In Conversation with Robyn Mineko Williams

For the 2025 edition of Chicago Performs, Assistant Curator Laura Paige Kyber invited each of the featured artists to respond to a set of five questions, illuminating their inspirations, collaborations, process, and how Chicago shapes their work.

Below, director and choreographer Robyn Mineko Williams responds to Kyber’s questions, discussing her latest creation To Leave You, a cinematic work that explores the impressions we leave on one another as we live and pass on. An early preview of the work will be shown as a part of Chicago Performs this month.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Laura Paige Kyber: Tell me about the origins of the project you’re presenting as a part of Chicago Performs. What were the seeds of inspiration?

Robyn Mineko Williams: To Leave You was initially inspired by wanting to create a visual package of thoughts I wanted to share with my son before I pass on, whenever that moment may come. I feel like I sometimes express myself better with music and movement, and thought maybe I could make something for him to communicate all the things that I might struggle to say in words. Now, mid-life, as a parent, in this wild world we’re living in, I think so much more about the fragility of life and trying to acknowledge and say the things I want to say now, while we’re still here. The piece has grown branches beyond this initial impetus but this idea of what we leave, or what is left with us, in tangible or intangible forms, is very much a guiding force.

LPK: What lineages of performance do you situate yourself within? Are there specific artists or traditions that you identify with?

RMW: Movement is the performance medium I am closest to, the one that I feel I can instinctually communicate the most with. However, music, film, architecture, place, design, and the people who work within these fields all hugely influence, inform, and motivate me.

LPK: Who are your artistic collaborators on this project and how do you choose who to work with?

RMW: To Leave You is made in collaboration with my great friends and brilliant team of makers and performers: dance artists Jessica Tong (Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and rehearsal director for AIM) and Jason Hortin (Hubbard Street Dance Chicago/UNLV), visual artist Julia Miller (Manual Cinema), and Brooklyn-based musician/composer Nate Kinsella (Birthmark, American Football). It’s a dream team. I feel very lucky to be surrounded by artists whose work hits me in the heart, inspires me, and makes me grow.

LPK: How has making your work in Chicago impacted your artistic practice?

RMW: Chicago has been home for me for my entire life. The city, its people, its culture, its memories are all inevitably woven into the fabric of who I am and what I make. I also think it’s a place where artists come together, innovate together, and build together. I love that about this city.

LPK: What would you like audiences to take away from experiencing this work?

RMW: My hope is always that there might be a connection to be found or a moment of unlocking for people: a memory, a feeling, a sense—whatever that means or feels like to those experiencing it. Also just showing up, being together, stepping into and engaging with this mini world for an hour feels like a solid-enough take away.