Along with the dominance of rational thought, Warhol. She plays older and younger versions of this woman. There’s a dialogue between thethere’s the proliferation of mediated images.Almost everyone is experiencing technology as puppet and the puppeteer that’s very unusual.the way images are impressed upon our sight, Or “Schweinehund.” Andy Gaukel is telling a wordless story about a man accused of beingso when you go into the theater and seephenomenal images in front of you that are not a homosexual in World War II and placed in a concentration camp until he is eventuallydigitally mediated it’s shocking. CGI is DANCE TOP 5 released. He’s using puppets and Bunraku.castrated from [holding] any real power 1Chicago Internationalbecause we know the bus didn’t actually flip He’s also using his hands and boots and film Puppet Theater Festival.over. But in the puppet theater, it’s in the same projection on a scrim to create a composite Multiple venues.The art of image, without any spoken word. It’s a very puppetry at theaters large androom with you and it becomes heightened small across the city for elevencompared to what’s outside the theater door. powerful and palpable telling of that story. days, featuring performers from around the globe who tell storiesAnd it’s just fun. If a puppet went down the Can you speak a little about the physical with life-size figures, paper cutouts and light through sand.street, everyone would look. relationship between the puppet and the January 17-27How did you approach curating the puppeteer? I usually write about dance, 2 Spectrum Dance Theater. about human bodies moving in space. In Dance Center of Columbiafestival? College. In “RambunctiousI respond to work that excites me, but I’m also puppetry, the body of the puppeteer is the Iteration #3–The Immigrants.,”trying to have a broad range of work that will source of the art, but less visible, or not Donald Byrd uses his eclecticreach audiences who are young and who are where the focus is supposed to be. approach to choreography In the period of time when the notion of “thing and the virtuosic dancers in hisold and… cynical. We have work for many company as vehicle for civic theory” is in the zeitgeist, even attributing a will engagement. Januarydifferent ages and preferences. Having silly 31-February 2 to the non-sentient material that functionspuppet theater and serious puppet theater, 3 Written in Water. Harrishaving technique-based work and traditional similarly to will in a sentient being. We’re very Theater. Ragamala Dancework. Puppetry comes out of two categories: aware the performer’s ego is part of the Company bring a fable of human foundation of bringing the object to the stage. quest for the divine throughthe sacred and the profane. Satire is in the South Indian dance, Sufi texts,profane. Things that are quietly moving are in But there’s a quality to the performance that is Hindu mythology and live music. fundamentally different if the performer is January 11-12the sacred. The form can easily move working with an object that is made out of 4 RE|Dance. Hamlinin-between. If you see “Manufacturing Park Fieldhouse. Michael foam, versus one made out of ice or paper. So Estanich and Lucy RinerMischief,” it’s a satirical piece. If you make a celebrate the ten-year anniver- the material world has an intelligence that the sary of their company with twolittle puppet of Donald Trump and you put it pieces performed over twonext to a puppet of Noam Chomsky that’s just puppeteer has to be able to translate and weekends, which togethergonna be funny. Whereas the sacred: “Ajijaak engage with. On the most simple level, if the reflect on the current state of puppet has been anthropomorphized, there’s affairs. January 10-11, 17-18on Turtle Island” when the turtle enters it’s aprofoundly beautiful thing to see on the stage. that. But what the puppet is made out of is 5 ECLIPSING: death very important and becomes part of the and transformation.So puppet theater is going to fit in those Links Hall. Trans and queer relationship the audience witnesses, between artists of color find inspirationcategories with a lot of nuance in between. and strength in moments of the human and the non-human. The non-hu- darkness, in this multidisciplin- ary performance festival.I read on your website that Chicago can man world has something to speak to us and January 31-February 3lay claim to the term “puppeteer.” it speaks in a non-human language; the 51It’s true. The story of the director who was puppeteer needs to be responsive and is theworking with the theater after World War I in translator or the ambassador for thatthe Fine Arts Building where we have our knowledge. For the most part, we humansoffices: her puppeteers, her performers at the turn to other humans to find out what’s going on. We might look to the natural world to seetime would be called showmen. And she what species we’re killing off or what’sthought, well, they’re reciting Shakespeare preserved, but it’s about how it effects us.and operating marionettes, this is not ashowman. So she combined the term puppet Mostly audiences will look at puppetry as anthropomorphized versions of themselves,and muleteer [or “mule driver”]. What’sinteresting is how the work that is happening but there’s more going on.today wouldn’t be possible without the coiningof that term. At the time, in 1914, that was the For example, this year Mocrep is not anthropomorphizing. Mocrep is a group ofModernist period when the puppetry we’reseeing today was hatched. Artists were using musicians who work with objects based onpuppetry in the theaters and cabarets similar musical scores. A lot of people would sayto what’s happening now. There was a strong “why is this in a puppet festival?” and those people shouldn’t see it, they should see Teatrointerest in the primitive arts at the time andpuppetry had a connection to the primitive arts. del Drago’s “Pinocchio.”Today puppetry is being used to make theater JANUARY 2019 Newcityand it’s not like it’s purely a hand puppet show What do you hope for the future of the Festival?or purely a marionette show. Today, all of a That it’s here in ten to twenty years. But wesudden a giant puppet could come into the only present every two years, so we’re lookingspace and that’s part of the vocabulary. to do more programming in between. We wantWhat qualifies traditional versus nontradi- to make audiences hungry for high-qualitytional puppetry? puppet theater. And demanding of it.Most of the stuff in the festival is nontraditional.A very good example is Plexus Polaire, whose The Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival at multiple venues. January 17-27.“Chamber Noire” is about the woman who Tickets: www.chicagopuppetfest.org.made an assassination attempt on Andy
