Chicago Reader print issue of March 23, 2023 (Vol. 52, No. 12)

The city in

Claire Bourg • Ravenna Lipchik • Rannveig Marta Sarc • Alexander Hersh • Greg Ward

Glenn Zaleski • Dan Chmielinski

• Kenneth Salters

• Michael Feinstein

• Jean-Yves Thibaudet

Ruth Page Civic Ballet • DanceWorks Chicago • Deeply Rooted Dance Theater • Hedwig Dances

Jumaane Taylor • Jacob Collier • Lawrence • Tiny Habits

Arnaud Sussman • Michael Stephen Brown

• Ms. Lauryn Hill

• Chicago • Ravinia Jazz Scholars

Pat Metheny • Karim Sulayman • Sean Shibe • Melody Gardot • Counting Crows

Dashboard Confessional • Glory Days

Jesse & Joy

• Ralph’s World • Charlie Puth • Summer League

• Jorge Federico Osorio • Calidore String Quartet

Mark Steinberg • Paul Biss • Kim Kashkashian

• Marcy Rosen

• Santana • Miriam Fried

• Alessio Bax • Straight No Chaser

Ambrosia • Ne-Yo • National Seminario Ravinia Orchestra

Jonathan Rush • Apollo’s Fire

• John Fogerty

• Hearty Har

Symphony Chorus • Janai Brugger • Ashley Dixon

Adrian Dunn Singers • Ayodele Drum & Dance

• Chicago Philharmonic

• Miko Marks

• Paul Appleby

• Jim Gailloreto Trio

• Chicago

• Ryan Speedo Green

• Senn High School Choir

Heather Headley • Ravinia Lawndale Family Music School • Trinity UCC Choir • Sasha Cooke

Ariel Quartet • Ayano Ninomiya • Matthew Lipman

Valentina Peleggi • Gabriela Montero

• Karen Ouzounian • Henry Kramer

• Natalia Lafourcade

Alexis Lombre • Rebirth Brass Band • Danish String Quartet

• Maria Schneider Orchestra

• Mei-Ann Chen • Jeremy Denk

Ted Sperling • Andréa Burns • Morgan James • Capathia Jenkins

Elvin Bishop & Charlie Musselwhite

• Laurie Berkner

• Apollo Chorus of Chicago

• Jason Mraz

• Matthew Polenzani

Joshua Hopkins • Kathryn Lewek • David Leigh • Christian Sanders • Tiffany Choe • Taylor Raven

Diana Newman • Adam Lau • Yunchan Lim • Boz Scaggs • Keb’ Mo’ • The Special Consensus

Jonathon Heyward • Benjamin Beilman • Teddy Abrams • Jeffrey Kahane • Lee Mills

Rufus Wainwright • Opera for the Young • Blues Traveler • Big Head Todd & The Monsters

John Legend • Ailyn Pérez • Kevin Murphy • Joshua Weilerstein • Alisa Weilerstein

Jethro Tull • Kenny Loggins • Yacht Rock Revue • George Stelluto • Lara Downes • Nicole Cabell

Buddy Guy • George Benson • Classic Albums Live (The Dark Side of the Moon)

Okee Dokee Brothers • Boyz II Men • The Isley Brothers • Misha Dichter

Disney Encanto In Concert • Thiago Tiberio • Jurassic Park In Concert • Scott Terrell • Train

Parmalee • Brandi Carlile • Carrie Underwood • Jory Vinikour • Tessa Lark • Shakti

Béla Fleck • Music of the Baroque • Dame Jane Glover • James Ehnes

Chicago Multi-Cultural Dance Center’s Hiplet Ballerinas

Early access to live music—

THIS WEEK

06 Editor’s Note Theater and Dance Editor Kerry Reid on spring; Brandon Johnson at Slo ’Mo

ARTS & CULTURE

26 Curb Appeal A new gallery makes accommodations for patrons with disabilities.

CITY LIFE

08 Street View A stylish elder hits Oak Street.

FOOD & DRINK

10 Sula | Review The Afghan cuisine of Helmand takes over the Albany Park space that once hosted Noon O Kabab.

NEWS & POLITICS

14 Statesville Speaks An anniversary for the publication spurs on a reawakening.

18 Organizing nightlife workers

Debbie-Marie Brown speaks to Berlin workers who wish to form a union.

COMMENTARY

22 Joravsky | Politics When Paul Vallas was in charge of the schools

24 Isaacs | Culture Opera difficulties

28 Edra Soto The Chicago artist looks to Puerto Rico.

30 Books A review of The Wandering Womb

32 Reviews Art shows recommended by our writers

Open Studios

40 Movement A BIPOC-focused circus

42 Understudy A theater bookstore opens in Andersonville.

44 Spring Preview Picks in performance

46 Theater Review Congo Square

48 Plays of Note Recommended theater to see, including Happy Days, Think Fast,Jordan Chase!, and The Neo-Futurists Sell Out

FILM

50 Harper Theater The Hyde Park movie house gets new owners.

64 The Secret History of Chicago Music Bobby Jonz

THEATER & DANCE

34 Meredith Sutton An interview with the new interim director of Dance Center

36 Dance Common Conservatory

38 Profile DCASE Dance Residency

Ukrainian artist Aliona Solomadina creates an homage to Chicago.

52 Festivals Chicago Critics Film Festival

54 Movies of Note Reviews from our critics

MUSIC & NIGHTLIFE

56 Farr | The ladies who sing from the back Chicago background vocalists

62 Chicagoans of Note Ash Dye, music scene photographer

68 Shows and Records of Note

Previews of concerts by Djunah, TmbaTa Orchestra, and more, plus reviews of new releases

72 Early Warnings New concerts and other listings

72 Gossip Wolf Late jazz pianist

Bob Dogan gets a tribute show at Elastic Arts, and more

COMICS

74 Mads Horwath On weddings

CLASSIFIEDS

76 Jobs

OPINION

78 Savage Love Dan Savage offers advice on body acceptance.

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Times of uncertainty

LOADED WITH PRIZES

EDITOR’S NOTE

Ihave a personal tradition each vernal equinox of posting on social media some recorded version of “Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most.” (This year I opted for Sarah Vaughan.) But the truth is, it’s hard to feel hung up when I look over this week’s Spring Theater and Arts Preview issue. (Feeling an incipient sense of FOMO is another story.) What I see are signs of communities continuing to come together and support each other, no matter the uncertainty of the times.

BIPOC Circus Alliance Midwest, born from the 2020 push for greater racial justice in theater, continues to help circus artists of color, established pros, and those just starting out alike find their way off the ground and into the air. Andersonville’s Understudy bookstore

promises to be a center for theater artists and fans to gather and share their love of the form.

COMMON Conservatory founder Terence Marling aims to make the organization a “support mechanism” for Chicago dancemakers.

As this week’s issue also makes clear, you don’t need live performances onstage to create a sense of connection. Harper Theater in Hyde Park first opened in 1915 and has just gone through another change of owners with the hope that it will continue to be a haven for filmgoers in the neighborhood, while the community of Chicago film critics (yes, critics can be social creatures, too!) highlights movies you don’t want to miss in the upcoming Chicago Critics Film Festival. Installation artist Edra Soto’s Graft project continues to

make connections between Puerto Rico and site-specific locations throughout the U.S. (including several in Chicago in recent years) through the simple but evocative use of rejas, or iron screens, that are so prevalent in postwar architecture in Puerto Rico. Those are just some of the stories we’ve covered this week.

So while I still love the song, I have to wholly disagree with the lyric “Heard it before and I know the score / And I’ve decided that spring is a bore.” We’re going to keep highlighting the fantastic and resilient artists who make this town a great place to live, no matter the season.

VERNON HESTER

—Kerry Reid, Theater and Dance Editor @kerryreid

Kerry Reid AMBER HUFF FOR CHICAGO READER

Chicago mayoral candidate Brandon Johnson made a surprise appearance on March 11 at Slo ’Mo, the LGBTQ+ dance party, hosted that night at Sleeping Village. He was joined by Illinois State Senator Mike Simmons (le ), who publicly endorsed Johnson’s campaign. Johnson greeted all by saying “Well, we all know you know how to have a good time,” and shared his plans for inclusion if elected. Simmons told the crowd about his childhood experiences being bullied and also reminded those gathered of mayoral candidate Paul Vallas’s relationship with the far-right group Awake Illinois.

CITY LIFE

Street View

Beyond advanced style

For this lifelong Chicagoan, fun and comfort are nonnegotiable.

By ISA GIALLORENZO

“Ikinda just threw this together,” says Gail Joanes, 73, while enjoying a sunny Saturday afternoon on the luxuriously fashionable Oak Street. “I went over to the Chicago History Museum, which I love, went to Twin Anchors for ribs, came back, and now I’m just shopping a bit, just relaxing,” she shares.

Though Joanes might seem cozy in her burgundy ensemble and modest in her charming demeanor, she defi nitely knows her threads. About to stroll into the Chanel boutique, that day she was sporting brands such as Oska, Givenchy, and Gucci. Right now Joanes is excited about Texan brand Magnolia Pearl, whose romantic garments have a timeworn look: “[It] is very different. Now as I grow older, I don’t have to conform to anything. I like to wear fun clothes. And they have to be comfortable, of course,” she says.

The relaxed and contemporary feel in Joanes’s outfit really makes her stand out. She bypasses many of the stereotypes associated with stylish folks in her age bracket. She doesn’t resort to eccentricity or polished elegance—not that there’s anything wrong with that—and ends up composing a look that any fashionista of our time would be happy to emulate.

I don’t mean to brag about our city, but Joanes has the kind of easygoing yet savvy style that only the streets of Chicago can produce. Born and raised on the north side, Joanes says that what she saw in her hometown while doing commercials and working o ce jobs informed her taste.

“I remember wearing gloves downtown with my grandmother in the 50s and 60s. Everything was pretty stringent. Now it’s just whatever makes you feel good. You can put together anything and it all works,” she celebrates. v

@chicagolooks

ISA GIALLORENZO

Gail Joanes, a native north sider, wears Oska, Givenchy, and Gucci.

e Negro Motorist Green Book is an exhibition that highlights the history and legacy of “ e Green Book,” the annual guide that provided Black Americans with information on restaurants, gas stations, department stores, and other businesses that welcomed Black travelers during the Jim Crow era.

Closes April 23

Monday Night Foodball

the Reader’s weekly chef pop-up series, now at Ludlow Liquors. Follow the chefs, @chicago_reader, and @mikesula on Instagram for weekly menu drops, ordering info, updates, and the stories behind Chicago’s most exciting foodlums.

March 27: You better believe it’s Better Boy

@betterboychicago

April 3: Irreverent cheese + charcuterie with Immortal Milk @_immortalmilk

Held Me Down

Everything that I see now, I take it all with stride

Hella shots to my pride

Helicopters outside

New outlook on life, new life for my tribe

Big brother got son, lil sister found god

Everything on my side

Everything feel like everything nigga everything is alright

Everything is all mine

Wedding ring for my bride

These days I just cry now, carry everything on my side

I still ain’t got to my “why”

cus the worst days I’m laugh happy, who’d a thought I make dad happy?

Who’d a thought I make my mom smile?

Everything is all God

It’s my shoulders they lean on My songs that they sing on

Lil Luqqy that guy, uncle gave me that nod

Auntie gave me that name

Came through with my white Benz and my auntie told me don’t change

She still look at me the same

Hard head who don’t know better

Big head that ain’t grow with him

Everybody can’t go with him

Everybody can’t go with him

By Kayo

Kayo, 24, is a South Side native and rising musician making a name for himself in Chicago’s everchanging creative community. His unique sound and story-telling skills are undeniable, specifically on his recently released debut album, “It Was Fun While It Lasted.” Featuring a song for every type of listener, this diverse body of work features rap, R&B, and even a children’s choir. Kayo’s work and merchandise lives at Southside Blue Hearts, the creative house he founded.

Poem curated by Chima “Naira” Ikoro. Naira is an interdisciplinary writer from the South Side of Chicago. She is a Columbia College Chicago alum, a teaching artist at Young Chicago Authors, and South Side Weekly’s Community Builder. Alongside her friends, Naira co-founded Blck Rising, a mutual aid abolitionist collective created in direct response to the ongoing pandemic and 2020 uprisings.

A biweekly series curated by the Chicago Reader and sponsored by the Poetry Foundation.

Free Programming from the Poetry Foundation!

Hours

Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday: 11:00 AM–4:00 PM

Thursday: 11:00 AM–7:00 PM

Copper Canyon 50th Anniversary Celebration (Hybrid)

Join us for the Chicago celebration of Copper Canyon Press’s 50th Anniversary with readings and a panel discussion featuring Copper Canyon authors Chris Abani, Tishani Doshi, Alison C. Rollins, Arthur Sze, and Javier Zamora, and executive editor Michael Wiegers.

Reading: Thursday, March 23, 2023, 7:00 PM

Panel: Saturday, March 25, 2023, 2:00 PM

Poetry & Grief Reading (Hybrid)

Join us for a reading with Raquel Salas Rivera and Angel Dominguez as part of the Poetry Coalition’s annual nationwide programming series.

Thursday, March 30, 2023, 7PM

Learn more at PoetryFoundation.org

e Negro Motorist Green Book was created by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service in collaboration with Candacy Taylor and made possible through the generous support of Exxon Mobil Corporation.

Southside, Chicago, Illinois, 1941. Russell Lee. Farm Security Administration/O ce of War Information Photograph Collection, Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC - DIG - ppmsc - 00256.

RESTAURANT REVIEW

With elegant dumplings and meaty mountains of rice, Helmand channels the cradle of Afghan culture

Wahid Tanha’s Albany Park restaurant reintroduces the city to Afghan fine dining.

By MIKE SULA

You have to be fast to eat the seekh kabob at Helmand.

“If it gets cold it’s going to be like rubber,” says Wahid Tanha, the owner and chef of this new Afghan restaurant in Albany Park. No matter what else comes to the table, “the first thing you have to do is eat it right away.”

That’s because this dish, which announces

itself with a warm cinnamon-scented breeze before it lands in front of you, is radically different from the cylindrical ground beef variants you’d encounter in your finer Pakistani restaurants. Instead, Tanha skewers chunks of boneless lamb alternated with thick slices of lamb fat and grills them until they start singing. “Without the fat it’s not going to be Afghan seekh kabob,” he says.

He unskewers the lamb on a thin bed of lavash plated next to an enormous mountain of long-grain basmati rice studded with raisins and slivered carrots. Because the decadence and luxury of the fat are fleeting, you’ll want to pinch them up between folds of the flatbread, maybe swipe them through some mint-flecked yogurt or cilantro-mint chutney, and gobble them down before attending to the rice—the

cumin-and-cardamom-scented national dish of Afghanistan known as kabuli pulao.

Tanha, who is 38, learned to make these dishes growing up in his father’s two Kabul restaurants, but this is the first time he’s cooked them professionally since he left home in 2001, shortly before September 11. He was granted asylum in the UK and landed in the northeast in Newcastle upon Tyne, where he managed Turkish, Persian, Bangladeshi, and Italian restaurants.

In 2006, after he met and married Maria Kharot, a first-generation Chicagoan whose parents emigrated from Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation, the couple settled here. Tanha drove limos at night, mostly cooking at home for Kharot and their four kids, but he never intended to restrict his talents to the family. “I always wanted to open up a restaurant,” he says. “It was like a dream for me.”

There were no limos to drive during the first year of the pandemic, so Tanha sharpened his skills at home. “He had a lot of time to experiment with a lot of the di erent kabobs, and we got really spoiled at home,” says Kharot, who runs her own title company and is a managing partner in a realty group. “I think COVID kicked it up a big notch for him. It really gave him that drive.”

Afghan food is a convergence of Persian, northern Indian, central Asian, and Chinese influences, often centered around those enormous piles of rice, which are prepared in a multitude of variations. Chicago’s been home to Afghan restaurants here and there over the years, and there are a handful of kabob-focused casual spots around now, though the longest running and most established is Kabul House in Evanston.

Helmand isn’t even the first Chicago restaurant to adopt the name of Afghanistan’s largest and southernmost province and the Bronze Age cradle of its culture. Kharot grew up in Wrigleyville not far from the first Helmand— and the city’s first Afghan restaurant—owned by a half brother of Afghanistan’s former president Hamid Karzai. After he closed it in the early 90s, Ahmed Wali Karzai went on to become a controversial politician in his own right, until he was assassinated by his own bodyguard, allegedly on behalf of the Taliban.

The couple say they’re frequently asked if

Wahid Tanha and Maria Kharot; Uzbeki pulao with mulung at Helmand YIJUN PAN FOR

there’s a relationship to the original. There isn’t. They chose the name to signal a sense of history, culture, and elegance—but also unity. “It’s the original province of Afghanistan,” says Kharot, whose family is Pashtun, the largest ethnic group in the country. Tanha “is Tajik. If you know a lot about Afghanistan, there’s a lot of ethnic tension. We want to show Afghanistan can be unified, because our marriage is a unity of the di erent ethnicities.”

The couple opened in February in the original location of the Persian Noon-O-Kabob, which began expanding a block north seven years ago.

As expressed at Helmand, kabuli pulao (or plain white, or dill-flecked rice—but why?) accompanies more than a dozen kabobs, the names of which largely won’t be unfamiliar to anyone who’s visited the neighborhood’s entrenched Persian restaurants. (Tanha buys all his meat from the neighboring Lebanese Meat Market.) These platters are dramatic

and thrilling, but it’s Tanha’s interpretation of a dozen or so appetizers that really demonstrate the arresting vividness of his platings. You can see it best with two iconic Afghan dumplings: ground beef stuffed mantu, and the scallion and leek-filled aashak. For the latter, Tanha pools a luminescent tomato-infused oil on the plates and drizzles it with yogurt before assembling the dumplings topped with a tomatoey red bean sauce and a shower of dried mint and paprika. For the mantu, he starts with the yogurt and drizzles the oil on top before settling the dumplings with a top note of tomato-lentil sauce.

The boranee banjan are given a similar treatment, except these thin slices of fried eggplant are so creamy and delicate they almost melt into the sauces. You could make a formidable feast with these appetizers alone, along with the garlicky sauteed spinach sabzee; or kadu, steamed butternut squash drizzled in honey, yogurt, and mint.

For now Tanha outsources his naan (and pita), but his bolani, deep-fried flatbreads stuffed with potato, makes a good delivery vehicle for the sauces left behind on some of these smaller dishes.

Tanha also offers a trio of korma; stewy chicken or lamb karahi sautéed with caramelized vegetables and tomatoes, though the kofta korma—intensely beefy meatballs—are probably one of the more unique entrée-sized plates on the menu.

Helmand’s BYOB for now, but if you’re keeping dry, complimentary glass flutes of black or green tea keep apace. And while tart pomegranate juice can cut the richness on the palate, the ideal lacto-fermented digestive aid for a typical meaty feast is a glass of cold doogh.

Tanha’s still fine-tuning his menu. For dessert, he’s just added firnee, the classic cardamom-rosewater-infused custard. You should look out for the occasional appearance

of Afghan-style haleem, the slow-cooked, labor-intensive meaty wheat stew. And one of the most striking plates, the northern-derived Uzbeki pulao is, for now, only a Saturday night special. For this, he simmers a lamb shank until it’s falling from the bone, then cooks the rice in the meat’s braising liquid until it absorbs all its rendered flavor and fat, before nestling the lamb under the grains and sending it to the dining room.

Rivaling the Afghan seekh kabob for its majesty and richness, it’s worth marking your calendar for. And there’s no hurry to finish.

During Ramadan, which began Wednesday, Tahna is offering free iftar: dates and fruit for those looking for a small bite to break the fast at sundown. On May 3, the couple will celebrate their grand opening with a ribbon cutting ceremony. v @MikeSula

continued from p. 10

Mantu, Afghan beef dumplings; a bright and meaty spread at Helmand in Albany Park YIJUN PAN FOR CHICAGO READER

Find more one-of-a-kind Chicago food and drink content at chicagoreader.com/food.

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NEWS & POLITICS

alking up and down the galleries, I’d hear some really deep conversations,” Renaldo Hudson said, recalling the origins of Stateville Speaks , the newspaper he founded in prison almost 20 years ago. “I would hear people talk about Socrates, the stuff that people don’t think happens in prison.”

Despite living under the oppressive conditions of prison, Hudson started thinking, “How do we begin to see the beauty that exists? People need to start to hear our brilliance. People need to see our creativity.”

“Hope is a human right,” Hudson is known

“Wassemble to give Stateville Speaks a reboot. I am one of the new editors, along with: Erica R. Meiners, coauthor of the new book, Abolition. Feminism. Now. , along with Angela Y. Davis, Gina Dent, and Beth E. Richie; Maya Schenwar, coauthor of Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms , and founder of the Truthout Center for Grassroots Journalism; Orion Meadows, formerly incarcerated spoken word performance artist; and artists River Kerstetter and Benji Hart.

We released two issues of the new Stateville Speaks in summer 2022 and winter 2023. The revamped version reflects the common concerns of those incarcerated, as well as the growing attention to issues of women, queer, and trans people in prison. There are original

“Voices from inside”

An oral history of the prison publication Stateville Speaks

By BRIAN DOLINAR

to say often. “Once I grabbed ahold of hope, then I said, ‘How do we paint this?’” The answer was Stateville Speaks , a newspaper produced by and for people inside prison.

Started in 2004 at Stateville Correctional Center, about 30 miles southwest of Chicago, the newspaper is one of the longest-running prison publications in the country. It has overcome attempts by prison authorities to ban its publication. Today, Stateville Speaks is circulated widely throughout all Illinois prisons.

When Stateville Speaks began, the community organizing across prison walls was small. There were a handful of writers in prison who worked persistently to get their voices heard. Organizations to support them were few and underresourced. It was difficult for prison writers to find outlets to publish their works. Slowly, over the past two decades, attitudes have changed. Mass incarceration has become the civil rights issue of our era.

In early 2022, a new interim team started to

artworks in bright color, poetry, investigative essays, law articles, updates on related legislation, and announcements from several organizations that now fight for prison reform in Illinois. You can read new and archived copies at statevillespeaks.org.

A journalist myself, I regularly write articles investigating the stories of my pen pals in prison who send me tips on the bizarre and brazen misdeeds of prison authorities. Most recently, I wrote an article for Truthout about guards who used prison labor to raise funds for golf tournaments and holiday parties, which we reprinted in Stateville Speaks

M oving forward with Stateville Speaks , I wanted to first take a moment to look backward. I reached out to several people involved with the newspaper over the course of its history. I talked to Renaldo Hudson, who was granted clemency by Governor J.B. Pritzker in 2020 after serving 37 years in prison and is now education director at Illi-

Refl ections by artist Ken Norton appeared in a recent issue of the relaunched publication.

nois Prison Project. I interviewed his friend Bill Ryan, longtime advocate for those inside prison; Deirdre Battaglia, who was warden of Stateville in the early days of the paper; Alan Mills, attorney involved in two lawsuits against censorship of the newspaper; Cynthia Kobel, journalist and publisher; Vincent Galloway, the second editor of the paper; and Joseph Dole, legal editor.

S tateville Speaks has immediate name recognition by anyone who has done significant time in the custody of the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC). About 2,000 copies of each issue are sent inside, but a single newspaper passes through many hands in prison and has a circulation that is much wider.

Lockdown Prison Heart

The idea for Stateville Speaks evolved out of an essay contest that Hudson announced in 2003. People in prison were invited to submit essays on the topic, “Who am I? What can I do to be better?” The prompt came from a speech by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan that, Hudson recalled, “changed my life.” It was the first essay contest that people from across the state were allowed to participate in by IDOC.

