PURE GENIUS The 2004 MacArthur grantee and ragtime guru Reginald R. Robinson
(that’s him at the piano) is just one of the creative forces behind the Old Town
School of Folk’s Keep a Song in Your Soul.
THE FIVE
Don’t-miss picks for Wed 11.02.11 through Tue 11.08.11:
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theatre Keep a Song in Your Soul ALSO THIS WEEK: And so it begins: Kick off holiday season 2011 with The Nutcracker—not the one with sugarplums in toe shoes but The House Theatre’s irreverent musical with a great song about cookies. Previews start 11/3 at Chopin Theatre. |
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lit/lectures Chicago Humanities Festival ALSO THIS WEEK: Reeling, the world’s second-oldest gay and lesbian film fest, opens its 30th year with Chicagoan Stephen Cone’s The Wise Kids, a coming-of-age flick that won jury prizes for best U.S. dramatic feature and best screenplay at LA’s Outfest earlier this year. Also rolling into town: the Bicycle Film Festival, with movies in Logan Square Auditorium and a BMX barbecue jam in the Logan Square Skatepark. And behind door number 3: Longtime favorite Piece Brewery and local newcomer Finch’s Beer Company join more than 100 craft brewers tapped to pour at the second annual Beer Hoptacular. |
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new music A Winged Victory for the Sullen ALSO THIS WEEK: For stargazers and Kubrick fans, Chicago Sinfonietta plays a gig as infinite as space itself on 11/5: Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra, a.k.a. the opening theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and excerpts from Michael Gandolfi’s The Garden of Cosmic Speculation. Newberry Consort covers the other end of the timeline 11/4–6 with an ode to the 13th-century illuminated manuscript Cantigas de Santa Maria, and Sergey Khachatryan—who, at 26, has nabbed a handful of prestigious violin prizes—plays the U. of C.’s Mandel Hall with his siter, Lusine, 11/4. |
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dance Lucky Plush Productions ALSO THIS WEEK: Rasta Thomas started his all-male Bad Boys of Dance to make the ultimate statement about dancers as athletes. We’ll entertain any statement he wants as long as we can watch his troupe of guys soaring and flexing 11/5–6 at the Auditorium Theatre. Meanwhile, River North Dance Chicago unleashes Daniel Ezralow’s Super Straight Is Coming Down, a furiously angular explosion of daily-grind angst, 11/4–5 at Harris Theater. |
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pop Lucinda Williams ALSO THIS WEEK: Speaking of signature voices, you can still snag seats for the breathiest of all, Feist, when she plays the Riviera 11/4. Or catch the storied Blind Boys of Alabama, with Nickel Creek’s Sean and Sara Watkins, 11/5 at FitzGerald’s. |
WHAT I’M DOING THIS WEEKEND
Naomi Beckwith
Up next in our series of weekend plans from notable, in-the-know locals—a.k.a. people we like: Naomi Beckwith, a native Chicagoan who left the Studio Museum in Harlem this past May to join the curatorial team at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art. Catch her leading a discussion with the multimedia artist Siebren Versteeg at the MCA 11/5 as part of the Chicago Humanities Festival.
“On Friday morning, I’m going by a new project—literally New Projects—at IIT. It’s been put together by a friend of mine, Marshall Brown. He teaches architecture and urban planning at IIT and has been doing all this theory around it for years. Now he finally has his own space where he can show projects and [invite] friends and other thinkers who are working through similar concepts.
“And I’ll probably get dinner with some friends. I would love to get to Vivo on Randolph Street, because they have their 20th anniversary menu. Also, my sister is having a baby soon, so I’m going baby shopping for her. I’m hoping to check out this spot called Psycho Baby, which I haven’t been to yet. I’m really hyped to go there—it’s supposed to be for hip moms.
“Sunday evening I’m participating in this salon conversation called America: Now and Here. It’s a project created by the artist Eric Fischl to engage people around the country in conversations about the status of democracy now—and the stake of artists and cultural workers in these conversations. This one is at a private home, but a few of these salons are happening around the city and nationally this weekend.” –As told to Jennifer Swann
FREEBIES OF THE WEEK
folk Jolie Holland
We would pay to see her, but we’ll happily line up to hear this border-crossing country-blues-jazz chanteuse free when she helps celebrate the release of the new issue of Poetry.
GO: 11/3 at 7; doors open at 6. Capacity is limited to the first 125. Poetry Foundation, 61 W Superior. poetryfoundation.org
museums DÍa de Muertos XXV
When the National Museum of Mexican Art unveiled its first Day of the Dead display in 1986, some Chicagoans were so unfamiliar with the holiday they assumed the skeleton-bedecked ofrenda was a Halloween decoration. In the years since, locals have come to anticipate the day with equal parts reverence and glee—thanks, largely, to this Pilsen institution. Events on 11/2 include sugar-skull-making demos and a community party from 4 to 7.
GO: Exhibit continues through 12/11. Open Tue–Sun 10–5. NMMA, 1852 W 19th. nationalmuseumofmexicanart.org
jazz Umbrella Music Festival
This annual ode to improvisational jazz kicks off with European Jazz Meets Chicago, two free nights wherein a host of our city’s finest do the exchange student thing, playing in combos with the likes of the Dutch reedman Ab Baars and the Lithuanian saxophonist Jan Maksimowicz.
GO: 11/2–3 at 6:30. Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E Washington. Umbrella continues through 11/6: umbrellamusic.org
opera Chicago Opera Week
Finally, real life goes the way of the musical, with spontaneous singing breaking out on sidewalks and in parking lots across town. Follow @ChicagoOpera on Twitter for clues as to where Chicago Opera Theater members will pop up next.
GO: Through 11/6. More info: chicagooperatheater.org
Photography: (KEEP A SONG IN YOUR SOUL) Courtesy of Old Town School of Folk Music; (BECKWITH) Paul Mpagi Sepuya