DesignNewcity JANUARY 2019 Photo: Someoddpilot, Space Becomes You, Boys The Belief System for The immersive experience culminated with a Non-Believers dance party directly following the exhibition's opening night and featured DJ Fee Lion Someoddpilot’s Space Becomes You Is the Radical (multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and founder, New Cult You Didn’t Know You Needed Justina Kairyte), who spun her signature pop new wave electronica, while a computer-vi- By Vasia Rigou sion-powered camera would detect, track and provide a real-time image projection of the partygoers on the venue wall—a futuristic reflection of themselves amid neon colors and laser beams. “Someoddpilot was a song title from a the plane and taking us all on this ride. I guess But before this space-oriented experience came to its fitting end, one could wander punk band my best friends were in thirty or so I was asking that question then, and now with around the space and become a part of the 'Space Becomes You,' I’m still asking it.” interactive multimedia exhibition theme—a years ago, in high school,” says Chris futuristic landscape of “space colored” imagery (pale, iridescent pinks, blue-greens Eichenseer, founder of the Wicker Park design and off-whites) on the walls, complete with bright-blue painted potted plants, up- studio and visual communication agency \"Space Becomes You,\" Someoddpilot’s debut side-down smiley faces and in-your-face messages spelled out in neon text, such as Someoddpilot. “Everything for me starts with capsule collection and immersive art exhibition YOU CANNOT BE DELETED. the bands I was in or my friends were in. When opened in November in collaboration with Viewers are bombarded by what feels like a you’re sixteen and you just discovered how Public Works gallery, in an attempt “to fucked up the world seems to be and how construct its own unifying mythology both as a amazing it is at the same time, you wonder: commentary on and as an answer to today’s who is in control of everything? There are so political and cultural tribalism,” as they put it, many odd facets to reality, to time, to the and exists in three forms: a photography book, universe—there must be some odd pilot flying a gender-neutral apparel line and a short film.52
million questions: questions prompted by the mythology–who are you and why are youexhibition visuals, questions asked during the here? True for people, companies, bands, even political parties.” DESIGN TOP 5intense short film, \"YOU ARE FALLING 1 Someoddpilot: SpaceTHROUGH THE UNIVERSE RIGHT NOW,\" Soon thereafter, \"Space Becomes You\" was Becomes You. Public Works Gallery. The studio's debutquestions projected in a small, makeshift born. “With 'Space Becomes You,' we built capsule collection and immersive art exhibition is a photographytheater in the gallery’s back room, questions the ultimate mythology—not to sell anything book, a gender-neutral apparel line and a short film to answercoming out of an old-school television set questions such as how to makehooked up with headphones that invite you to to anyone, but to unify humanity. No small sense of your place in theanswer a printout questionnaire after you “sit task! Especially at this moment, when we’ve universe. Through February 22and listen,” as a small sign at the left bottom been divided by the rise of cultural and political tribalism. We waste a lot of timecorner of a small desk indicates, and debating the minutia, but from the planet’squestions from within—the type you never perspective, we’re all one. That’s what ‘Ourknew you’d ever be asked. “Who are you?Why are you here? Draw a line to indicate your Open Hearts Shall Change The World And Us’ is all about. Space Becomes You, Youposition on the following concepts: love,friendship, work, children, parents, humanity, Are Space. That’s it.”future, past.” On one side of that line lies Striving to tell a story born out of the brands“Freedom;” on the other “Fear.” that we consume, the gods we create, and“My dad passed away two years ago, and in the shared languages that mediate these 2 Serious Play: Design in Midcentury America.his last months I was trying to give him a forces, as the extraordinarily designed Milwaukee Art Museum. Last chance to visit the exhibitionperspective to frame life generally, something coffee-table book reads, is a psychedelic bringing together more than forty trip that examines the big questions myths designers to explore “playfulbeyond culture, religion, tribes,” says design” in midcentury AmericaEichenseer. “The only way I know how to start are based on. That’s what \"Space Becomes through a range of media You\" is all about. At the intersection of including furniture, toys, textiles,to answer ‘Who are you and why are you films, posters and ceramics.here?’ is at the level of the cosmos,” he adds. Chicago’s design, music and visual arts Through January 6 scene for twenty years, the Someoddpilot“As we began exploring this project in ourphotography studio, it was completely open to team contemplates valid questions.play—there was no agenda, just playing with “I’ve always thought: where’s the mythologyobjects, images, models and wardrobes to for the rest of us? For the progressive,build a world. Then we gave it a voice, and Iwrote–with the help of a European UFO cult— liberal, adventurous; for the new andwhat this world we were building believes in, uninitiated, for the non-joiners, the nonbe-and a year later when it was finished I looked lievers? What do we believe in besides 'Star Wars,' Obama, La Croix, a free press, and 3 Keep Moving: Designingat what we had done and thought: this is Chicago’s Bicycleexactly the book I would have given my dad, Whole Foods? Mythology is a powerful force Culture. Design Museum of in our culture, so powerful that it IS our Chicago. \"Keep Moving\" looks atto try to explain it all, before he died. 'Space Chicago’s contribution to the early culture. We all subscribe to several popularity of bicycles in America.Becomes You' is that—the belief system for Through February 15nonbelievers. It’s how to make sense of your mythologies at once, we are influencedplace in the universe. That’s why space is so beyond our understanding by them all. If we were to create the ultimate one, on the scaleimportant. It’s everything.” of the universe itself, with nothing butEichenseer attributes their success to the science and art and playfulness and nostudio’s nature—he calls it ”a hyper-collabora- unnecessary supernatural anything, what 4 Tour of the Chicago would that look like?” Cultural Center. Chicagotive, multi-faceted creative workshop.” And Cultural Center. Look up at the world's largest Tiffany stained-he’s right. Someoddpilot started as a This may be too odd or uncomfortable to glass dome, walk on the highly elaborate marble-mosaic floorsrecord label. “The way Someoddpilot has and attend one of the free publicchanged and grown... I didn’t see it coming. face or think about but Eichenseer is events and exhibitions during aWhen I started, I just wanted to make album unstoppable—and for good reason. ”Joseph free, guided architectural tour ofcovers. I saw album covers—and liner notes Campbell said 'The only myth worth thinking one of the city's top attractions. about involves the planet, not this city or this Wednesday-Saturdayand all the great pieces that come with a people, but the planet and everybody on it.'record—as art, one of the only types of art Despite the discord, we are much closer tothat regular people buy and own and touchand experience,” he says. “Our work for our acting as a planet than we ever have been before. This is the future. Well beyondlabel—covers, posters, sites, flyers—led toworking with other indie labels, then venues, genders, races and species even—totalthen a burgeoning editorial called Pitchfork. inclusion and unity. If stardust made you, itBranding them exposed us to global brands also made that fern and that rhino. Stopin a way I never saw coming. They were like thinking you’re special, or that you have the answer. The only answer is the universe,‘If you can speak to the festival kids, could 5 Handmade Market and whatever the hell it wants to do. Your Chicago. Empty Bottle.you do it for us?’ The opportunity to brand Features affordable, unique JANUARY 2019 Newcityand build worlds for large companies with a job is to just enjoy the ride. Reject fear, items handmade by local embrace the freedom you have! Open your emerging artists, designers,passionate following, like Patagonia, is makers and all-around creativeexciting. The shift has given us an extraordi- heart, there’s room for everyone, even the small business owners—annary perspective other agencies don’t have— people you don’t agree with it. Forget all opportunity to shop small and that other shit. It’s just noise. ‘Our open support our craft community.we never meant to be an agency, and we January 12, 27 hearts shall change the world and us.’approach it from an audience obsessedperspective: if you don’t mean something to That’s it,” he says. Short answer: “This is likesomeone, in spades, and you aren’t creating a radical new cult I didn’t think I needed.”something unique and mind-blowing, no one Public Works Gallery, 1539 North Damen,is going to show up. No one needs you,” through February 22.Eichenseer says. “Start there. And that’s 53
