Robyn Mineko Williams & Artists, To Leave You

About the Performance

For this early preview of To Leave You, director and choreographer Robyn Mineko Williams presents a cinematic performance that explores the impressions we leave on—and for—one another as we live and pass on. Williams is joined by a dynamic team of acclaimed collaborators, including dancers Jessica Tong and Jason Hortin, composer/musician Nate Kinsella, and visual artist Julia Miller. Seamlessly blending mediums, this dreamlike memoir of a performance reveals the imprints we leave on those we encounter in life—tangible and intangible, in words, gestures, and memories.

To Leave You is a natural next chapter for Williams, whose previous works, Hisako’s House and Echo Mine—rooted in themes of lineage, legacy, and love—each experienced the loss of their respective muses during their creation. With To Leave You, Williams deepens this thematic trajectory, exploring how live performance can contribute to a living archive of personal memory.

To Leave You is supported by the MCA’s New Works Initiative, a platform that fosters the artistic and professional growth of Chicago-based artists.

About the Artist

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.