There were 38 submissions, mostly handwritten, from people in six different Illinois prisons. The essays were collected into a book called Lockdown Prison Heart, proceeds from which went to an organization promoting reconciliation between victims and those who committed acts of violence.

The contest was won by Joseph Dole, who has since published three books, many articles, and is cofounder of Parole Illinois, an organization addressing the harms of extreme sentencing. For several years, Dole was listed as legal editor of Stateville Speaks. Back then, he was locked up in Tamms prison with Hudson’s brother, who told him about the contest. “It was the first essay I ever wrote in my life,” Dole said. “I ended up winning, which shocked the hell out of me.”

The contest made clear the apparent need for a regular publication to cultivate and feature writing by those behind bars.

This is our newspaper

The first issue had a bold banner that read “Stateville Speaks,” under which was the subtitle, “Voices from inside.” It was a 16page newspaper printed in black-and-white. It included editorials, poetry, artwork, a legal page, and an article about the importance of exercising to prevent back pain.

“ I want to spell relief,” Hudson, who was listed as editor in chief, wrote in the first issue of Stateville Speaks. “How do you spell relief? E-D-U-C-A-T-I-O-N! Well, brothers of Stateville, let me hear you! Positive views and negative views are welcome . . . THIS IS OUR NEWSPAPER!”

“ I was freshly off death row,” Hudson told me. “I was a bit naïve and heartbroken. I was like, ‘It’s going to be so much easier now that we’re no longer on death row. We won’t be scrutinized in the way that they scrutinized us on death row.’” He was among the general population at Stateville, and yet there was little programming offered beyond basic GED classes. Hudson started talking to his friend Bill Ryan, who he’d met on death row, about publishing a

newspaper.

R aised in Kentucky, Bill Ryan came to Chicago in the 1990s to work with juveniles caught up in the system. He worked for the Jane Addams Hull House Foundation. He had a passion for the downtrodden. Visiting several men on death row, he soon met Hudson. He became a leader in the Illinois Campaign Against the Death Penalty, which in 2003 convinced Republican governor George Ryan to announce a moratorium on executions. He then turned to the idea of a prison publication.

“In the very beginning, it was Renaldo Hudson and I talking,” Bill Ryan remembered. “We thought we ought to have a voice for people inside.”

“One thing that Bill Ryan did,” Hudson said, “is he’ll get on that phone and call anybody.” Hudson would come up with ideas, and Ryan would execute them.

“I would throw this stu into Bill’s hands, and he would run with it,” Hudson said. “It’s like being a quarterback and having your receiver know how to get to the goal. I was the quarterback, and he was the receiver.”

Unauthorized material

Stateville Speaks was met with resistance from the beginning. When first approached with the idea, prison authorities expressed concern over the cost of publishing. Bill Ryan convinced CNN to donate computers and journalists to train the inside writers. Next, the prison claimed they could not afford to provide guards to watch the three editors as they worked on Stateville Speaks outside of their cells.

U ndeterred, Ryan solicited individual donations from people on the outside and pressed up 200 copies of Stateville Speaks. His daughter Katy Ryan helped with copy editing in the early years. Along the way, Ryan notified prison officials of his intentions. In March 2004, Ryan mailed copies of Stateville Speaks to four people inside Stateville prison. The newspapers were returned to Ryan marked “unauthorized material.”

Ryan recalled the IDOC objected to one article that included mention of “the caliber of the gun used to shoot at people from the guard towers.”

Indeed, Vincent Galloway, in his essay, “How

Started in 2004 at Stateville Correctional Center, the newspaper is one of the longest-running prison publications in the country. COURTESY STATEVILLE SPEAKS

NEWS & POLITICS

to Survive a Day in Prison,” warned others to watch for guards who would shoot from towers to break up fights. They aimed at the men with a “mini-14 high-powered rifle that shoots .223.”

From his cell in Pontiac prison, where he is now held, Galloway wrote to me, “I was very surprised it led to censorship. Bill had to take IDOC to court.”

A lan Mills from the Uptown People’s Law Center, intellectual property attorney Samuel Fifer, and lawyers at Loevy & Loevy filed a lawsuit that provided many of the details for this early history. IDOC settled the suit after two years in court. Mills remembered, “Basically it said they had to set up a procedure and establish time frames for censorship.”

The agreement also established that Stateville Speaks would be circulated at all Illinois prisons. “Ironically,” Mills said, “they said you can’t just send it to one institution. So we said, ‘We’ll send it to everybody, give everyone the same opportunity to read the newspaper.’” As a result, Stateville Speaks is today distributed throughout the entire Illinois prison system.

Something to be proud of

I n March 2005, Deirdre “Dee” Battaglia was appointed warden at Stateville, the first woman to head an all-male maximum-security prison in Illinois. She quickly became known as the “good warden” after a news story appeared in the Chicago Tribune touting her reputation for fairness among the guys inside. Battaglia told me she remembered when Bill Ryan came to her to talk about Stateville Speaks:

“The first couple weeks I was there, this guy came in, he looked real gru , he had a beard, he had shorts on that were hanging o him. The secretary told him we don’t talk to the public. I got up and said, ‘Who is this?’ Turns out, it’s Bill Ryan. ‘You don’t want to talk to this guy,’ the secretary said. I said, ‘We are public servants, we are the public.’ I talked to him; he’s running a mile a minute. He says, ‘We have this paper, Stateville Speaks.’”

Battaglia had been transferred from Dwight women’s prison where she was assistant warden of programs. She recalled that the women at Dwight had their own newspaper they ran from inside the prison, so she was open to Ryan’s idea. The previous warden at Stateville, Kevin Briley, was adamantly against it. Batta-

glia recalled that her predecessor believed if the newspaper were permitted, “Gangs would use it to talk to one another.” Battaglia felt that Stateville Speaks would be a good thing.

“I thought it was a communication tool that o enders could contribute to that would boost their self-esteem,” Battaglia said. “It was something they could be proud of. Most times, it was artistic in nature, with poems.”

The growth was amazing

Although there was pending litigation, Ryan got approval to send a second issue inside, which was printed in March 2005 on the first anniversary of the newspaper. Hudson had been transferred out of Stateville, and Vincent Galloway and Donald McDonald took over as editors.

Stateville Speaks served as an independent news source for those inside Illinois prisons as the population grew to its height of 49,000 people in 2011 (today, the number has dropped to around 29,000). There were 2,500 copies of the newspapers printed, with 2,000 of them going inside. “The growth of it was amazing,” Ryan recalled.

Funding for Stateville Speaks comes from private donations and $10 subscriptions from those incarcerated, but free copies are available to any incarcerated person if they write to us.

The IDOC has never provided funding for the publication. Taxpayer money went instead to paying for the IDOC to defend itself against lawsuits for censoring Stateville Speaks.

The April 2008 issue featured the Tamms Year Ten campaign, which sought to close the prison at the far southern tip of Illinois. As the cover story reported, since Tamms prison had opened, the men there had “endured a decade of uninterrupted solitary confinement.” The campaign was bitterly opposed by the prison guards’ union. The Tamms issue never made it through the prison mailrooms.

A second lawsuit was filed against the IDOC by Alan Mills and Russell Ainsworth of Loevy & Loevy. It alleged that IDOC’s censorship of the April 2008 issue of Stateville Speaks violated the “First Amendment right to communicate with prisoners housed in the prisons operated by the Department.”

There was a constant struggle over content of the newspaper throughout its history that did not always result in lawsuits. If it didn’t come from the authorities, it came from self-censorship. “A lot of my essays never made it into Stateville Speaks ,” Galloway told me, “because I was telling it like it is uncut—raw!”

In search of a home

A round this time, Stateville Speaks was looking for a permanent home. Cynthia Kobel, a rock ’n’ roll journalist, got involved with the newspaper. She had been a board member of the John Howard Association and participated in the campaign to shut down Tamms. In 2007, her family’s foundation, the Kenneth and Harle Montgomery Foundation, began financing the newspaper. In 2008, Kobel was listed as publisher, and she was named as a plainti in the recent lawsuit.

“Stateville Speaks was being done by di erent groups,” Kobel remembered. “Loyola University put out an issue. Then we ended up at Northeastern. That seemed to work out well. It was an easy place to donate the money.”

Indeed, students at Loyola helped produce a special edition in January 2009 despite censorship of the previous issue. In August 2009, Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU) put out its own edition.

N ortheastern agreed to house Stateville Speaks in the justice studies department.

Professor Kingsley Clarke taught a class and recruited students to work on the paper. “If it wouldn’t have been for Kingsley Clarke,” Bill

Ryan said, “I don’t know what we would have done.”

A NEIU graduate student in justice studies, Gayle Tulipano, took over as editor in 2010. Students responded to letters from people in prison. For the next ten years, Tulipano worked tirelessly as editor and kept the publication going. She recently stepped down to pursue other career opportunities. In 2018, the Montgomery Foundation ended their support. But thanks to NEIU’s justice studies department, Stateville Speaks still has a home.

“At a time when so many publications exist only online, a lot of news is inaccessible to people who are incarcerated,” said Maya Schenwar, who recently got involved in the publication. “Not only is it a print publication directly for incarcerated readers, but it also centrally publishes incarcerated writers. As a journalist, editor, and writer who has covered prisons throughout my career—and as the bereaved sibling of a long-incarcerated person who loved writing—this publication holds deep meaning for me. The world is very lucky that it’s still around after all these years.”

This piece by Lauren Stumblingbear appeared in the summer 2022 issue of Stateville Speaks COURTESY STATEVILLE SPEAKS

CHICAGO

HAHIDUL ALAM: SINGED BUT NOT BURNT

Renowned photographer and activist Shahidul Alam exposes the resilience of Bangladeshi people and their continued struggle for freedom over four decades.

A dazzling electronic art installation combining ancient poetry and modern anime—part comic book, part motion picture, part meditation on history.

PATRIC McCOY: TAKE MY PICTURE

Traveling Chicago by bike, always with his camera, Patric McCoy captures 1980s Black gay Chicago, creating a poignant marker of place, time and memory.

Organizing the night workers

Employees at Berlin Nightclub seek to form a union.

By DEBBIE-MARIE BROWN

About 15 workers from Berlin Nightclub stood outside the 40-year-old Lakeview venue on March 11. They were a few dozen feet from the Belmont Red Line station, in a gaggle, below a steady downpour of flurrying snow that wouldn’t stick. Because of the weather, the streets and buildings all had a thin, wet film. The nighttime lights from nearby bars and restaurants danced in the water’s reflection.

The workers had just finished an hour of picketing and stacked their “Union, yes!” signs against a light pole before walking o to grab a bite or prepare to clock in for the Saturday night shift. The scene represented one of the first moments in recent Chicago history that workers at a nightclub have participated in an organizing e ort.

Chelle Crotinger (they/he) works security at Berlin and told the Reader that this was their second night outside in March, in the vestiges of late Chicago winter, picketing to raise awareness for their recent e orts to organize sta . “It was still cold,” Crotinger said, referencing the previous week’s weather. “But we didn’t have the flurries and the rain and shit,” he laughed.

Crotinger was having fun so far and particularly enjoyed seeing people pass by, jump in line, and pick up signs to picket with the others. Members of Howard Brown Health Workers United, who a few months ago held a three-day protest against their employer (the largest LGBTQ+ health center in the city), also joined in on the occasion.

“The community has really been rallying around us,” Crotinger said. Several drag performers acknowledged the unionization campaign in their numbers over the last few

weeks. Performer True Romance made a huge blanket that read “Berlin Union” and unveiled it during her set. Another night, at the venue’s “Purim Party,” sta handed out fliers that included a QR code leading readers to the Berlin workers’ online petition on Action Network, calling for support for the future union.

“It’s really cool to be able to stand in the middle of a busy city street and yell, ‘Queer liberation, not exploitation!’” said Crotinger. “That’s really fucking sick.”

Angel Aldiy (she/her) and Binky Barrara (she/her) approached me together, both high energy and glowing despite the weather. Aldiy and Barrara work as a coat checker and doorperson, respectively, but each has worked at least two other sta positions at the club. They said they were only looking for respect from club management, that they wanted to let the owners know that the group is peaceful, and that they only want what’s best for the community that Berlin’s staff has organically created through their alternative queer programming.

“It’s refreshing, honestly. The last picket that we did, I got to play the drums,” Barrara said.

Both seemed chilly but unbothered by the weather. “I will walk through anything that I need to to get this union recognized,” Aldiy told the Reader . “I think it shows a level of passion, a level of love that we have for each other, that not a lot of places I’ve worked at in

the past have had in their environment.”

The positive feedback for their demonstrations has outnumbered the negative, but there still was negative feedback on March 11. Early during the protest, Aldiy heard a heckler across the street saying “weird, outrageous stu .” One or two people walking by gave the picketers the middle finger, and workers said they could see some people headed for nearby bars who seemed to be making jokes and comments about the demonstration.

“I understand it’s like a holiday weekend, and people let go of their inhibitions,” Barrara said, “but it is disheartening.”

Berlin workers are being aided in their unionization e orts by Local 1, the local a liate of the international union UNITE HERE, which represents more than 15,000 hospitality workers in Chicago and northwest Indiana. UNITE HERE represents approximately 300,000 hotel, food service, and gaming workers throughout the U.S. and Canada.

The workers are asking for pay increases and/or pay restructuring for security, bar, coat-check, and door workers. While workers at Berlin make the minimum wage with possible tips, the financial realities of living in Chicago can be a huge pressure that minimum wage does not fully address. They’re also asking for health insurance, proper training, and uniforms for security (specifically, shirts that plainly say “SECURITY” and cut-proof jackets

to protect the workers from attendees who may enter with concealed knives), reliably functioning metal detectors, a more substantial heat source to warm workers seated in the breezy vestibule, and more communication from management about shift scheduling.

Multiple staff members emphasized that their union organizing isn’t malicious retaliation against anyone personally or any specific policy. On the contrary, they spoke about unionizing as a preventative measure, since the health perils of an uninsured nightlife job have become gradually more apparent to them. Workers spoke of wanting to feel cared for as precarious queer nightlife service workers in the post/mid-pandemic era.

So far, the group filed for a union election under the National Labor Relations Board, which will take place amongst the workers on April 4. The group has amassed 2,653 signatures on their petition asking for community support, and 2,000 of those signatures were captured during the first three days that the petition was public.

“We are just trying to make Berlin the safest place possible in Chicago for us,” Aldiy said. “We want this for us just as badly as we want this for [the patrons and management].”

Crotinger is one of several bar night shift service workers who spend their nights o performing drag at Berlin and other venues. He moved to Chicago in September 2021, but before that, they lived in the state of Washington, where one of their friend’s parents owned a bar. “She would let us come to the drag shows and run the spotlights for the queens.”

Crotinger met her drag mother Lunatic Hex there and by 2017 had taken the drag name Tirrany Reigns. Fast forward to the fall of 2022, and Crotinger left their position at Jewel-Osco and started their job at Berlin after a few visits as an attendee and performer.

“One of my roommates sent me posts that [Berlin] had made on Instagram that said that they were looking for security sta . And that felt like something that I could do,” Crotinger said. It has been an adjustment to get accustomed to the pace of Berlin, but working there is something they’ve loved thus far, and they love it more every day they go in.

Since he’s primarily worked security, Crotinger is familiar with their grievances, although they did clarify that security can “look like a lot of di erent things,” depending

Revelers at Berlin KIRK WILLIAMSON

on what the night is.

“It’s not unrealistic for injuries to happen to security staff,” they said. “Things, like, with backs and knees, it’s a lot of high-impact standing and running around. There’s also just a lot of people in a small space.” Sta have to be mindful of their health inside and outside of work.

Crotinger spoke of the security, bar, and rest of the sta as a united front—a team that enthusiastically has one another’s back.

“It’s a really amorphous kind of purpose that we serve, right? We’re there to make sure that people that are there are having fun. But we also have to kind of be strict at times in order to ensure that that happens,” he said. “And it’s nice to have a team behind you.”

Jolene Saint is a Berlin bartender of six years who braved a series of dissatisfying food service jobs before landing at the Lakeview club. Their friend was a bouncer at the time. “I feel very lucky that I got the job and that I got to start working there,” Saint said. “I’ve really done everything you can do at Berlin [except] being a manager or being a performer.”

For Saint, the work culture in Berlin is akin to any queer nightclub. Coworkers and customers are friends or network in the same circles outside the club. “Berlin allows me to directly work within my community, and it doesn’t feel like there’s that separation.”

The two grievances at the front of the unionization effort are for better pay and health care since many coworkers make minimum wage for a job that can be very di cult.

“It can be a very physically demanding job for us to only be receiving the bare minimum. It is a little ridiculous. . . . It is an environment in which you can get sick or an accident can happen. And people want health care because they don’t want to feel like if something happens then they’re going to be out on a limb,” said Saint.

During their first year working at Berlin, Saint remembers getting sick frequently as their body went through the adjustment period of being “exposed to so many germs each night,” with 200 to 300 people on average packed in the space. The late hours of the job can also be draining for the body. Saint says that the repetitive actions of bartending have caused them to strain their wrist a few times.

“I will say that coat check has the worst of it because they have to run up and down

the stairs to get to where the coat check is all night, and it can really just drain you. When I was doing the coat check, I would always leave that shift just totally exhausted.”

Saint says that they don’t know what management is thinking, but workers aren’t asking for anything they haven’t in the past, and the workers want to engage with the owners in good faith.

As Berlin co-owners Jim Schuman and Jo Webster told In These Times, they “are committed to the well-being of Berlin (our only business) and its employees” and that they “intend to follow the law and the legal process” outlined by the National Labor Relations Act. Workers spoke of being encouraged by the response from ownership.

But internally, feelings are murky. One of the managers, Marcus Devin, asked the Reader if we could find out why union members “. . . chose to completely exclude at least four of their hourly minimum wage ($9.40/hour) coworkers?” Devin is one of those four. Devin also expressed that in this action, the group excluded the workers who had worked for Berlin the longest (a few for over 20 years). All but one of those participating in the e ort started working at Berlin after it reopened in August 2021 after the COVID-19 shutdown.

Saint responded to this statement from Devin, saying that the organizing workers were not sure if Devin and the three others qualified as workers or managers, because they legally cannot organize with managers. The group is still seeing if the National Labor Relations Board will rule in a way that considers Devin and the other three coworkers management or not. “If [he can’t], that would suck,” Saint said. “But if he can unionize with us, then I would love for him to be a part of it, you know?”

Devin added that he and the three others did not find out about the desire to unionize until after their coworkers filed for a union vote and delivered the petition to the bar. “They are basically forcing us into a union without including us [longtime workers] until after they already did everything.”

Leo Sampson (he/they), aka performer Luv Ami-Stoole, is the third Berlin worker and drag artist who spoke to the Reader Sampson runs social media for Berlin and stage manages as well. He has a theater degree in acting, but Sampson fell into drag after col-

lege while figuring out their gender. Drag was a route to explore that.

“I started working at Berlin [in] late September of 2021. I had quit my previous job, put in my two weeks, and was just trying to find something else, because the other job was really bad.”

Why are the workers organizing at this moment, three years into the pandemic? Berlin was closed for much of the shutdown before reopening in August 2021. Many workers mentioned feeling a sense of precarity and fear for one another, spurred by daily news of anti-trans state legislation and transphobic vitriol normalized by respected institutions like the New York Times. But the answer to the question of why they tried to unionize when they did depends on which worker you ask.

Sampson points out that the desire for better working conditions goes back to before he started. He said that Ren, one of the general managers, inherited many of these problems before he got there too. For example, a previous issue made Berlin “big talk” at the Chicago Black Drag Council’s 2020 town hall. At the time, money received at the door was not divided equally, so many performers were not paid properly. The town hall conversation led to an internal restructuring of that system.

“Things that we’re asking for, you know, like a livable wage or better communication . . . it’s been building up for a while. And I think now just felt like the right time to do it, I think, especially in the harsh realities of the winter,” Sampson said. “And having to stand outside for hours in the cold. And knowing that you’re not being paid a lot, with just having to deal with so many shitty customers who are yelling in your face and are being homophobic, transphobic, racist, all of that. And just not getting paid enough to be dealing with that.”

Saint is one of a few Berlin workers on Medicaid, which they can only be on because of COVID-19 legal protections. Once those end, they would be without health insurance if the workers aren’t provided it. They also believe COVID has given more service workers a desire for better working conditions.

Crotinger says that all the little things people think about when they think about work made them want to unionize. “Those little complaints of like, ‘Oh, this is a really kind of weird part of our system; this should be updated. Why haven’t we done something about this?’ It was just kind of a lot of those moments.”

As the first recently-known nightclub workers in Chicago to attempt organizing together, who are Berlin workers looking to for inspiration? For help, they are working hand in hand with UNITE HERE Local 1 to learn the successful steps for unionization. But for inspiration? Well, the answer to that also depends on which worker you ask.

Saint is inspired by The Stud, the San Francisco venue that is the first worker-owned cooperative nightclub in the U.S. They also cite Leslie Feinberg, activist and author of the 1993 novel Stone Butch Blues (who worked low-wage gay bar jobs in Bu alo, New York) as inspiration. By the end of Feinberg’s life, she helped organize community self-defense for LGBTQ+ bars and clubs.

Crotinger says that workers are looking to each other for inspiration because they feel the vacuum of Chicago bars that have yet to attempt organizing. “Historically, as queer people,” Crotinger said, “we have not been given the chance to establish and nourish legacies, whether it’s been negligence or things that have been taken away from us pretty forcefully. So in the places where we can, it’s important that we establish some infrastructure that is going to outlive us and make sure that the people that come after us are going to be held and protected.”

Workers are excited by the idea of Berlin being the first big drop in the pond for unionized Chicago nightlife, making waves for other queer clubs and businesses to attempt the same. Overall, everyone seemed hell-bent on making Berlin put its money where its mouth is in terms of providing a true trans-safe space in the middle of Boystown. For additional support, the group asks that community members find the petition, sign it, and continue to share it.

“Berlin is like the only place in Boystown where a lot of trans people feel comfortable,” Sampson said. “This is like the only place we really get to have community and get to party and hang out with each other [in this neighborhood].” Sampson stressed he doesn’t want Berlin to close; he wants it to stay open for at least 40 more years. “I think that management is open to hearing our concerns and will help advocate for what we want. Because what we’re asking for isn’t that crazy. It’s just to be treated and compensated like a human being.” v @debbiemarieb_

In Motion: The Chicago Black Dance Legacy Project centers equity and opportunity while celebrating local artistry

Amid an inequitable arts landscape, an innovative, multi-year initiative called the Chicago Black Dance Legacy Project [CBDLP] has emerged to bolster Chicago’s most beloved Black dance institutions.

For more than a century, Chicago-based Black dance organizations and artists have pioneered numerous styles, including, modern, jazz, hip-hop, tap, and footwork. They’ve also helped introduce African dance to American audiences. Unfortunately, these contributions have o en been overlooked, resulting in inequities in funding and performance opportunities between Black dance companies and their larger, majority-white counterparts; A report released in June 2019, “Mapping the Dance Landscape in Chicagoland” found that, in 2015, 56 percent of grant dollars awarded to dance organizations went to just three predominantly white companies.

In response, the CBDLP was launched later that year, with the aim to honor the rich history of Black dance in Chicago while securing a vibrant future for all Black dance forms. “The idea behind the project was to attempt to create a level playing field for these companies who have been doing the work for so long,’’ says CBDLP director Princess Mhoon.

