The Center for International Performance and Exhibition, dba HotHouse, announced that it is the recipient of a two-year $50,000 grant from The Reva and David Logan Foundation.
The award supports HotHouse’s exciting programming for the 2018-19 season. “Marguerite Horberg’s and HotHouse’s long-term commitment to innovative programming and their excellent curatorial work and production have been a positive influence on the Chicago music scene for many years. We look forward to enjoying some fabulous events this coming year,” commented Richard Logan, President of the Logan Foundation.
Now in its 31st year, HotHouse has been one of the city’s leading presenters of multi-cultural and multidisciplinary partnerships and initiatives. Some of the organizations seminal and groundbreaking work includes foregrounding first voice narratives, artists of color, music without borders, and women – years before these became a feature in mainstream institutions.
For three decades, HotHouse has been a principal showcase for original jazz content, featuring emerging composers like Henry Threadgill, Malachi Thompson, Roscoe Mitchell, Myra Melford and Dee Alexander. A long-time home for the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), HotHouse championed most of the essential artists that defined this important globally recognized musician’s collective. As a primary supporter, advocating for African- American and Latinx cultural expression, HotHouse was the main outlet for progressive artists from the Black Arts Movement (Gil Scott Heron, Hugh Masekela, Sonia Sanchez, Amiri Baraka) as well as for the new voices coming to the States from across its southern borders (Ana Tijoux, Jorge Drexler, Seu Jorge, Babel Gilberto, Maria Rita, and many others).
Via its signature Jazz en Clavé Festival and commitment to Cuban and Afro-Caribbean music, HotHouse has been the undisputed national leader in creating platforms to bring all of the island’s top talent into the U.S. (in spite of the embargo which creates enormous financial risks to produce this work).
Since 2007, when the physical space HotHouse closed on Balbo, an impressive team of volunteers (under the direction of executive director, Marguerite Horberg) has been the mainstay of the programming committee and the organizations artistic direction. While planning for its new permanent home, this group meets to plan projects that often are inspired by social justice themes. For instance, the 2013-14 WPA 2.0, A Brand New Deal was an extraordinary series of films, music, lectures and walking tours that looked at the economy through the lens of culture. That multi-disciplinary series (of over 80 events) concluded with the country’s most important concert honoring the centennial of folk legend, Woody Guthrie.
Most recently, this same team has joined efforts reinvigorating the Southside of the city. As HotHouse pursues developing a new cultural campus in Bronzeville, it presents ongoing arts events often in partnership with many of the local entities in the area. Its Old And New Dreams Festival with Pharoah Sanders opened the Promontory in 2015 and this year’s major exhibition (curated by HotHouse) at Theaster Gates’ Stony Island Arts Bank (October 4) will feature rich content across several media (film, graphic arts, spoken word, discussion) as well as bring HotHouse expertise in international cultural exchange to the area.
For its years of extraordinary service to the city, the organization has been honored with numerous Best of Chicago awards and its founder many of the top recognitions in the field. The HotHouse Board intends to announce its own Capital Campaign and plans for the new facility in 2019.
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