We are back for our 5th year!
Take Up Space 2023 will be a workshop for pre-professional dancers that will focus on technique, contemporary movement, improvisation, and professional company repertoire!
TAKE UP SPACE Was created in 2019 by Megan Rhodes and Mackenzie King. What started off as a collaborative evening-length work quickly grew into a 4-night dance festival. Take Up Space 2019 featured 12 female choreographers from Chicago and beyond. This festival is produced with the intention of giving talented female artists a platform to share their work and to take the space they deserve.
Due to the unprecedented and unpredictable nature of 2020, Take Up Space 2020 was a fully virtual festival of dance film, prerecorded dance performance, and dance photography. We were able to explore these mediums as a way to reach audiences from across the country and encourage our participants to take up more space than ever before.
Take Up Space 2021 returned as an intimate in-person performance with an option to Livestream.
Take Up Space 2022 was a giant celebration of the female artists in our community with a bar, performances, dancing, and so much more!
The Directors
Megan Rhodes
Megan Rhodes is the founder and artistic director of Peckish Rhodes Performing Arts Society. She is based in Chicago where she has been involved in the professional dance community for 5 years. She is originally from North Carolina where she received her BFA in Dance Performance as well as her BFA in Theatre Arts from East Carolina University. Her choreography has received awards and recognition from Rebel Arts Publication, URCA, and the North Carolina Dance Alliance. She has shown work at the Athenaum Theater, The Greenhouse Theater, Links Hall, Hamlin Park and Navy Pier. She recently premiered a new work in the Dumbo Dance Festival in Brooklyn, NY. Keep up with Megan on instagram @meganrhodes___ and with her company @peckish.rhodes.
Mackenzie King
Mackenzie grew up in Carmel, California where she started dancing at the age of three under the direction of Carol Richmond. She continued her professional training at Walnut Hill School for the Arts under the direction of Michael Owen and the Conservatory of Dance at SUNY Purchase, graduating Magna Cum Laude in 2015 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance Performance. Mackenzie has studied and performed works from San Francisco Ballet, Smuin Ballet, Boston Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, the Martha Graham Dance Company, Doug Varone and Dancers, and many others. Mackenzie has performed throughout the United States and internationally. After dancing professionally in New York, Mackenzie moved to Chicago where she founded Moonwater Dance Project and serves as Artistic Director. In 2019 she co-founded Take Up Space. You can keep up with Moonwater Dance Project on instagram @moonwaterdanceproject
Megan Rhodes & Mackenzie King
at Take Up Space 2019