CBDLP operates under the Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago, with funding from the Joyce Foundation, which jumpstarted the project with a $396,600 grant (the largest cultural grant that the organization has ever given), along with initial support from Doris Duke Foundation and DCASE. The Mellon Foundation, the Walder Foundation, the University of Chicago Women’s Board, the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, and generous individual donors have also provided support.

CBDLP’s first cohort comprised eight local Black dance companies handpicked for their artistic impact, technical excellence, and prominence in their respective communities, with legacy dance organizations like Joel Hall Dancers & Center along with emerging ensembles and training schools such as Forward Momentum Chicago, which represents a diverse mix of West African, modern, jazz, ballet, and more.

Once the cohort was selected, CBDLP focused on providing them with what Mhoon calls “four pillars” of support: capacity building, advocacy, archiving, and presenting.

Capacity building speaks to CBDLP’s goal of helping the dance companies improve their operations through marketing, funding, board development, and more. The pillar works hand-in-hand

with advocacy, as the CBDLP works to expand the reach of each selected company.

“With this project, we advocate for the companies in different spaces that they have either not been able to access and penetrate,” Mhoon says. “So we do everything from facilitating introductions to funders to finding large scale shared performance opportunities for the entire collective.”

Through the process of archiving, the CBDLP aims to preserve and share the history behind the companies in the cohort and the broader Black dance community in Chicago. The project is currently working with multiple partners including the Newberry Library to organize historical collections that can be shared with institutions across Chicago.

The final pillar, presenting, gives the cohort of companies the opportunity to perform on a shared stage two to three times a year. Last summer, the project hosted a performance to celebrate the

Year of Chicago Dance at Millennium Park, which Mhoon says drew more than 7,000 people. Through shared stage events, the companies share their audiences as well, which helps expand the overall reach and visibility of each respective company.

“The beauty is that we can cross pollinate their audiences and also create a bigger buzz collectively, and that’s what happened last summer at Millenium Park,” Mhoon says. “This is the front-facing aspect of it, because people have to see dance.”

From the start, the impacts of CBDLP on Chicago’s dance community have been undeniable. The project helped keep their first cohort afloat financially during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, Mhoon says, many have noted rises in their operational budgets and increased performance opportunities.

The project has also promoted a greater sense of community and solidarity among Black dance companies. “It has broken silos within the Black dance community,” Mhoon says. “There has been more collaborations, more shared knowledge, more shared resources and an overall feeling of camaraderie and solidarity and unity within the community.”

This year CBDLP announced its second cohort, which includes ten Black dance organizations, which represent a wider variety of styles; its members include trap- and footwork-based companies M.A.D.D Rhythms and the Era Footwork Collective, and youth arts organization Move Me Soul.

Looking ahead, leaders of CBDLP are looking to individualize the support and resources that companies receive and expand upon the project’s archival work. But no matter what phase the project may be in, the purpose remains the same: To support Black dance in Chicago. “This is an opportunity to learn about Black dance and expand our own educational knowledge,” Mhoon says. “Dance for us is another form of protest. It’s also an embodied knowledge that we can use to speak about our past without speaking about our past. It’s a celebration of who we are.”

Over the next three months, the Reader will be spotlighting each company in this year’s CBDLP cohort to showcase their work and their contributions to Chicago’s dance scene. Please join us in each issue through August 24 to learn more about these vital and creative groups.

The Chicago Black Dance Legacy Project is a program of the Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago. Their current cohort of local dance companies includes Chicago Multicultural Dance Center — Hiplet Ballerinas, Deeply Rooted Dance Theatre, Forward Momentum Chicago, Joel Hall Dancers & Center, M.A.D.D. Rhythms, Move Me Soul, Muntu Dance Theatre of Chicago, NAJWA Dance Corps, Praize Productions, and the Era Footwork Collective. For more about CBDLP, visit chicagoblackdancelegacy.org, and chicagoreader.com/special/ logan-center-for-the-arts-at-the-university-of-chicago.

Photo of Princess Mhoon by Matt Karas

COMMENTARY

matical skills.

Now, I agree there’s a clear downside to routinely advancing kids who aren’t ready. If you do it too much, a diploma loses all meaning.

But Vallas took things to an extreme. He punished students if they tested below their grade level, turning standardized tests into something they’re not intended to be: gatekeepers.

They’re not supposed to be pass-or-fail struggles for survival. They’re supposed to be barometers for teachers and parents to figure out what a student needs help with.

But under Vallas, if students weren’t at grade level, they had to go to summer school, where they took classes on how to take the test.

ON POLITICS

Mr. Self-Promotion

Paul Vallas looks to bring back the bad old days of high-stakes testing.

By BEN JORAVSKY

As one of the old guys still standing from the Daley days of yore, I suppose it’s up to me to tell the rest of you a thing or two about Paul Vallas, the man Chicago seems eager to elect as its mayor.

Back in the 90s, Vallas was Mayor Daley’s hand-picked boss of the Chicago Public Schools. Well, Daley was really the boss— don’t get that twisted—but Vallas got the title of CEO.

I chronicled the Vallas tenure in columns right here in the Reader and experienced them as a parent with kids in the system.

There’s so much I can say about the Vallas days at CPS—the funny games he played with budgets, his autocratic urges, his mastery of the media, and his bullying. What a bully—the man never ran from a fight he knew he would win. Standing up to the powerful, like Baby Boss Daley, well, he could play the yes-man like a champ.

For the moment, I’ll concentrate on his strange obsession with high-stakes testing.

The man loved giving standardized multiple-choice tests—in fact, it seemed he got perverse pleasure in watching kids “fail.”

At one point, he created his own system-wide two-week-long test that all high schoolers had to take even though they already had to take two other standardized tests. It was called The Chicago Academic Standards Examinations (CASE). Just about any teacher would tell you it was a monumentally stupid waste of time; mercifully, Arne Duncan put CASE out of existence in 2002.

But those teachers would probably tell you that o the record. Because if they spoke on the record, there was the threat Vallas would do to them what he did to a muckraking, rabble-rousing teacher named George Schmidt. Another story for another time.

Vallas claimed a higher purpose for his test obsession. Said it was about eradicating “social promotion,” the policy of moving students to the next grade whether or not they have mastered certain writing, reading, or mathe-

Third, sixth, and eighth graders who didn’t “pass” the test, even after summer school, were held back. We’re talking hundreds and hundreds of kids system wide who were held back.

Vallas was proud of his sternness. He and CPS board president Gery Chico, another Daley appointee, held press conferences, bragging about all the kids who had to take summer school.

They said they were doing it for the kids. “This is not Saigon on top of the U.S. embassy,” Chico told reporters in 1998. “We are not leaving anybody behind.”

Chico’s alluding to images of helicopters hastily evacuating personnel from the rooftop of the U.S. embassy in 1975, as Saigon fell to communist troops.

As always, Vallas and Chico (and Daley) were cheered on by their pom-pom squad in the media. “In the end, students and their parents need to recognize and accept the reality that at some point they have to take a test and pass it,” the Sun-Times editorialized. “If they don’t pass it, they can take it again, until they do.”

One more time—these are not supposed to be pass-or-fail tests.

These were the days before most schools had air conditioning. I remember visiting some of those summer school pass-the-test classes. Kids would be baking in the heat. That’ll teach them to flunk the test!

At the end of the summer, central office flacks would issue press releases proclaiming

miraculous results. But their numbers rarely added up. I always thought they were just making this stu up as they went along.

In 2001, Daley ousted Vallas—most likely for the high crime of getting too much credit from the adoring media, and forgetting he was supposed to give all credit to Daley.

In the aftermath of the Vallas reign, the drop-out rate went as high as 50 percent, proving what teachers tried to tell us: All of that summer school test prep had little to do with actually learning things.

The students were used as props in the Daley/Vallas/Chico dog-and-pony show. Frustrated by their failure, embarrassed by being one or two years behind their peers, many dropped out.

By then, of course, Vallas had, to use Chico’s metaphor, safely helicoptered himself out of town to run schools in Philly and New Orleans and Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Under future superintendents, CPS basically went back to social promotion. At least, they dropped the heavy emphasis on high-stakes testing. And the dropout rate declined, for which the press gave much credit to Mayor Emanuel.

That’s how it goes in CPS. Teachers do the work, mayors get the credit.

Look, want to help kids who don’t take to reading, writing, or math? Expand vocational courses. Lower class size. Give them one-onone tutoring. But don’t pack them into sweltering classrooms for test prep and say you’re doing them a favor.

Vallas maintained his love for high-stakes testing in that nutty interview he gave Wirepoints—you know, the one in which he suggested critical race theory was responsible for the downfall of white and Black families. So I guess he’ll bring it back if he’s elected.

Look, Chicago, if you feel an urge to elect this MAGA man as your mayor, knock yourself out.

But don’t pretend you’re doing it for the kids. High-stakes testing is as much a waste of time today as it was back in 2001, when Vallas hopped on his metaphorical helicopter and left behind a generation of students to fend for themselves. v

In the a ermath of the Vallas reign, the drop-out rate went as high as 50 percent. CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION/UNSPLASH

COMMENTARY

Spring awakening

In a challenging time for opera, a weekend orgy

By DEANNA ISAACS

Never mind those icy patches on the sidewalk: spring is here, bringing with it our seasonal theater and arts preview issue. Accordingly, while the global banking system teeters, Xi and Vlad (nukes in their back pockets) rendezvous, and Trump seems poised to take the first-ever presidential perp walk, the issue I’m stewing about is this: why do we get these periodic clusters of opera performances?

Here in Chicago, where opera fans can su er weeks, even months, of near drought, we now, once again, find ourselves in an opera frenzy—an accidental festival so richly packed, you probably won’t make it to everything. This raises a question: who’s in charge of this feast or famine scheduling? The same dingbats who’ve been supervising the banks?

Here’s what’s coming up this weekend that I know of:

On Thursday, at the Harris Theater, Chicago Opera Theater opens a two-performance-only premiere of The Life and Death(s) of Alan Turing . Composed by Justine F. Chen, with libretto by David Simpatico, this operatic biography of the scientist known as a father of AI, who helped win WWII by cracking the German military message code, only to be prosecuted for consensual homosexual activity and forced to undergo chemical castration, was (to quote myself) “revelatory” in a workshop performance four years ago; baritone Jonathan Michie returns in the title role. The second performance is Saturday afternoon, after which you could sprint right over to Lyric and catch a 7:30 PM Carmen

On Friday, the superb Haymarket Opera Company presents a one-night-only performance of La Giuditta, a 17th-century oratorio by Alessandro Scarlatti about the biblical Judith, who saved the people of Israel by

seducing the conquering general Holofernes, getting him drunk, and slicing off his head. Performing at DePaul University’s Holtschneider Performance Center, they have soprano Emily Birsan as Judith, and lute legend Nigel North in the chamber ensemble of period instruments conducted by Craig Trompeter.

That same evening, Lyric Opera opens its much-anticipated three-opera cocktail Proximity. This production, directed and mixed by Yuval Sharon (creator of the parking-garage Wagner opera, Twilight: Gods), features work by a starry combination of creators, including composers John Luther Adams and Caroline Shaw, tackling existential challenges like climate change and the alienating effects of AI, and documentary-style playwright Anna Deavere Smith on gangs and guns in Chicago. (Possible real spoiler alert—the cast includes a character named Arne Duncan.)

Meanwhile, Friday and Saturday, Chicago Fringe Opera presents the last of two weekends of a unique staged art song concert, Chicago Currents: Celebrating Chicago’s Waterways (and the city’s history), featuring a large, diverse collection of historical and contemporary composers including Indigenous soprano Kirsten Kunkle performing her own work, along with pieces by the likes of

Florence Price and Stacy Garrop.

You wouldn’t know it from this bonanza, but for opera, as for most of the performing arts, these are tough times. Last week brought the announcement from the small but adventurous Third Eye Theatre Ensemble that their next season will be their last. Founder and artistic director Rena Ahmed says that after ten years, the all-volunteer-run group “decided to celebrate what we’ve done and bring it to a close.” COVID was a contributing factor, she said. “Ticket sales for the last couple of shows were not what they had been pre-COVID.”

That’s true across the board. According to Lyric Opera, its ticket revenue for opera productions (excluding musicals) was $11.6 million in fiscal 2022, compared to $18.5 million in pre-COVID 2019. General director Anthony Freud’s announcement last week of the schedule for next season (several titles and numerous performances shorter than seasons used to be) started out by acknowledging that “opera is at a very challenging moment,” with “painful new economic realities.”

Nevertheless, as Freud told an audience of subscribers and supporters at the opera house, some important things were learned during the pandemic—among them, the need to be more “agile” in programming. For example,

he said, no postseason musical was included in next year’s announced schedule. (West Side Story is coming up this year, in June.) That doesn’t mean there won’t be one, Freud told me: there may or may not, depending on what becomes available. But, he said, it will have to be a popular enough title to justify the financial risk of producing in a house two or three times bigger than a typical Broadway theater.

The operas on tap for 2023–’24 include Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman , Donizetti’s The Daughter of the Regiment, Janáček’s Jen ů fa, Rossini’s Cinderella , Terence Blanchard’s Champion, and Verdi’s Aida.

The Blanchard was a late addition, Freud said—an example of the greater flexibility he’s aiming for and of Lyric’s intention to balance legacy operas with more work about contemporary life.

So there’ll no doubt be a Trump opera in our future—that’s a no-brainer. But how about this banking house of cards? Watching the news this morning, I could already see it: Matthew Polenzani as Fed Chair Jerome Powell, and Joyce DiDonato as Elizabeth Warren, killing it with an aria that puts the blame squarely on him. v @DeannaIsaacs

Proximity at Lyric Opera KYLE FLUBACKER

SPRING THEATER & ARTS PREVIEW

with it, the more I loved that sound. It makes me think about my relationship to disability overall—this idea of trying to ‘fix’ something rather than letting it be,” Joyce says.

Perspective complements excerpts from an album of the same name that Joyce released last year on New Amsterdam Records. Guttman advised Joyce on the video component, which is minimal yet e ective: white captions appear over a black background, while Joyce’s interview question remains static at the top of the screen. The lingering question invites audiences to consider their own answers while interviewees’ responses flow underneath.

VISUAL ART

Curb Appeal, a new apartment gallery, brings access to the fore

Molly Joyce’s inaugural exhibition uses sound and video to share a spectrum of disability experiences.

By HANNAH EDGAR

Sandy Guttman can hazard a few guesses as to why Chicago’s disability arts and culture scene is the envy of other major cities. We’re home to the consortium Bodies of Work, which funds artists and programming exploring the disability experience; the Cultural Access Collaborative, an artist-run group advocating for more accessible art spaces; Unfolding Disability Futures, a grassroots curational group; Access Living, a disability rights nonprofit which also hosts artistic programming; and the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Disability Cultural Center and Disability Studies Department, the first in the country to o er a PhD in the subject. And that’s just naming the major players.

But Guttman—a self-described “able-bodied ally” and graduate of UIC’s program, who manages performance programming at the Museum of Contemporary Art—recognized that Chicago needed more reliably accessible galleries to host events by the aforementioned organizations, many of which don’t have their own spaces. Earlier this month, Guttman and

her husband, Todd Garon, added one with Curb Appeal, a gallery run out of their storefront apartment at 24th and Oakley.

The location has some notable infrastructural accommodations already built in. All public spaces inside Curb Appeal are accessible by wheelchair, with a small threshold ramp near the entrance, a wide-set hallway and door to the bathroom, and grab bars once inside. Visitors arriving by car will pass approximately half a block of dedicated handicap-accessible street parking on 24th Street. The storefront is also close to the Western and Damen buses and the Western Pink Line.

Other accommodations are more adaptive. The exterior storefront has two steps to enter; Guttman and Garon keep a ramp on hand to let in visitors who may need help navigating them. They’ll also tweak Curb Appeal’s accommodations depending on the access needs of a given exhibition or visitor. For example, the space formally opened to the public on March 3 with composer Molly Joyce’s Perspective, an audiovisual installation layering conversation excerpts with disabled interviewees over

Joyce’s own undulating organs and synths. The wall label and handouts include an artist statement, sound descriptions, and QR code linking to audio clips of the text as well as a screen reader–friendly webpage.

“‘Creative accommodations’ is an umbrella term that’s being used more in disability art spaces. It describes the ways you build accessibility in aesthetic ways,” Guttman says. “In our space, that means, at the very base, we’re going to write a wall label, and it’s going to be accessible [in terms of] language and to folks who aren’t in the building, or who can’t read it using their eyes.”

Perspective is also informed by the ethos of creative accommodations. Joyce’s left-hand function became limited after a car accident in childhood, inspiring her to turn away from musical performance and pursue composition. Several years ago, she bought a vintage toy organ online on a whim, only to find it nicely suited her body: Her left hand manipulates chord buttons while her right plays the keys.

“I used to be self-conscious about how out of tune it is with itself. But the more I played

“Sandy’s suggestion to just show the captions was kind of groundbreaking to me. We’re conditioned by society to view captions and a lot of these accessibility accommodations as an add-on instead of artistically integral to a work,” Joyce says.

Among the interviewees in Perspective is Chicago media artist, sound designer, and musician Andy Slater, who also guided Joyce through creating sound descriptions for the installation. Since Perspective , Slater, who is visually impaired, and Joyce have toured together and collaborated on a variety of projects, including a 2021 artist workshop hosted by contemporary classical ensemble Eighth Blackbird and a recent orchestral commission by the National Youth Orchestra.

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“When I checked out Molly’s music, I was like, ‘Oh shit, this is like Steve Reich or Philip Glass, but also goth,’” Slater says.

Like Joyce, Slater has centered access and disability justice in his work over the past several years—not as ancillary accommodations, but by embedding them into the artworks themselves. His 2022 piece, Invisible Ink , describes three paintings through alt text, screen reader text, and audio clips. However, sighted audiences will only see a white box where the painting would be, requiring them to engage with one of the above mediums to experience the work.

Molly Joyce’s installation Perspective is informed by the ethos of creative accommodations. COURTESY CURB APPEAL GALLERY

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Though Slater says awareness is improving in the art world overall, Invisible Ink provocatively recasts his own experiences with lacking access initiatives. Over the years, he, Joyce, and Guttman have all encountered resistance from museums, galleries, and artists, who sometimes view basic accommodations as competing with artist intent. Worse, some nominally embrace disability art as a “hot trend” while half-committing to true accessibility.

“You see independent gallery spaces with like no funding, like Curb Appeal and Agitator [in Logan Square], pull this shit o . So, when someplace like the Art Institute or SFMoMA can’t get it together, you wonder what people’s motives are,” Slater says. “It should be part of artistic critique to write a description of a work for someone who can’t see it—that could be a great part of your practice. And artists need to learn to talk about their work.”

After Perspective closes in June, Curb Appeal will spotlight Chicago-based artist Genevieve Ramos, who, like Slater, is a recipient of a Bodies of Work and 3Arts residency for Deaf and disabled artists. Curb Appeal will display

her portrait series of disabled women before it enters the permanent collection of UIC’s Disability Cultural Center. Future programming is in the works, but Slater is sure he’ll check out what the gallery does next.

“It doesn’t need to be disability art all the time. But what I do expect is that there will be as many forms of access and interpretation needed for whatever work goes in there. And Sandy knows that,” Slater says.

Already, Curb Appeal seems to be living up to its promise as a disability culture hub. At the opening earlier this month, Guttman overheard the sounds of new collaborations being sown between attendees.

“A couple of grad students were talking about doing accessible performances [here], and a couple others talked to Andy about doing pop-up programming across the city, with Curb Appeal as a stop along the way,” Guttman says. “All of that’s happening outside of me, but because we’ve created a space for it, those little side conversations can happen and hopefully lead to future programming.” v

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Edra Soto’s Graft project comes to the Hyde Park Art Center

The Puerto Rican artist treats her roots as a blueprint.

By ALLY FOUTS

“Prolific” understates the artworks artist Edra Soto has contributed to the cultural scene, radiating from Chicago and stretching to New York, California, Brazil, and beyond. Born in Puerto Rico, Soto treats her roots as a blueprint, building expansive bodies of work upon the boundless inspiration she finds within them.

Over the course of the previous decade, Soto has been expanding upon one of her most recognizable projects, Graft. The series includes sculptures and reliefs of iron screens, or rejas, that are pervasive in the postwar architecture of Puerto Rico. By transplanting this form and placing it in the United States, Soto dissects her identity as a Puerto Rican artist, extracting a treasure chest of artworks as a result. In late April, Graft will be making another appearance in Chicago, in her highly

anticipated solo exhibition, “Edra Soto: Destination/El Destino: a decade of Graft,” at the Hyde Park Art Center.

“‘Destination/El Destino’ brings together a decade of the Graft project,” Soto wrote over email. “The exhibition is anchored by an immersive sculpture composed of handmade motifs and fragments. Each fragment is a study or the remains of a larger iteration of Graft.”

Regardless of location, each iteration of Graft o ers a few consistent points of entry for the viewer within the rejas structure. There is often a bench embedded into the sculpture, o ering viewers a place to rest, contemplate, and engage with one another. Additionally, there is often a publication element that includes collaborative essays written by people of many disciplines that reflect or relate to

Graft conceptually. Finally, viewfinders set in the walls of the rejas sculpture depict nostalgic images relating to family and the Puerto Rico diaspora.

One particularly powerful aspect of Graft is that it is often implemented in public spaces, such as the Chicago Cultural Center, welcoming people of all demographics and backgrounds to come together and interact with the work. This o ers an element of chance and can lead to unpredictable outcomes not available within the constraints of a gallery space. In previous installments, this has resulted in stunning, surprising collaborations between Soto and other creatives.

“It is incredibly rewarding when the artistic community reaches out either by proposing collaboration or as a spontaneous gesture,” Soto wrote. The Seldoms, a local dance com-

pany, reached out to the artist to propose collaborating on a performance at Screenhouse, an iteration of Graft that’s installed in Millennium Park. “The beautiful and inventive choreography they performed at Screenhouse responded to the Graft ’s architectural elements and its sense of home or shelter.”

The latest installment of Graft resides at the Whitney Museum of American Art as part of the exhibition “no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria,” on view until April 23. This exhibition has received ample exposure that expands beyond in-person viewers due to the power of social media.

“One of my favorite kinds of collaboration happens when the public viewing the work tries to capture a photo or video of the archival documents in the viewfinders embedded

Edra Soto’s Gra series includes sculptures and reliefs of iron screens, or rejas, that are pervasive in the postwar architecture of Puerto Rico. L-R, STEPH MILLER, COURTESY THE ARTIST

R “DESTINATION/EL DESTINO: A DECADE OF GRAFT”

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ture is unique, intricate, and detailed down to each square inch. This physical feat reveals Soto’s tenacity to keep pushing the limits and develop new ways of visual communication with each iteration. Soto’s unwavering inspiration propels Graft forward as she generates new facets to the project, and its longevity is a result of her perspective.

“I realized that my way of making and doing is as valid as it can be,” Soto writes. She doesn’t feel compelled to adhere to any market-based ideas of editions or conservation. “Many of these procedures are forms of controlling a production and have a common language that serves a market. Since making art for a market was never my motivation, after years of working on Graft, I realized that an archive can be as fluid as breathing. That in itself is a beautiful thing, and it feels so honest. Building narratives through images takes time, especially from a diasporic perspective.”

in some of Graft sculptures,” Soto wrote. “These photos and videos are a reflection of an intimate encounter with my work. They are usually shared with me on my Instagram and come with anecdotal memories and kind messages. The work at the Whitney Museum of American Art, as part of the exhibition ‘no existe un mundo poshuracán’ has received the most love, shares, and consideration. Many of these pictures taken by visitors become a part of the documentation of the work, and I get to give credit to those visitors for participating in the documentation process.”

