Love Dancing: Documenting Chicago's Nightlife

Saturday December 17th, 2022

Love Dancing: Documenting Chicago's Nightlife 

Curated by Jeneca Onikoyi

December 17th - January 15th 

Featured photographers: Seed Lynn, Kymon Kyndred, Shay Turner 

Opening: Saturday, December 17th 2-6PM with DJ's: Jo de Presser, Lady D

Programming: 

Saturday, January 7th:

  • 2:30-4pm: Heavy Lifting: The Architecture of a Party
  • 4:30-6pm: Documenting Nightlife:  A conversation with Chicago photographers

Sunday, January 8th: 

  • 1-5pm: Community Archiving Day with the Chicago Black Social Culture Map
    Bring your flyers, photos, fashion, and stories to add to the ongoing digital archive


This exhibition of three artists is an archival survey of dance culture and nightlife in Chicago, and created in collaboration with the Chicago Black Social Culture Map.

The Chicago Black Social Culture Map grew out of HPP’s 2014 project Juke Cry Hand Clap, in which we began researching Chicago’s Black social culture across the 20th century from the First Great Migration through the birth of House music. Since then, through open sessions, targeted interviews, and multi-faceted research, data has been compiled on over 350 venues in the Chicagoland area. 

The CBSCM archive includes information centered around social venues, including basic geo-spatial information, first-person stories, and supplemental media, all collected through collaborative community research. Drawing from blues, gospel, disco, and funk as well as dances such as bopping, stepping, and line dances, the archive explores an evolving embodied lineage of African American forms of making community and of cultural resistance.