Movement Artists
Molly Strom (dancer) graduated from Columbia College Chicago Magna Cum Laude with a degree in Dance concentrating in pedagogy and performance. She has trained with Robert McKee from Giordano Jazz Dance Chicago, Emily Stein and Page Cunningham. She performed in works by Mags Bouffard, Lisa Gonzales, Sara Zalek, Debra Levasseur-Lottman, Teena Marie Custer, Fara Tolno, and performed in a restaging of Charles Weidman’s “Lynch Town” under the direction of Gail Corbin. Molly has been in numerous student performances at the Dance Center of Columbia as well as presenting her own work on the Dance Center Stage. Alongside performing, Molly teaches dance at various studios around the Chicagoland area and is certified in Cecchetti Teacher Grade I. In summer of 2014, Molly traveled to Barcelona, Spain to teach dance to young children and work with local artists including Nadine Gerspacher, Emilo Gutierrez and Bene Carrat.
Current Collaborators
David Sundry (architect/visual artist) is a design/build architect who has been constructing single family homes, small offices and mixed use spaces in Chicago since 1989. He is the founder and president of Triple O Construction, a small design/build construction company, and O Group, Inc., its partnering architecture studio in association with Lyle Haag Engineering. David’s architectural set designs for Zephyr include, Out and Back in Again: an immersive environment of movement, sound and image, Allowances and Occurrences and Broken Time. He has been collaborating with Zephyr director Michelle Kranicke, serving as dramaturge and advising on the architectural and painterly aspects of movement, since 2000. David’s buildings have been featured in Chicago Magazine, Chicago Social and Better Homes and Gardens. He received a BFA in Fine Arts from the University of Notre Dame and an MFA in painting from Pratt Institute in New York.
Richard Norwood (lighting designer) has been the resident lighting designer for Zephyr for the past 12 years. His designs for Michelle Kranicke include Just Left of Remote, Chewing, The Rhythm of Irreversible Direction, Broken Time, Wanderthrough, Frozen Straight On and Do Us Part. Other recent designs include, Smartphones for Trap Door Theatre and pool (no water) for the Vitalists Theatre. Richard is resident lighting designer for Trap Door Theatre where he has designed over 50 shows. He is also the Performance Coordinator at the Museum of Contemporary Art.
Amanda Lee Franck (costume designer/installation artist) makes work that moves within the fields of installation, performance, and the garment. She considers clothing in the sense of a mechanism, and her designs respond to the wearer in surprising ways. She has worked as costume designer at Redmoon Theater and The Incurable Theater. She is currently the senior assistant at the fashion line Elmidae, and teaches fashion design in the Continuing Studies Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Defibrillator Performance Art Gallery