The Chicago Botanic Gardens included Soto’s sculpture Casa Isla in their spring 2022 exhibition, “Flourish: The Garden at 50.” The size of a small home, Casa Isla was installed in the lagoon located toward the entrance of the gardens, floating lightly upon the face of the water, strong and unbothered by the ripples beneath it.

“I felt that chance and imagination became an inevitable part of the making process,” Soto wrote. “The installation of this monumental sculpture didn’t allow for significant changes once it was placed into the lagoon.”

The sculpture included nods to both the typography and architecture of Puerto Rico and resulted in a striking frame, accentuated by glimmering, lustrous swirls of turquoise

and baby blue. Casa Isla also exemplifies another powerful identifier of Soto’s work: the consideration of the surrounding environment. Soto treats the setting of an artwork as a medium and makes it feel like a gesture just as important as the sculpture itself. The strict straight lines and heaviness of the sculpture are perfectly balanced by their sublime reflection in the water beneath it. Soto excels at adding value to and enhancing an environment, not taking away or distracting from an environment. Soto requested that a shrub, sourced by the garden, be integrated into the sculpture, which bloomed over the course of the installation.

“After visiting the Botanic Garden so many times, I decided to paint the surface with colors that reminded me of the garden’s environment,” she wrote. “People kept referring to it as a mirage.”

Like a chameleon, Graft has continued to shapeshift to each environment that has housed it. An installment in Knoxville, Tennessee, at The University of Tennessee/GATOP Arboretum & Education Center, includes Soto’s distinguishable architectural intervention but with a warm mahogany and natural oak color palette. The sculpture nestles comfortably amongst the surrounding trees and sits proudly upon a sandy, rocky earth. In

2018 at the DePaul Art Museum, Soto built a site-specific installment of Graft that filled the facade of the museum, confronting viewers both outside and inside the museum looking through the sculpture, introducing itself as a visual lens. In 2022, Graft was included as a temporary installation at Anderson Hall at Rice University’s School of Architecture. The rejas structure was peppered along the windows, and viewers outside of the building were beckoned to engage with it. There were viewfinders dispersed among the forms, serving as visual portals to Puerto Rico, including images of buildings containing the rejas form in their natural environment, presenting the viewer with the opportunity to be in two places at once.

“The purpose of the Graft project is to inhabit a space and really cement itself as seamlessly as possible,” Soto writes. “My site-responsive approach considers not only the physical properties of a space or built environment but also its history, its public, and the light. I try to build my relationship to the space or the architecture to be addressed by visiting and absorbing the environment prior to the conceptual design process.”

The success and wide reception of Graft is a result of the sheer amount of work that has gone into this project. Every individual sculp-

Graft ’s many iterations have been supported by multiple grants and commissions, including the Artist Fellowship Award from Illinois Arts Council Agency in 2019 and again in 2022; Joan Mitchell Painters & Sculptors Grant in 2020; Foundwork Artist Prize Winner Award in 2019; and awards from the MacArthur International Connections Fund in 2018 and 2019. Due to the continued support for the project, as well as Soto’s continued interest in developing it, it is safe to say Graft will continue to move on an upward trajectory.

“[In ten years] I hope to tell you that Graft doesn’t exist in concept but that its literary archive is integral to Puerto Rico’s education system. That the art that continues to be generated based on domestic architecture is not a mere exercise in aesthetics but that it is essential to Graft’s associations with racial justice,” Soto wrote.

Soto has spent the past decade using Graft to shine a permeating light on the Puerto Rican diaspora. Through this, communities in di erent corners of the world have gained a greater understanding of the displacement, celebration, grief, and strength that come with it. By continuing to develop her expertise in architecture, education, and community outreach, Graft is sure to have a lasting impact on the cultural landscape for years to come. v

Casa Isla was on view at the Chicago Botanic Garden in 2022. COURTESY THE ARTIST

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AUTHOR PHOTO BY

LINC COHEN

THE WANDERING WOMB: ESSAYS IN SEARCH OF HOME by S. L. Wisenberg University of Massachusetts Press, paperback, 248 pp., $22 95, umasspress.com

at history; Wisenberg also explores what it means to be a progressive, feminist, nonOrthodox Jewish woman today. In one essay, she recounts her visit to the mikvah, a ceremonial bath that Orthodox Jewish women take for purification after their periods and before their weddings. Wisenberg muses on the tension that she feels between “the historic misogyny of Jewish law” and her desire to participate in traditional rituals. Although she has reinterpreted certain customs for herself—such as asking her rabbi to create a wedding ceremony without God or Hebrew—she wonders, “How far can you go in changing a symbol or practice to make it relevant, before it’s no longer Jewish?”

Steeped in history

S. L. Wisenberg’s essays explore Jewish identity and modern womanhood.

By EMILY MCCLANATHAN

In the most famous lines of his 1855 poem “Song of Myself,” Walt Whitman writes, “Do I contradict myself? / Very well then I contradict myself, / (I am large, I contain multitudes.)” After reading S. L. Wisenberg’s insightful new book, The Wandering Womb: Essays in Search of Home, it’s clear that she, too, contains multitudes.

The Chicago-based author, editor, and educator explores themes of Jewish identity, womanhood, and embodiment in this nonchronological collection of essays, which spans many decades of her life. (Previous versions of five entries have appeared in the Reader , the earliest in 1987.) Part memoir, part history, part travelogue, The Wandering Womb is rich with incisive reflections, personal vulnerability, dry humor, and, yes, a few contradictions.

As a woman, Wisenberg expresses pride in her experience of menses, “the sea that connects me to all women,” yet she furtively discards her feminine hygiene products in public bins while staying with a male acquaintance who has no trash can in his bathroom. She lampoons the superficiality of Greek life while participating in sorority rush as an undercover 29-year-old, only to admit afterward that “deep down, goddammit, I wanted all of it.”

As a Jewish American, Wisenberg writes movingly about generational trauma, tracing her ancestry from eastern Europe

through Selma, Alabama, and Houston, Texas. Her family escaped violent pogroms and the Holocaust, and Nazis haunted her childhood imagination, yet she feels ambivalent about patriarchal Jewish rituals and is unmoved by her first and last visit to Auschwitz, which she calls a destination for “vampire tourism.”

In “Grandmother Russia/Selma,” an essay written in 2020, she tells of her ancestors’ migration from Lithuania, then part of the Russian empire, at the turn of the 20th century. “We left the empire and didn’t go back, didn’t look back—because we were not Russian, we were Jews. They wouldn’t let us be Russian,” she writes, adopting the first-person plural as she often does when writing about her family history. “Russia did not care. Mother Russia was a large and blue-cold mother who had millions more at home she could treat indi erently, millions living and starving in the blue-cold folds of her shawls.”

This stark image comes across as especially chilling in 2023, more than a year into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a country led by a Jewish president. Although she did not rewrite the piece in light of this war, Wisenberg acknowledges the vastly changed circumstances in an afternote.

When her grandparents and great-grandparents arrived in the southern United States, the nation was only a few decades beyond the

Civil War. “In a Black-white society, they were deemed white,” she writes of her Jewish ancestors. “They wore their bestowed whiteness fearfully, then naturally.” Wisenberg is cleareyed about the complexity—and complicity— of assimilation during the Jim Crow era, noting that she was born in a segregated Houston hospital only three months after Emmett Till was murdered.

The topic of complicity comes up repeatedly as she discusses the history of anti-Semitism in Europe before, during, and after the Holocaust. Her grandfather remembered pouring boiling oil on local assailants during the 1903 Kishinev pogrom. In 1995, the French govern-

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ment belatedly acknowledged the nation’s collusion in rounding up French and foreign Jews during World War II. And on her visit to Auschwitz, Wisenberg observed the many photos of Polish martyrs (“priest after priest”); more emphasis has since been given to the Jewish victims, following a controversy over a convent that was established at the camp site in the 1980s.

But this collection is not only a look back

Numerous essays are not specifically about Jewish themes but address elements of womanhood at various stages of life. I especially connected with several pieces written during or about her late 20s and early 30s (unsurprisingly, given my age). In “Spy in the House of Girls”—the aforementioned essay about her incognito, belated experience of sorority rush—Wisenberg looks back on her college years, not so much with nostalgia but with a wistfulness for what might have been. Despite the many professional and personal accomplishments of her 20s, she expresses a sense of loss for the friends who have slipped away amid the changing seasons of early adulthood. In several pieces about living with chronic asthma, surviving breast cancer, and attempting to exercise more when she turns 30, Wisenberg reflects on the relationship between body and mind, between the physical and the spiritual. “This is not ritual as you know it,” she imagines explaining to her rural ancestors during an aerobics session, “but perhaps I am performing a ritual of the secular humanists we have become. Or maybe what I was doing was religious, a physical prayer to praise the heart’s relentless pumping, the continual necessary moving of parts.”

If there’s one quote that sums up this collection, I’d argue that it’s a passage from an essay titled “In Wrocław, Formerly Breslau.” She writes, “We want to know what is hidden. Our heritage, Jewish and female, is buried in the backyard, the great Jewish backyard that is Europe.” In The Wandering Womb, Wisenberg excavates layers of her personal, family, and cultural history, drawing connections to the present that will resonate with a broad audience, whether or not they share aspects of her identity. v @Emily_221B

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REVIEWS R Memory as devotion

Myra Greene’s “Kept” lays bare the mechanisms of visibility.

Myra Greene’s “Kept,” the Atlanta artist’s third solo exhibition at Patron, interrogates notions of archive and intervention with de and delicate hands. The act of care drives Greene’s mediation as the exhibition is composed from a collection of her grandmother’s personal photos. Greene selected and reprinted specific images as ambrotypes in order to challenge assumptions of Black interiority and kinship; these are images of the everyday, of people not commonly seen in dominant photographic narratives. In addition to the importance of Greene’s positionality, her process and material are chosen with precision. She first created digital negatives of each image and then chemically printed the negatives onto white and cream sheets of glass. Through these processes Greene changes the form and legibility of the images; she lays bare the mechanisms of visibility. Greene asks the viewer, “What is it that you see?”

It’s this question of sight that resides at the heart of “Kept.” How one sees, how one expresses their vision, the differences and frictions inherent to your experience when compared to that of another, are what Greene seeks to study. The pieces in the show are small, the glass panes, similar in size to notebook paper, and the images themselves all bring to mind the portability of Polaroids. The gallery space where they are shown is intimate. Visitors must view the work with intent, with concentration, in order to see outlines of a woman take shape and her expression come into view. Such concentration is another word for care; for its care, attention, devotion to another that allows a plane of a cheek to take shape and the outline of a smile to shine. For Greene, such attention is the meaning of archiving—of this archive—and what it really means to see.

—ANNETTE

LEPIQUE “KEPT” Through 3/25: Tue-Sat 11 AM-6 PM, Patron, 1612 W. Chicago, patrongallery.com

RUnassuming and self-assured

These works radiate a collective harmony that only the most inspired achieve.

The late American artist Chuck Close once famously said, “Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work.” While the first part of that quote may be true, the second part undoubtedly is. It also explains why all of Close’s paintings look pretty much the same: formulaic and uninspired. Inspiration is hard; punching a clock, on the other hand, is pretty easy. Knowing the difference between the two is harder still. Chicago-based artists Aya Nakamura, Megan Diddie, and Alexandra Schutz are inspired, both by their physical engagement with the world and by the methods they’ve chosen to communicate the depth of that engagement. The works in their intimate new exhibition, “Concentrate and ask again,” at Heaven Gallery, are thematically and expressively divergent—befitting their unique minds and interests—but united by a shared love of material and process, fiber, and form.

Nakamura applies color to handmade paper, Diddie renders arborescent worlds with achromatic gouache, and Schutz weaves her way through jute, cotton, and bamboo. The methodical accumulation of marks are the life force that animates these subtle objects. Nakamura’s

Heart (V), punctuated by breaks and ruptures, is both drawing and sculpture and so acts as a formal bridge between Schutz’s ambitious Arch and Diddie’s introspective locating yourself. Unassuming and self-assured, these works radiate a collective harmony that only the most inspired achieve. —ALAN POCARO “CONCENTRATE AND ASK AGAIN” Through 4/16: Fri-Sat 1 PM-6 PM, Sun 1 PM-5 PM, Heaven Gallery, 1550 N. Milwaukee, heavengallery.com

RTogetherness reevaluated

A photo exhibition documents the longtime partnership of Miller and Shellabarger.

Chicago artists Dutes Miller and Stan Shellabarger have been doing everything together for decades—literally. The longtime partners in art and in life have been working with traditional American cra techniques—silhouette cutting, sewing, crocheting, and bookmaking—but they’re perhaps best known for their performative works: Untitled (Pink Tube), an ongoing nontheatrical performance they started 20 years ago in which they simultaneously crochet at opposite ends of a long tube of pink yarn; Untitled (Origami Cranes), featuring the artists folding paper cranes over the course of three Saturdays, eight hours at a time, on a bed in the window of a Chicago futon store (vaguely bringing to mind John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s nonviolent antiwar protests,

Bed-ins for Peace); and Untitled Performance (Sewing), where they literally stitched themselves together from ankle to neck.

“Miller & Shellabarger: Photography” at (northern) Western Exhibitions, the gallery’s Skokie outpost, is a nod to that work in the form of a collection of photographs—sort of. Interestingly some of the photographs are not mere documentation of the performances but rather very intentional snippets that were initially conceived as such. It provides an intimate look at the artists’ creative togetherness.

Performing in public spaces can be a lot of things: intimate, vulnerable, exhausting. But walking in a space full of light, color, and powerful emotion, one cannot help but feel the spark between Miller and Shellabarger. There’s undeniable infatuation, chemistry, excitement, deep love but also stillness. Then there’s a voyeuristic element: looking at the photographs feels at times even more intimate than watching the performances play out—whether they’re twirling with sparklers (Spooky Distant Action) or letting the long tube of pink yarn unravel. Importantly, there’s a sense of connectedness so strong that overshadows everything else: proof that in the face of life’s unimaginable challenges, togetherness can and will save the world. —VASIA RIGOU “MILLER AND SHELLABARGER: PHOTOGRAPHY” Through 5/6: Wed-Sat noon-6 PM, Sun noon-4 PM, (northern) Western Exhibitions, 7933 N. Lincoln, Skokie, westernexhibitions.com

R Cycles of grief

Fabrizzio Subia’s ‘Año Nuevo’ reflects on ritual, loss, and an annual rejuvenation.

Ecuador celebrates the New Year with fire and ashes. Every year’s final day is defined by reflection and renewal as people erect bonfires to burn painted effigies assembled from old clothes, sawdust, and papier-mâché. These figures, the año viejos, embody the misfortunes of the previous year. Together, Ecuadorians engage in the ritual of rejuvenation, discarding the past to begin again. Fabrizzio Subia, a Chicago performance artist and the assistant manager of exhibitions and development at the International Museum of Surgical Science, returns to Ecuador every year to participate in the New Year celebrations. But this year, Subia performed and documented a separate grief ritual on January 3, with Año Nuevo, dedicated to his brother who passed away during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The pandemic’s first wave devastated Ecuador, particularly in the city of Guayaquil. Hospitals quickly became overcrowded and the government intervened, eventually burning the bodies of the dead in the streets. To mourn and remember the dead, Subia burned one año viejo an hour for 24 consecutive hours. The performance evokes the relentless, inescapable sensation of grief, the suffocation of loss. He materializes this labor of grief, filling an entire day with repetition and reflection. Subia’s exhibition features 24 videos, capturing

Kwame Brathwaite. Untitled (Stevie Wonder Headlines Human Kindness Day at the National Mall, Washington, DC), 1975. The Kwame Brathwaite Archive and Philip Martin Gallery. COURTESY THE KWAME BRATHWAITE ARCHIVE

Artist Fabrizzio Subia poses with his año viejos, which embody the misfortunes of the previous year. COURTESY THE ARTIST

Installation view, “Miller and Shellabarger: Photography” JAMES PRINZ

every hour of the ritual simultaneously, illuminating and obscuring the passage of time. Immersed in the ritual, we experience the immensity of the performance. At every turn, ritual and memorial are in action and the passage of time folds onto itself.

—MAXWELL

RABB

“AÑO NUEVO” Through 5/7: Mon-Fri 9:30 AM-5 PM, Sat-Sun 10 AM-5 PM, International Museum of Surgical Science, 1524 N. Lake Shore, imss.org, admission $11-$19, free for members

RBlack culture as a force for change

Kwame Brathwaite captured the music, fashion, and styles of a bygone era.

“Things Well Worth Waiting For” is a small-scale, deeply comprehensive exhibition that transports you to a different time where women wore flamboyant dresses, men drove classic cars, segregation prevailed, and the power of soul music was palpable. Photojournalist and activist Kwame Brathwaite was there, documenting it all—in words and in photographs

Occupying two galleries at the Art Institute of Chicago, the exhibition provides insight into over 70 years of Brathwaite’s work, through photographs, magazines, albums, and color slides from the 1960s to the 1980s, many of which are on view for the first time in decades. Here Bob Marley’s performance at the Wonder Dream concert in Kingston, Jamaica, and Stevie Wonder’s Zaire ’74, a music festival organized

alongside the “Rumble in the Jungle” boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, all come to life.

Passionate about music, Brathwaite traveled far and wide to review performances for publications—from the UK’s Blues & Soul to Japan’s Adlib. More than the energy of the headliners, he captured the social and cultural dynamics of his time. Importantly, he showed Black culture at its essence. Immersed in the inner workings of the entertainment industry (he was a musician and event organizer), he never shied away from documenting the everyday. African diaspora-inspired fashion, natural hairstyles, and statement jewelry were widely featured in his work, serving as a means to social change, equity, and liberation. In an effort to deconstruct the ideology of white aesthetics, he ignited the radical “Black Is Beautiful” movement.

Titled a er the headline Brathwaite wrote for his review of Stevie Wonder’s 1976 album, Songs in the Key of Life, “Things Well Worth Waiting For” encapsulates the 1970s as a period of risk and uncertainty, but also opportunity and a powerful beacon for change.

VASIA RIGOU “KWAME BRATHWAITE: THINGS WELL WORTH WAITING FOR” Through 7/24: Mon 11 AM-5 PM, Thu 11 AM-8 PM, Fri-Sun 11 AM-5 PM, Art Institute of Chicago, 111 S. Michigan, artic.edu/ exhibitions, adults $25 ($35 Fast Pass, $22 Illinois residents, $20 Chicago residents), seniors 65+, students, and teens 14-17 $19 ($29 Fast Pass, $16 Illinois residents, $14 Chicago residents), children under 14 free, Chicago residents aged 14-17, free

BY DONNETTA LAVINIA GRAYS DIRECTED BY VALERIE CURTIS-NEWTON

SPRING THEATER & ARTS PREVIEW

CENTERING THE DANCE COMMUNITY

‘It’s about finding those visceral connections to dance’

Meredith Sutton talks about taking the Dance Center into its 50th anniversary season.

By IRENE HSIAO

On January 6, the dance department at Columbia College announced Meredith Sutton as the interim director of the Dance Presenting Series at its Dance Center. Sutton served as program manager for the Dance Presenting Series since February of the previous

year. Before moving to Chicago, Sutton was associate professor of dance at the University of Southern Mississippi and taught at Tulane University and the University of Virginia. On March 11, she spoke with the Reader about the past and future of the Dance Center’s Presenting Series.

Irene Hsiao: What brought you to Chicago?

Meredith Sutton: I’ve been with the Dance Center for about a year and two months. This is my second coming to Chicago—initially we moved in 2016, right after [my] decision to transition from teaching in higher education in support of my family. My husband and I were at two different academic institutions because of our professional pursuits. In tandem with the birth of our son, who is almost seven years old now, I made the decision to come to Chicago. I was primarily a stay-athome mom, but I taught dance history at Chi Arts for one year before our departure, again due to my husband’s work, which brought us back here in the summer of 2020, right in the middle of the pandemic.

That must have been a hard time to get here.

It was a very interesting time. After sheltering in place, I happened upon this posting for a program manager position. My son was in kindergarten; it felt like the right time to prioritize what is of interest and a passion to me.

Does your position involve teaching?

I have had the lovely opportunity to do some substitute teaching here and there, but this role is primarily administrative in terms of connecting artists with the community at the Dance Center and the larger Chicago dance community.

Can you tell me more about what’s been happening at the Dance Center?

I know in tandem with my predecessor’s [Ellen Chenoweth] departure there was a sense of concern and urgency about what was happening. I found that to be interesting because of my intersection in the rich history of the Dance Center and coming in at that time . . . no, we’re still moving and shaking over here, everything’s all good! That type of response— concern, impact, and empathy—really speaks to how integral the functioning of the Dance

Center as an idea and as an actual brickand-mortar space that supports art is to the larger landscape of dance in the city—that’s important to recognize, feel, acknowledge. I came midway through the academic term in the Presenting Series season, so I really can’t speak from an experiential point of departure about what it meant to reopen the doors and to gather into the space right after live performance was acceptable again, but I can say that feeling is still quite viscerally felt and not taken for granted at all.

What’s next for you? What kind of changes do you want to bring to the Dance Center?

The first is honoring the legacy of the Dance Center. Next year makes 50 for the Dance Presenting series, so we’re looking back to move forward, in ways that give nods to [founder] Shirley Mordine, those roots and seeds that were planted, those roots that began to burrow in the programming in the course of the 50th anniversary season. I think it is of utmost importance to communicate in the programming what those beautiful nuances are of the academic program, the multifaceted, pluralistic nature of what the students are studying—ballet and contemporary practices, improvisation, West African dance, those kinesthetic roots from the diaspora. It’s important for us to significantly highlight that in the 50th anniversary season. More to come there.

What’s your vision for what the Dance Center will evolve into?

Again I think it’s honoring that legacy. It’s about how we are really partnering with artists, not simply—and I mean that without any negative connotation—presenting a work or having a limited engagement. How can we really partner with artists so those resonant effects are felt for days and weeks and years to come? How are we offering embodied experiences to those supporters, those patrons, those audience members in tandem with opening our doors to come and see dance and experience dance in that way? It’s about finding those visceral connections to

Meredith Sutton M. AMIRA PHOTOGRAPHY

SPRING THEATER & ARTS PREVIEW

dance and doing so in a really audacious way.

What does that mean for you?

It means connection; it means collaboration. It means giving opportunity; it means taking scope of what’s happening here on the Chicago dance scene and being reflective of the individuality and those unique nuances of our community internally. It’s about really reflecting who we are and how we can show that through the artists we are partnering with.

Can you tell us about your background in dance?

Again, without negative connotation, I didn’t have a choice: my mother was a dancer. My mom started dancing at a young age, and people took notice of her movement practice. At 15 years old, she started teaching kids in her neighborhood. It grew and grew. She had a school in New Orleans for 55 years. So dance was a predetermined, serendipitous path for me. I grew up surrounded by dancers and movement and creativity and innovation. So that was my start. I decided to continue on that path in high school, college, and grad school with the full support of my family.

Can you tell me more about the spring series?

Staycee Pearl dance project and Soy Sos, a Pittsburgh-based dance company, was so inspiring to us. They were so energetic and really connected to the students. They were selfless in the way they articulated this movement experience so rooted in the choreographer’s experience as a Black woman. The immersive nature of the sound score, the generous fluidity of the body, the myriad of different genres and languages that were so wonderfully intertwined, was just exceptional to experience. In less than two weeks we’re welcoming FLOCK. We’re excited to have Alice [Klock] and Florian [Lochner], both formerly dancers and choreographers with Hubbard Street, return to Chicago with the premiere of a new work. We’re really excited to see what

they’re incorporating—our experiences, our memories, how that is communicated through the body. We’re rounding out the season with Jumaane Taylor and Supreme Love. [Taylor] is so humble and rooted in what this work is said to express. I’m really excited to have it presented at the Dance Center.