D&iDnirningking Dustin Drankewicz/photo: Garrett Sweet DINING & DRINKING Got Your New Year’s TOP 5 Resolution Right Here Drink More Scotch 1 Marz Brewery Dinner. By David Hammond Cantina Laredo. Kimski’s Won Kim and Marz Community Millions of us make resolutions. We break Where to Begin Brewing’s Tony Balestreri join The first Scotch I ever had was Johnnie Walker Cantina Laredo’s Daniel those resolutions before January becomes Espinoza and Damon Workman February. Many momentary resolutions have to Black and this is a good sip to start with. “If for a four-course dinner paired do with health: vows to smoke less, eat less and, someone comes in who has never tried with four beers from Marz Scotch, I’d likely offer Johnnie Walker,” Dai- Community Brewing. $50. perhaps most commonly, drink less. Those January 5 sies general manager Keith Whitten says. “This resolutions, admirable as they may be, are 2 Wanderlust Cocktail is a familiar brand that would introduce Class. Z Bar. Vlad Novikov doomed. leads an intimate interactive someone’s palate to the taste of Scotch. It has class focusing on the history and traditions behind rye Let’s approach this New Year’s resolution a tangy taste, dried stone fruit flavor on the vodka from Poland and the thing from a different angle. Let’s make palate, and of course a smoky presence.” Midwest, plus bites of salmon roe, sturgeon caviar and resolutions we can keep: “Aberfeldy twelve-year is a nice place to start,” mind-blowing bread. January 20 I vow, in the coming year, to drink more— says beverage manager Sarah Clark at The and learn more about—Scotch whisky. Dearborn. “Mildly smoky, but not overpower- 3“The Big Lebowski”. Angry Pig Tavern. This resolution is suited to the novice Scotch ing, with a hint of honey in the finish. It has a Three-course dinner with unlimited signature honey drinker, but it’s a resolution all of us will be more subtle, all-encompassing flavor profile that will bacon jalapeño cocktails and likely to keep than annual promises. And there’s appeal to a novice until that person does a everyone’s favorite little movie. little more tasting and narrows their flavor Arrive early to get extra White never a better time than winter to experience Russians for yourself. $30 preferences.” January 23 warming, smoky goodness. 4 First Ward Ball.Newcity JANUARY 2019 To help newcomers, we asked Chicago food It took me a long time to appreciate the Bassline. Shades of Hinky and beverage professionals what they would smokiness in Scotch, but as bar manager Dink and Bathhouse John! The recommend to an aspiring Scotch drinker. Dylan Seo at The Sixth says, “There’s a lot legendary debauche of the Gay more to Scotch than smoky peat aromas. Nineties returns for a blow-out “To some people, Scotch may be intimidating,” Scotch can be delicate, smooth and rich with event, featuring vintage says Eden’s Alex Rydzewski. “It’s often touted soft layers of flavor. This comes from both the cocktails, burlesque and as harsh, overly smoky and perhaps an malts and barleys, and from the stills good-natured naughtiness, acquired taste. Not a beginner’s drink.” themselves. One of my favorites is Bruichlad- staged by Atlas Obscura. $60. Let us work to change that perception. The dich Classic Laddie. This distillery produces January 25 Distilled Spirits Council reported earlier this year amazing Scotch, all sourced from farms they that spirits are showing record growth, so let’s are deeply connected to, and that comes 5 Chicago Restaurant learn to appreciate Scotch whisky. across in each sip.” Week. City-wide restaurants. Two weeks, 54 hundreds of restaurants all featuring a pre-fixe menu for brunch ($24) or dinner ($48), an excellent way to sample the city’s best dining, on a budget. January 25 to February 7
Head for the Highlands and thinks it’s just right for novices. “I always Or How About Irish? Smokiness is perceived as an inherent quality in Scotch, especially bottles made on the peat-rich recommend a Scotch that comes from a sherry Several interviewees stood in defense of island of Islay, the southernmost island of the Irish whisky. Inner Hebrides. That smokiness can turn off oak cask, such as Macallan twelve-year. The younger drinkers. blend of vanilla flavor and spice, along with the“A first-time Scotch drinker would be more right kind of smokiness, can open their eyes to “I personally like Irish whisky for its purity and comfortable with something less smoky or smoothness,” Douglas Da Cruz, Jr. of The Up peated,” says Walton Street Kitchen + Bar head what the best Scotch whisky has to offer.” bartender Alex Barbatsis, who recommends Room at the Robey says. “The triple distillation“either a good blend like Johnnie Walker or something from the Speyside region, known for Macallan twelve-year is also one of our very process that Irish whisky goes through provides their softer Scotches, like a Glenrothes or Glenlivet.” favorite Scotch whiskies, and it’s an excellent you that sensation.“ Scotch can be divided into smoky and not Scotch to give to a friend, young or old, But Irish whisky gets little respect. “It’s an smoky. Those produced in Speyside, in the Scottish Highlands, tend to be less smoky. Kirill experienced Scotch drinker or novice. unfortunate perception,” says Rydzewski. You Kuznetsov at The Loyalist counsels that someone new to Scotch “go for Highland New to Scotch? Maybe Have often see Irish whisky used for shots scotches like Highland Park Magnus or Dalwhinnie 15, both whiskies with more It in a Cocktail and cocktails, and it may be seen as a lesser approachable flavor characteristics.” A cocktail offers a smooth start toward Scotch spirit compared to Scotch, despite there being Scotch-loving, award-winning Split Rail owner many exquisite and refined Irish whiskies. Neither and executive chef Zoe Schor agrees. She appreciation. Modified by vermouth, citrus or would steer Scotch novices “toward something thousands of other possible ingredients, Scotch one is superior to the other, and they serve that doesn’t have an overwhelming smokiness, in a cocktail will be rendered less aggressive to different tastes and preferences. There are and has a little sweetness. My go-to is the certainly plenty of Irish whiskies that I would Macallan twelve-year, which is matured in sherry the untrained palate. oak casks. It’s got a sweetness to it, but it’s gladly drink neat and are just as fantastic as subtle, and it appeals to a multitude of palates.” Fifteen-year bar industry veteran Dustin many of my favorite Scotches.“ At Upstairs at The Gwen, beverage program manager Nolan Ruffing is also a Macallan fan, Drankiewicz, now at Swill Inn, agrees that it’s best for newcomers to sample Scotch in mixed “I think most people in the United States just drinks: “Obviously, a classic Rob Roy—Scotch, shoot Irish whisky or have it in their coffee, so it isn’t viewed as something to meditate over or Vermouth, bitters—would really play off a really savor,” says Vlad Novikov at Z Bar. “It’s a Scotch and mask the flavors that the not-so- versed Scotch drinker may find hard to swallow.” shame because there are great producers from Ireland. Redbreast is probably the best-known At River Roast, Ken Pritz goes with a producer of quality Irish whisky, and their Manhattan-type cocktail. “One of my favorite twelve-year is a great start.” classic cocktails featuring Scotch is a Bobby If you’re seeking to develop a greater apprecia- Burns, a Manhattan variation featuring tion of Scotch whisky, or even Irish whisky, you single-malt Scotch—I use Highland Park have to start somewhere. Vowing to drink—and twelve-year—Vermouth di Torino and Benedictine. It’s a rich and complex cocktail, learn more about—Scotch is a resolution you’re unlikely to break. It’s good to have goals. perfect for autumn and winter.”BOOZY MILKSHAKESDUCKPIN BOWLING ’50S, ’60S, ’70S DECOR & MUSIC2414 N MILWAUKEE AVE, CHICAGO, IL 60647 JANUARY 2019 NewcityPINKSQUIRRELBAR.COM | @PINKSQUIRRELBAR 55
