HOMEROOM

HOMEROOM Promoting artistic experimentation and growth through collaborative, multidisciplinary arts programs.

Current Programs:

Ten x Ten – Ten visual artists and ten bands or musicians are paired to create a suite of ten 10-inch prints accompanied by a 10-song compilation. Blank Box - new multimedia performances using contemporary improvisational practices of avant jazz/new music alongside film and dance

Physics for Listeners – A commissioned concert series that presents new work from young composers

in both the contemporary classical and jazz/improvised scenes in Chicago, performed and recorded by a guest ensemble

Comfort Music + A concert series in partnership with Comfort Station, presenting musicians collaborating with performers from another medium, including video, dance, spoken word, and puppetry

Exquisite Literary Crawl - A collaboration with MAKE Literary Productions featuring literary and multimedia artists performing on a walking tour of neighborhood venues in Logan Square

After School Special – An informal discussion series that brings artists, writers, and thinkers together to shed new light on subjects from all points on the cultural spectrum. Breakfast Serial - An art series featuring comic, graphic and visual artists using Instagram as a medium to present new work.

Comfort Music + is back every Monday in June at Comfort Station!The Comfort Music + series has run since 2018, pairing m...
05/24/2026

Comfort Music + is back every Monday in June at Comfort Station!

The Comfort Music + series has run since 2018, pairing music with dance, video, spoken word, installation art, and more. This unlikely curatorial presentation allows artistic communities to commingle in the hopes of future collaboration and connection. This year’s series is curated by musician and interdisciplinary artist Scott Rubin, with collaborations spanning music, visual art, performance, and technology.

The first performance is Monday, June 1:

Sarah Clausen, saxophone
+ Amanda Maraist, dance

Kim Nucci, media art
+ Ryn Hardiman, electronic signal manipulation

Doors 7 PM / Show 7:30 PM
Comfort Station, 2579 N Milwaukee Ave, Chicago
Suggested donation at the door

See you there!

This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council.

A recap of Julian Otis' "Ritual" at Experimental Station for Homeroom's Blank Box series! Thank you to everyone who atte...
05/22/2026

A recap of Julian Otis' "Ritual" at Experimental Station for Homeroom's Blank Box series! Thank you to everyone who attended and to all the performers involved.

Performers:
Julian Otis
Naydja Bruton
Paige Brown
Gabriel Lochard
Scott Rubin
Kezia Waters
Kopano

Meet your final Blank Box ritual guide, Kezia Waters! They are joining Homeroom Chicago on May 15 at Experimental Statio...
05/14/2026

Meet your final Blank Box ritual guide, Kezia Waters! They are joining Homeroom Chicago on May 15 at Experimental Station to perform in Julian Otis' new multimedia work, "Ritual."

Friday, May 15, 2026
8pm doors, 8:30pm performance
$20 suggested donation
Experimental Station

About Kezia Waters:
Kezia Waters is a director, actor, and multidisciplinary artist. Their work, often influenced by their background in theatre, emphasizes storytelling and experimental dialogue. They create ritual performances using found objects, elaborate costuming, and music.

Waters considers time travel as both a subject of their work and a process their work is informed by. Sounds, movements, and visuals are repeated, overlapped, reduced, and elongated in correspondence with Waters’ feelings. They consider their practice through lenses of spiritual surrealism, traditional folklore, and religious traditions. Having grown up in the Black Pentecostal Church, Waters investigates what it is to be holy/whole and exist within Black and/or q***r functionality. Their drag persona, Dorsey Swan, channels Black female preachers they knew growing up.

Waters has performed at spaces like Almanac Gallery, Elastic Arts, and Montreal’s Dazibao Gallery. They are a recipient of the 3arts 2025 Make a Wave Award and 2023 Yates Performance DCASE Artist in Residence/grant. Waters is currently working on new music, including a solo EP.

We're excited to have Scott Rubin joining Homeroom Chicago as a ritual guide in Julian Otis' new work, "Ritual." This ne...
05/12/2026

We're excited to have Scott Rubin joining Homeroom Chicago as a ritual guide in Julian Otis' new work, "Ritual." This new Blank Box multimedia performance premieres at Experimental Station on May 15!

