Bembeya Jazz formed back in 1961 in Beyla, a small village in southeastern Guinea. Having grown extremely popular throughout the country, in 1965 it became one of the first bands to receive state sponsorship under president Sekou Toure. The following year the group relocated to Conakry, the nation’s capital, where it played up to six […]
Tag: Vol. 32 No. 48
Issue of Aug. 28 – Sep. 3, 2003
Posted inNews & Politics
Datebook
AUGUST 29 FRIDAY Chicago artist Yvette Kaiser Smith says her crocheted fiberglass sculptures are abstract representations of a theme she started exploring a year ago: the influence of groups on the individual. Using a standard crochet hook and traditional patterns, she constructs what she sees as “narratives of identity” from spools of fiberglass roving. Community […]
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Art people: the Good Book gets a new look
Fundamentalists might balk at Lauren Weinstein’s depiction of Moses as a googly-eyed, bulbous-nosed being descending from the heavens in a swirl of multicolored crayon to deliver the Ten Commandments unto the Israelites with a cry of “Hey, buddies!” But such interpretative liberties are central to the mission of the Flaming Fire Illustrated Bible. The year-old […]
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On Stage: the almost-glorious story of Lithuania
In 1983 Kestutis Nakas was on the verge of giving up acting, even though he’d been landing occasional roles in TV commercials and soaps. “I wasn’t working enough,” says Nakas, who was living in New York at the time. “But then I said, ‘I’m going to do one more thing before I quit.’” He decided […]
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The Straight Dope
If nuclear fallout takes thousands of years to dissipate, how did the Japanese return to Hiroshima and Nagasaki three months after the nuclear bombs exploded? Doesn’t the area stay radioactive and uninhabitable for thousands of years? –Dawna Boehmer, via the Internet Not necessarily, obviously. As nuclear explosions go, the blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were […]
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Burning Blue
Burning Blue, Circle Theatre. You might expect a play about a witch hunt for homosexuals in the navy to be progressive, but this 1998 script is thoroughly unenlightened. Though playwright D.M.W. Greer has firsthand knowledge of military life, his script is pat rather than penetrating. And the authorial point of view must be terribly lopsided […]
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Judgment at Nuremberg
In the latest proof of the city’s enlightened stewardship of the arts, the newly refurbished Loop Theater is hosting a revival of Louis Contey’s riveting Shattered Globe Theatre production. A drama of judges judging judges set in 1948, Abby Mann’s play gets more relevant with every headline: in Nazi Germany, civil rights were sacrificed for […]
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Calendar
Friday 8/29 – Thursday 9/4 AUGUST 29 FRIDAY Self-described “fermentation fetishist” Sandor Ellix Katz got hooked on live-culture foods ten years ago, after he found an old crock in his barn, grabbed some cabbage from the garden, and made his first batch of sauerkraut. Katz, who has AIDS, claims that fermented foods such as sourdough […]
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Tests of Time
Alva Maxey-Boyd of Prairie Avenue fended off the bulldozers of one Daley, only to be honored by another.
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Pistol Opera
Japanese director Seijun Suzuki has called this 2001 feature a sequel to his 1967 stylistic exercise Branded to Kill. But that was a hit-man thriller in black and white; this is a sensual explosion in color, a surreal, deliriously balletic pop fantasy that defies most forms of narrative description. Shot for shot, it ranks as […]
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The Ex
I can’t think of a more intrepid band of collaborators than the Ex. Already this year the Amsterdam-based quintet have toured with English saxophonist John Butcher, Congolese thumb-piano ensemble Konono, and French sound poet Anne-James Chaton. Over the years they’ve recorded with Sonic Youth, Tortoise, Kurdish folk singer Brader Musiki, Belgian comedians Kamagurka and Herr […]
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This Little Piggy
Everybody has limits. Porn star Brian-Mark just hasn’t found his yet.
Posted inArts & Culture
A Clean, Well-Lighted Place
A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, Raven Theatre. Ernest Hemingway’s stories tend to disappear under the tall shadow cast by his novels, but his short fiction upholds his reputation as a man of action–partly because of the writing. The stories read like plays, long on naturalistic dialogue and short on exposition. And director Teri McCaskill recognizes the […]
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TRG Music Listings
Rock, Pop, Etc. Concerts AEROSMITH, KISS, SALIVA Sat 9/6, 7 PM, Alpine Valley Music Theatre, Highway D & Highway 120, East Troy, Wisconsin. 262-642-4400 or 312-559-1212. JON B. Fri 9/5, 7:30 and 10:15 PM, DuSable Museum of African American History, 740 E. 56th Pl. 773-947-0600. TONY BENNETT Sat 8/30 and Sun 8/31, 8 PM, Pavilion, […]