Between Monday, April 24, and Friday, April 28, Apichatpong Weerasethakul will again appear in person, this time at several screenings of his films (most on 35-millimeter) between Block Cinema at Northwestern University and the Gene Siskel Film Center.
Tag: Vol. 52 no. 14
Issue of April 20, 2023
On the cover: “Why you talking to a bum?”: When the very presence of unhoused people on the CTA is considered a public safety concern, who is the public, and what are we keeping them safe from?
Photograph by Kirk Williamson.
Find a print copy of the Reader.
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Posted inArts & Culture
Untangling identity
When Sarah Whyte was a child, her parents said it didn’t matter that she was Asian and they were white. What mattered, they said, was that she was their daughter. That didn’t stop adults from reminding her she was adopted, telling her to be grateful she’d been “saved” from the orphanage in China. Nor did […]
Posted inMusic
Dorthia Cottrell explores the horror and comfort of death on Death Folk Country
Singer-songwriter Dorthia Cottrell hails from King George, Virginia, a rural town about an hour and a half from Washington, D.C. Best known as front woman of underrated Richmond doom-metal band Windhand, Cottrell also makes solo recordings that recall the beauty and terror of the music of her youth—the folk songs she heard with family as […]
Posted inCity of Win
TheGr8Thinkaz elevate as teachers, healers, and artists
It was a cloudy March day when I walked into Classick Studios to conduct my next interview for this series on Chicago artists impacting their communities. I was greeted by one of the purest forms of hip-hop: a bevy of rappers freestyling together, rhyming to the classic instrumentals of Mike Jones’s “Still Tippin’” and the […]
Posted inFood & Drink Feature
Whisper no more
In June 2020, Raeghn Draper and Leah Ball founded the CHAAD Project, which stands for Chicago Hospitality Accountable Advocacy Database.
Posted inDance
Visceral Dance Chicago turns ten
Entering Visceral Dance’s new venue, a visitor is struck by its size and the care taken to design a space that suits the company that built it. Tucked away on Rockwell Avenue and nestled up against the North Branch of the Chicago River, the performance space is painted a stark black, with soaring ceilings and […]
Posted inArts & Culture
London Road centers voices of survivors
British imports are common enough on Chicago’s stages. The plays of Simon Stephens regularly appear at storefront theaters; Court Theatre will revive Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead next season; and Six continues its Broadway reign following its 2019 North American premiere at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. But it’s safe to say that Chicago audiences […]
Posted inOn Culture
At NEIU: a painful lesson in mission creep
A welcoming committee armed with signs and slogans gathered outside Northeastern Illinois University’s iconic El Centro building last Thursday, an hour before the university Board of Trustees was scheduled to meet there. “UNIVERSITIES ARE NOT BUSINESSES,” one sign read. “How much money have you spent hiring outside people to fire our own?” asked another. Buoyed […]
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In Motion: Deeply Rooted Dance Theater reveals itself as Chicago’s “best kept secret” as it looks toward expansion
“I keep saying, in this moment, I think we may be one of the best-kept secrets,” says Nicole Clarke-Springer, the artistic director of Deeply Rooted Dance Theater. The critically acclaimed Chicago-based dance company is beloved for its spectacular storytelling and world-class performers, but still, it’s often flown under the radar. In 2019, WTTW theater critic […]
Posted inArts & Culture
An ode to Black women
At first glance, Gio Swaby’s artwork can be deceptively simple. Her portraits are marked by thin, black lines that sketch the images of beautiful, confident Black women. But looking closer, you are drawn into a complex composition of stitched, knotted, and dangling threads and colorful appliqued fabric on a raw canvas background. Simplicity and complexity […]
Posted inMusic
Congolese street-party alchemists Kokoko! pressurize the Empty Bottle with upcycled dance music
On Kokoko!’s first and only Chicago visit till now, the Congolese group put on the most bonkers fun show of the 2019 World Music Festival. Decked out in their signature yellow jumpsuits, they moved like they were sunk in trance or electrified by emergency, and their bracingly cosmopolitan junkyard beats—which they call “hot temperature music”—had […]
Posted inGossip Wolf
Scene-powering fusion collective Cordoba celebrate a new album at Constellation
The members of Chicago jazz-fusion sextet Cordoba drive an inventive creative community with their many overlapping projects. Vocalist Brianna Tong, for instance, also sings in funky experimental ensemble Je’raf and punky trio Bussy Kween Power Trip, both of which also feature prolific Cordoba bassist Khalyle Hagood. Hagood, meanwhile, also plays in soul outfit the Devonns […]
Posted inMusic
Nate and Mike Kinsella take a turn toward electro-pop in the new project Lies
It’s an unwritten law that anyone who talks about a new musical project involving a member of the Kinsella family has to mention one of four Kinsella-related bands. First there’s the ur-group, Cap’n Jazz, which vocalist Tim Kinsella cofounded as a teenager in 1989 with his younger brother, Mike, on drums; the most recent reunion […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Tongue tied
The best way to approach “Tongue & Nail” is by starting with the artworks that inspired the ensemble. And you won’t miss them. Kat Bawden’s visceral microfilm, Tongue Tie, is playing on loop on Iceberg’s gallery wall. The black-and-white video displays a tongue, close-up and painfully bound by thin twine. Beneath the video is Tarik […]
Posted inMusic
Chicago punk noisemakers No Men will give you a reason to Fear This
When Chicago punk trio No Men issued their 2016 debut, Dear God, Bring the Doom, they proved to me they could hurl noise with crushing force. Their new third album, the self-released Fear This, proves that they can also make that bracing racket groove like hell. Bassist DB saturates No Men’s songs with thick, melodic […]