Friday, May 15, 2026
8pm doors, 8:30pm performance
$20 suggested donation
Experimental Station

About Scott Rubin:
Scott Rubin is an interdisciplinary artist, composer, and violinist. Rubin’s work investigates the relationship between sound and movement using analog and digital technology. He uses motion sensors and live video in collaboration with musicians and dancers, engaging themes of intimacy, neurology, performance, and control.

Since 2025, Rubin has been working on developing audio-reactive visuals for live performances and “Gushers,” a series of interviews with Chicago artists. He continues fostering creative relationships between performers and composers, as well as navigating how vulnerability, anxiety, and character creation appear in his performances.

Rubin holds bachelor’s degrees in music composition and psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, a master’s from McGill University, and a PhD from the University of California at Berkeley. He was awarded the McGill University Graduate Excellence Fellowship, the Florence Gould Foundation Scholarship from the European American Musical Alliance, and the UIUC School of Music Composition-Theory Area Achievement Award.

Meet your ritual guide, Gabriel Lochard! They will be performing in Julian Otis' "Ritual," Homeroom's newest iteration o...
05/12/2026

Meet your ritual guide, Gabriel Lochard! They will be performing in Julian Otis' "Ritual," Homeroom's newest iteration of Blank Box, on May 15 at Experimental Station.

Friday, May 15, 2026
8pm doors, 8:30pm performance
$20 suggested donation
Experimental Station

About Gabriel Lochard:
Gabriel Lochard is a vocalist, pianist, music teacher, modern dancer, and Cuban salsa instructor. They facilitate private lessons as well as community workshops, such as their Black Q***r Song Circle at the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago. They see communal music-making and dancing as medicine, using music to imagine a better world and to sustain hope in the midst of global violence and upheaval.

Many of Lochard’s projects focus on the African diasporic experience, drawing from opera, jazz, Black folk, and Afro-Caribbean music traditions. Since earning their bachelor's in music and master's in music history and literature at Harvard University and UC Berkeley, respectively, Lochard has sang, danced, and directed theatre productions across Chicago and the Bay Area. Through collaboration with other musicians, community organizers, and directors, Lochard continues to create spaces that connect the audience and performer, explore the human experience, and draw out the creativity of everyone who attends.

Paige Brown is joining Homeroom Chicago for Blank Box: Ritual! She will act as a ritual guide in Julian Otis' new work, ...
05/11/2026

Paige Brown is joining Homeroom Chicago for Blank Box: Ritual! She will act as a ritual guide in Julian Otis' new work, "Ritual," a new multimedia performance premiering at Experimental Station on May 15.

Friday, May 15, 2026
8pm doors, 8:30pm performance
$20 suggested donation
Experimental Station

About Paige Brown:
Paige Brown is a vocalist, pianist, and composer. Brown’s music is informed by classical piano, collaboration, soul, Afrofuturism, gospel choir, folk, and an understanding of her voice as a channel. Her approach is also inspired by playful, grounding practices such as taking care of plants and trying new recipes.

Brown is the Dark Matter Residency coordinator at Elastic Arts and program associate at Bustling Spaces. Brown has helped provide support and resources to emerging artists across Chicago. A former dual-language teacher, she is committed to education, economic empowerment, and social action. Brown considers housing insecurity, mental health, and the criminalization of Black people and immigrants in her work, as well as the power of community in the face of these issues.

Brown has performed throughout Chicago, in spaces such as Elastic Arts, Hyde Park Art Center, Anna and Frederick Douglass Park, and recently took her first step into VR with ARTGAL.

Photo by

Meet your ritual guide, Naydja Bruton! Naydja Bruton will be performing in Julian Otis' "Ritual," the newest iteration o...
05/10/2026

Meet your ritual guide, Naydja Bruton! Naydja Bruton will be performing in Julian Otis' "Ritual," the newest iteration of Blank Box, on May 15 at Experimental Station.

Friday, May 15, 2026
8pm doors, 8:30pm performance
$20 suggested donation
Experimental Station

About Naydja Bruton:
Naydja Bruton is a drummer, composer, and teacher exploring how music leads to greater healing and empathy. They see music as a way to bring people together and create positive, vulnerable spaces.

