Columbia College Chicago will display three panels of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt for the public to view starting April 30 and lasting through May 13.
The panels, which are part of the world’s largest community folk art project that honors more than 100,000 people who have died of AIDS-related causes, will hang in the lobby of the college’s Getz Theatre Center during its production of “Rent.” The Pulitzer Prize-winning rock musical by Jonathan Larson tells the story of a group of impoverished artists and musicians in New York during the height of the HIV and AIDS crisis.
With the musical being as “fun and popular” as it is, Jimmy Noriega, professor and director of Columbia’s School of Theatre and Dance, wanted to ground the audience in the tragic and historical context in which the musical is set.
This is a larger educational moment for students and the public, he said, and the production is “not just entertainment, it’s education.”
“[The quilt] is both overwhelmingly saddening, but also joyful, because it’s about love, honoring and remembrance,” Noriega said. “I’m hoping that as the audience interacts with the quilt and the show, they’re recognizing that these are acts of remembrance and acts of honoring those who can no longer be here because of this horrible disease and loss and tragedy.”
The quilt is a patchwork of more than 50,000 panels made from individuals and groups from around the country since the 1980s. Each hand-sewn panel commemorates the life of someone who died of AIDS-related causes. Over 100,000 names are sewn onto the quilt, and more panels are added each year.
Noriega was able to request the panels that will be displayed, and he requested panels dedicated to those in musical theater and dance. One such name is Alvin Ailey, the renowned choreographer who died of AIDS-related causes in 1989. Noriega hopes his panel will be lent to the college.
“Theater history is AIDS history, and AIDS history is theater history,” Noriega said. “When the pandemic first opened up in New York, it was centered in the queer community theater who were so connected to the New York theater world that we lost so many artists.”
He added artists and those in the theater world were also some of the first activists for HIV prevention.
The idea of the quilt was conceived in 1985 by activist Cleve Jones during a protest where he and others wrote the names of loved ones who had died of AIDS-related causes on placards and stuck them to the wall of the San Francisco Federal Building. Jones created the first panel for the AIDS Memorial Quilt in memory of his friend Marvin Feldman.
The quilt is held and maintained by the National AIDS Memorial in San Francisco, but each year the specific panels travel to schools, universities, places of worship and community centers for display. The entirety of the quilt can be seen online with the National AIDS Memorial online exhibition.
Daryl Brooks, director of the production, said seeing the quilt in person is so much more powerful than just online. He is excited for the students, public and himself to be able to see it, especially for this production.
“Being able to have this piece of history and see the power behind what this movement was, the power behind what the show means at that time, and the power behind of understanding just what they’re coming in to see is amazing,” Brooks said.