In the past, the Dance Center offered open master classes when choreographers and companies would come through—is that still happening?

It’s not still happening, but we’d like to reinstate them with the 50th anniversary season. In the past it was coined [the] Dance Masters series, a series of master classes. This commitment to presenting embodied experiences goes beyond the students at the Dance Center [to] those who are part of our internal community. It’s important not only for us to open our doors for the performances but to have these really intimate experiences with the artists beyond the scope of the proscenium. More to come on that soon.

What are you looking forward to?

I’m looking forward to connecting with the dance community here in Chicago in a really authentic way. I know I’m still pretty new to being on the dance scene, but meeting and intersecting and making connections through the work presented here is really important to me. I’m looking forward to having a hand in continuing such a rich history of the Dance Center and seeing how this path continues that legacy for many years to come. I’m so honored to participate in what that continuum is.

Is there anything else you would like to share?

Thanks for the continued support and trust of what the Dance Center is about. We’re looking forward to welcoming and opening our doors to the community. v

@IreneCHsiao

SPRING THEATER & ARTS PREVIEW

Terence Marling JOSEPH HERNANDEZ

Marling founded the professional training program out of a need he identified in the Chicago dance scene, a need which he would argue is not exclusive to Chicago—a space for young dancers to establish a sustainable career in the city.

This move was another step in his history of dancer advocacy. In his early 20s, Marling was a union shop steward at Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre. He was deeply involved in negotiating multiple basic agreements, which are the long-term union agreements that govern the relationship between the company and its dancers. The union made these collective bargaining agreements every four years.

wishes to give more time and space to create. The Conservatory is currently in process with Jackie Nowicki, and the performance will take place Saturday, March 25, at 7 PM. Nowicki is one of the 11 guest artists working with the Conservatory this year. She is also the next guest artist for canvas. Previous canvas artists included Adeline Else, Katlin Michael Bourgeois, Braeden Barnes, Noelle Kayser, Ibrahim Sabbi, and Marling. Auditions for visiting artists for canvas are open to artists of all kinds, and Marling aims for multidisciplinary works to emerge from the program.

SUPPORT SYSTEM

Building COMMON ground

By NORA PAUL

During the second iteration of COMMON canvas, bodies circled around a center point: a pile of clothes in an upstage corner. For a moment, the pile of clothes moved, as if to take a breath, and the bodies around it held still. The performance, which Chicago dance artist and current Hubbard Street member Alysia L. Johnson created in collaboration with students of COMMON Conservatory, was built in a day.

COMMON canvas is a newer feature of COMMON Conservatory, which Terence (Terry) Marling founded in 2018. Since its first performance in 2021, the canvas series has brought members of the Chicago artistic community together to create an improvisation-based

piece with the Conservatory over the course of a day, serving the organization’s mission to nurture the dance community artistically and through pursuing financial equity. The product of the day’s rehearsal is a ticketed event held at the Drucker Center (1535 N. Dayton), and seats often sell out. The ticket revenue is split evenly amongst the dancers.

COMMON Conservatory is a space of passage for emerging dance artists into a professional career. The 36-week professional training program includes daily technique classes in ballet and contemporary or modern dance, and rehearsal in the afternoon. Ongoing creation processes with rotating choreographers coalesce in quarterly performances, the final one synthesizing the previous three.

He recalls, “I loved to stand at the helm of that, because I was always there fighting for what the dancers should have. So that really goes back a long way; I’ve always felt that dancers are my people, and people that I want to advocate for. It’s not easy to become a dancer, and to stay a dancer. It takes a lot of e ort in order to do it, and there are a lot of sacrifices that have to be made.”

Building COMMON has therefore required analyzing “the economics of how things work, and trying to make things possible for the dancers . . . I think that the Chicago freelance dance scene can use this kind of place as a support mechanism.”

Marling himself had a favored entrance into Chicago’s dance scene. He began his training at Ruth Page Center for the Arts under the venerated ballet teacher Larry Long. He danced at Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre and at Germany’s Nationaltheater Mannheim before becoming a member of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. He spent four seasons onstage with Hubbard Street before becoming its rehearsal director in 2010. In 2013, he was named director of Hubbard Street 2 (HS 2), Hubbard Street Dance’s preprofessional company. He described his work with COMMON as somewhat analogous to his position with HS 2.

“Those were jobs, you know, those are actual paid jobs,” Marling noted, referring to a company position in HS 2.

“When that closed down, I was definitely looking for that kind of exciting environment . . . this little extra space and time to get what you need to get out of your training.”

The Conservatory program enables a mutual reciprocity between Chicago dancemakers or freelance dancers, and those in training. Marling often selects choreographers whom he

Marling has a long-term goal of developing a professional company. His organization is currently largely supported by its donors, with Fractured Atlas as its fiscal sponsor. COMMON has applied for 501(c)(3) status, which would assist with the accumulation of funds necessary to pay a group of dancers a living wage for their work. Kelsey McFalls, the director of development, reported that this transition should be complete before the end of 2023. However, Marling notes, growth is a process, and not a situation that can be forced. He does not want to create a company whose members experience uncertainty about how much or when they will be paid.

“So this does mean that it has to be very slow, controlled growth; it’s almost like watching a plant grow. You just don’t see it. We just have to very, very carefully make sure it doesn’t die,” he told me.

Marling is aware that part of having a socially sustainable company is a structure of collective leadership. He envisions the company being “dancer-centric” and collectively led. The company will have agency in its own functioning in all respects, with, for example, “a dancer who knows a lot about legal things, or in fact, a lawyer or . . . a dancer who is also a sound engineer, or a videographer . . . eventually building a group that has multiple skills, and everyone’s invested in the work on multiple levels.” The goal is “that everybody reaps the benefit from the work that gets created.”

Models of distributed leadership are becoming more prevalent; companies such as Gibney Dance, Sydnie L. Mosley Dances, and Dance/NYC share creative agency and responsibilities internally. These shifts away from centralized forms of power have happened in response to widespread economic hardship that the COVID-19 pandemic induced and larger awareness of ongoing racial and eco-

“It’s not easy to become a dancer, and to stay a dancer.”

SPRING THEATER & ARTS PREVIEW

nomic injustice. Many artistic companies have provided more space for diverse voices and prioritized equity in their internal structures.

COMMON currently has three people on its administrative staff: Joseph Hernandez, Lauryn Masciana, and McFalls. Masciana was a dancer in the Conservatory before undertaking her current program administrator role. She graduated with her BFA in 2020 amidst the upheaval of the pandemic, and found in COMMON a space where she could continue her artistic practice. Having witnessed the program’s evolution over the years, Mascinana noted that it has “maintained the central goal of focusing on the dancers as individuals.”

“Each group of artists has been quite di erent from the group before it. That being said, the elements of the conservatory have shifted to fit the needs of each given group. The range of choreographers and faculty has broadened over time,” she wrote.

COMMON also brings dancers into Chicago

from across the country. Marling mentioned that many dancers have come for the program, often directly upon graduating from college, and stay after their completion. This function of the program is important, he feels, to fuel a thriving ecosystem of dance in Chicago.

The Conservatory, Marling asserts, is already situated as the future company’s foundation. He clarified that the Conservatory would never function as a source of funding for the company, but that “part of it is amassing enough really amazing dancers here in Chicago and creating enough of a scene that building a company is quite natural.”

He reflected on COMMON: “It’s where I feel I’m best applying my e orts in the dance world. . . . This is where I can best be of use. This is what I’ve determined. If somebody can figure out a better way, though, like something I can do better, I’ll listen.”

@noraapaul

Photo of Aeriel Williams by Joe Mazza

SPRING THEATER & ARTS PREVIEW

So you think you know dance

DCASE’s Open Studio gives artists and audiences space to reimagine the form.

By WANJIKU KAIRU

The Chicago Cultural Center knows how to provide visceral and engaging Chicago-created content. Last year the city celebrated the Year of Chicago Dance, which highlighted our thriving and diverse dance community. During that time, the Chicago Cultural Center Dance Studio installed a new dance floor and provided space, time, and funding for Chicago dancemakers to create their art in a supportive environment. And create they did. This year the Dance Residency Open Studio Series showcases performances that may change how you perceive dance. Ever played Just Dance with your nephew and niece and wondered, “How do they know what I’m doing?” For decades scientists have been working behind the game console to find creative ways to merge movement and technology outside of the gaming world. Movement artist and biomechanical research scientist Christopher Knowlton combined his passions for dancing and engineering to produce a visceral experience that can change the way we interact with technology through dance.

Knowlton and his production team use

microchips attached to the body to track the movement of the muscle and interpret it through auditory and visual outlets. When I attended Knowlton’s Open Studio program on March 14, the dancers’ movements produced whooshing, whale-like human sounds, alongside bubbly digital synthesizers. It’s a form of dance I have never witnessed before, but the research Knowlton is doing can advance our understanding and interaction with dance and technology. I talked to Knowlton following the program.

Wanjiku Kairu: What exactly were those sensors that the dancers were wearing?

Knowlton: The sensors on the dancers’ shoulders are surface electromyography (EMG) electrodes, which detect muscle activation as a voltage across the skin. These sensors are sort of like muscle microphones, and the signal is related to the strength of the muscle contraction. It’s similar to EKG (electrocardiography), which gets the electrical signal from the heart when it contracts, but we put it on skeletal muscles. The transmitters send

the data wirelessly so we can work with it. It’s something we use in the lab and in the clinic frequently, so I’ve always wanted to use them artistically.

After the performance during the talkback, I noticed the dancers taking sensors out of their shoes as well. What were those used for?

The dancers were also wearing pressuresensing insoles in their shoes, which get the pressure distribution and total force under their feet. Interestingly, neither EMG nor insoles actually track movement. They track muscle tension/effort and pressure, respectively, both of which are tactile senses that we can’t fully observe when watching dance or convey through something like film or streaming video. I was drawn to them because they are bodily senses that we lose in networked interactions, so I’m trying to see how we might augment and substitute those senses. Right now both systems are driving aspects of the sound, which is very early in development.

What inspired you to pursue biomechanics and merge dance with technology?

My background is in math and science, and I went to undergrad for engineering. I wasn’t really a dancer before then, so my dance training coincided with my engineer training and I found my interests blurring together. I thought it was really fascinating to try to understand the body—particularly the moving body—through the lens of the physical laws through which we try to understand the rest of the world. So I came up to Chicago for grad school to study bioengineering at UIC, knowing that there is a big dance scene here and that I could pursue that.

My creative voice developed right alongside my scientific work. I think that because we interact with technology all the time, it’s interesting and necessary to explore. I think as humans, we have always sought out technologies to improve our lives. Even language is a technology, and I think in many ways dance can be seen as an even older technology that we use to communicate, to express ourselves, to preserve and share aspects of our cultures, to learn about our own bodies. I see working

with emerging technologies in art as part of that continuum, allowing us to explore the ethical and social implications that these technologies will have for us.

How do you see your research influencing the future of dance and virtual reality?

Some of the tools we are developing for the work are part of the larger fields of biofeedback in biomechanics and interactive media and human-computer interaction in the humanities, where we have a lot of people exploring these technologies. These fields involve turning data from sensors into some kind of media, like visuals or sounds, in real time to understand how that feedback from the moving body a ects how it moves. In my lab at Rush, we are using this approach with wearable technology to create better noninvasive, individualized rehabilitative treatments for diseases like osteoarthritis.

In this work, I want to see how a more embodied approach to interacting in threedimensional virtual space could help us connect better across distance, rather than the sort of flat, short, text- and image-based interactions we have with current social media platforms. We’re definitely not trying to develop a new social media—who needs a new one of those?—but maybe a new way to connect with someone you can’t immediately touch. Like a phone call or FaceTime, but for embodied movement. And hopefully by using sound, we may also in some way make those modes of connecting through movement in digital space more accessible to people who are blind and visually impaired.

What other projects do you have in the works?

Currently I am wrapping up my last project, Extended Play , which is an augmented reality dance work for the surface of a playing vinyl record. That work combines emerging technologies like AR and motion capture with retro analog technologies like music boxes and record players to explore isolation, memory, nostalgia, futurism, and the queer experience of digital spaces, while exploring what a record of dance is and can be. For it, I’m getting an actual vinyl album pressed, which is sort of the soundtrack and the stage, and I expect that to be released this year with the rollout of the app with the virtual performance.

@HolyBarbie

Christopher Knowlton at DCASE’s Dance Residency Open Studio on March 14 WALTER S. MITCHELL III

SPRING THEATER & ARTS PREVIEW

Kaitlyn Andrews SARAH JOYCE

COLLECTIVE ACTS

BCAM brings diversity to the circus

The BIPOC Circus Alliance Midwest, a thriving performance troupe in Chicago, played to soldout audiences in venues around Chicago in February and March.

A ectionately called BCAM by their members and fans, they are more than just a collective of circus artists. BCAM is an organization that emerged from the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020 in order to provide performance opportunities and camaraderie for artists of color. It has since become a model of grassroots community building for other art forms and regions that might be interested in forming a self-empowering network.

One of its founders, Kaitlyn Andrews (a theater and circus artist specializing in rope, partner acrobatics, and clown), says the organization grew organically. Equity and inclusion education increased in arts organizations around the U.S. in 2020, yet demands to inform organizations on inclusivity practices were increasingly placed upon people of color (POC). Circus was not immune to that call to examine its diversity.

After assisting local circus schools with conversations about how to include more POC, the cofounders of BCAM decided to get together on their own to discuss their experiences in the world of circus and what they could do to increase opportunities for BIPOC

performers. I spoke to four of the cofounders, and each person emphasized how much joy and relief they found at these gatherings—so much so that they formed an alliance right then, creating the culture of their newfound group as a DIY arts organization that emphasizes fostering the community they need.

I asked Andrews why they chose the midwest label rather than Chicago. Did they foresee the need to expand to other regions? She says expansion is possible, but for now, the focus is the midwest (not simply Chicago) because members quickly joined from surrounding states. Still, she was surprised to discover how strong the circus community was in Chicago, where we have over half a dozen circus organizations. “Chicago is a really awesome place to be for circus. You wouldn’t necessarily know it, but we have so many di erent training spaces here. The community is really thriving, and we’re just going to have di erent needs than in New York or LA,” Andrews says.

Of those circus spaces—the Center for Dynamic Circus, MSA & Circus Arts, CircEsteem, Trapeze School New York in Chicago, Aloft, and The Actors Gymnasium—most include circus schools as well as performance space, making it an ideal environment for circus artists to share their knowledge and artistic expression. Chicago also hosts many touring shows annually (Cirque du Soleil makes it

a point to stop by regularly) and is home to multiple circus-themed events and circus-adjacent festivals each year as well as recurring circus shows like Midnight Circus, which has raised close to a million dollars for the Chicago Park District.

In spite of the high number of circus performers in town, their presence doesn’t exactly reflect the diversity of Chicago’s population, which according to 2020 census data is 65 percent nonwhite. Racial diversity in circus is something that BIPOC Circus Alliance Midwest hopes to improve not just by providing performance opportunities but also by encouraging youth with BIPOC representation to join the circus community.

Cofounder Amanda Okolo (who specializes in pole dancing, aerial silks, and aerial hoop) says her experiences in circus were similar to those of many other people of color. “The circus world overall is welcoming, but there are times where I feel like I can’t completely be myself. Sometimes I feel the need to blend in because I know that I stand out without trying. I also put pressure on myself to perform better and try harder than my peers because I feel like there are eyes on me and more judgment towards me.”

Visibility is a key element to increasing awareness, and BCAM is working hard on this by creating opportunities where none have historically existed. They just performed an-

other of their themed cabaret shows in March at the Chicago Circus & Performing Arts Festival, where they made their debut live audience performance the previous year. Just weeks before that, they sold out their Black History Month Cabaret at Aloft.

Okolo speaks to the mission. “We want to create spaces for artists of color to be at the forefront, where their ideas are heard and realized so they can feel confident moving through the circus world and beyond. We want these artists to be encouraged to ask for what they are worth and to see their art as worthy to be seen.”

Another cofounder is Eric Robinson, a beloved member of the Chicago circus community with 17 years of performing and teaching under his belt. He is an acrobat and physical theater artist who also juggles. He creates awareness around BCAM by hosting their podcast The Conversation, interviewing people from circus in the midwest and beyond. He says he set the podcast up as a way to “just get more colorful faces in the room. The purpose of BCAM is to create opportunities where there haven’t been any for people who have been doing things in a silo for years. Finding out that there are people of color out there with brilliant ideas that are not being seen in the circus community is really disheartening. And what we would like to see going forward is a spotlight on those individuals.”

Robinson has interviewed over 25 individuals so far, with a focus on artists as well as facilitators in the circus community. He listed some of his favorites: “Jessica Hento from Circus Harmony, Tim Shaw from the Chicago Boyz, and Adrian Danzig [founder of 500 Clown] come to mind as memorable [interviews]. All of these guys created their own circus companies and/or companies in the theater communities. Hearing their stories and how you could just start from a single moment in time to working with the most talented people on the planet is amazing to me.”

Robinson sees the world of circus opening up for BIPOC performers. “Up-and-coming circus artists Alizé Hill and Danny Trinidad

“We want to create spaces for artists of color to be at the forefront.”

By KIMZYN CAMPBELL

come to mind. Alizé is two years away from a doctorate in social work, and Danny Trinidad at a young age has already done a Rick Bayless show [A Recipe for Disaster with Windy City Playhouse] and Cabaret ZaZou in such a short time. It shows you how striking while the iron is hot is everything.”

By starting in 2020, BCAM did just that, recognizing the moment to call out (and in) the circus community for its lack of diversity. When asked if interest in engaging BIPOC circus artists has waned from the circus industry since the original wave in the early days, cofounder Chris Rooney (straps artist and flying trapeze performer/instructor with Trapeze School New York in Chicago) has a practical perspective: “I don’t know if it’s fair to say that the tension has waned. I will say there are other big looming priorities, like . . . a global pandemic . . . I think there’s still positive intent . . . and we acknowledge and respect that re-

SPRING THEATER & ARTS PREVIEW

cruiting diverse sta should continue to be a focus and conversation.”

Andrews says, “As a group we’ve sort of pivoted to ‘OK, we can create our own opportunities, right?’” BCAM fully self-produces their shows but recognizes that the circus community in Chicago and beyond is showing up, both as an enthusiastic audience and with concrete means of support. “CSAW [Circus Students Around the World], they’ve been a meaningful benefactor in supporting our recent show financially,” Andrews notes. CSAW has awarded $43,500 in funding to 32 di erent BIPOC circus artists since 2020 when they o cially became a nonprofit. That included a special $2,000 grant that CSAW provided to BCAM in order to help them pay for the expenses of producing their Black History Month Cabaret. CSAW also provides microgrants for U.S. Circus Artists of Color, a program that awards $1,000 every month for a year to individual BIPOC circus

artists. Since September 2020, 26 microgrants have been awarded.

Along with CSAW providing production funding (and Aloft and Chicago Circus & Performing Arts Fest providing the venues), the local social circus organization CircEsteem acts as a fiscal sponsor for BCAM, allowing them to operate as a nonprofit. Rooney notes that this arrangement “takes a lot of administrative burden o of us so we can focus on the mission.”

Plans for the future include expanding their administrative roles so that the founders don’t burn out and looking for new opportunities for the organization. Rooney says that although his love of being a performer keeps him rooted in that process of creation, he also sees potential for BCAM to reach beyond performance only. “I love mentoring and helping others. . . . We’ve talked about having BCAM host or sponsor open gyms, so that feels like a more casual space for cotraining to happen and community to be made and to just share space.”

Andrews, who has a background in theater and dramaturgy, hints at the potential for show development to “get a little more structure in place and then create a container for ourselves to have spaces to develop with the same consistent core group of people.” To date, their performances have been act-based cabarets, but she says, “Every time we do a show, we ask ourselves, ‘Do we want a narrative through line here? Do we want to explore a central theme or topic?’ And usually, in the interest of time and schedules, it just made more sense to go with the cabaret format. But that would be a really interesting future exploration for us to actually ask ourselves, ‘How are we weaving the stories that we all want to tell together into a story to then share?’”

Rooney has further ideas to help BIPOC artists network. He’d like to create a nationwide database. “Then if you’re trying to

bring in performers, you could access this database and say, ‘OK, here’s an awesome POC artist who could perform with us.’ I think the sourcing of BIPOC talent and the connecting between organizations looking for performers and the talent they may not always find is a beautiful connection we can help make. Because we want to make those connections and create a pathway for people that may not otherwise have the visibility.”

Okolo agrees that more visibility for BIPOC circus artists is a key mission for BCAM. “I would love to see circus performers of color at the forefront of circus. I would love more spaces for performers of color to create shows, acts, and to express themselves in ways the circus world hasn’t seen yet. Ultimately, I would love it if when people think of circus, the image they see is diverse!”

Amanda Okolo working the silks

From le : BCAM cofounders Eric Robinson, Chris Rooney, Kaitlyn Andrews, and Amanda Okolo MICHELLE REID

Amanda Okolo (le ) and Chris Rooney AMANDA OKOLO; KRISS ABIGAIL PHOTOGRAPHY

SPRING THEATER & ARTS PREVIEW

The Understudy is ready for the spotlight

Andersonville’s theater bookstore and cafe finally gets an opening date.

By KERRY REID

Almost a year ago, I talked to Danny Fender and Adam Crawford about their plans for the Understudy, a new theater bookstore and coffee bar in Andersonville. At that time, they were aiming for an opening in August 2022.

City permits and supply chains being what they are, those plans got pushed back by several months. But now the shop is all cleared to open to the public this Saturday, March 25. I took a tour of the space with Fender and Crawford (who are now married) last week to see how the former Chase Bank outlet has been transformed.

The venue itself, designed by Chicago firm Siren Betty, feels both cozy and elegant, with a variety of di erent seating areas scattered throughout. Brick walls and painted ductwork suggest minimalism, but the quirky decor

warms it up, and the color palette reminded me of William Morris and the arts and crafts movement. (The promotional bookmarks definitely have that aesthetic.)

At the back of the main bookstore section, there’s a seating area with a plush couch and armchairs for those looking to relax and unwind. This will also be a space for public events, such as panel discussions and readings. A piano that Crawford’s mother found for free on Facebook Marketplace in his native Ohio is being refurbished and shipped to the store, so cabaret events will also be a possibility. Among the companies that Crawford and Fender mention as future partners for in-store performances are Kokandy Productions and Bramble Theatre, which is building out its Bramble Arts Loft just up Clark Street from the Understudy.

The shelves already contain a diverse collection of new and used titles in a range of categories, interspersed with a cunning array of antiques and knickknacks. Old posters and production photos cover the walls, and the owners hope to create space for regular theater-related exhibitions of visual art as well. The walls of the corridor to the restrooms are covered in old pages from scripts, including handwritten marginalia and rehearsal notes— reminders of the connection between the words on the page and the creative process of making a performance.

In addition to play scripts, there are books on theater craft and management, art books that focus on stage designers, biographies, theatrical-themed novels, and young adult and kids’ books. At the front of the store where sta picks (there are ten sta members total) and new arrivals get pride of place, Fender points out Mariama J. Lockington’s young adult novel, In the Key of Us, about a musical theater camp. Currently, the owners estimate that they have between 2,500 and 3,000 titles in stock.