Film FILM TOP 5 The 1 Distant Voices, Still Lives. Other Siskel. A 4K digital restoration of Terence Davies’ heartwrenching Side masterpiece of family portraiture and the human voice held high. The Compulsive Romance Essential viewing. January Of Pawel Pawlikowski’s “Cold War” 2 Cold War. Music Box. Swooping rhapsodies of By Ray Pride gleaming, elusive memories of a lifelong romance between “The brink upon which still life rests is I don’t want to dwell on influences, but mismatched lovers in Stalinist the brink of time, the edge of something “Cold War,” among many other cultural Poland and other seemingly about to happen,” the poet Mark Doty wrote. touchstones, very much reminds me of more conducive lands in Pawel Terence Davies’ “Distant Voices, Still Pawlikowski’s masterpiece. “Everything that we know crosses this lip, over Lives” and Jean Vigo. Opens January 18 and over, like water over the edge of a fall…” 3 The Owl’s Legacy.Newcity JANUARY 2019 Pawel Pawlikowski’s first feature since his Yeahhh… I mean, I like all of them. Vigo, the Siskel. (L’Heritage de la Oscar-winning “Ida” (2013) proceeds briskly, beautiful black-and-white of “L’Atalante,” for Chouette) The apparition of hypnotically, in the fashion Doty describes, sure. Once you have seen it, it stays with you. Chris Marker’s dazzling, weighty a gorgeous depiction of reckless, headlong, And one of the very first films I saw, not that thirteen-part television series decades-long love between a man and a it’s an influence, but my father took me to see considering the relationship woman in postwar Stalinist Poland and then “Zéro de conduite,” in Warsaw, at the Iluzjon between ancient Greeks and the Cold War era in other parts of Europe cinema, which is a kind of art-house cinema. Western society. Sundays and including Paris. They’re not made for each I could not make head or sense of it, yet it Mondays, January 6-28 other, and the world outside their embrace stayed with me, the images. But it was very only makes things worse. chaotic! “L’Atalante” would be closer [to this 4 Capernaum. Music Box. film]. [He pauses.] I never thought about it. Nadine Labaki’s post- The older Wiktor (Tomasz Kot), Gregory I was unconscious, I was literally eight or neorealist adventure featuring a Peck-handsome, is recording traditional songs something. My dad took me to see “Zéro de raft of terrific first-time actors, in the countryside, and later as the leader conduite,” and what was the other one we following a clever twelve-year-old of a chorus that celebrates this peasant music saw? “À propos de Nice.” I just remember boy who flees his parents, and but is eventually exploited for Communist [thinking] “What the hell, there is no story, to assert his rights, takes them propaganda. He meets the younger Zula who are these people?” to court for the crime of giving (Joanna Kulig, from “Ida”), who dazzles him him life. Opens Friday, January 4 with her features, a rowdy, even provocative But you know, when people… I’ve lived attitude toward career and a lovely, un- for a long time and seen a lot of films, and 5 Glass. M. Night Shyamalan schooled voice. The gorgeous, sweeping it’s all kind of jumbled up. When people mingles the Blumhouse story isn’t so much elliptical as a succession say [about “Cold War”], “Casablanca,” or cheap-and-dirty model with his of sensations, of emotional fragrance told in Tarkovsky or this or that, I say, yeah! I love past imagination, combining songs—so many songs in a movie under “Casablanca”! I love that kind of story. I characters and storylines from ninety minutes— and shimmering black- definitely saw it, I cried. These things stay “Split” and “Unbreakable.” and-white images. We spoke to the documen- with you, so does Tarkovsky, so does tarian-turned-fiction filmmaker before “Cold Bresson, some of Bresson. I can’t quite put Opens Friday, January 18 War” debuted at the Chicago International my finger where… but I am the sum total Film Festival in October. of all these films. On one hand, sentimental56
films and then on the other hand, formally The compacted storytelling style is a “Reds,” but you convey the sweep of theinteresting films and how these two things lives of Wiktor and Zula.meet. One thing I didn’t see the parallel with distillation of your work, and mostwas “La La Land”! “Oh, it’s like ‘La La Land,’ certainly “Ida.” There are crystallineit’s the Polish black-and-white ‘La La Land.'” instants like one’s own memories. You No. And then you have to explain this traumaIt’s not that! say you have distantly based it on the caused this, this situation… That’s reallyWiktor and Zula believe they areabove politics. They are not. They lives of your father and mother, but there boring! The experiment in the film was howare not isolated lovers. Politics keep is so much I’d call floral, not perfumed, much we can push the elliptic nature of it.punching them. like memories that rush. They are in I wasn’t totally sure I would take the audienceI don’t think they believe that. They don’t haveany intellectual distance from what’s going on. chronological order, there is an urgent with me. I wasn’t sure I would take as muchMaybe he does. But he doesn’t speak up,because he can’t. I don’t think they think in narrative, but they feel like memories of an audience as it turned out! [“Cold War”these terms, they just kind of live whatever ispossible. The margin of movement is very that pester, the things you lie awake has been a hit in Polish theaters.] That wassmall in Stalinist Poland, so they deal with it,adapt, conform or you escape. For her. It’s ruing or missing. How conscious is this the only kind of risk. We were on very safenot an issue, because getting into that folkensemble by hook or by crook, I mean, she movement toward elliptical storytelling ground emotionally and historically.cons her way into it. It’s the highest she canever achieve and she knows it. She’s very but extremely concrete imagery? And the oldest story, cinema as thehappy in that folk ensemble. Stalinist Polandis no problem for her, she’s gonna work. For Sometimes when you really are very familiar human face. A face like his, a face likehim, he’s from a different background, for him, hers, it’s a love story.he’s suffocating, artistically and just as a with your territory, it gives a certain freedomhuman being. He has to make compromises,he’s in a position of relative power, so he has to operate… the right steps are clear. You canto either make a deal with it or stand up for his let yourself go in a way and you know you’re Absolutely. I was looking for