Roscoe Mitchell’s New York-Detroit Connection HotHouse, June 10 From Louis Armstrong to Ornette Coleman, most of the major advances in jazz have been achieved by players in their 20s and 30s. But listening to elder statesman Roscoe Mitchell play rich and daring music makes me wonder what further surprises he has in store for the […]
Tag: Vol. 24 No. 37
Issue of Jun. 22 – 28, 1995
Posted inArts & Culture
Sykes and Nancy
Charles Dickens’s novels have been natural sources for dramatic presentations–you don’t have to know the whole plot of one of his epics to enjoy a character or episode from it. But the London-based Oddbodies, consisting of actors Paul De Ville Morel and Tanya Scott-Wilson, don’t simply perform passages from the printed page; they may incorporate […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Far From the Edge
The Hundreth Monkey Polo Brothers through June 25 Short Hair/Real Job No Limit Productions throught June 24 Will and Testament Fredric Stone through June 25 Chicago Fringe Festival, at the Organic Theater In a land where Hollywood producers can’t get enough of militant black leaders and multiethnic lesbians, in a land where advertising executives use […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Taste of Chicago/Chicago Country Music Festival
Taste of Chicago: In addition to all that food, Taste of Chicago offers free musical performances on several stages in Grant Park: the Fun Stage (Jackson and Michigan), the Fox Stage (Jackson and Lake Shore Drive), the Taste Stage (Michigan and Congress), and the Petrillo Music Shell. The first weekend’s entertainment is the Chicago Country […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Bodeco
When Bodeco’s Ricky Feather grasps his guitar and hunches over the mike like a pro wrestler waiting for his opponent, his band becomes something more than a hell-bent, primitive rock ‘n’ roll combo. Feather doesn’t just inhabit the group’s primordial grooves–a seething mix of bluesy Bo Diddley rhythms and swampy white-trash guitar undulations–he’s possessed by […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Tender Land
The Tender Land, Aaron Copland’s only opera besides a student work, is a midwestern pastoral tinged with sadness and sentimentality. Its plot, set during the Depression, is simple, direct, almost archetypal. A farmer’s daughter falls in love with a migrant harvester, and when he fails to keep a promise to elope with her she goes […]
Posted inArts & Culture
On Exhibit: Bruce Goff, architect in space
Critics and historians have had a hard time determining whether architect Bruce Goff was an eccentric or a genius. He began practicing architecture shortly after World War I and remained active until his death in 1982, leaving behind buildings and unrealized projects that were so highly personal they defy comparison with those of his contemporaries. […]
Posted inNews & Politics
News of the Weird
Lead Story Four Irish Republican Army inmates in Britain and the family of an inmate murderer in New Jersey have filed lawsuits against prisons for injuries recently incurred during separate escape attempts. In the New Jersey case, Giovanni A. Almovodar, 18, awaiting trial on a murder charge, died when he fell on his head after […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The 1995 Chicago Fringe Festival
Making its debut so soon after the demise of the International Theatre Festival of Chicago, this brand-new project seems to challenge the notion that the Windy City isn’t hospitable to events of this kind. Producers John T. Mills and James Ellis hope to succeed where others have failed by offering a more sharply defined image […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Wild Carnation
Wild Carnation embodies the best of American rock music from the 80s. That’s probably because Brenda Sauter, the trio’s singer and bassist, once played with the Feelies, one of the best bands of the 80s. Her new group draws freely from the Feelies’ bag of tricks, wielding briskly strummed guitars, propulsive meters, and understated singing […]
Posted inMusic
Africa Fete
Haiti’s Boukman Eksperyans has demonstrated an impressive ability to weather adversity. Last summer the group’s bassist Michael Melthon Lynch died of bacterial meningitis; antibiotics that could have saved him were unavailable in Haiti due to the U.S. embargo that followed the overthrow of Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Shortly thereafter the group found themselves stranded in the middle […]
Posted inNews & Politics
All Seats $2
Alex Kouvalis holds out at the Patio, a single-scren theater in a multiplex world.
Posted inArts & Culture
Small Dance Showcase/Cityfront Theater: Let’s Make a Deal/Gallery Opening/The Song Is Over
Fred Solari and John Schmitz’s Athenaeum festival will shine a spotlight on local dance.
Posted inNews & Politics
Cuban Connection II: Hush Money/Rosenbaum Gets Mellow/Damski’s Back
“They have a saying in Latin America, “It’s better to die standing than to live crawling,”‘ said Sandra Aponte. They have a saying here too. “Take the money and run.” Or from the boss’s point of view–“Throw a few dollars at your problem, and it goes away.” Hush money is by now a routine part […]