The ordering process has been its own adventure. Crawford says, “We had to do it kind of the opposite of the way that a typical bookstore would open, [where they say] ‘OK, we have this much space, and we know we want to have these kinds of sections.’ And then a lot of the time you’ll just go straight to the publisher and they say, ‘Oh, well, here’s what we think every bookstore should have to start right now.’ Like, this is what’s hot, this is what’s selling.

“We’re obviously not like that. Most bookstores don’t have any of these [titles]. And so we had to kind of work in reverse of looking at our own shelves with our arms crossed and being like, ‘OK who’s that publisher? Or what’s that imprint? And do they publish anything else that we want? Or what else can we get from this playwright? And where can we source it from?’ And we had to go down these long rabbit holes of university presses and small indie presses.” (Foreign dramatic publishers are also well represented.)

The space cleaves rather neatly in half between the bookstore and the coffee bar. And that is very much by design. “It’s kind of

like two spaces running at the same time,” says Crawford. “I’ve been saying it’s not like we’re 50 percent bookstore and 50 percent coffee shop. We’re 100 percent coffee shop and 100 percent bookstore.” The Understudy isn’t offering a full menu yet, but coffee and pastries from both pHlour and Defloured (“which I think is funny,” laughs Fender) will be available.

Says Fender, “I think what’s been really exciting is Adam and I going down this journey of specialty co ee and really learning to fall in love with that and figuring out the parallels between coffee and theater worlds. I got to roast my own bag of beans at Metric Coffee [suppliers for the Understudy]. And the way they explained the roasting process, they used a theater metaphor, which was actually so helpful. The green coffee beans are the playwright in the text, and then the roaster is like the director roasting those beans and interpreting them and bringing out what is already there.”

Opening a new business in the wake of the COVID shutdown is a bold step, but Fender and Crawford feel confident that the community support for the Understudy will be there. They’ve already built connections by doing some pop-up shops in the past year, including Halloween on Catalpa in fall 2022. And while they’ve been cutting back a bit on their other careers in theater while they get the store together (Fender is a stage manager and Crawford is a performer and director), neither regrets the extra time they’ve put into what they hope will become a hub for theater practitioners and enthusiasts alike.

Crawford says, “One of the reasons the Understudy came about is because we wanted to have careers in Chicago theater and to be connected to this community. And I think, ultimately, this is doing that already, just by trying to honor other Chicago artists. [Theater oral historian] Mark Larson said to us, ‘It’s sort of like the visitor center for Chicago theater,’ because we are highlighting so many Chicago playwrights and so many Chicago theater companies.”

“It’s so fun coming here in the morning,” says Fender. “We wake up and it’s exciting to be here and to work in this space, especially now that we have a team helping us out. They’re all so creative and are so good about bringing ideas to the table and giving us feedback. So it really feels like we’re working on a show sometimes.”

Danny Fender (le ) and Adam Crawford, co-owners of the Understudy. SARAH ELIZABETH LARSON

SPRING THEATER & ARTS PREVIEW

CRITICS PICKS

Spring in our steps

Chicago stages bloom with a colorful array of performances.

By IRENE HSIAO, DEANNA ISAACS, AND KERRY REID

Winter might have been more mild than usual this year, but spring is coming in hot with live performances to light up the season. From remounts of favorites to world premieres, Chicago stages offer an intriguing seasonal bouquet in dance, opera, theater, comedy, and more. Here are 20 shows to consider in the days and months ahead.

DANCE (Irene Hsiao)

San Pareil

The Chicago Black Dance Legacy Project returns to the Logan Center for the Arts for San Pareil , a program featuring all ten members of its current cohort of Chicago dance companies—veteran CBDLP members Chicago Multi-Cultural Dance Center and Hiplet Ballerinas, Deeply Rooted Dance Theater, Forward Momentum Chicago, Joel Hall Dancers & Center, Najwa Dance Corps, and Muntu Dance Theatre, and new members M.A.D.D. Rhythms, Move Me Soul, Praize Productions, and The Era Footwork Crew. Celebrating forms including African dance, modern dance, jazz, tap, and footwork, the program promises a glimpse of the range of Black dance in Chicago and o ers the opportunity to witness history in the making as these companies come together to share the stage for the first time—as well as resources, practices, and perspectives over the course of the next two years. Sat 3/25 7 PM, Sun 3/ 26 2 PM (youth performance) and 6 PM, Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St., chicagoblackdancelegacy.org, $25 general admission, $10 students/seniors (62+)

Elements

World premieres by Thang Dao and Hope Boykin headline two weeks of mostly new works danced by Hubbard Street Dance Chicago in their spring program Elements at the MCA’s Edlis Neeson Theater. Program A includes Kyle Abraham’s dynamic and flirtatious 2018 solo Show Pony and the company premiere of Lar

Lubovitch’s 2010 Coltrane’s Favorite Things

Program B features Spenser Theberge’s tenderly sensual 2010 duet Ne Me Quitte Pas, first danced by HSDC in 2022, as well as Osnel Delgado’s The Windless Hold, created in 2019 for HSDC during an exchange with Cuba’s Malpaso Dance Company. Both programs are anchored by Aszure Barton’s showstopping BUSK , created in 2009, first seen at the Auditorium with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater right before the pandemic, remounted by Hubbard Street in 2021, and now in its third Chicago outing. Barton recently became only the third artist-in-residence in the company’s 45 years, after Twyla Tharp and Alejandro Cerrudo. 3/23-4/2, Thu 7:30 PM, Fri-Sat 8 PM, Sun 3 PM, Edlis Neeson Theater, 220 E. Chicago, 312-397-4010, hubbardstreetdance.com, $15-$95

OPERA (Deanna Isaacs)

Chicago Currents: Celebrating Chicago’s Waterways

Chicago Fringe Opera has put together something unique and uniquely Chicago: a staged art song concert celebrating the city’s waterways. Five singers, accompanied by piano and violin, navigate a musical history that includes Indigenous people, the arrival of Jean Baptiste Point DuSable, the rise of the industrial city, and the Great Migration—culminating with contemporary work that summons us to reconnect with our river-meets-lake landscape and to conserve it. The American Indian Center and Friends of the Chicago River are among the sponsors; performers include soprano Kirsten C. Kunkle, a citizen of the Mvskoke Nation, singing new pieces she wrote based on the work of her uncle, Indigenous poet Alexander Posey. Among the large roster of other composers: Florence Price and Harry T. Burleigh along with current Chicagoans Stacy Garrop and Eric Malmquist. Fri 3/24 7:30 PM, Sat 3/25

3 PM, The Edge Theater, 5451 N. Broadway, chicagofringeopera.com, $28-$45

The Cook-O Vanguard Opera, Chicago Opera Theater’s residency program for contemporary composers new to opera, presents a concert version premiere of a one-act by Grammy-nominated composer and Wheaton College professor of music composition and theory Shawn E. Okpebholo, with a libretto by veteran opera scripter Mark Campbell. Commissioned by the Vanguard Initiative, The Cook-Off follows three competitors on a television cooking show—Kenny Kincaid’s America Loves Food as they aim to outdo each other by creating the most luscious version of the national comfort food, mac and cheese. Okpebholo’s “Lord How Come Me Here,” featuring Ryan Opera Center alumni J’Nai Bridges and Will Liverman, was a contender in the 2023 Grammies. Thu 5/11 7:30 PM, Athenaeum Center for Thought and Culture, 2936 N. Southport, chicagooperatheater .org, $50 or $150 with after-party

THEATER (Kerry Reid)

Dying for It

On the heels of Steppenwolf’s production of Describe the Night , set in part in the Soviet Union during the Stalin era, Artistic Home presents Moira Bu ni’s “free adaptation” of Nikolai Erdman’s The Suicide—a piece banned by Uncle Joe before it ever hit the stage. Semyon, an unemployed young man with an obsession about ending his own life, crosses paths with a rogues’ gallery of fellow citizens (including an intellectual, a priest, a writer, a postman, and a “boisterous romantic”) who are all determined to somehow profit from Semyon’s pain. The dark satire is directed by Monica Payne. Through 4/23, Den Theatre, 1331 N. Milwaukee, 773-697-3830, theartistichome .org, $15-$35

The Cherry Orchard

Robert Falls stepped down in 2022 as artistic director of the Goodman after a 35-year tenure, but he’s not retired. A cast of Chicago heavy hitters take the stage under Falls’s direction in a revival of Anton Chekhov’s last play, written in 1904 before his untimely death from tuberculosis and tracing the fading fortunes of a once-aristocratic Russian family. Kate Fry stars as Lyubov Ranevskaya, returned from Paris and in denial about just how bad the family finances have become. She’s joined by Janet Ulrich Brooks, Will Allan, Kareem Bandealy, Matt DeCaro, Steppenwolf ensemble member Francis Guinan, and many other excellent talents. The production marks

a swan song of sorts for Falls with Chekhov’s major works, too; he previously directed Three Sisters (1995), The Seagull (2010), and Uncle Vanya (2017, in a version adapted by Annie Baker). 4/1-4/30, Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn, 312-443-3800, goodmantheatre. org, $25-$80

A Soldier’s Play

Charles Fuller’s 1982 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama about the murder of a Black sergeant on a Louisiana army base in 1944 received a Tony Award-winning revival in 2020 with Roundabout Theatre under the direction of the legendary Kenny Leon. (The play was also turned into a 1984 film starring Howard E. Rollins Jr., Adolph Caesar, and a young Denzel Washington.) Leon’s production, starring Broadway veteran Norm Lewis as Captain Richard Davenport, who is sent to investigate the murder and uncovers a tangled dark web of personal grudges entwined with racial oppression, comes to town for a short touring presentation with Broadway in Chicago. 4/4-4/16, CIBC Theatre, 18 W. Monroe, broadwayinchicago. com, $35-$105

Galileo’s Daughter

Remy Bumppo Theatre Company, now under the artistic leadership of Marti Lyons, has mostly focused on contemporary classics during its 27-year history. But with Jessica Dickey’s Galileo’s Daughter , the company presents its third world premiere (and the first production directed by Lyons since she took the reins in 2021). Dickey’s historical drama imagines the life of Maria Celeste, daughter of the famous Renaissance astronomer, as she is caught up in the religious controversies surrounding her dad (i.e., the Inquisition’s threat of torture for his “blasphemous” notion that the Earth moves around the sun). Moving back and forth in time as a contemporary playwright studies the letters between the father and daughter, Dickey’s play serves as “a personal examination of faith, forgiveness, and the cost of heeding one’s truth.” 4/5-5/14, Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont, 773-975-8150, remybumppo.org, $10-$40

Is God Is

Aleshea Harris’s What to Send Up When It Goes Down got two blistering productions last year with Congo Square Theatre (the second time in association with Lookingglass Theatre). Now A Red Orchid Theatre presents the Chicago premiere of Harris’s 2018 Obie Award-winning drama, Is God Is , under the

SPRING THEATER & ARTS PREVIEW

direction of Marti Gobel. Twins Racine and Anaia receive a letter from the mother they believed to be dead. They head out from “the Dirty South” to the California desert, bent on vengeance for her and for themselves. Harris’s play draws on an array of influences, including hip-hop, spaghetti westerns, Afropunk, and ancient tragedy. 4/6-5/28, A Red Orchid Theatre, 1531 N. Wells, 312-943-8722, aredorchidtheatre.org, $15-$40

The Porch on Windy Hill Northlight offers up “a new play with old music” by Sherry Lutken, Lisa Helmi Johanson, Morgan Morse, and David M. Lutken, conceived and directed by Sherry Lutken. Set during the COVID-19 shutdown, the story follows Mira, a young biracial classical violinist who decides (along with her boyfriend, who just happens to be a folk song collector) to ride out the early days of the pandemic by retreating from Brooklyn to her ancestral home in North Carolina. There she finds out about family secrets and rediscovers a love of Appalachian music. 4/13-5/14, North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, 9501 Skokie Blvd., Skokie, 847-673-6300, northlight.org, $30-$89 ($15 students)

London Road

Shattered Globe nabs the U.S. premiere of this musical by Alecky Blythe (book and lyrics) and Adam Cork (music and lyrics). The residents of Ipswich in the UK band together to protect their community after five sex workers are killed by a serial killer. Based loosely on the true story of Steve Wright (known variously as the Su olk Strangler and the Ipswich Ripper), the musical uses verbatim elements of interviews conducted with the residents, sex workers, and reporters caught up in the case. Elizabeth Margolius directs and choreographs, with musical direction by Andra Velis Simon. 4/21-6/3, Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont, 773975-8150, sgtheatre.org, $10-$52

We Are Proud to Present a Presentation

About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly

Known as South West Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884-1915

Jackie Sibblies Drury’s 2012 drama provides a darkly sardonic view of the fate of the Herero people of Namibia, who faced genocide at the hands of the Germans. The event was largely forgotten by the west—as most genocides of African people by colonial forces have been— but the Germans used their attacks on the Her-

ero to help create the monstrous framework they’d later use in “the Final Solution.” The play questions the nature of representation itself in telling such horrific stories, as the actors delivering the “presentation” undergo their own racial and interpersonal conflicts. Drury’s play got its first reading in 2010 at Victory Gardens Theater and received its world premiere there in 2012 as part of the Ignition Festival of New Plays. It’s now the first full production for Theatre Y in their new North Lawndale venue; Kezia Waters directs.

4/21-5/21, Theatre Y, 3611 W. Cermak, 773908-2248, theatre-y.com, free

Fairview

More Drury: Definition Theatre continues its season at Hyde Park’s the Revival, which opened with Micah Ariel Watson’s Alaiyo, with the Chicago premiere of Drury’s 2019 Pulitzer Prize-winning Fairview, directed by company cofounder and artistic director Tyrone Phillips. A birthday party for the matriarch of the Frasier family is not what it appears to be. To say more would be to spoil a key twist in Drury’s story, but su ce it to say that she’s taken the tropes of the middle-class family drama and reexamined them through the lens of white supremacy. 4/27-5/21, The Revival, 1160 E. 55th St., definitiontheatre.org, $35

Bayanihan: The Spirit of Solidarity

Links Hall presents this event, a variety show combined with a health fair and community resources, that “makes space for collective grief and celebrates creativity with the Chicagoland Filipinx/a/o community,” drawing from storytelling work created over the years by AFIRE (Alliance of Filipinos for Immigrant Rights and Empowerment). HL Doruelo curates as part of Links’s Co-MISSION Curators-in-Residence program. 5/5-5/6 Fri-Sat 7 PM, Links Hall, 3111 N. Western, linkshall.org, $16-$42

The Gospel at Colonus Court Theatre closes out its season with Bob Telson and Lee Breuer’s celebrated 1983 musical retelling of the story of Oedipus through the device of an African Pentecostal church service. The Broadway production in 1988 and the Goodman production in 1990 both featured the Five Blind Boys of Alabama as the chorus. The Court cast, directed by Mark J.P. Hood and artistic director Charles Newell, includes men and women in the chorus, with Kelvin Roston Jr. as Oedipus and Aeriel Williams as Antigone. 5/12-6/11, Court Theatre,

5535 S. Ellis, 773-753-4472, courtheatre.org, $28.50-$82

COMEDY AND VARIETY (Kerry Reid)

Second City’s 111th Mainstage Revue

The show doesn’t have a title yet, but Carisa Barreca, a vet of several revues at Piper’s Alley and a director of Second City touring companies, makes her mainstage directorial debut with this latest collection of sketches, featuring several performers from Second City’s stellar last mainstage show, Do the Right Thing, No Worries If Not. Opens 4/4 in an open run, 1616 N. Wells, 312-337-3992, secondcity. com, $39-$79

Satirical Race Theory

After shutting down during COVID, iO came back full strength last fall. This new improvised show, “a farce on the American classroom,” features an all-Black cast of over a dozen seasoned performers and aims to explore popular academic subjects through a Black lens. The dance troupe the Puzzle League will open each performance. 4/15-7/1, Sat 8 PM, iO Theater, 1501 N. Kingsbury, ioimprov .com or seetickets.us, $30 ($15 student)

So Fucked It’s Funny

If you’re having trouble laughing in post-Roe America, maybe this show will help. Comedian

Deanna Ortiz hosts this evening of “righteous anger and riotous laughter” as a fundraiser for Midwest Access Project. Thu 4/27, 8 PM, Den Theatre, 1331 N. Milwaukee, 773-6973830, thedentheatre.com, $26-$57.50 (18+)

Newport Peek-Easy

Newport Theater has been reinventing the rules of burlesque and variety, and you can see some of those results for yourself in this ongoing showcase of burlesque, drag, and variety (including digital content). Open run Sat 7 PM, Newport Theater, 956 W. Newport, 773-270-3440, newporttheater.com, $20-$30

The Showcase at Chicago Magic Lounge

If you need to put some magic into your weeknights, the Chicago Magic Lounge has you covered. On Tuesdays, they turn over the stage to a rotating lineup of regular practitioners of prestidigitation, o ering a glimpse of the “close-up” magic that Chicago made famous. The Magic Lounge also o ers a cool cocktail bar up front where you can order interesting concoctions from a bartender who is also happy to practice a few tricks of the trade. The Showcase, open run, Tue 7 PM, Chicago Magic Lounge, 5050 N. Clark, 312-366-4500, chicagomagiclounge.com, $35-$40 v

@kerryreid @IreneCHsiao

@DeannaIsaacs

Chicago Multi-Cultural Dance Center and Hiplet Ballerinas, part of San Pareil with Chicago Black Dance Legacy Project MATT KARAS

REVIEW

The pain of history

How Blood Go traces the cycles of racist medical abuse.

By SHERI FLANDERS

Icannot recommend this play without caveats. At least to Black people.

Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad play. As a matter of fact, it’s a very good play. It’s clever, well-written, timely, and it makes good use of unusual devices. The quality of the play is not the problem.

The problem is that it hurts.

How Blood Go is a play about medical racism, its past, and its continued e ects on African Americans, which echoes the expansive HeLa by J. Nicole Brooks in content but not tone. Playwright Lisa Langford starts with a bit of germ warfare history—specifically General Cornwallis’s use of slaves to transport smallpox behind British lines during the American Revolution—and traces this American tradition of malpractice through the Tuskegee syphilis experiments, through the misdeeds of gynecology, to the future. Through all this, Langford concludes that disease of the body isn’t the only thing being purposefully injected into Black bodies—so is culpability for our own oppression.

The play opens with a chipper white fitness

influencer addressing her camera and being— well—hella racist, using lingo usually only reserved for Black folks addressing other Black folks, chummily chiding her online viewers with stereotypes and stats about poor health outcomes linked to Black culture. It’s a shocking and darkly hilarious way to begin, and to her credit, actor Kayla Kennedy fully commits. One imagines that the first day must have been one of the most cringeworthy table reads in history.

It isn’t long before we discover that Kennedy’s character isn’t white but is actually a Black woman wearing a medical device that makes her appear white to medical professionals. We are then left to reckon with how plausible some of those previously shocking statements would sound coming out of the mouth of Black people or from medical professionals.

Jyreika Guest plays the Black mirror to Kennedy’s white version of the character of Quinntasia. Guest is engaging as the optimistic and chipper Quinntasia, who has signed up for a medical study, initially told that the device only tracks her biometrics. She’s lost

a huge amount of weight and hopes to parlay that success into a career as a fitness coach to help other Black women get into shape. Eventually she learns the truth of her situation and recognizes how her positive health outcomes are attributed not to her own hard work but to her growing proximity to whiteness, proximity that is only conferred through the sale of her body.

The purpose of the medical device is to make Black patients appear white in order to ensure that white medical professionals automatically treat them with respect, guaranteeing positive health outcomes. The painful irony is that this so-called “breakthrough” is achieved not through solving racism in white people but by placing an additional burden on the oppressed.

I could not help but compare this storytelling device with another narrative that has been injected within the theater community, a narrative that Black critics must review Black plays because frequently white critics just can’t (or won’t) pick up what Black playwrights are putting down. As I steeled myself to watch yet another play about Black people being mistreated (after having come from seeing domestic abuse onstage the night before in Tina: The Tina Turner Musical), I remained aware that I don’t personally want or need to experience this story onstage. After all, I can just walk into any doctor’s office to experience medical racism—like the time a dentist left me in agonizing pain over a long holiday weekend, only for another doctor to recognize that my swollen jaw and tooth were severely abscessed and needed immediate surgery.

I and nearly every other Black person have countless stories of having our pain dismissed, stories of family and friends who have died too young simply because a doctor wouldn’t see us. As I sat in the audience surrounded by other Black critics and a majority Black audience in the eternal feedback loop of once again dissecting and digesting our own pain, this play hurt quite a bit.

Langford’s play weaves the main storyline with a subplot involving two Black brothers, Bean (an earnest David Dowd) and Ace (the always exceptional Ronald L. Conner), whose story is set against the backdrop of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment. As Bean willingly, yet unwittingly, submits his body for the horrific medical experiment as a vehicle for a better

future, Ace puts his faith in medical education and learning that tragically takes him further away from helping his brother. Director Tiffany Fulson effectively leverages mirror moments to toggle between both stories concurrently, as well as between both the white and Black expressions of Quinntasia.

Yolonda Ross gives a hilarious and poignant performance as Quinntasia’s best friend Didi. Langford’s text underscores the heart-wrenching futility of two friends struggling to protect each other from forces they can’t overcome. Caron Buinis plays Anne, the head of the experiment, representing the cold entity of the medical professional who cannot be questioned. In another scene, Buinis plays another character who represents the exact opposite end of the spectrum, the audacity of her character evoking laughter from the audience—ironically and tragically evoking the same lack of seriousness that character would likely experience in a medical environment.

Ultimately, the play outlines some of the social roots of Black communities’ lack of confidence in the medical system and their preference for homeopathic remedies. This is particularly understandable given the racist treatment that continues today. This phenomenon is outlined tragically in documentaries like Aftershock , which examines the racial disparities in maternal death at childbirth. As the play jumps between timelines, we discover that both Bean and Ace’s hopes for the future are yoked to obtaining “a stone”—a headstone so as to not perish in an unmarked grave—to leave a legacy of existence, to pass a message to the next generation.

And perhaps that is Lisa Langford’s purpose in this play. After all, one of her ancestors was a victim of the Tuskegee syphilis experiments. I imagine she wants to dredge up this pain even less than I want to receive it in the audience. Perhaps the intent of How Blood Go is to serve as a marker for all of those whose stories cannot be told—for those of us who show up in doctors’ o ces day after day, hoping for healing yet only receiving ridicule, neglect—or worse. Perhaps this play represents an attempt to exorcise the stone around our collective necks—the stone that acknowledges that not only are we nearly guaranteed pain at the hands of medical “professionals,” but we will just as frequently be blamed for it. And unfortunately, at this moment in history, there is no escape from that cycle.

“Physician, heal thyself . . .” —Luke 4:23 v @SheriFlanders

Jyreika Guest and Marcus D. Moore in How Blood Go MATE MASIE STUDIO

THEATER

OPENING

R Beckettian summit

Kayla Boye is a force to be reckoned with in Happy Days.

Dame Peggy Ashcro considered the role of Winnie in Samuel Beckett’s notoriously difficult Happy Days a “summit part,” one of those roles, like Hamlet or King Lear, that tests an actor’s mettle and proves her alpha status in the pack. (Ashcro played Winnie in a 1975 production at the Old Vic Theatre in London.) Chicago actor Kayla Boye clearly feels the same; she both stars in KB Productions’s current revival and is its producer. Happily, Boye is equal to the task of playing a character in yet another Beckett play in which, as in his seminal Waiting for Godot, nothing happens—twice. As Winnie, Boye never leaves the stage; she is, in fact, the only actor on stage, and virtually unable to move, buried up to her ribcage in the first act, up to her neck in the second.

