CHICAGO PERFORMS 2025
Helen Lee/Momentum Sensorium, Curiosities of Wellness in Bodies of Grief and Joy
September 20, 2025
Session 1: 10:30; Session 2: 3 pm
Tickets on sale July 30
About the Performance
Curiosities of Wellness in Bodies of Grief and Joy is a multiyear project led by movement-based artist Helen Lee that redefines the structure and systems of performance. It invites the audience not just to witness but to engage—to sit with their own personal grief and cocreate a portal to joy. Lee writes, “both grief and joy exist in a rich cycle of seasons, each offering their own textures and transformations. Summer is a time to flourish. Fall is an invitation to nourish. Winter is an offering of rest and reflection. Spring fosters the tending of compassion, vulnerability and courage.” For the MCA, Lee and a dynamic group of collaborators including dancers, musicians, and somatic practitioners offer two interactive sessions for audiences curious about how emotions are processed and transformed in the body.
Spend the whole day with us or choose the morning or afternoon experience.
Schedule
Each session is limited to 20 participants each.
Session 1, 10:30 am–1:30 pm
The morning session offers a guided one-on-one journey. Participants are paired with their own performer/host moving from inside the museum to outside, line dancing, eating a mindful meal, creating medicinal bouquets, and participating in sensory practices and a silent walk to the lake. This experience is limited to 20 participants, with a limited number of witness tickets available. All participants must fill out a questionnaire prior to participating.
Session 2, 3–6 pm
The afternoon session offers a sound bowl meditation, somatic movements, and community grief workshop. Bring a mat to lay down and a journal for writing.
About the Artist
Helen Lee (they/she) is a Queer Asian Chicago-born interdisciplinary artist raised by immigrant parents from South Korea. They received an MFA with a focus in Performance and Film from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BA in Dance with a minor in Theatre from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. They have been teaching yoga, meditation, and mindfulness since 2007. That same year, they formed Momentum Sensorium, a project-based company that has created works in unconventional locations such as lighthouses, train stations, and inside homes. Much of their work focuses on the senses, death, and the entanglement of light/shadow, summer/winter, joy/grief. Their work has been published for several volumes of Emergency Index and their films have been screened by Dance Films Association and Chicago Onscreen. They have had residencies and/or presented works in the US, South Korea, Japan, Germany, Iceland, Finland, and Canada. They have been an Artist in Residence at Chicago Artists Coalition, Chicago Cultural Center, Links Hall and High Concept Labs at Mana Contemporary.
Lee was selected as a Newcity Breakout Artist in 2022, was a 2024 Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist and 2025 Dance/USA Finalist to Fellowships to Artists.
Funding
Chicago Performs is supported by the New Works Initiative, which puts the creative process at the heart of the MCA’s relationship with Chicago by supporting the development of new performances and creative projects. Lead support for the New Works Initiative is provided by Elizabeth A. Liebman.
Lead support for the 2025–26 season of MCA Performance is provided by Elizabeth A. Liebman.
Generous support is provided by Ginger Farley and Bob Shapiro, Martha Struthers Farley and Donald C. Farley, Jr. Family Foundation, N.A., Trustee; Anne L. Kaplan; and Carol Prins and John Hart/The Jessica Fund.
The MCA is a proud member of the Museums in the Park and receives major support from the Chicago Park District.