After School Matters, the nonprofit that provides after-school and summer programs for Chicago teens (while offering them stipends), presents Spotlight on Peace, a performance featuring spoken word and dance, including hip-hop, ballet, jazz, African, and modern, from young artists. The free program runs 3-4:30 PM today at Navy Pier’s Lake Stage in Polk Bros. Park […]
Tag: Spoken Word
Posted inMusic
Chicago jangle-pop group CalicoLoco drop their sharpest single yet
Since 2019, local jangle-pop six-piece CalicoLoco have been dropping singles whose smart, rigorous songwriting sensibility reminds Gossip Wolf of 80s UK indie-pop masters such as Prefab Sprout and Aztec Camera. Last month, the band released their sharpest single yet, the emo-tinged, radio-ready “The Bad Hair Day”—and it has to be the catchiest jam about fringe […]
Posted inNews & Politics
A silence louder than words
How allegations of sexual abuse exposed cracks in the foundation of Young Chicago Authors, Free Write Arts & Literacy, and the city’s spoken word community
Posted inMusic
Gustavo Cortiñas explores Latin American history, culture, and resilience on Desafío Candente
The third release by Gustavo Cortiñas, Desafío Candente (“Incandescent Defiance”), is an epic set of jazz and spoken word inspired by Las Venas Abiertas de Latinoamérica (“The Open Veins of Latin America”), an iconic series of historical essays by Uruguayan author and poet Eduardo Galeano. The Chicago-based drummer and composer invited more than 30 musicians […]
Posted inMusic
Celebrating women’s solidarity through culture on the gig poster of the week
This week’s featured gig poster was created by Chicago-via-Indiana photographer and designer Adeleine Prairie Sinsabaugh.
Posted inArts & Culture
Spoken Word muddies the issue of consent
MPAACT’s campus drama pushes some hot buttons, but casts an ugly pall.
Posted inArts & Culture
Survivors speak out
In its fifth year, Surviving the Mic continues to provide a place for survivors of sexual harm to tell their stories in their own words.
Posted inArts & Culture
A portrait of the artist
This photo of Harold Green and his handwritten answer to the question “What is it like to be a writer?” is an extension of my ongoing portrait project “Do you see me?” While you could label Harold a poet he is so much more. He is the creator of albums, videos, plays, and the architect […]
Posted inMusic
The Growing Concerns Poetry Collective ask all races to fight racism
Mykele Deville, McKenzie Chinn, and Jeffrey Michael Austin—aka the Growing Concerns Poetry Collective—tell stories for black folks that aim to reach everyone.
Posted inArts & Culture
Collaboraction’s Peacebook performance festival tackles an ‘epidemic of inequity’
More than 200 artists bring 24 short “prayers for peace” to Englewood, Hermosa, and Austin this fall.
Posted inMusic
A people’s history of Kevin Coval
Louder Than a Bomb cofounder Kevin Coval in the words of people in Chicago’s poetry, spoken-word, and hip-hop scenes whose lives he’s touched
Posted inArts & Culture
Comedy group Preach proclaims the gospel of spoken word and improv
The comedy group Preach is hosting a fund-raiser to benefit the Metropolitan Tenants Organization.
Posted inColumns & Opinion
Performance artist to Chicago: Get off our areolas
Bea Cordelia thinks the city’s liquor-license law has a gender-bias problem.
Posted inBlogs
Spoken-word artists try tackling community’s unspoken problem: Sexual assault
The poets who gathered Monday said that students have frequently been preyed upon by teaching artists in their community.
Posted inMusic
Tim’m West and the masculine mystique
Tim’m West has shown that there’s more than one way to be a black gay man.