faces that werebest friend, which he doesn’t do. I don’t think on safe ground because emotionally, the film very contrast, blonde and kind of voluptuous,they think in these terms, to be honest. But was very much here. Nothing was contrived, the other tall and haggard and darker. Andpolitics definitely deforms everything, yeah. it was pretty much there. It gave me peace of both faces being kind of timeless, both actors not of today, necessarily. They work across the mind and calm to just shoot it with freedom and grace and not to intellectualize too much ages, those kinds of creatures. Somewhere in either, just to make it as expressive, as visual the back were couples like Cassavetes and his wife, Gena Rowlands. But it’s not that kind of and as musical as possible. I was on very story, it’s not that kind of approach, it’s gone firm ground, at least as the world and the characters were concerned. I really knew them. beyond that kind of vérité filmmaking. I would much rather work through images and pay The ellipsis is another thing. That was always attention to the couple differently. I want to going to be elliptical, because how do you tell create a lot of tension in the frame. It’s not just such a story without being boring and biopic-y. the camera serving the actors. You’re not making an epic in the style of “Cold War” opens January 18 at the Music Box. JANUARY 2019 Newcity 57
Live at The Book Cellar Storytime! with Mr. Scott Chicago Writers Association 164 North State Street • Between Lake & Randolph Award Ceremony January 4, 11am Chris Marker's January 19, 7pm PK Newby THE OWL'S“Food and Nutrition” Danielle Walker LEGACY “Eat What You Love” January 9, 7pm Greek thought in the January 21, 7pm at Artifact Events modern world The Kates! Comedy Night JAN 6 - 28 Marc Freedman January 11 and January 26, 7pm “How To Live Forever” 13 episodes in four Tell Me A French Story January 22, 6pm at DePaul Student Center programs Storytime in French and English Steve Dolinsky Orson January 12, 10:30am “Pizza City, USA” Welles: Komal Singh January 24, 7pm THE OTHER“Ara the Star Engineer” SIDE OF THE Greer Hendricks ARGUMENT January 12, 4pm and Sarah Pekkanen “An Anonymous Girl” JAN 25 - MAY 7 Local Author Night featuring Libby Hellman, January 29, 7pm 14-week series hosted by Rita Dragonette and Ava Black Jonathan Rosenbaum Susan Blumberg-Kason January 16, 7pm and Tiffany Hawk BUY TICKETS NOW at “Hong Kong Noir” www.siskelfilmcenter.org Sara Bliss“Take the Leap” January 30, 7pm at Sulzer Library January 17, 7pm Caleb Roehrig “Death Prefers Blondes” Storytime Dance January 31, 7pm January 18, 11am Kevin Curry“Fit Men Cook” January 18, 7pmGo to our website for event details, book clubs and more!Your Independent Book Store in Lincoln Square!4736-38 N. Lincoln Avenue, Chicago773.293.2665 • bookcellarinc.comCan an economy provide DEATH & TRANSFORMATIONjustice, e ciency andreal opportunity for all? “Yes!” says Henry George. The ideas were revolutionary DECEMBER 18 FEBRUARY 4FROM2018FROM 2018when written and even more applicable in the 21st century. TO 2019 TO 2019 FREE Find out more at our free introductory class. FEATURING: INTRODUCING PROGRESS & POVERTYPRESENTATION AUMAR • JARED BROWN • RASHAYLA MARIE BROWN • ASHON CRAWLEY • JORY DREW • JESÚS HILARIO REYES • Friday, Jan 11 • 1 pm Saturday, Jan 12 • 2 pm Tuesday, Jan 15 • 6:15 pm J’SUN HOWARD • YUN INGRID LEE • SUSANA PILAR300 Dodge, Evanston 3330 Irving Park Rd 333 S Wabash Ave #2700* DELAHANTE MATIENZO • JOELLE MERCEDES • PORSHA OLAYIWOLA • XITLALI SIXTA TARIN • ALIA WALSTON • PROGRESS & POVERTY RHONDA WHEATLEY • SOJOURNER ZENOBIA • ARIEL ZETINA ALSO Ten sessions – January 15 - March 19 • Tuesdays, 6:15 pm VENUES:AVA I L A B L E THE BREATHING ROOM LINKS HALL MCA COMMONS Classroom instruction, readings, videos, 3111 N WESTERN AVE 1434 W 51ST ST 220 E CHICAGO AVE25$ Includes all and discussion of how the economy works. NIGHTINGALE CINEMA FILMFRONT CENTRAL AIR RADIO course material 333 S Wabash Ave #2700* 1084 N MILWAUKEE AVE 1740 W 18TH ST WHPK 88.5 FM SOUNDCLOUD.COM/CENTRALAIRRADIO SPECIAL GUEST SPEAKER Thursday, FREE January 17DiaAgdanmoansSidcnhgPusrItelelsirn,cIorlliiinbso’iinsFgPisoacliacCyluSInrisectkitunteess 6:15 pm PRESENTATION 333 S Wabash Ave #2700**Events at 333 S Wabash Ave #2700 require free registration. email [email protected] or call 312 362-9302.Henry George School FESTIVAL SCHEDULE AND MOREPO Box A3603, Chicago, IL 60690 AT ECLIPSING.INFOhgchicago.org
LIT TOP 5 Photo: Ryan Edmund Thiel Lit1 Chicago by the Book: Stitched Together JANUARY 2019 Newcity How Literature Changed Chicago. American Writers Krista Franklin Discusses “Under the Knife” Museum. Liesl Olson, DominicA. Pacyga and Susan F. Rossen By Amy Danzer from “Chicago by the Book: 101 Publications That Shaped the City A work of art stitched together with collages, family stories and photos, “Under and Its Image” speak of authors, the Knife,” by writer and visual artist Krista Franklin is a limited-edition book published by artists and institutions who Candor Arts. This transgenre book includes library cards, a medical bracelet as an epigraph, influenced the city. January 30 a mammography and an image of Franklin in the hospital. I interviewed Franklin about her exploration of sickness, death, trauma, memory and forgetting, ancestral inheritance and2 Julie Hyzy and Libby the influences of music, art and film on her work. Fischer Hellmann. 57th Street Books. Thriller writers Julie Hyzy and Libby Fischer Hellmann read from and discuss their new novels “Virtual Sabotage” and“High Crimes.” January 123 In Deep. Women and Children First Bookstore.Angalia Bianca reads with Linda Beckstrom from “In Deep: How I Survived Gangs, Heroin and Prison to Become a Chicago Violence Interrupter.” January 104 Fresh Ink: The Questionable Narrator. 826CHI. “The Questionable Narrator: Writing Poems That Deceive in Order to Get to theTruth,” an 826CHI public writing workshop with poet José Olivarez. January 145 Story Workshop with Melanie Benjamin.Art on Sedgwick. Lessons from the New York Times-bestselling author of “The Girls in the Picture,”“The Swans of Fifth Avenue” and“The Aviator’s Wife.” January 20 59
What inspired you to make this book? some of the stories around the influences and What role does the body play in experiences that have shaped my sensibilities your work? My experiences with uterine fibroids, as well as the story of my maternal line—a focus of and aesthetics. It plays a huge role. My previous two books my work for several years. I wanted my mother and her sisters to write their story, but they Words, phrases, whole paragraphs of deal with the body, too—mine as well as other never would, so I wrote a ruptured, “hearsay” story of (theirs), which I tied in with my own your narrative in “Under the Knife” are black people who are under siege in this story. It started out as a straightforward memoir that I wrote on my recovery bed for often printed lighter than other passages. country. I consider “Under the Knife” to be the Some are even marked out. For those last in a trilogy on the body. My experiences passages, I had to get closer physically to on the surgical table have greatly influenced the book, which made me feel like I was my artistic considerations on the corporeal, as well as my upbringing in the Photo: Matt Austin for Candor Arts Pentecostal church, where I learned the body is a vessel, one that can be overtaken and, to an extent, puppeteered. It’s long been an intellectual and spiritual preoccupa- tion for me. “Under the Knife,” itself, is an actual body that’s been taken apart and stitched back together in a number of ways, much like my own