Dos Alas/Two Wings There’s an urgency to the social dances of the Caribbean that derives from a belief common among African religions: that music and dance can call forth the gods, or orishas. “From the harsh world of plantation Cuba to the mean streets of New York, the orishas allow the community to show [the] […]
Tag: Vol. 27 No. 49
Issue of Sep. 10 – 16, 1998
Posted inMusic
Leon Parker
LEON PARKER Jazz drummer Leon Parker has made a trademark of the stripped-down kit–usually just a snare, cymbal, and bass drum and sometimes less. (When he played with pianist Kenny Barron in the early 90s he used only a cymbal.) While his setup on Alive (Blue Note), the most recent album by pianist Jacky Terrasson’s […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Days of the Week
Friday 9/11 – Thursday 9/17 SEPTEMBER By Cara Jepsen 11 FRIDAY Though Willy Russell’s class drama Educating Rita took place in 1970s London, the Laboratory Theatre’s new version of the play is set right here in 1990s Chicago. In an adaptation by local playwright and director Michele Gerard Good, the sassy, street-smart heroine is not […]
Posted inFilm
Wriggling Free of Perfection
The Eel Rating *** A must see Directed by Shohei Imamura Written by Motofumi Tomikawa, Daisuke Tengan, and Imamura With Koji Yakusho, Misa Shimizu, Fujio Tsuneta, Mitsuko Baisho, Akira Emoto, and Sho Aikawa. By Jonathan Rosenbaum I’ve seen only five of Shohei Imamura’s 19 features, most of them so many years apart that it’s hard […]
Posted inMusic
Interpretation Breakdown
Liz Phair Whitechocolatespaceegg (Matador/Capitol) By Douglas Wolk “Marriage and motherhood don’t seem to have mellowed singer-songwriter/cult heroine Liz Phair,” the Boston Globe’s review of her new Whitechocolatespaceegg begins. “Now she’s a new mom, a mellow mom,” argues the Tennessean. “Motherhood hasn’t mellowed rock’s bad girl,” Newsweek claims, and Denver’s Rocky Mountain News chimes in, “Motherhood […]
Posted inNews & Politics
News of the Weird
Lead Stories Dickson and Cynthia Unoarumhi of London, England, told reporters in May that they believe they hold the record for the largest number of white-appearing children born to a black couple (three). The category will debut in the next edition of The Guinness Book of World Records. Possible explanations for the children’s complexion include […]
Posted inFilm
Reality in Reverse
Pictures of an Exhibition(ist): Films by Brian Frye Rating *** A must see By Fred Camper In recent decades film theorists have studied “spectatorship,” attempting to understand cinema’s peculiar power “to seduce, entertain, or otherwise appeal to its audiences,” as Judith Mayne puts it. Models for spectatorship have been proposed from philosophy–Plato’s cave has been […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Peter Pan
Peter Pan It’s no surprise that former Olympic gymnast Cathy Rigby flies through the air with the greatest of ease in the title role of James M. Barrie’s classic play; it’s what the diminutive, steely-armed actress-athlete does when she’s on the ground that makes this Broadway-bound revival of the 1954 musical version of Barrie’s fairy […]
Posted inArts & Culture
In Performance: finding new life in a murder
David Schein was sitting in a sidewalk cafe on Western Avenue near Belden, sipping a margarita and enjoying a warm July night in 1996, when a young man stepped out from behind a red truck. Schein remembers he was Latino, about 14 or 15 years old, with a shaved head. The teen was soon joined […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Petty Crime
August 1, 2:45 PM, 3600 block of North Southport. Public indecency. Police found man in gangway with black evening dress hiked over head. Passersby told police that man had been gesturing to them and shouting, “Look! I’m choking the bad chicken.” Police report stated that officers arrived “before the subject was able to reach his […]
Posted inMusic
Kahil El’Zabar’s Experimental Band
KAHIL EL’ZABAR’S EXPERIMENTAL BAND In his work as a nightclub promoter, arts activist, and artistic director of Steppenwolf’s “Traffic” series, Kahil El’Zabar tends to fix his gaze on the future. But in his latest musical project the percussionist and bandleader serves up a slice or two of the past as well. His new Experimental Band–a […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Reel Life: MacDonald looks back at anger
Scott MacDonald traces his calling as an acolyte and advocate of cinema to a brush with King Kong as a young boy in the early 50s. “Going to the movies was one of the places where you could get away from adults,” says MacDonald, an only child raised in heavily industrial Easton, Pennsylvania. “I went […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Rhinoceros Theater Festival
Rhinoceros Theater Festival This annual showcase of experimental theater, performance, and music takes its name from surrealist painter Salvador Dali’s use of the term “rhinocerontic” (it means real big). Traditionally dedicated to presenting new, sometimes innovative work by Chicago performing-arts groups, the fest this year also features artists from Germany’s Freiwild Festival; several programs feature […]