Going Dutch Festival 2025 – a celebration of female and nonbinary voices in the arts.

• November 8 – 9
• Side Street Studio Arts, Downtown Elgin, IL
• $10 per show | $30 Festival Pass; GOING DUTCH 2025 – SATURDAY | Side Street

Produced by Side Street Studio Arts with support from the Elgin Cultural Arts Commission.

Saturday, November 8 — All shows at Side Street Studio Arts

6:00 PM | Ambo Dance Theatre – Carmilla
Based on Sheridan Le Fanu’s gothic tale Carmilla
A haunting and tender reimagining of one of literature’s earliest depictions of queer desire. Through a contemporary feminist lens, Carmilla unravels how femininity, power, and autonomy intersect with desire, reclaiming the so-called “monstrous” as resilience and self-possession.

7:00 PM | Eileen Tull – Kassandra at the Top of the World
An exploration of the Greek prophetess cursed never to be believed, this solo work finds Kassandra on a mountaintop, bearing witness to the annihilation of humanity from climate collapse—at once mythic and urgently contemporary.

8:00 PM | Dance Showcase
A powerful collection of short works by festival artists:
Christine Hands
Ramya Ravi
kt williams + artists
ZBRI Dance Ensemble
Dani Oblitas & Ava Faber
Tiffany Lawson

Sunday, November 9

2:00 PM | Rachel Benzing – Memories in Motion
A one-woman, multidisciplinary performance weaving dance, spoken word, and visual art. This kaleidoscopic journey explores the way memory shapes identity, illuminating the shifting relationship between past and present self.

3:00PM I Jennifer Vosters – Songs Without Words
Songs Without Words is the humorous, heartbreaking, award-winning true story of one artistic soul inhabiting two very different artists. Featuring a solo actor’s tour-de-force performance as sibling-composers Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn, Songs Without Words wrestles enduring questions of gender and genius, family and fame, siblinghood and the power of art. No classical music knowledge required.

Tickets: GOING DUTCH 2025 – SUNDAY | Side Street

All events are held at Backspace at Side Street Studio Arts, 15 1/2 Ziegler Ct., Downtown Elgin. The space is not wheelchair accessible.

Workshop schedule to follow.

Please check the event organizer’s social media for all updates.