Originally from Sparta, Illinois, Bruton has been pulled towards Chicago since they were little. After joining band in high school, Bruton found community through music, eventually making their way into the Chicago music scene. Having experienced firsthand how music can facilitate compassion, confidence, and intimate bonds, Bruton hopes to pass that experience on to others in their practice. They hope audiences will leave their performances joyful, and, as an educator, they aim to teach others how to create interpersonal connections through music and learning.

Bruton, along with their ensemble, The Rhythm Ninjas, has performed improvisations and compositions across venues in Chicago. They recently performed at Transition East, Elastic Arts, and Tangible Books, as well as recorded their first record.

We're excited to be collaborating with Julian Otis for Blank Box: Ritual. Join us on Friday, May 15, at Experimental Sta...
05/09/2026

We're excited to be collaborating with Julian Otis for Blank Box: Ritual.

Join us on Friday, May 15, at Experimental Station for "Ritual," a new multimedia performance by multidisciplinary artist, creative vocalist, and composer Julian Otis. He, along with seven ritual guides, will take you on a journey grounded in Black inspirational music, community care, and memory.

Friday, May 15, 2026
8pm doors, 8:30pm performance
$20 suggested donation
Experimental Station
6100 S. Blackstone Ave.
Chicago, IL 60637

About Julian Otis:
Julian Terrell Otis is a vocalist dedicated to the advancement of Black music in America, spanning genres from creative music and jazz to contemporary classical. His work explores the limitless possibilities of his instrument’s expressive capacity through song, improvisation, and theater. Known for bringing fresh perspective, nuance, and “high drama” to the contemporary music world, the integration of performance “live art” elements is of particular interest to him.

Otis’s experiences have led him to create the male soloist role in George E. Lewis’ chamber opera, “Afterword,” on both domestic and international stages. In exploring the life and work of Julius Eastman, Otis has performed his solo work, “Prelude for the Holy Presence of Joan of Arc.” He revived Peter Maxwell Davies’ “Eight Songs for a Mad King” at the inaugural Bang on a Can All Star’s Loud Weekend, and is devising works focusing on improvisation, electronics, and movement. “All the Pretty Flowers” is his first recording project of improvised music and poetry. Committed to community empowerment, he led an improvised jam for South Side Chicago communities called Self Care = Resistance! And curates the AfriClassical Futures series at Elastic Arts in Chicago’s Logan Square/Avondale neighborhood.

Homeroom Chicago is excited to present the newest iteration of BlankBox on May 15 at Experimental Station!"Ritual" is a ...
05/07/2026

Homeroom Chicago is excited to present the newest iteration of BlankBox on May 15 at Experimental Station!

"Ritual" is a multimedia performance by multidisciplinary artist, creative vocalist, and composer Julian Otis, in collaboration with Naydja Bruton, Paige Brown, Gabriel Lochard, Scott Rubin, olula negre, and Kezia Waters.

If you're reading this, you are a part of Ritual. Meditate on the Elements of Life. Earth. Water. Fire. Mineral. We take you on a Journey of Remembering through the lens of Black Inspirational Music as we explore our somatic map of care, singing through the healing elements while creating the conditions to grow new life. Walk away changed and Ready to Grow.

Friday, May 15, 2026
8pm doors, 8:30pm performance
$20 suggested donation
Experimental Station, 6100 S Blackstone Ave, Chicago, IL 60637

See you there Chicago!

Thank you to everyone who came to the fourth and final performance of Tim Daisy's "Chrome Yellow!"Congratulations to all...
04/30/2026

Thank you to everyone who came to the fourth and final performance of Tim Daisy's "Chrome Yellow!"

Congratulations to all the performers who have been a part of this residency over the past month. Special thanks to Tim Daisy, Mabel Kwan, and Scott Dean Taylor for creating such inspiring improvisations every Monday, and to for hosting.

More to come soon!

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04/30/2026

A recap of the final performance of Tim Daisy's Homeroom Residency, "Chrome Yellow."

Special thanks to Beth McDonald and Robbie Lynn Hunsinger for helping to close out the show as our last two guest artists.

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