body. In “Under the Knife,” you note that your mother warns “to not go looking for folks and digging up past family business, because sometimes you won’t like what turns up.” What was the process of excavation in writing this book?Newcity JANUARY 2019 about a month, and then I decided to take being invited into an intimacy, like leaning The process was about my own the narrative apart, deconstruct it, write over in to hear a secret. They also made me excavation. All of the stories are it, paint and collage over pages, redact, and feel like I needed to work harder to get stories I’ve been told since I was a introduce personal and family photographs. underneath that which was censored, to kid. Usually because I asked what learn parts of the story that weren’t given happened, and because the women Can you tell me how, when and why you prominence. That was my experience. in my family aren’t ones to mince decided it would be more a work of art words, they gave it to me raw. There than a traditional book? There are passages and ideas that I want the was nothing for them to be ashamed eye to be drawn to and there are things that about, so why lie? People are imperfect. They Essentially, it turned into an artist book after I got I want obscured and hidden. There are names make mistakes, they lie, they cheat, they drink to a point where I couldn’t write any more. I took I redacted to protect identities, including my too much, they fall in love with people who are the book to the cutting floor and transformed own. Part of the story is the paint, the marker, wounded and then wound. They fuck up, and it. I have a deep love for artist books, and the collage, and not the word. The seeing they win sometimes, too. have made a few. This one is special, though, and not-seeing of things is an integral part because it’s been shaped in collaboration in of the experience. How long has “Under the Knife” design with the Candor Arts team. been in the works? There’s a passage in your book where How did you determine its organizing your mother catches your grandfather It’s been in the works for over eight years, principles? with another woman, but rather than but it was written and created in about a get angry or accusatory, she just sees year and a half. It was mostly organic. But it’s been influenced him, they see each other. Would you by many things, including Jenny Boully’s “The say your treatment of the characters What was it like to work with Book of Beginnings and Endings.” It gave me in your book works similarly? Candor Arts? permission to embrace the idea of memory being myth and fiction, of time-travel and the The idea of seeing someone speaks to a It’s been a great learning curve working concept of “the loop”—things moving in a kind of understanding and compassion with Candor Arts. What I’m truly grateful for circular and repetitious way like time and mem- for brokenness and imperfection. One of is their dedication to creating the book that ory and legacy work. The library catalogue the legacies that my mother bequeathed to I envisioned “Under the Knife” to be when cards are another organizing principle. There’s me is to try to tell the truth of things—even I approached them. Their commitment to a card called “Death of the Hero,” and most of if it’s your own truth—regardless of how that vision is something for which I will the pages after that deal with my grandfather messy it is. Writing about those we love is forever be grateful. and his story, and there’s another card called fragile business. Writing about yourself “The Artist’s Life” and the pages after that tell honestly is even harder. What’s been the most gratifying part of birthing this “ten-pound baby?” The object itself is extremely satisfying. Candor Arts and I really made something remarkable that I think we can all be proud of. “Under the Knife” by Krista Franklin, Candor Arts, 280 pages, $12560
Music Bad Sneakers OrchestraMUSIC TOP 5 Tribute Bands When Art Imitates Art1 Sons of the Never By Robert Rodi Wrong. City Winery. No better way to kick off the Tribute bands don’t get a lot of media What they provide isn’t familiarity—it’s eternity. JANUARY 2019 Newcity new year than with the wit, love in this town. Given the sheer amount Paul McCartney is still writing, still recording, whimsy and wonderment of musical endeavor on hand, it’s an obvious still touring, and in his live sets he happily of Chicago’s beloved folk- call for critics to focus on acts that offer gratifies fans by performing Beatles hits. and-beyond trio… January 6 something new: original music, an idiosyn- But it’s questionable whether hearing the cratic style of performance or a singular point septuagenarian McCartney sing “Help!” or2 The Flat Five. Hideout. of view. The artists who move the art form “Penny Lane” has the same totemic power …unless you’re kicking forward are often most worthy of attention as hearing them performed by a McCartney off the new year with the and discussion. It’s easier to write about avatar who is expressly seeking to pull the hipness, heart and harmonies what the art critic Robert Hughes described audience down a temporal rabbit hole to the of Chicago’s beloved pop- as “the shock of the new” than to find fresh precise 1960s moment when those tunes and-beyond quintet. January 6 things to say about songs and sound worlds achieved world conquest. You can test out that have already been extensively dissected. this thesis this month, when California-based3 Lemon Twigs. Metro. Fab Four brings their Beatles tribute to the Long Island brothers Brian Still, it’s a mistake to dismiss tribute bands Arcada Theater in St. Charles. Or you can and Michael D’Addario resurrect entirely. Their presence on the scene isn’t a catch the decades-spanning Elvis Tribute- the gaudy glories of seventies fluke or an anomaly. Tribute bands wouldn’t Artist Spectacular at Skokie’s North Shore pop with more brio than many be here if there weren’t support and interest Center on January 16, or Hammond’s of the acts that originated them. for them. That ongoing interest suggests the Horseshoe Casino three days later. impact of artists like Elvis Presley and TheJanuary 25 Beatles is of a magnitude beyond what can But just as not all acts were Elvis and The be encompassed in the span of a single Beatles, not all tribute bands play on the4 Angela Hewitt. Harris lifetime. Even certain periods of such artists’ same mythic wavelength. Some of the other Theater. Widely acclaimed careers (Sgt. Pepper-era Beatles, Vegas-era ensembles on the January calendar—INXS for her near-definitive readings Elvis) crystallize into iconic, even epiphanic tribute band Kick (January 4 at House of of Bach, pianist Hewitt shows cultural touchstones, prompting a quasi-reli- Blues), Motown Nation (January 11 at Joe’s her astonishing range in an gious impulse to resurrect and revere them. On Weed) and Eaglemania (January 16 at all-Mozart program. January 26 In this scenario, tribute bands serve as high City Winery)—suggests these bands instead priests for ritual worship. (At their best, feed off generational nostalgia. More than a5 Chris Robinson they’re pagan lovefests.) spiritual urge to confront an aspect of near- Brotherhood. Thalia Hall. Southern blues-rocker Robinson has been at this a long time, but he and his band still grind out ridiculously infectious rhythms and harmonies. January 26 61
