06/29/07

Crouching Tiger, Sexy Singles

Everybody Was Kung Fu Dancing
Fusion is an overused buzzword these days, with inconsistent results. But here's a combo that actually works: The troupe Chicago Dance Crash pairs Shaolin kung fu with contemporary moves. Imagine the athleticism of contemporary dance and the energy of a kung-fu flick-without any bad dubbing. The troupe's current production, Tiger Prawn: The Mountain Mover, tells the story of a girl who learns the secrets of the world on her journey to becoming a martial arts master. The show opens Friday, June 29th, and runs Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., Sundays at 3 p.m., through July 15th at Storefront Theater (66 E. Randolph St.; 312-742-8497). Tickets...

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06/22/07

Starry Nights

The Indies and the It Crowd
Film freaks get the best of both worlds this week: new movies from emerging filmmakers, and star-studded premières and parties-all part of the five-night Gen Art Chicago Film Festival, Tuesday the 26th through Saturday the 30th. Celeb-sighting opportunities begin with the fest's opening night, when Heather Graham (Boogie Nights, Swingers) attends the première of Broken, in which she portrays a Los Angeles waitress, at Music Box Theatre (3733 N. Southport Ave.); an after-party follows at The Notebaert Nature Museum (2430 N. Cannon Dr.). Then, Friday the 29th, Alan Cumming (The Anniversary Party, Circle of Friends) hits town for the...

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06/15/07

Theatre takes a literary-and havoc-wreaking-turn with 500 Clown

More Fun Than Lit Theory
Leave Jacques Derrida to the grad students; local troupe 500 Clown Theater presents two new shows that-gasp-make literary deconstruction fun (not to mention destructive). Both Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Shakespeare's Macbeth get the Clown treatment, a blend of improv and vaudevillian physicality. In 500 Clown Frankenstein, three clowns tackle the issue of social isolation, re-creating Frankenstein's lab, then destroying it. In 500 Clown MacBeth, three clowns compete viciously for the title role-yep, you guessed it-destroying everything, stage included, in the process. Both shows play at Steppenwolf...

06/08/07

Scour the city, Amazing Race-style, with Urban Dare

The Hunt Club
Remember the scavenger hunts of your childhood? Running door to door, desperately trying to find that elusive pipe cleaner? Great fun, but frowned upon after a certain age. Thanks to Urban Dare, a small-scale Amazing Race of sorts, you can relive that youthful pastime-or, at least, enjoy a slightly more grown-up version. Urban Dare's setup combines traditional scavenger-hunt elements with trivia questions, modern technology, and well, dares.

Here's how it works: teams of two solve clues to locate checkpoints around the city. At each stop, participants take a digital photo or perform a dare to earn a passport stamp before moving on. (A sample question from a Washington, D.C., version of the race, "Who was the...

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