The opening week of this year's Chicago Architecture Biennial featured three architecture-related performances, which artistic directors Johnston Marklee included in the programme to highlight a trend for this mode of expression.
A dance piece at the iconic Farnsworth House, a colourful collaboration between artist Nick Cave and architect Jeanne Gang, and a musical performance with costumes by New York studio SO-IL were all among the off-site projects presented at the 2017 biennial.
This heavy focus on live movement-based projects that explored the body's relationship to buildings and spaces was deliberate according to Mark Lee, who co-curated the programme with partner Sharon Johnston.
"Indeed this is intentional on our part," Lee told Dezeen. "Performance art is a medium of growing importance and brings to the biennial a time-based component that most traditional mediums could not." The inclusion of performances followed on from the inaugural edition, when architect Bryony Roberts conceived a choreographed routine executed by the South Shore Drill Team at one of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's public spaces in the heart of the city.
"In the first Chicago Biennial, Bryony Roberts did an incredible performance piece with a drill team at Mies' Federal Plaza," said Lee. "It was an indication to us that architects are beginning to look into this field that addresses the occupation of spaces."
Johnston Marklee's theme for the biennial is Make ...