Still, Boye, a lively actor with a wide range, captures us the moment the lights come up and captivates us from that point on. She chatters on and on, as Winnie does, on all of Beckett’s pet topics: exhaustion, decay, loneliness, our sad mortality, life’s petty pace, and the death of God. Somehow Beckett, ever the black Irishman, finds the laughter in the dark. As does Boye, who proves in two short hours she is a tragicomic force to be reckoned with. Hats off, too, to director/production designer Jon Dambacher for his seamless direction and for his inspired set.

—JACK HELBIG HAPPY DAYS

Through 4/2: Fri-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM, City Lit Theater, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr, https://happydayschi. com/tickets, $30

RFire sale

Gen Z contemplates the future in The Neo-Futurists Sell Out.

What does material success look like to young people in 2023? Is it possible to attain the lifestyle they see in 80s TV shows? Is that something to aspire to? A talented Neo-Futurist troupe takes on capitalism, parents’ expectations, their own hopes and dreams, and whether it’s even possible to just get by in this buoyant, sometimes silly, o en touching show. Directed by Lavina Jadwhani, with tech by Spencer Meeks, the cast is Connor Shioshita Pickett, Jasmine Henri Jordan, Neil Bhandari, and Deidre Huckabay, each credited as “Senior Vice President.” (Pickett is additionally credited as “Creator.”) Dressed in a half-assed thri -store version of office garb, they’re not kidding around about the hopelessness of their generation’s plight.

In one memorable scene, a performer acts as a proxy for the other’s mother and rather than filling in mundane financial information in a form—projected onto a blackboard by a decades-old device—is asked to rate her daughter’s qualities and answer whether she even likes the art her child makes. In another, a grandfather gives his grandson a fake three-dollar bill in exchange for real singles to teach him how the world really works.

Unlike so many devised skit shows, this one rarely succumbs to either goofiness for its own sake or inside jokes aimed only at the theater scene itself. Each short episode tackles real-world anxiety and comes off with at least a bit of resonance but sometimes with a level of profundity. This is a group of young people justifiably angry at the dumpster fire le to them by previous generations. Even if they actually wanted to sell out,

is there anyone le buying? —DMITRY SAMAROV THE NEO-FUTURISTS SELL OUT Through 4/22: Thu-Sat 7 PM, Neo-Futurist Theater, 5153 N. Ashland, 773-8784557, neofuturists.org, $19.99 (students $9.99)

Woven tales

The Shroud Maker needs more room to breathe.

Hajja Souad’s story, eight decades of life lived, is woven into a narrative of resilience, hope, and the changing tides in Palestine during her long lifetime. Brought to life in the U.S. premiere of The Shroud Maker at Chicago Dramatists by International Voices Project in collaboration with Intercultural Music, Ahmed Masoud’s play about a burial shroud maker offers audiences a lot to consider about life. A mix of dark comedy and biography, Masoud’s text reminds us that there is laughter even in our darkest moments.

Even so, this production feels more like a dramatic reading than a full-out performance. The show, said to be around 75 minutes, clocks in at just 65, which shows how quickly the text is delivered. It’s unclear whether this rushed performance is due to the direction of the show by Marina Johnson or its delivery by the single performer on stage, Roxane Assaf-Lynn, but either way, the text’s power is lost throughout several of the story’s most impactful moments.

Whether lines are swallowed or reimagined interactions by the single actor aren’t given the proper time to marinate in their intensities, The Shroud Maker isn’t living up to the potential given to it by Masoud’s intricate playwriting. One-person shows can be such difficult ones to mount because the single actor has to muster the emotions of many when portraying other people

in addition to their own character. It’s clear from brief moments throughout the production that Assaf-Lynn can capture these intimate memories to enlighten us all. But the rest of the run would benefit greatly by giving her more room, time, or stage direction to fully embrace those moments to perform them to their full potential.

—AMANDA FINN THE SHROUD MAKER Through 4/8: Fri-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM; Chicago Dramatists, 798 N. Aberdeen, ivpchicago.org, previews $10, regular run $20 ($15 senior, $10 students based on availability)

R Interactive inclusivity

Filament’s latest helps kids navigate difficult social scenarios.

Filament Theatre’s Think Fast, Jordan Chase!, written by Sonia Goldberg and directed by Jamal Howard, is full of plot twists which weave in and out of schoolyard and fantasy. Addressing difficult social scenarios that kids encounter, it opens with a plucky Jordan (Christabel Donkor) and her majestic bestie Mahari (Joolz Stroop) on the playground. Relations are quickly strained with the arrival of so -spoken Ryan (Xela Rosas), a third wheel who Mahari has ill will toward. It gets ugly, complete with an ableist slur, and Jordan feels torn between defending the newcomer from unwarranted wrath or staying loyal to her friend.

Fortunately for Jordan, she has a wise and unflappable grandmother (RJ W. Mays) who she can summon and also an attentive audience who is consulted o en throughout this choose-your-own-adventure-style play. Grandma Nicky provides Jordan with self-esteem support, while the audience helps to navigate what Jordan’s actual responses will be. Should she confront Mahari

about harassing a schoolmate? And what type of character will she play in a side quest—astronaut, dragon, or pirate? Choose carefully!

Devised to keep young people engaged, the show emanates goodwill while not shying away from the modern-day conflicts that arise around identity. But the inclusivity goes beyond the show itself. The design and creative team took care to create hands-on activities in the entry space with a welcoming vibe. Accessibility representative and consultant Korey Joseph and scenic and properties designer Eleanor Kahn make the theater clearly navigable. (Nothing beats neon! Or cushions on the floor for the wiggly kids.) The audience participation is a gi that knocks down the fourth wall enough to allow us to encounter the struggle for equity and justice on the playground in just the right proportions. Best of all, Think Fast, Jordan Chase! doesn’t feed you a prepackaged moral but rather reveals the complexity of each character’s situation so that we can experience their epiphanies with them.

—KIMZYN CAMPBELL

THINK FAST, JORDAN CHASE! Through 4/16: SatSun 2 PM, Filament Theatre, 4041 N. Milwaukee, 773-270-1660, filamenttheatre.org, $15 adult, $12 children; recommended for 8+

Bed to crime to bed

Theo’s The Threepenny Opera doesn’t quite add up.

Directors have two jobs: to help the audience understand what the play is about and to stage it so the audience can see it. Director Fred Anzevino has failed at both here. The Threepenny Opera is, like most Bertolt Brecht works, a critique of respectability: its antihero Macheath is a charming criminal, while its villains are the

Kayla Boye in Happy Days

police and people who claim to be charitable. (Brecht underscores this by having the crook ask, “What is the crime of robbing a bank compared to the crime of owning a bank?”) Without that essential organizing principle, the show is just a series of not-very-interesting episodes as Macheath romps from bed to crime to bed.

Kurt Weill’s score, which includes pieces relevant to the theme but completely ancillary to the plot (such as “Pirate Jenny,” a hotel maid’s fantasy of killing the guests) magnifies the problem of getting to and staying on point. Staging the show in every corner of the space while a number of audience members sit in the middle of the action exacerbates the problem of focus: wherever you’re facing is the wrong way. Under the music direction of Ryan Brewster (who also supplies the solo piano accompaniment), the show includes the fine voices we’ve come to expect of this company. Carl Herzog as Macheath and Liz Bollar as antiheroine Jenny have both the vocal and acting chops to put their songs across, but the piece as whole never gels. —KELLY KLEIMAN THE THREEPENNY OPERA Through 4/30: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 6 PM, Howard Street Theatre, 721 Howard, 773-939-4101, theo-u.com, $45-$55

Utopia for two

A Town Called Progress tackles “gender as performance.”

Promethean Theatre’s world premiere of local playwright Trina Kakacek’s two-act dramedy, directed by Anna C. Bahow, is a unique and meaty thought experi-

THEATER

ment that would benefit from some cleanup and a tighter approach. Between Ida (a winning and scene-stealing Cameron Feagin) and Vivian (Kali Skatchke)—the lone inhabitants of Progress, Ida’s vision of matriarchal utopia rooted in equality—the story’s central relationship is strong and believable. Their banter and more heartfelt interplay are great examples of intergenerational feminist dialogue, as the story explores ideas around “living in a state of what we have being enough so we can have it all.” Ida is the mayor, Vivian is the minister of fertility, and now they just need to engage some men on their own terms to help with some heavy li ing and growing the population of Progress.

Kakacek says a heavy focus of the story is gender as performance, and the idea takes further shape as the “male” side of the cast finds its way to Progress. Weed (Chris Woolsey) enters disguised as a literal tumbleweed and slides comfortably into caregiving in Ida’s old dress, while Slim (Teri Talo) is described as “trans-masculine-by-survival” and embodies the possibility of a world absent limited, binary thinking. The overall story is thoughtful but sometimes approaches ideas too obliquely to effectively deliver the intended message (e.g., overuse of symbolism and metaphors). It could also use some trimming and more fluid transitions to maintain the energy and overall emotional arc.

MARISSA OBERLANDER A TOWN CALLED PROGRESS

Through 4/15: Fri-Sat 8 PM, Sun 3 PM; no show Sun 4/9; Den Theatre, 1331 N. Milwaukee, 773-697-3830, prometheantheatre.org or thedentheatre.com, $26 ($21 seniors/$16 students/military) v

& ARTS PREVIEW

The Harper Theater is putting up a fight

Despite the hurdles faced by local cinemas, the Hyde Park institution is remodeling and reopening this spring.

By JONAH NINK

How would early 20th-century Chicagoans react to Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania ? Would they marvel at the progress film technology has made in the past 100-plus years, or run screaming out of the theater at the sight of Corey Stoll’s M.O.D.O.K.? Could they make it through an explanation of what the 31-film Marvel Cinematic Universe is without exploding into dust?

Questions like these tend to appear whenever we visit old movie theaters like Hyde Park’s Harper Theater, which naturally connect the old moviegoing experience with the new. The theater first opened in 1915 and was designed by prolific Chicago architect Horatio Wilson. Then a destination for vaudeville shows, the Harper Theater was originally the Hyde Park Theater. It would eventually be converted to a four-screen movie theater, changing names and ownership a few times (it was known briefly as the Meridian in the 90s) before finally being acquired and renovated by the University of Chicago in 2002.

“It was in pretty poor condition,” said University of Chicago executive director of commercial real estate Phil Gold. “I had heard of standing water in the basement, several feet. It was closed at the time.”

A century and some change after first opening its doors, the Harper Theater finds itself at the tail end of another set of renovations and new management by the Nebraska-based ACX

The present-day Harper Theater, preparing to reopen this spring EDDIE QUIÑONES FOR CHICAGO READER

MOVIE

Cinemas. The theater closed last November after former operator ADF Capital left after ten years.

ACX owns and manages theaters across the midwest. ACX executive vice president Michael Barstow says that his family’s company and the University of Chicago had a shared interest in modernizing the theater.

“We started talking with the university, and I think there was immediately a connection,” said Barstow. “We were interested in the project, and they were interested in us.”

Barstow said that all the theater’s seats will be replaced with heated luxury recliners. Other additions include new flooring and lighting and an expanded concession area and bar. Taking a cue from spots like Lakeview’s Music Box Theatre, Barstow and company hope to host special screenings and events to help it stand out.

“When the previous operator took over about ten years ago, the university did a really nice remodel,” said Barstow. “What’s nice about that building is that structurally it was really sound.”

There’s no doubt that the Harper Theater has a lot of support in its corner. ACX and the University of Chicago are eager to make the theater competitive. There’s a built-in enthusiastic audience in the Hyde Park community. The theater has historical significance and a place on the National Register of Historic Places to prove it. It’s an impressive venue, but can it survive the COVID-19 fallout and seismic shifts in movie-viewing preferences?

“The last three years have been a very interesting time for movies,” said Barstow.

Small theaters especially have become endangered, in Chicago and nationwide. The New 400 Theater in Rogers Park recently announced that its days were numbered, according to the Loyola Phoenix . Former Harper Theater operator and current New 400 Theater owner Tony Fox said that the theater “definitely did not turn a profit the last couple of years.”

The inevitability of changing preferences can seem insurmountable, but Barstow is confident that the Harper Theater should at least put up a fight.

SPRING THEATER & ARTS PREVIEW

“This is something we think we can pull o ,” said Barstow. “That’s kind of step one, [asking,] ‘Is it something we can actually make an impact on?’”

“[The project] was something that became somewhat personal,” Barstow continued, recounting numerous family trips to the city during his childhood.

It’s also personal to the residents of Hyde Park, who hope that it can be another source of growth for the expanding downtown area. Hyde Park Chamber of Commerce executive director Phil Moy hopes that the face-lifted theater will catalyze more foot tra c for the surrounding bars and restaurants.

“That theater, it’s in a great location because it’s pretty much the heart of the 53rd Street business district,” said Moy. “There’s about two dozen restaurants within a twoblock walking distance of the theater.”

According to Moy, ensuring that older buildings find continued use in the community is as much a practical measure as it is important to preserving the neighborhood’s history.

“We have a lot of older buildings within the Hyde Park community that continue to operate,” Moy said. “For instance, the Penthouse Hyde Park is in the old Piccadilly Building. The Penthouse used to be their ballroom, and now it’s a venue for weddings and parties and anniversaries.”

The fact that a new party was looking to try their luck with the theater was itself a source of excitement. It’s not hard to assume the community breathed a collective sigh of relief that the theater wasn’t falling into the limbo of indefinite closure and “big things coming” Instagram posts.

“The rumor mill in Hyde Park tends to go pretty fast,” Moy said. “That there were new owners coming into that theater kind of spread pretty quick. I think the excitement is there, and we’ve had so many new things actually in and around that area.”

Should everything go to plan, the Harper Theater will be a destination for family movie outings, opening-night premieres, and awkward first dates come late spring. v

An archival photo of the Harper, then called the Hyde Park Theater COURTESY CINEMA TREASURES

The interior of the newly remodeled cinema EDDIE QUIÑONES FOR CHICAGO READER

The space was operated by Sony Theatres starting in 1989 and renamed Loews. COURTESY CINEMA TREASURES

SPRING THEATER & ARTS PREVIEW

CHICAGO CRITICS FILM FESTIVAL Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport 5/5-5/ 11

$150 early-bird festival passes, $200 after March 24 chicagocriticsfilmfestival.com

to’s early hip-hop scene; Passages, the French romance from director Ira Sachs; and Ernest and Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia , a touching animated film from Julien Chheng and Jean-Christophe Roger about a couple looking to fix a beloved violin.

On April 17, the CFCA plans to announce the festival’s entire film selection, alongside a full screening schedule. During the festival, the Music Box Theatre will feature more than 30 critically acclaimed films as well as guest appearances from filmmakers. For regular visitors or newcomers to the Music Box, the CCFF’s programming aligns with Chicago’s premier local theater’s general pursuit of introducing important films to locals.

“Given the state of the movies right now, some of these presentations might be the only chance a Chicago audience has to see a certain movie on the big screen,” says Buck LePard, marketing manager and senior operations manager at the Music Box. “The Music Box has a lot of di erent types of film fans in our audience, and we’re always trying to make sure that we have something for everyone on our schedule. CCFF does that too, except they condense it all into one huge film-filled week.”

Celebrating a decade of critically acclaimed film

The Chicago Critics Film Festival returns to the Music Box Theatre for its tenth anniversary.

By MAXWELL RABB

Finding the time to see every movie on your watch list is a bold—often stressful—commitment. Luckily, Chicago film lovers will get the chance to mark off a massive chunk of their movie lists at the tenth annual Chicago Critics Film Festival (CCFF). The festival, curated entirely by members of the Chicago Film Critics Association (CFCA), will feature a weeklong schedule of the most anticipated films of the year. Programmed by a team of local critics, the festival aims to champion the year’s best movies, but more importantly, intends to bring those movies to Chicago first.

“The event was launched because of the sense that Chicago film fans were reading about major works from events like Sundance

and Toronto without the chance to actually see the films,” says Brian Tallerico, president of the CFCA and coproducer of the film festival. “We wanted to change that.”

Unlike other film festivals, the CCFF is the only festival exclusively curated by critics. Composed of recent festival favorites and not-yet-distributed films by both new and renowned directors, the festival is devoted to facilitating a space where Chicagoland residents can experience the most exciting films of the year for an a ordable price. Most notably, Tallerico hopes that CCFF will encourage people to return to the theater rather than rely on streaming services, invigorating the local film scene.

“Especially after the last few years, we want to bring people back to the movies; we want

audiences to recapture that amazing feeling of seeing a great film on the big screen,” Tallerico says. “We want Chicagoans to be proud of our film scene and be a part of the conversation on these movies from the start.”

The festival’s introductory lineup features seven films, including the premiere of Paul Schrader’s Master Gardener and the 40th-anniversary screening of The Right Stuff , presented in 35mm. This year’s festival will also show Chicago-based filmmaker Linh Tran’s Waiting for the Light to Change, an emotional drama interrogating loyalty and attraction between the protagonist Amy, her best friend, and her best friend’s boyfriend.

Other titles include Birth/Rebirth, a modern female-driven horror film directed by Laura Moss; Brother, Clement Virgo’s film on Toron-

Coinciding with the festival, the CFCA partnered with Rotten Tomatoes to launch the Emerging Critics Program. The educational initiative provides two emerging film critics in the Chicagoland area with editorial mentorship, festival access, and a $2,500 stipend. The grant is devoted to fostering an interest in film criticism among students and young writers working to start their careers. The winners of the grant will be awarded before this year’s festival and will be given the opportunity to pitch stories about the festival’s lineup to Rotten Tomatoes.

Since its inception, the CCFF has grown from its inaugural three-day event in 2013 into a momentous weeklong film celebration, and the CFCA has continued to promote the importance of film criticism and the local film scene.

“I am just so proud of what this team has done,” says Erik Childress, founder and coproducer of the CCFF. “All of them [are] close friends who did not hesitate given the opportunity to participate, and for it to succeed as it has for ten years—I have never been prouder of anything in my life. The full lineup just keeps getting better every year thanks to the many filmmakers and partners who have understood and appreciated the value of what we do.” v

Clement Virgo’s Brother CHICAGO CRITICS FILM FESTIVAL

NOW PLAYING R Country Gold

It’s a little late in the day for a Garth Brooks parody, but Mickey Reece’s Country Gold is fully aware of its own obsolescence. Garth analog Troyal Brux (Reece) has it all—hit records, a perfect family, and a bland, imperturbable self-regard. When country legend George Jones (Ben Hall) asks for a meeting in Nashville, Troyal assumes it’ll be a chance for the mutual admiration of greats—a passing of the torch. George, though, is a craggy, weather-beaten vortex of bitter decadence. Will he tempt Troyal to stray from his good ol’ boy faith and rectitude?

The fame-corrupts-the-innocent plot is an elaborate send-up, as is just about everything in the film, which hovers somewhere between a surreal Christopher Guest mockumentary and Hal Hartley’s deadpan irony. The black-and-white cinematography is as stark as George’s self-pity (“I don’t have a conscience! I’m just a pipe for fluids to pass through!”) or Troyal’s moral crossroads. George is planning to get himself cryogenically frozen. He tells stories about killing a man for the mob and performing a sting for the FBI in between getting a hand job and snorting large amounts of illicit substances. The music that would be the point in a less arch film is studiously avoided; the one fully realized country song is belted out not by the stars, but by Troyal’s unborn fetus, serenading its umbilical cord in the womb.

The film is in it for the giggles in part. But it also enjoys giving country music’s authenticity fetish a solid kick in its big dumb hat. A new movie in which someone very like the almost forgotten Garth Brooks worries about his legacy can’t help but skewer and perhaps celebrate the carny mythic hick hype of both C&W and America. The George Jones up onscreen is as fake as the gold shitkicker boots supposedly worn by John Fogerty. Only Troyal’s impenetrable, tedious, and maybe

noble self-deception rings true. —NOAH BERLATSKY 84 min. Limited release in theaters; Alamo Wrigleyville; streaming on Fandor

R Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves goes all in on charisma. The Chris Pine-led adaption of the pen-and-paper fantasy progenitor is a joke-a-minute campaign of quips, jabs, and cheeky one-liners. The most obvious comparison is the rebooted Jumanji films, which also synergized another nostalgic property with a cast of riffing celebrities. Thankfully, Dungeons rolls more 20s than ones with its jokes, landing with more laughs than groans. The comedy goes beyond snark, with a handful of creative gags including a standout sequence in a graveyard.

Unfortunately, the film’s tunnel vision on humor makes everything else a dump stat. The plot involves Pine and his barbarian partner (Michelle Rodriguez) assembling a team of fantasy misfits to pull off a magical heist. It aims to be high fantasy Ocean’s Eleven (2001), an incredible idea that gets lost in played-out plot beats and a third act that drags like an indecisive dungeon master. References to the wider lore of Dungeons & Dragons are made regularly, but Dungeons fails to build any unique sense of place beyond generic fantasy like, say, The Lord of the Rings. The film has some great editing moments that add a fun layer to its action-heavy scenes, but they’re weighed down by boring at best, baffling at worst visuals.

The action is still great throughout, with a few high points that see Pine and company working through an obstacle in a way not too dissimilar to a game party talking through a solution on the tabletop. Like Jumanji, Dungeons is a consistently fun time. Pine and Regé-Jean Page, who takes up the sword of the group’s paladin, do a lot of the heavy li ing. None of the cast holds a

fireball to Hugh Grant, however, who owns every second of his goo all performance as one of the film’s villains. Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves may be a dice roll in a few ways, but critical hits save it from being skippable. —JONAH NINK PG-13, 134 min. Wide release in theaters

Inside

An art thief breaks into a New York City penthouse and is unable to get back out. What follows are days or maybe weeks of alternating between desperate efforts to leave, philosophical wallowing, and clumsy attempts to create some sort of altar/site-specific art installation from the shattered fixtures and objects of the wrecked domicile.

Willem Dafoe is a national treasure who has littered his long career with fearless, groundbreaking roles. He’s the only living human we see aside from building employees and residents viewed via closed-circuit camera or in the thief’s hallucinations and dreams. I’d say Dafoe could make a dramatic reading of a phone book compelling, but I have no clue why he wanted to be involved with this movie.

Perhaps as an ultra high-end escape room experience this might be exciting to try, but as a viewer watching from the outside, it’s excruciatingly dull. Filmed in the sleek icy style of a luxury car ad, it is just about as emotionally involved as one. There’s some pretentious mumbo-jumbo about how art is the only thing that’s truly eternal, but this movie is hardly art. It’s more like proof of a dying society. Toward the end, the Romans built vomitoria—if they’d had digital cameras, this could have been one of the results. —DMITRY SAMAROV R, 105 min. Wide release in theaters

RJohn Wick 4

You would think that by John Wick 4 the franchise would be tired and out of tricks—and you would be

dead wrong. Directed by Chad Stahelski, this is the best installment in the series, delivering outstanding fight choreography showing every punch, slice, and shot; heart-pounding action in Osaka, New York, and Paris; and outrageous characters, infusing the film with just enough humor to make it riotously fun.

Keanu Reeves is back as man-of-few-words John Wick, fighting to clear his name. Donnie Yen has a substantial role as Caine, an old friend of John’s hired to kill him—possibly the best blind ninja assassin since Rutger Hauer in Blind Fury (1989). This is a fantastic role for Yen, allowing him to show off his humor and audacious martial arts. Winston (Ian McShane), the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne), and Charon (Lance Reddick) all return to support John’s mission, which as usual involves killing countless people in increasingly audacious ways.

