Performance Exhibition
Xenia Mansour: "was, still is"
Saturday, September 19 1:00-2:00 pm Register Now Free; Registration Recommended
Xenia Mansour reactivates was, still is, a 50-minute durational, site-adaptive performance in the Murphy Auditorium. Originally created as a ten-minute work for New Dance 2025 on a proscenium stage, this performance adapts the work for Brendan Fernandes: In the Round. Audiences are invited to enter, exit, and move through the space freely, encountering the work patiently from multiple vantage points. Rather than a fixed performer–audience relationship, the reformatted work—distilled into a duet—creates a porous environment in which dancers, viewers, and the architecture are all in dialogue. Viewers are not bound to seats or a linear narrative. Inspired by the 2016 exhibition Unfinished at the MET Breuer, ongoing questions that live at the heart of was, still is include: What does it mean to be ‘unfinished’? Is it infinite? Does it interrupt? Bleed through? What is not ‘there’ for us right now but should have been? And with that, what remains? Diving deeper into these questions and movement vocabulary, the work aligns deeply with the legacy of Judson Dance Theater, particularly its emphasis on task-based movement, democratic space, and process. The performers will hold open rehearsals and workshops in the Murphy Auditorium Wednesday, September 16–Friday, September 18 leading up to this final performance.
About the Artist
Xenia Mansour is a movement-based performer, director, and coach. She holds a BFA in Dance from NYU Tisch School of the Arts and has performed with NYC-based choreographers and collectives, including HIVEWILD, HOLDTIGHT, Sikora + Dance, and Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener. Most recently, she has performed in Brendan Fernandes’ “In Two” at the Pulitzer Arts Museum and choreographed and performed in Grammy-nominated musician Nico Segal’s “Welcome Home” at Steppenwolf Theatre. Her work has been presented by Thodos Dance Chicago/DanceWorks Chicago for New Dances 2025 at The Ruth Page Center for the Arts, and has also been commissioned by Grammy-winner Kalia Vandever and MOMENTA Dance Company. Through her company, Philoxenia Movement LLC, Mansour also works as a movement director and coach, collaborating with Chicago-based musicians, photographers, models, and visual artists. Her movement direction spans live performance, music projects, and fashion and editorial contexts, including ongoing collaboration with Greek-American pop artist Tommy Bravos and leading model movement workshops with photographer Anna Blank. Her work is guided by curiosity, play, and intentionality, using movement as a tool for dialogue, presence, and honest exchange between performers, collaborators, and audiences.
About the Performer
Faith Balderrama is a professional dancer, choreographer, and instructor from Southern California. She graduated with a B.A. in Dance Performance from Oral Roberts University in 2020 and is based in Chicago. Faith performed with South Chicago Dance Theatre for three seasons and had the honor of working with Terrence Marling, Noelle Kayser, Jackie Nowicki, Donald Byrd, Monique Haley, Kate Weare, Frank Chavez, and Joshua Blake Carter. She also performed works by Kia S. Smith and Tsai Hsi Hung for the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in 2024. As a choreographer, Faith has created new works for the Oral Roberts University Dance Department, Little Fire Artist Collective, and the Winifred Haun and Dancers Third Coast Contemporary Dance Program.
Additionally, Faith received a Chicago DCASE Individual Artist Program Grant in 2023 to produce an evening-length work in 2024 entitled “HER.” She was then invited to perform an excerpt of the work at the Harvest Contemporary Dance Festival in Chicago in 2024 and at the St. Louis Contemporary Dance Festival in 2025. Faith currently freelances as a performer, teacher, and choreographer throughout the Midwest and performs with Little Fire Artist Collective and The Seldoms dance company in Chicago.