SIDE STREET
STUDIO ARTS
Where Elgin Creates
EXPERIENCE GOING DUTCH 2026
Going Dutch enters its 16th year in 2026, continuing to celebrate and uplift female and nonbinary voices in the arts through performances, residencies, and community-centered creative programming. In 2024, Going Dutch expanded beyond its traditional festival format by adding a residency component, giving selected artists additional time, space, and resources to develop groundbreaking new work while deepening connections with Elgin-area artists and audiences. The residency series continued throughout 2025 alongside performances and special events featuring a variety of dynamic artists and creative voices.
The 2026 season builds on that momentum with new residencies, performances, and collaborative opportunities that encourage experimentation, artistic growth, and meaningful community engagement across disciplines. As Going Dutch celebrates 16 years — including its 10th year in downtown Elgin — the project continues to create space for innovative work and underrepresented voices to thrive.
The Going Dutch Festival is produced by Side Street Studio Arts with support from the Elgin Cultural Arts Commission.
NEW IN 2026
Tiny Encounters
New in 2026, Tiny Encounters is a series of intimate performances, pop-up happenings, and creative experiences presented as part of Going Dutch. Designed to encourage meaningful artist-audience connection, Tiny Encounters highlights experimental, interdisciplinary, and community-centered work in smaller and often unexpected settings.
The series creates space for artists to share work-in-progress performances, immersive experiences, conversations, and collaborative projects that may not fit within traditional festival structures. Tiny Encounters supports creative risk-taking while offering audiences unique opportunities to engage directly with artists and the creative process.
Like Going Dutch as a whole, Tiny Encounters centers female and nonbinary voices while welcoming a wide range of artistic disciplines, perspectives, and approaches from artists in Illinois and beyond.
Going Dutch FAQ
Q. What is Going Dutch?
A. GD is a celebration of the female and nonbinary voice in dance, music, theatre, and the visual arts. When Core Project founded Going Dutch years ago, we were looking for a title that was about singularity and individualism, as so many female choreographers (only at that point) were underrepresented and/or lumped into larger regional or national representations.
As Going Dutch has grown, expanded, and become a multi-disciplinary festival, the meaning has transitioned to represent the ideals of self-support, sustainability, and representation.
Going Dutch was originally developed to address the underrepresentation of female choreographers in the dance world. As the idea grew into a festival over the years, it expanded to include the work of self-identified female artists working in music, theater, site-specific, and visual art as well as dance.
For years, Going Dutch has been inclusive of nonbinary artists, both as applicants and within the context the creative groups involved in the festival. However, this support had not yet made it into our mission, nor our committee, but we are now doing just that. The 13th Going Dutch Festival was our first official celebration of female and nonbinary voices in the arts.
From the beginning, GD was about providing a platform for underrepresented artists, we honor that this term extends well beyond those who identify as female, and, in our current home of Elgin, IL, know that both female and nonbinary artists deserve this platform and support.
Q. Where is the Going Dutch Festival located?
A. The festival will be hosted in various venues in downtown Elgin, approximately 40 miles outside of Chicago. Check out a map of downtown Elgin, including where all our FREE PARKING is located!
GD COMMITTEE
Going Dutch Festival Committee:
Going Dutch Committee: Erin Rehberg, Jess Rocha, Luiza Moraes, Abby King, Sugey Mondragon
2026-2027 Going Dutch Artist-in-Residence: Nick Fortunati-Wallace
Going Dutch Committee Member Emeritus: Amanda Harris
Going Dutch Festival Crew:
Tanner Melvin, Erin Rehberg, Amanda Harris, Jess Rocha, Luiza Moraes, Nick Mataragas, Abby King, Abby Franke
