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Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble performs “Architecture of Memory” May 8 – 23, 2026
CHICAGO – Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble (CDE) presents the world premiere of Architecture of Memory, May 8 – 23, at Chicago Danztheatre, 1650 W. Foster Avenue.
The opening night/press performance is Friday, May 8 at 8 p.m.
The performance schedule is Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. with the accompanying visual art gallery open to the public at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets are $10 – $25 and are on sale now at DanzTheatre.org.
Photo by Zakari Kaletka
Architecture of Memory is a new, original work by CDE Founder Ellyzabeth Adler, exploring perseverance, hope and self-discovery. Told through film, dance, theater and original music, this visceral performance experience aims to showcase the beauty of overcoming obstacles in life and creating a new sense of self.
The production is set up in chapters that are woven together, inspired by the Red String Theory, an ancient Chinese proverb that states, “An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place, and circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle. But it will never break.”
Architecture of Memory is a collaboration between Executive Artistic Director Ellyzabeth Adler and Hart Ginsberg of Digital Tapestries, together they have created new films to be integrated into the performance, marking this as Adler’s first full-length work since 2017.
The cast of Architecture of Memory includes Nik Graves, Maya Paletta, Austin Rambo, Anthony Taylor and Virginia VanLieshout. The art exhibition features work by Kennedy Freeman, Crawwlspace, and Digital Tapestries.
The creative team: films by Digital Tapestries & Hart Ginsburg, written and devised by Ellyzabeth Adler, with the ensemble, and lighting design by Ruby Lowe.
ABOUT ELLYZABETH ADLER
Ellyzabeth Adler is a MacArthur Award–winning artist and the Executive Artistic Director and Founder of Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble, the company she boldly launched in 2001 at just 26. For 25 years, she has stretched the edges of performance, shaping a distinctive danztheatre language that braids together movement, text, image, and sound.
Her body of work includes 12 full-length productions and countless shorter pieces, among them T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, the company’s inaugural work, as well as The Yellow Wallpaper, Touch, Mirrors, Hope, and Ethereal Abandonment, created in collaboration with longtime friend Lucy Vurusic Riner of RE|Dance.
Adler’s practice lives at the intersection of art-making and community-building. Through festivals and curated performance platforms such as the Full Circle Festival, Body Passages Artist Residency, and Art Heals, she cultivates spaces where artists can risk, experiment, and be seen. With a deep commitment to social justice, her works—including Unraveling Bill and projects created with and for veterans—have traveled beyond traditional stages into social service and community spaces, inviting dialogue, reflection, and healing.
Her creative life also unfolds in classrooms and for 24 years, Adler has designed curriculum, trained educators, and taught in Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble’s arts education programs. Under her leadership, she and CDE’s teaching artists have reached more than 9,000 CPS students; some now return as educators themselves, continuing the cycle of artistry and mentorship.
A survivor and advocate, Adler speaks publicly about domestic abuse and uses story, performance, and language as tools for awareness and change. She is a published author of poetry and prose, exploring themes of resilience, embodiment, and care. In 2020, she began a new chapter as a single mother by choice to her daughter, Miriam Sky.
By openly sharing her IVF journey and her path to motherhood, Adler works to soften silence and dismantle stigma around fertility, family-making, and what it means to choose one’s own way forward.
ABOUT HART GINSBERG
Hart Ginsburg, LCPC, is a clinician and multidisciplinary artist who integrates psychotherapy and creative practice to foster self-awareness, acceptance, and empowerment. For more than 15 years his clinical work has centered on trauma-informed care for immigrant and refugee communities, alongside individual and couples therapy focused on deeper existential awareness. In 2016 Hart founded Digital Tapestries, a creative studio that produces films, art-therapy resources, immersive installations, zines, and experiential workshops designed to broaden perspective and invite meaningful reflection. Digital Tapestries has collaborated with Danzetheatre Ensemble and the University of Illinois at Chicago, exhibited in galleries and international film festivals, and created canvas installations that enliven public spaces such as cafes and cultural venues.
ABOUT CHICAGO DANZTHEATRE ENSEMBLE
Founded in 2001, Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble (CDE) is Chicago’s only multidisciplinary arts organization dedicated to social justice and socially conscious work that builds community through the arts “one voice, one story, one person at a time.” CDE’s mission is to engage, inspire, and challenge the community, both onstage and in the classroom, through innovative and collaborative multidisciplinary storytelling to illuminate aspects of social issues. We do this in the genre of Tanztheatre, “which unites all art media to achieve an all-embracing, radical change in humankind.” Through our school-based art and performance programs, CDE helps students in Chicago schools explore their own creativity, supporting their social and emotional learning. CDE provides a physical and emotional space where community conversation and cultural change can happen.
For our performance series, CDE is dedicated to creating performances that blend together dance, theatre and visual art to tell stories about the human condition. We give an artistic voice to those who are not always heard.
- Dedicated since our founding to diverse casting of age, body type and ethnicity
- Consistently listed as a “Top Theater and Dance Performance to See” by New City and Chicago Reader
- Unique collaborations with the Veterans Art Museum, Poetry Center Chicago, Cantigny Museum, Neighborhood Writing Alliance, Voice of the City and numerous dance and theater companies
- MacArthur Award Grantee for International Collaborations.
Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble is supported by The Illinois Arts Council, a state agency; Bayless Family Foundation, The Saints Foundation,The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, The Gaylord & Dorothy Donnelley Foundation; Innovation 80; Farny Wurlitzer Foundation; Mardi Gras Fund and the annual support of individual donors.
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