Najee-Zaid Searcy’s Emersion
Part of Links Hall’s 2024 Co-MISSION Festival of New Works

Emersion releases that which must be shed. Allowing that which must become through movement, space, scent, sound, and form. Emersion seeks to allow for personal and collective transformation by offering meditations and wellness services when possible. We are conduits reactivating the bodymind, and participating with the energies present.

This June 28th Emersion Night 1 performance (masks required) is an exploratory and experimental visual and sonic journey rooted in togetherness and rest with a Low Sensory* feel led by Masisi Najee-Zaid. This performance pays homage to queer ancestors, the matrilineal, Afro-Diasporic tradition, and embodiments of home.

Following a 2-year journey of “Immersion” , an original work of Najee-Zaid’s which was highly participatory and exclusively performed at Elastic Arts, “Emersion” reveals findings of self and environment through a structured analysis embodied by performance. In that way, Emersion is a linear advancement of the processes Najee-Zaid employed to devise their previous work. However, Emersion remains a new and unique body of work to be witnessed.

It is paramount that we expose our respect and reverence for all efforts by and for those who exist outside of the heterosexual and heteronormative. June 28th and June 29th of 2024 is the 55th anniversary of the infamous Stonewall Resistance brought forth by so many LGBTQ+ ancestors and their allies, with greatest admiration for the late Marsha P. Johnson and Silvia Rivera.

Links Hall remains an ideal venue to divulge this practice as it has been a pillar for LGBTQ+ artists and creatives in its internal leadership and external offerings. May our institutions of queer solidarity remain steadfast amidst the strife of the world and into our collective liberation!

This performance will feature at least one refreshment.

*Low Sensory features of this performance include reduced noise levels, absence of scent, no flashing lights, color schemes designed to be sensory friendly.

Collaborators: Alejandro Salazar (Musician), Paige Brown (Musician), and Viktor Le-Givens (Movement and Installation)

Music/Sound: Composed by Najee-Zaid

Special Thanks: Given to my ancestors, family, friends, those who have supported me, and the Links Hall team.

This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.

Najee-Zaid is a Chicago born interdisciplinary artist with a focus on performance and identity. Najee-Zaid uses their background in music, facilitation, and informal arts learning to explore the intersection of space and identity within the context of healing modalities. Najee-Zaid’s latest works combine elemental and plant ancestries with the human experience while hybridizing his performance acoustically, electronically, and spatially with a range of accessible sensory activations.

Najee-Zaid will debut his new performance art piece “Emersion” as part of their 2023-2024 Co-Mission Fellowship at Links Hall in Chicago, IL. Learn more at najeezaidsearcy.com.

Collaborators

Alejandro Salazar emphasizes love, peace, and unity to audiences through unique performances, education, and the cultural study of Afro-Cuban and Black-American Music. Chicago’s own rising star, Alejandro Salazar, is deeply rooted in the tradition, yet he likes to explore new ways to help people groove and dance more to his infectious swing feel. Alejandro has had the pleasure of playing at clubs, venues, and festivals all over Chicago and the world like The Chicago Jazz Festival, Hyde Park Jazz Festival, Jazz a la Villette (Paris), Primavera Sound Barcelona, Munch Museum (Oslo), Bourse de Commerce (Paris), Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, The Jazz Showcase, Andy’s Jazz Club, DuSable Museum, The Green Mill, Constellation, and Dorian’s to name a few.

Vocalist, pianist and composer Paige Brown believes in the use of voice as a channel, and the use of the instrument/body as a voice.

Having inherited a version of the deep, resonant voice of her father and her late grandfather, she rejoices in the ability to play inside that resonance, bringing that sound to bear in songs that speak of joy, love, grief, and hope. She draws from a broad range of influences that range from high school madrigals to college gospel choir, skipping from soul to funk to folk and weaving through sounds somewhere in between.

Emerging from her compositional chrysalis, she is currently developing the inner mechanisms and connections to deepen and externalize her own artistic practice more fully, reacquainting herself with the simple, playful practices that attracted her to Music, her first love.

Viktor Le-Givens is a found object installation performance artist whose practice centers around the gathering and arrangement of ancestral objects to activate spaces for site specific public rituals. By connecting the material culture of his ancestors with pre and post modern spiritual theologies, le. Givens hopes to extend and reimagine the folk customs of his family . His material archive is comprised of the forgotten and discarded household items found during excavations of East Texas, Louisiana, Havana Cuba and Mexico City. Through the accumulation of these rich cultural artifacts , le. Givens. seeks to create spaces that inspire the activation of cultural and spiritual memory.

This event is part of Links Hall’s 2024 Co-MISSION Festival of New Works, two groundbreaking weekends of new performance and public events. Representing some of the most talented makers in Chicago from dance, performance art, installation, and performance as social practice, six artists present works developed while in-residence at Links during the 2023-2024 season. Featured artists include: Links Hall Residents AiRos 頌恩 medill, Jamila Kekulah, and Eshan Rafi, and Fellows Najee-Zaid Searcy and Lani T. Montreal.

Official Website

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Tags: 2024 Co-MISSION Festival of New Works | Spring Fellow: Najee-Zaid Searcy, Alejandro Salazar, Chicago, Links Hall, Marsha P Johnson, Masisi Najee-Zaid, Najee-Zaid Searcy, Najee-Zaid Searcy’s Emersion, North Center, Paige Brown, Silvia Rivera, Viktor le Givens