,” Rehberg said.
The visual art exhibit opens at 3 p.m. Friday, June 3, with an opening reception from 6 to 8 that night at The Gallery at Side Street Studio Arts. The event is free and open to the public.
This year’s featured visual artist, Siyao Lu. Lu, grew up in China and is a recent graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
“She has some really beautiful, large-scale paintings. We’re very excited about her work, especially as a recent graduate,” Rehberg said. “And she’s going to do an artist talk as well.”
This year’s festival features a lot of multidisciplinary pieces, including a variety of mediums involving projection, music, dance, movement, spoken word, interviews, lighting and props.
“dropshift dance is one of the groups that working very multidisciplinary this year and its focusing on family, history and tradition and it includes interviews and really dynamic multidisciplinary components,” Rehberg said.
“There’s a lot of interactive, dynamic work from all over the place going on, which is really fun to bring to downtown Elgin.”
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Going Dutch Festival
When: Now-June 25
Where: Various locations in downtown Elgin
Cost: Festival Pass: $10 in advance, $15 at the door. Some events are free. MsPixy Productions performance at Martini Room is $15.
Information: 847-249-2276; sidestreetstudioarts.org/goingdutch
Kathy Cichon is a freelance reporter for the Courier-News.