In celebrating Chicago Labor Arts Festival 2010, “The Soviet Arts Experience,” will be performed in October. It will bring together 25 of the city’s leading arts institutions in a 16-month showcase of artworks created under the thumb of the Stalinist regime in Russia. This is the idea of Shauna Quill, executive director of the University of Chicago
Quill has spearheaded and organized what promises to be one of the largest collaborative arts festivals to be given in the Chicago area. More than 100 events are scheduled to take place in 25 venues across the city, from October to January 2012. This includes more than 50 concerts, nine dance performances, eight art exhibitions and two theater productions.
The idea of developing a multidisciplinary survey of art created under the Soviet system began to germinate in Quill’s mind in May 2009, when she found out over lunch with members of the Pacifica Quartet that the university’s resident quartet was planning to present a complete Shostakovich string quartet cycle here this season.
Quill has considered expanding the cycle into a comprehensive exploration of Stalin-era visual art, dance, music and theater. She quickly arranged a think tank of U. of C. scholars, which, she says, led to “a million wonderful ideas. Several organizations that already were planning on presenting Russian repertory were pleased to be able to put them in a festival context.
After the announcement of the festival last spring, the number of participants has jumped from 11 to 25. The participants are from New York, California and even Moscow wanting to take part in this.
Given the fierce pressures put on Russian artists to conform to the dictates of Soviet communist society, inevitably any examination of the arts of that turbulent era must touch on the politics as well. That, says Quill, is where the festival’s educational component will prove essential. Numerous lectures, classes and symposiums are on the docket, and more are in the planning stages. Quill hopes the festival’s eclectic bounty will tempt audience members to venture beyond their usual areas of interest to take in events and subject matters they would not normally be drawn to.