divinity, what we have here seems more difficult to duplicate onstage—one of the all, is “just to have fun,” according to guitarist likely, and more simply, the desire for the reasons Steely Dan was, in later years, Neal Alger; and no one more exemplifies this youth of past decades to gather together primarily a studio band. than front man Stevie Robinson, who is a and hear the songs they grew up with, creature of the stage in a way neither Fagen played exactly the way they remember But Bad Sneakers has its own titan of persis- or Becker ever was. Robinson delivers the them. The result may be jubilation, but tence in its leader, Paul Martin, who has made kind of high-voltage spectacle and sizzle that more comforting than transporting. the ensemble’s jaw-dropping authenticity (the sets Bad Sneakers at the opposite end of the high gloss of the recorded Steely Dan flowing thermometer from its famously chill paternal And there’s a third stripe of tribute band for like liquid crystal from the stage) by personally duo. You can feel the heat for yourself on whom the motivation is purely artistic. Steely transcribing the arrangements himself—from January 4, when Bad Sneakers Orchestra Dan tribute-band Bad Sneakers Orchestra the only incontestably authentic source: the hits FitzGerald’s in Berwyn. (whose name derives from the 1975 tune) records themselves. It’s a dizzyingly daunting aren’t trying to recreate iconic personae or endeavor; wading through those layers of Alger is also the member of yet another kind arena-magnitude magic; their goal is, more sound to suss out a chord in which a flatted of tribute band, which—unlike Bad Sneakers, humbly (and I think more ambitiously) to keep fifth might make all the goddamn difference to whose members are rigorously trained jazz alive the famously complex, sophisticated, the entire tune (like the single loose bolt on an players—is made up of seasoned rock uncannily difficult, yet supremely engaging airplane bringing the whole ship down) must musicians (Alger is both). Androgynous music of the ensemble headed by Donald require both a highly trained ear and a Zen- Mustache gets together periodically to take Fagen and Walter Becker from 1972 through like aptitude for patience. on a different band or artist; each member to Becker’s death last year. learns his or her part separately, then—ideally Which isn’t to suggest that Bad Sneakers’ with the benefit of a rehearsal or two, but Fagen and Becker were a rare mixture of performances are airless, museum-replica never mind if not—they come together to stir it both music-geek ambition and obses- duplications of Fagen and Becker’s recorded up for the public. Their Warren Zevon Tribute sive-compulsive perfectionism. As composers, originals. One of the most revealing things debuts at Space in Evanston on January 23. they kept giving themselves, as performers, about a Bad Sneakers performance— hugely daunting challenges that required though it’s something that wouldn’t surprise Androgynous Mustache is as congenial as Olympian measures of diligence and applica- a classical-music enthusiast who knows the Bad Sneakers is wizardly; and again—as with tion. In his monograph on the band’s master- leagues of variance possible in the same all the bands I’ve mentioned above—though piece, “Aja,” Don Breithaupt describes a Bach cantata played by two temperamentally the driving forces behind them may be different, recording process in which lilting spontaneity different ensembles—is that Bad Sneakers and the pleasures to be had from them equally was achieved only by hours of painstaking gets all the chordal complexities right, abso- so, it’s all pleasure still. Here’s hoping the meticulousness—a macro effect from mi- lutely nails the sleek, clean, summit-of-the- original artists, from whatever plane they may or cro-methodology. This kind of control, labori- seventies sound, and still manages to be may not be looking on, recognize a tribute for ously achieved in the studio, is fiendishingly entirely its own thing. The players’ goal, after what it’s worth, which, it turns out, is quite a lot.Newcity JANUARY 2019 THE HANGAR at Fort Knox Studios 7,200 square feet of flexible production space and all of the resources needed for your creative project. A truly integrated space for film, video, music, photography and special events. For more information call (630) 689-6969 62
StageDramain theDetailsDramaturgs DescribeTheir Dream ProjectsBy Kevin GreeneChances are that you don’t give From top left, clockwise: Maren Robinson, Jared Bellot, Skyler Gray and Zoe Bendittenough thought to dramaturgs,unless you are one. As a critic, waiting to work on. I do have a dramaturgical I am also a photographer and I am particularly JANUARY 2019 NewcityI feel a kindred spirit with them, thread of ideas I have been obsessed with interested in that moment when you make eyealthough it’s a comparison that that I would love to see coalesce into a project. contact with a wild creature: that moment oflikely flatters me more than them. I have been thinking a lot about Marjory mutual recognition with a fellow creature. It isPart of a dramaturg’s job is to Stoneman Douglas, the woman for whom the the same thing we strive for in theater, creatingconvey context, from the shade school in Parklands, Florida was named. She for audiences that moment of recognitionof purple on the fringe of a robe was a suffragist, civil rights activist and spent that brings about a greater understanding thatin ancient Greece to the regional the last thirty years of her life fighting to protect stretches our empathy. I’d love to work on avariations of trap producers. the Florida Everglades from development. The piece of site-specific, environmental theaterIt’s this context that audience echoes of her activism in the activism in the that puts an audience into contact both withmembers, including writers like students at the school that bears her name the human impact on our planet particularlymyself, pick up on, sometimes are not lost on me. Nor is the fact that the for communities of color, but also invitesselectively, often unconsciously, Everglades protect against flooding during an audience to experience that momentthough always in a way that massive hurricanes and rain events, events of recognition with nature, with our fellowcreates a full sensorial experience. that are increasing because of climate change. creatures (who would likely be projections). I’dIf everything that can be I’d love to tie the threads of these activisms love to create that radical empathy in a play;perceived in the theater is a to the current environmental justice movement. it might involve Marjory Stoneman Douglas.choice, then it’s a dramaturg’sjob to make sure that thosedecisions adhere to the underly-ing logic of the piece. Think of them asmanagers of artistic and intellectual cohesion.And while they are ever-attentive to the needsof others, dramaturgs naturally harbor dreamsof their own.Maren RobinsonResident Dramaturg,TimeLine Theatre CompanyDramaturgs are often viewed solely asresearchers or supporters of a play, butdramaturgy is more about making connectionsbetween things and following the threadsof a narrative with empathy. I don’t have aparticular play that I have been secretly 63
