JAZZ DANCE WORLD CONGRESS at the Navy Pier Skyline Stage and Pick-Staiger Concert Hall of Northwestern University, August 20-24 Hoots, howls, and whistles flooded the Skyline Stage when handsome, tuxedoed soloist Tommi Kitti walked into a spotlight during the Jazz Dance World Congress and proceeded to remove his shoes, pants, and jacket. But this was […]
Tag: Vol. 23 No. 47
Issue of Sep. 1 – 7, 1994
Posted inArts & Culture
Everyone’s an Artist
THE JEANETTE/GENETTI SHOW: DON’T MISUNDERSTAND MOLASSES Jeanette Welp and Carol Genetti at Link’s Hall, August 26 and 27 Performance has always been the Switzerland of the arts, a neutral place welcoming exiles from all media, no questions asked–the genre’s greatest strength and most crippling weakness. On the one hand, performance has provided a comfortable place […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Home
Home, a new 11-minute film by Ulrike Reichhold, opens with a shot of Reichhold’s hand–the camera is in her other hand–turning on a water faucet. The flowing water has the effect of setting the film in motion, and the dense collage of images and sounds that follows intercuts more shots, mostly black and whites of […]
Posted inArts & Culture
On Stage: new fat dogs of the avant-garde
Fans of international theater are sure to be delighted by Klown: Prick Us and We’ll Burst, the American premiere by the German satirical theater troupe Die Hanswurste (literally translated “the blood sausages”). The show, which opens this weekend at the Chicago Actors Ensemble, is a retrospective of the troupe’s best work from the last ten […]
Posted inMusic
Why I Love STP
STONE TEMPLE PILOTS UIC PAVILION, AUGUST 12 With the exception of Michael Bolton, Stone Temple Pilots are perhaps the most commercially successful critically reviled pop act of the new decade. Despite the reality–that STP’s sound combines grunge, acoustic guitars, heavy percussion, a punkish lead singer, and the kind of moody lyrics that sound like a […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Art of Living
Mathew Wilson and Eduardo Martinez-Almaral will perform for one week, no intermissions.
Posted inNews & Politics
Making the Streets Safe for Trees
Dear Reader readers: In response to Ben Joravsky’s July 15 article regarding recent concerns of some residents that isolated cases of tree leaf browning are occurring as a result of the City’s street resurfacing program, the Chicago Department of Transportation sought the expertise of one of the top tree specialists in the country to make […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Inward and Upward
ODILON REDON: PRINCE OF DREAMS at the Art Institute, through September 18 The Art Institute’s sublime Odilon Redon retrospective, organized somewhat chronologically, represents a kind of spiritual biography. Born in Bordeaux in 1840, Redon felt he had a miserable childhood: he was raised apart from his family until he was 11, probably due to his […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Rhinoceros Theater Festival
What started as a performance component of the Bucktown Arts Fest has taken on a life of its own: this is the fifth annual incarnation of the Rhino Fest, whose name is inspired by surrealist painter Salvador Dali’s use of the term “rhinocerontic” (it means real big). Organized this year by Beau O’Reilly, Michael Martin, […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Lumpen Speculation
Thank you for reminding me what a piece of crap Lumpen Times is [“The Panic in Wicker Park,” August 26]. I have to remember to tell visitors from out of town to pick one up so they can see what a proletarian pose, a slacker attitude, a near-total lack of journalistic skills, and Daddy’s money […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Six Women With Brain Death, or Expiring Minds Want to Know
SIX WOMEN WITH BRAIN DEATH, OR EXPIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW. John J. Condne III Productions, at the Synergy Center. In the semisatirical spirit of life-style musical revues like A Girl’s Guide to Chaos, Personals, and A . . . My Name Is Alice, Six Women with Brain Death, or Expiring Minds Want to Know […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Reader to Reader
It was the middle of the downtown lunch-hour rush at the corner of Washington and Clark. A policewoman stood in the middle of the intersection, barking out orders to drivers and pedestrians. As she tried in vain to keep traffic moving, a well-dressed middle-aged man, briefcase in hand, stepped off the sidewalk to cross Clark […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Wicker Park: What Do the Natives Say?
Dear Editor: As a former resident of Wicker Park who still works in this community, I found the Reader article “The Panic in Wicker Park: What’s Behind the Anti-Gentrification Backlash?” (August 26) to be a very illuminating analysis of competing neighborhood agendas. But, I wish the author had taken the time to interview longer-term residents, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Jazz Notes: return of the Underground Fest
With the Chicago Jazz Festival celebrating its 15th anniversary this weekend, it’s worth noting that the Chicago premieres of major acts like the World Saxophone Quartet, the Henry Threadgill Sextet, and David Murray occurred not in Grant Park but in the ever-changing locations that have housed percussionist/composer Kahil El’Zabar’s ancillary event, Underground Fest. This year, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Shellac
With all of the recent attention on Steve Albini, recording engineer (and Steve Albini, rabble-rousing Reader letter writer), his most important contributions have unfortunately gotten short shrift. With Big Black and later Rapeman, Albini set a certain standard for rock extremes. His musical achievements–adopting the brittle metallic guitar of Gang of Four’s Andy Gill and […]