Robyn Mineko Williams & Artists, To Leave You

Direction and choreography: Robyn Mineko Williams

Performers: Jason Hortin, Nate Kinsella, Julia Miller, Jessica Tong, Robyn Mineko Williams

Music: Nate Kinsella

Projection design: Julia Miller

Lighting design/Production management: David Goodman-Edberg

Costume design: Melina Ausikaitis

Choreographic assistants: Jacqueline Burnett and David Schultz

Robyn Mineko Williams is a director and artist from Chicago. She is drawn to embodiments of memory, time, lineage, and our relationships with the traces left in us of the people we encounter. Williams is the founder and director of Robyn Mineko Williams and Artists (RMW&A), which houses and shares a body of interdisciplinary performance created in collaboration with an evolving roster of dynamic artists and designers. Prioritizing public, malleable forms of presentation, RMW&A creates by intertwining performance, design, people, and place. Williams’s work has been presented at the Kennedy Center, Harris Theater for Music and Dance, Thalia Hall, Jacob’s Pillow, the Joyce Theater, MCA Chicago, and more. Commissions include Pacific Northwest Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, and Malpaso Dance Company, among others. She has been in residence at Baryshnikov Arts Center and the Chicago Cultural Center and is a recipient of a Princess Grace Foundation-USA Choreographic Fellowship and the Walder Foundation Platform Award. Williams works as a creative director and movement consultant on an array of projects including film, immersive experiences, installation, music videos, and event production. She is currently on faculty at the Chicago Academy for the Arts and has taught and set work at Springboard Danse Montreal, Point Park University, UNCSA, USC, The Juilliard School, University of Iowa, University of Chicago, Western Michigan University, and UCLA Long Beach.

Jason Hortin began dancing at Debbi’s Dance in Olympia, WA. He has a BFA in Dance from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), and an MFA in Dance from the University of Arizona. Professional credits include Moving People Dance Theatre, Erick Hawkins Dance Company, River North Dance Chicago, and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. Hortin is currently an assistant professor of dance at UNLV and actively restages works by Penny Saunders and Robyn Mineko Williams throughout the country.

Nate Kinsella is a Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist, composer, and producer whose work blurs the boundaries between pop and the avant-garde. Described by The New York Times as “arrestingly beautiful,” his compositions have appeared in film and podcasts, including the internationally award-winning science film biopixels and the Webby-winning podcast Masters of Scale. Kinsella is a member of the genre-defining emo band American Football and has performed at major festivals worldwide, including Fuji Rock, Reading and Leeds, Primavera Sound, and Pitchfork.

Raised in Salt Lake City, Jessica Tong attended the University of Utah, where she danced as a member of Utah Ballet. She went on to perform with BalletMet Columbus, Ballet Tech, and Hubbard Street 2 before joining the main company of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, where she danced for 11 years. Tong later transitioned into leadership roles within the organization, becoming rehearsal director and, in 2020, associate artistic director. Named one of Dance Magazine’s 25 to Watch in 2009, Tong has contributed to the dance community through service on the Ambassador Committee for Dance for Life Chicago, participation on national grant panels, and mentorship programs such as 92NY’s Future Dance Festival, Rhode Island Women’s Choreographic Project, and TU Dance: CULTIVATE. An accomplished teacher, she has led movement classes across the country and staged works for companies including Pacific Northwest Ballet and Dutch National Ballet. Tong was also a founding board member of the Gold Standard Arts Foundation and has served as rehearsal director for A.I.M by Kyle Abraham since 2022.

Julia Miller is a visual storyteller working in puppetry, theater, and film. Drawn to the art of breathing life into the inanimate and telling stories without words, she is a director, puppeteer, and designer based in Chicago. She is also the founder and coartistic director of Manual Cinema, the Emmy Award–winning cinematic shadow puppet company she helped establish in 2010.

David Goodman-Edberg is a Chicago-based lighting designer working in the realms of dance, operatic, theatrical, and architectural design. In the dance world, he has lit new works by such choreographers as Shannon Alvis, Hope Boykin, Marc Brew, Karley Childress, Norbert De La Cruz III, Laurie Eisenhower, Nicolo Fonte, Roderick George, Monique Haley, Kristina Isabelle, Noelle Kayser, Erin Kilmurray, Shota Miyoshi, Kevin O’Day, Marco Palomino, Alejandro Perez, Joshua Peugh, Stephanie Pizzo, Nick Pupillo, Wilfredo Rivera, Wade Schaaf, Marlene Skog, Micaela Taylor, Tess Voelker, Maleek Washington, Keelan Whitmore, and Edgar Zendejas. He has been a longstanding collaborator with Eisenhower Dance Detroit, serving as lighting director for the company since 2018.

Through her music (Aitis Band, Joan of Arc), curatorial work (Lula Cafe), apparel design (Aitis Something), and visual art, Melina Ausikaitis influences multiple layers of Chicago’s cultural scene. Recent notable projects include Aitis Band IV (2025), Air Alone (from my dream) with Big Ramp Gallery (2025), Fall in the Leaves with Regards (2023), and How High the Sky at the Graham Foundation with Diane Simpson and every house has a door (2018).

To Leave You was commissioned by MCA Chicago for its 2025 Chicago Performs festival. Creative residencies for To Leave You were provided by Ragdale Foundation, Lake Forest, IL, and Meredith Dincolo and Jose Alejandro Segura in Coloma, MI. Production residency for the work provided by The Momentary, Bentonville, AR. Special thank you to Amy Case, Karen Castleman, Todd Clark, Terence Marling, Jeff Corbin, and Massimo Pacilli, and the families of the To Leave You creative team.