Newcity JANUARY 2019 STAGE TOP 5 Jared Bellot Why not food in a theater space? I’m not talking about dinner theater. 1 I Call My Brothers. Interrobang Education Manager, I want to create theater where the Theatre Project. Balancing paranoia Steppenwolf Theatre Company actors sit down with the audience and humor, Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s and everyone eats at the same table. nuanced account dares us to question our There is nothing more exciting to Or a performance that culminates perceptions and prejudices while offering a me than being able to sit down, nerd with onstage empanadas and the singular and harrowing take on the labyrinth out, and get lost down a deep, audience is welcome to come eat. of global identity politics. Opens January 7 deep rabbit hole of cultural context Maybe it’s a production that tours and historical complexities. This to homeless shelters, combining 2 Cardboard Piano. TimeLine summer, I started getting super food and theater to nourish the Theatre Company. The Chicago excited about taking the ten plays audiences’ bodies and spirits. I’d premiere of the breakout hit of 2016’s of August Wilson’s “Pittsburgh Cycle” also be down with a play about Humana Festival of New American Plays, (his series of plays that charts the Trader Joe’s. Some kind of shared Hansol Jung’s powerful story of faith, love African-American experience experience between the actors, the and the human capacity for forgiveness is throughout the twentieth century, audience and food: that’s what I set amidst violent conflict in northern with each play focusing on a different want to create. Food gets me excited Uganda. Opens January 16 decade) and remixing them together because it’s all about community, and to create one epic (in length and community is what excites me about 3 Red Rex. Steep Theatre. The scope) piece of theater chronicling theater. I love creating work that second of three world premieres the full scope of the African-American engages and builds community, that from Ike Holter scheduled for the 2018-19 experience throughout the twentieth constructs a space where people season follows an ambitious theater century. Think the Hypocrites’ “All feel welcome and represented. company whose attempts at breaking big Our Tragic” meets August Wilson: Food celebrates community. It’s an are challenged when the ensemble realizes “All Our August,” if you will. The elemental distillation of culture, family, the source material of their explosive new stories themselves aren’t all tradition and love. Food, like theater, play might not be as original as they had connected in the sense of one serial is about connecting and teaching assumed. Opens January 24 narrative, but over the course of the as much as it’s about learning and plays, we see characters appear, listening. My dream dramaturgy 4 In the Blood. Red Tape Theatre. disappear and reappear at different project would also incorporate Suzan-Lori Parks’ provocative riff stages of their lives, and future collaborative new play development on “The Scarlet Letter” is an unflinching generations reference ancestors and with lots of rehearsal snacks. look at how we judge each other, how familial history that we’ve learned we separate from each other and how about in earlier plays. There is so Skyler Gray we determine what is “otherness.” much to dive into here and have fun with from a dramaturgical perspec- Director of New Play Develop- Opens January 25 tive. Costume-wise, what does it ment, Victory Gardens Theater mean to track a family’s fabric pattern 5 Photograph 51. Court Theatre. through the different style silhouettes As far as new play development The work of British chemist Rosalind of the twentieth century? What story goes, there isn’t a dream project Franklin, who provided the key to the does that journey tell visually? I get in terms of message, theme, style DNA double helix discovery, is the subject endlessly excited by the idea of or form because my work as a of Anna Ziegler’s complex story of an listening to the evolution of one-hun- dramaturg is always focused on ambitious female scientist in a world of dred years of African-American supporting the vision of the writer. men, her pursuit of the secret of life musical traditions from jazz to disco There is, however, a dream process and her forgotten accomplishments. to hip-hop, and thinking about the that is made up of two parts. Most ways in which that sonic trajectory importantly, it begins with a project Opens January 26 gives us a sense of world and of passion, honesty and ambition in culture. I love the idea of exploring which a writer is looking for a partner 64 generational inheritance: what we to help them realize their vision as inherit from those who come before they bring it to life. It is a piece in us, and how that handing down of which the artist intertwines their culture, story and tradition informs personal style and structural ambition our understanding of our own history. as they explore our world and the So much American culture happens people in it. It is a work that dives during this time, and what better into the complexity and resiliency of way to interrogate that history than the human spirit with honesty and through theater? urgency. It is a project that gives voice to the voiceless, and makes Zoe Benditt us look at who we are, how we got here, and where we are going. The Dramaturg, “Fun Harmless second part of the dream project, Warmachine” at The New Colony which is truly vital, is working with the writer at an institution that values My dream dramaturgy project the creative process and creates involves food. Food is such a perfect a nurturing space to take risks. So conduit for creating community, while the dream project can come something I love that theater also in many forms and explore a myriad does. Think of all the spaces where of themes, it is the blend of a great food creates a communal experi- idea and supportive environment ence: the family dinner table, a dinner (and a lot of coffee) that will forever party with friends, trying the new be the winning combination. Peruvian restaurant down the street.
A world premiere by Isaac Gomez JOIN US FOR ONE OF Directed by ensemble member THE MOST THRILLING Sandra Marquez BROADWAY MUSICALS Featuring an all female, OF ALL TIME all-Latinx cast MAY JUNE ,“Chicago has come to know[Gomez] for the incredible ..young playwright he is… LYRICOPERA.ORGleaving his mark by cultivatingthoughtful conversations A coproduction of Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera, and Glimmerglass Festival.and art everywhere he goes” Lyric premiere of Bernstein’s West Side Story generously made possible by Lead Sponsor - Newcity The Negaunee Foundation and cosponsors an Anonymous Donor, Randy L. and Melvin R. Berlin, Robert S. and Susan E. Morrison, Mrs. Herbert A. Vance and Mr. and Mrs. William C. Vance,steppenwolf.org | 312-335-1650 and Northern Trust. Major in-kind audio support provided by Shure Incorporated. BERNSTEIN SONDHEIM
Newcity JANUARY 2019 Life is BeautifulBy David Alvarado66
Logan CenterFamily SaturdaysFirstSaturdayof theMonthJan–Jun2019FREE Explore your child’s artistic curiosity with hands-on art workshops designed to stimulate creativity and play. These interdisciplinary workshops are exciting for the entire family, offering activities from music to arts and crafts. Come learn something new!arts.uchicago.edu/familysaturdays Logan Center Appropriate for families with773.702.ARTS for the Arts children ages 2-12. Registration is 915 E 60th St encouraged. Free parking in lot at LoganCenterCommunity Arts 60th and Drexel.
1 231 MCA STAGE: 2 WEST BY 3 MARISOL MCACHICAGO.ORG/LOOKINGRI FIKSDAL MIDWESTAND JONAS CORELL NOV 17, 2018 RESTAURANT AND BAR AT #MCAMadeYouLookPETERSEN —JAN 27, 2019 THE MCA OPEN LATE UNTIL 9 PM TUESDAYS AND FRIDAYS RESTAURANT WEEK FREE FOR YOUTH 18 AND UNDERSTATE Amanda Ross-Ho and Allen Ruppersberg, SPECIAL MENU The Meaning of Plus and Minus, 2011. © Al CMCohunicsteaeugmmopoofrary ArtFEB 7–10, 2019 Ruppersberg and Amanda Ross-Ho. Courtesy DETAILS AT of the artists; Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New MARISOLCHICAGO.COMPhoto © Anders Lindén. York; and Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago. Photo: John Neil Burger.
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