The film introduces fan favorites like the always intense Clancy Brown as Harbinger, a representative of the Table, the shadow organization overseeing this world of assassins; screen legend Hiroyuki Sanada as Shimazu, who runs the Continental Hotel in Okinawa; Rina Sawayama as his daughter Akira (equally badass); Shamier Anderson as Tracker, a freelance assassin who travels with his dog (because you need a dog); and Bill Skarsgård as Marquis, the requisite baddie. If you’re a John Wick fan, you’re already going to see this, and I guarantee you will not be disappointed. —JOSH FLANDERS R, 169 min. Wide release in theaters

Shazam! Fury of the Gods

The follow-up to 2019’s original, Shazam! Fury of the Gods continues the story of the now teenage Billy Batson (Asher Angel) who by uttering the magic word “shazam” transforms himself into an adult superhero (Zachary Levi) with the unsurprisingly matching moniker.

The first iteration contained some intriguing comedic explorations into what it means to have near-limitless power with a limited maturity level, and it seems like the creative team used up all their thoughts on it in the first go-round.

Structurally, the Batson character is edging into adulthood, and there seems to be less and less of the original charm le to work with. The script is all over the place and overly dense with characters and minor subplots, leading inevitably to a tired final set piece which the rest of the film seems solely focused on getting us to. The finale is entertaining enough, but unfortunately, the path that gets us there has little to offer. The cast is almost as packed as the narrative is, with the talents of several great actors (Helen Mirren in particular) being put to unfortunately mediocre use.

It’s ultimately a tired formula for superhero movies, and by sticking to it, Shazam! Fury of the Gods loses the whimsy and freshness of the original film. —ADAM MULLINS-KHATIB PG-13, 130 min. Wide release in theaters v

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The ladies who sing from the back

By DEITRA FARR

The 2013 film 20 Feet From Stardom tells the stories of background singers who’ve supported stars such as the Rolling Stones, Madonna, Ray Charles, and Donna Summer. The movie, which won the best documentary Oscar the following year, focuses mostly on singers based in Los Angeles and to a lesser degree New York, among them Darlene Love, Merry Clayton, Lisa Fischer, and Mable John.

The movie couldn’t include every backup singer, of course, but it leaves out Detroit’s legendary Andantes, who appeared on an estimated 20,000 recordings. Jackie Hicks, Marlene Barrow, and Louvain Demps sang background on countless Motown sessions throughout the 1960s and early 1970s. Sometimes Diana Ross would go into the studio with the Andantes instead of the Supremes: when you listen to the 1968 single “Love

Child” (and four other songs on the album of the same name), you’re listening to Diana Ross and the Andantes. And in Philadelphia in the 1970s, the Sweethearts of Sigma—Carla Benson, Evette Benton, and Barbara Ingram— sang background vocals for the likes of the Spinners, the O’Jays, Billy Paul, the Stylistics, and Patti LaBelle.

Chicago background singers didn’t make it into 20 Feet From Stardom either. I talked to five of them for this piece, all of whom work mostly in soul, blues, R&B, jazz, and gospel.

I’ll let them speak for themselves about their careers and describe their own experiences with the stars they’ve supported, but I do want to introduce them first.

Mae Koen feels most at home singing background vocals, but in recent years she’s also been hired as a soloist. She’s a member of such groups as Nadima (with Nanette Frank

and Diane Madison) and VocalPoynt, and in her day job she works for the American Medical Association as a researcher and data processor.

Koen’s Nadima bandmate Nanette Frank has been called “one of Chicago’s jazz greats” by WGN Morning News . She’s well-known as a jazz vocalist, songwriter, vocal arranger, and producer. Her five-octave voice has been heard in advertising jingles for Coca-Cola and Crest, and she’s performed around the world, including gigs as far afield as Russia and Singapore.

Diane Madison, the third member of Nadima, is an in-demand background singer and soloist. She’s worked as a vocal coach, and she’s an adjunct faculty member at Harry S Truman College, where she teaches speech communications.

Whenever you mention Theresa Davis’s

name, someone is bound to mention her most famous credit: “She used to sing with the Emotions.” Though she has a quiet demeanor, her soprano voice is amazing—it’s made her one of the most sought-after background singers alive.

Joan Collaso is an Emmy award winner with an international career—she won in 1988 as part of the cast for Precious Memories: Strolling 47th Street . As a soloist, her voice embraces jazz, R&B, blues, and gospel. She appears singing in the 1997 movie Soul Food , and she’s also a featured vocalist on Ramsey Lewis’s 1989 album Urban Renewal . In 2011, Collaso founded the nonprofit Timeless Gifts, which runs a mentoring program for youth in the performing arts.

Meet the Chicago ladies who sing from the back.

Mae Koen, Diane Madison, Theresa Davis, Nanette Frank, and Joan Collaso ALAN MERCER (THERESA DAVIS) AND AKILAH TOWNSEND FOR CHICAGO READER (ALL OTHERS)

These Chicago background vocalists have helped the likes of Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, and Otis Clay sound their best. Here their own voices take center stage.

MAE KOEN

I’ve been in a whole lot of vocal groups through the years. I used to sing with this group called Reality. It was a five-piece, and we all got our roots in the Breadbasket/ Operation PUSH choir. We were mentored by Wanda Hutchinson of the Emotions. We met Leroy Hutson through Wanda. That’s how every thing evolved, because Leroy was looking for female background singers. He got me and Chavunduka Sevanhu. This was after he left the Impressions. He had a hit record called “So in Love With You.” So we toured the States with Leroy.

This was my first professional background job. He was with Curtom Records at the time, and Linda Cli ord was also at Curtom. When disco was real popular, I got a job singing with Linda. She had two real popular hits out, “If My Friends Could See Me Now” and “Runaway Love.” I did all of her live shows. Ellen Samuels and I did a lot of session work at Curtom Records.

Diane Madison, Theresa Davis, and I were some of the main background singers at Paul Serrano Studios. We did a lot of sessions there. We were real quick studies. I would always take the bottom. Theresa would take the top, and Diane would take the middle. When we’d sing with Nanette Frank, Nanette would take the top, Diane would take the middle, and I would take the bottom. Sometimes we would switch up, but most of the time we would stay with those parts in the section.

I got a job singing with Willie Dixon. I did a

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tour with him in Mexico, and I did local stu with him here in Chicago. The last album that he did, Mighty Earthquake and Hurricane, I’m singing background on it.

I spent like 22 to 24 years singing with Aretha Franklin. Diane Madison and I used to sing with a gentleman named Billy Always. He had sung with Aretha for years and had known her all of his life. He called me and asked if me and Diane wanted to work with him singing background for Aretha. I said yes immediately. So I called Diane and told her. I didn’t even ask Diane—I told Diane we were going to be singing background for Aretha. [Laughs.]

She was a great employer. She always flew us out first class. When Diane and I first got the job, Billy had a talk with us. He told us she would sing and bring chills through our bodies, but we had to focus. There’s one tune she would sing regularly, “It Hurts Like Hell,” and at the end of the song I’d be in tears. I couldn’t help myself.

One thing about Aretha, her ear would change. She would use three di erent groups. She had the Chicago group, which I was a part of. Then she would have the Detroit group with her cousin Brenda Corbett. Then she would use the New York singers, which were some of Luther Vandross’s singers, like Fonzi Thornton. So she would switch up, depending on her ear. Everytime I would get that call, I’d say I was being invited back into the Queen’s court. She and I bonded over old movies. She loved the classics and so do I, so we started sharing movies. Whenever I hear an Aretha Franklin song, I always pause and remember.

I have toured with Angela Bofill, Vesta Wil-

liams, Miki Howard, and Phil Perry. Since the pandemic, it’s been more studio work than live work. Nanette Frank, Diane Madison, and I just did Mississippi Heat’s last CD and Billy Branch’s last CD.

I can sing lead, but I’ve always gravitated to background singing. That is my joy. It’s a di erent discipline. A lot of really great solo singers can’t do background singing. You can’t do background singing like you do lead singing. You have to be part of the ensemble. You have to be able to blend in.

I just love interacting with other singers and singing harmony. I just love it.

NANETTE FRANK

Music chose me. My father was a great guitarist. All of my siblings sang. There were nine of us, so we had little groups within the family. [Laughs.] I didn’t do much singing in grammar school, because I was really really shy. Painfully shy.

I started out doing radio and television commercials. Jingles. The first commercial I did was a Green Giant commercial. I started getting hired by some of the biggest ad agencies in the world, not just the city. I had the longest-running jingle, “Always Coca-Cola,” in the history of the company. I had a Crest commercial that was very big for me. I did the Donnie’s Super Curl commercial, a really big product back when everybody was wearing Jheri curls. I did the voice-overs for three other commercials for that company.

The background singing happened because one of the girls said, “Nanette can sing.” At P.S.

Studios we worked with producer Tom Tom Washington. We sang with so many people. That’s how I got the Miki Howard gig. We toured with her. I’m on several of her recordings. She knew I was a lead singer and said I just can’t stay in the background. She’s credited with exposing me to a larger audience. I worked with Angela Bofill. I arranged several records for her, back in the day. I worked with Vesta [Williams], and I also did some Martha Wash stu here too.

I did a lot of blues recordings. Big Twist & the Mellow Fellows. We did the background on their record “Just One Woman.” That was me and Robin Robinson. I did the Blues Shock album for Billy Branch with Diane Madison and Mae Koen. We did several recordings with Mississippi Heat.

I’ve toured with Miki Howard, Stanley Clark, Herbie Hancock, Alex Bugnon, the Jazz Crusaders, and Jon Lucien. When I met Diane Madison and Mae Koen, we were in a group called Panama. We all had that thing, but somehow Diane, Mae, and I had that thing that sounded like one. So we went on to work with Angela Bofill, Billy Branch, and others. Our section is called Nadima. The first two letters of our names.

A lot of great singers came out of Israel Torres’s group Panama: Ellen Samuels, Shay Jones, Shawn Christopher, Suzanne Palmer, and Joanie Pallatto. Darryl Jones, who plays bass with the Rolling Stones, was in Panama. What’s cool about it is we were able to bond for life. We’re still friends. We still talk and do things with each other. Shawn and I did, about two years ago, background for Linda Cli ord.

Mae Koen, Theresa Davis, and Diane Madison in the studio together in 1984  COURTESY MAE KOEN

Theresa Davis and Diane Madison (at lower right) onstage with Otis Clay at the Chicago Blues Festival  COURTESY DEITRA FARR

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As a solo singer, I do have two CDs to my credit. Nostalgia , a jazz album that did very well on the charts. My There’s Room for One More CD did very well too. I’ve been blessed to also have an international career as a jazz vocalist.

DIANE MADISON

Icome from a musical family. My mother sang, and my dad played piano. My brothers and sisters sang. My father was a huge jazz collector, so I came up in jazz. I started singing in grammar school. I was in the “Junior Supremes.” We were a singing group modeled after the Supremes. We had these outfits that were a pretty powder blue. They were suits with a jacket and a skirt to match, and we had powder-blue long-length gloves. There was three of us. We sang at school functions. It was so much fun.

When I started at Malcolm X College, I was in another group, and I started singing professionally. I sang lead and background in the groups I was in. I’ve been blessed to do both. Just working with people, working with other vocalists and musicians, people begin to know of your work. Then you find yourself working with a lot of major artists and being hired to perform on a lot of studio recordings.

I’ve recorded with Otis Clay, Tyrone Davis, Billy Branch, Big Time Sarah, Angela Bofill, Syl Johnson, Phil Perry, Terisa Gri n, the Dells, Billy Price, Stan Mosley, Malachi Thompson, Candi Staton, Eric Clapton, Mississippi Heat, Artie “Blues Boy” White, Willie Clayton, and more. It’s so many.

It was a blessing and an honor to work with Aretha Franklin. She was just a fantastic person. Working with her and talking with her was a phenomenal experience. I think I worked with her o and on for about 20 years. Her Chicago singers were Mae Koen, Billy Always, and myself. Many thanks to Billy Always for thinking of us to join him in singing with the Queen of Soul. I’m very very thankful to the Lord for blessing me to work with such an icon.

Otis Clay, I would call him my brother. We would have great conversations. A great artist and humanitarian. He really cared about people. Theresa Davis and I worked with Otis for many years. I worked with him like 17 years. I did a lot of Europe with him. Poland, Zurich, Lucerne, Cognac, Paris—France all over. We did Shanghai, China, and we did Japan. Of course we did the United States. I miss him so much.

It was wonderful working with Vesta [Williams]. She would always request me, Nanette Frank, and Mae Koen whenever she came to Chicago. It was wonderful working with Miki Howard.

We would work with Billy Price and recorded on several of his CDs. I think it was the guitar player on one of those sessions who got Theresa Davis and I to do the PBS rhythm and blues special. [Editor’s note: This refers to a 2002 episode of the WQED series American Soundtrack called “Rhythm, Love & Soul (My Music).” ] We sang background for Thelma Houston, Billy Paul, the Three Degrees, Carl Carlton, Lou Rawls, Jerry Butler, and Freda Payne. It was Theresa and I and the singer from the Andantes, Louvain Demps. You know the Andantes did all the background vocals for Motown.

Myself, Mae, Nanette, and Theresa have done studio work as a foursome with Tom Tom Washington. Theresa, Mae, and I have done lots of section work together. Now we have Nadima, which is Nanette, myself, and Mae. We’ve done a lot of section work together.

Lead vocal is great, but ensemble singing is a little more challenging. You have to concentrate. You have to remain within the structure. You have to listen. You have to listen to yourself, listen to the other person, and listen to the group as a whole. All of that works in concert as an ensemble singer. You have to blend. You have to have a great ear. It’s almost like a dinner table. You have di erent dishes. Everyone brings a di erent dish to the table. That’s my analogy.

THERESA DAVIS

My career officially started around 1968. I sang with a group called Our Ladies of Soul. We put out a song called “Let’s Groove Together.” It was a local hit, and we did some of the nightclubs around Chicago. I actually came out as a singer in church. I joined the choir, but I was painfully shy. But I had the opportunity to stretch out, and I was the choir’s lead singer. I was 15 and in high school.

I sang with the Emotions from 1970 to 1974. We went to Parker High School together. In fact, Sheila [Hutchinson] and I used to sing in the a cappella choir, right next to each other. Our voices were very similar, only mine was a little higher. At that time they were the Hutchinson Sunbeams gospel group. And because I sang in a church choir, we would bump into each other at di erent programs. So they

Theresa Davis (lying down in front) during her years with the Emotions in the early 1970s COURTESY THE ARTIST

Above: Nadima is Nanette Frank, Diane Madison, and Mae Koen. COURTESY MAE KOEN

Right: Joan Collaso (bottom center) takes a selfi e with Nanette Frank, Mae Koen, Diane Madison, Theresa Davis, and fellow background singer Felena Bunn. JOAN COLLASO

The Logan Center’s Blues programming is made possible with the generous support of The Jonathan Logan Family Foundation with additional support provided by the Chill Family Fund for the Logan Center for the Arts.

James Leva

Corey Harris

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continued from p. 58

knew my voice.

I was really happy for their success. They had a record out called “So I Can Love You.” Every time I turned around I’d hear it on the radio. One day I was at a recording session and I decided to call home. My roommate told me that Mr. Hutchinson had called me. So I called him back. He told me that Jeanette was leaving the Emotions, and I was their first choice to replace her. So the rest is history. Their father told me they would never let her back in the group, and I didn’t have to worry about it being a temporary situation.

I really enjoyed singing with them. We got along. We traveled all over the United States and Canada. Wanda and Sheila did most of the leads. I was the high voice. “Put a Little Love Away” was supposed to be my lead song. I knew it was the beginning of the end—I could tell something was happening. When I went in to record the lead vocals, their father sent Sheila in with me. So there’s both of us on that lead. I knew it was because I wasn’t going to be there. No pun intended . . . I was emotionally prepared for Jeanette’s return to the group. [Laughs.]

Al Bell, who was the president of Stax Records, o ered me a solo album. I did six tunes towards an album on Stax, but I never finished it, because Stax failed at that time. Al Bell told me they had been watching me, and they wanted to pull me from the group anyway.

So I started getting calls to do jingles, and I would do all the harmonies. I started singing background with a couple of ladies, Joni Berlmon and Rhonda Grayson. Joni was really the contractor, and she would call me. She was working for my uncle Carl Davis at Brunswick Records. Carl was my father’s brother. So we ended up doing background for all of his artists: Gene Chandler, Walter Jackson, Tyrone Davis, the Chi-Lites, and others. I’ve had the pleasure to work with some wonderful producers and singers—producers and arrangers such as James Mack, Tom Tom Washington, and Willie Henderson.

It is such a blessing. My voice is a gift, and I’ve been able to use it. I love being in the studio. I could spend all day and half the night in a recording studio. At one point I wouldn’t sing background onstage with anyone—I just wanted to be known as a studio vocalist. I never cared if people saw me; I wanted people to hear me. But I ended up singing all over the world with Otis Clay. I sang with Otis for 26 years. He introduced me to Europe and the world. He’s been gone for seven years, and I

still miss him so much.

I sang with the Jessy Dixon Singers. I’m singing on that recording he did with Paul Simon called “Wartime Prayers.” I ended up going on Ramsey Lewis’s promotional tour for the Between the Keys CD. I was in heaven. I worked with Syl Johnson and his daughter Syleena Johnson. I did a record with Jerry Butler called “I Can’t Stop (Lovin’ You Either).”

My first love is doing background vocals. I have always enjoyed harmony. I did my first session when I was around 15, and I fell in love with it. My father, Arlington Davis, was a wonderful saxophone player. He taught my sisters harmony, but he didn’t teach me. I got it naturally. Background singers need to have a good ear. They need to be easy to get along with and patient—you might be in the studio a long time. You need good people skills. That helps with everything in life.

JOAN COLLASO

My parents noticed I had talent, so they put me in the church choir. I had a music teacher at Louis Wirth Elementary School who would take me and two other people weekly to the Chicago Children’s Choir rehearsals. That was like in seventh and eighth grade. Then I went to Kenwood [Academy] and met Lena McLin. I was a soloist in her choir. You couldn’t stop me from singing.

One of my outstanding memories was working with a group called Data; [later] it was called AL7. In that group was Randy Hall, Rob-

ert Irving III (who ended up being the bandleader for Miles Davis), and Felton Crews. We were 18, 19, and 20 years old. We wrote songs. When Randy sang lead, I sang background. When I sang lead, they sang background. That is one of my great memories with being in the presence of greatness, at a time before we knew where we were headed.

The next great memory was when I started singing jingles. That opened the door to a lot of group singing. A choir with Lena McLin. A chorus during college. I sang in touring choir. Every choir that was, I was in it.

I did a lot of background vocals for Robert Kelly. It was great music, and a lot of sick people do great music. I was not involved in any of his shenanigans. I’m singing on a lot of his big records. I’m singing background on the duet he recorded with Celine Dion, “I’m Your Angel.”

For the last two years of her career, I was a background vocalist for Aretha Franklin. I join that list with my sister singers Mae Koen and Diane Madison, who worked with her for many years. It was like being in a dream, but having to be real serious at the same time.

The first gig I did with her was in Boston. She had just started going back to work after being ill for a while. She was in praise mode, thanking God for allowing her to make it through. She sat down at that piano and sang “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” I can feel it now. She played herself happy. She cried. We cried. Oh, it was amazing. And I was the one who got to sing the high note on “Ain’t No

Way.”

That was the only time she sang that song during the time I was with her. She would change every gig, because she had such a great repertoire to choose from. But I can say I did it that one time. [Laughs.]

She had started to work on a project with her son and her granddaughter, so I got called to Detroit to do some background vocals for that. We had started on that, but of course we didn’t get to finish it. But I got to be in the studio with her as the producer. That was fantastic. So I am very grateful to Fred Nelson, her musical director, for that. It was because of him that we were there. And thanks to Je Morrow, who was in charge of our section.

Three times in 2009, I performed on The Oprah Winfrey Show as a background vocalist for Susan Boyle, Alicia Keys, Jennifer Hudson, Sugarland, and Tim McGraw. I got an opportunity to sing background for Al Jarreau—he’s my favorite. This was for a benefit in Chicago. He was wonderful. Working with Stevie Wonder was wonderful. He was doing the 2015 Songs in the Key of Life tour. We did the midwest portion of his tour.

I teach my kids that relationships are everything. I choose you if your attitude is good, before how well you can sing. People will call you if they like you. Be professional, kind, and on time. All these years I’ve been getting calls. Most of them are from the same people, over and over and over. v

Le : Mae Koen (right) sings onstage with Aretha Franklin on an ABC TV broadcast. Right: Joan Collaso (le ) took this selfi e in the studio with Franklin during her fi nal recording sessions. COURTESY MAE KOEN; PHOTO BY JOAN COLLASO

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dropping out of my photo program and doing photos for fun. Taking photos of shows. Any way I could get into a show for free. Photos of my friends. I lived there [in Athens] for six years—so, four after I dropped out of school. The music scene there was just amazing.

I feel like a lot of bands from Chicago would come play there, and the house-show scene was pretty incredible. There was this place called the Lodge that this person Sean booked for, and he was getting these amazing synth artists from Germany to come. Palm came and played there a year after I left. I was there at a great time. . . . Spencer [Radcli e] was there while I was there, also very involved in the music scene and always playing shows.

I shot a lot of film but wasn’t developing [it] or anything on my own. I was doing it in a very “documenting my own life” kinda way. I just lived in my photo album, or in a shoebox of pictures. I don’t think I really understood why and how I liked to photograph things. I don’t think I had the vocabulary or understanding of what was drawing me there so fiercely, but it was something I was always doing.

CHICAGOANS OF NOTE

Ash Dye, music scene photographer

“I felt like part of the music community pretty early on. I’m just now starting to feel like I’m part of this photo community.”

As told to LEOR GALIL

In 2013, photographer Ash Dye moved to Chicago from Athens, Ohio, where she’d first become involved in an underground music scene. Within a few months of arriving here, Dye landed an internship at the Empty Bottle, which she used to launch an interview series called Empty Exchange; in 2014, she became a bartender at the venue. Her blossoming career as a photographer has often intersected with her involvement in Chicago music, and she’s photographed a who’s who of emerging Chicago artists. Whenever you see a local indie act covered in the media these days, there’s a good chance Dye took their press photo.

Ihad always been really involved in the music scene in the town I lived in before moving here, and so I did a lot of research on venues and whatnot before I got here and found the Empty Bottle. I had this ulterior motive to get an internship there and then convince them to let me start a band interview series for their blog. Which they did—it totally worked out. I started interning there in August 2013 and did this pretty casual interview series where I’d pick a band that was coming to play and interview them—and take their photo.

I grew up in Lebanon, Ohio, which is a small

town that’s growing into more of a suburban landscape; there’s lots more subdivisions and whatnot. I knew I wanted to do something in the arts. I was never huge on photography when I was in high school, but it seemed really appealing to me. So that’s what I left to go to college for. I went to Ohio University, and I got accepted into this pretty nice photojournalism program in the Scripps School [of Journalism].

[It was] a pretty classic sheltered-kid-tocollege-freedom vibe. I was partying a lot, meeting a lot of new people, and getting involved in the music scene there. I ended up

I started to do portraits of my friends here and there, which is something I picked back up really strongly after I moved here. It was a way for me to connect to the world around me that I didn’t really have before.

I didn’t know anything about alternative ways of living until I came to Athens, Ohio. I didn’t even know shows were a thing; I was someone who would call a show a “concert.” People having bands with their friends, playing shows on the weekend, and it being an accessible community and part of a lifestyle was really unfamiliar to me but really engaging. I was pretty sheltered before.

When I was in high school, I was friends with a lot of Christian kids, and I think the appeal there is, “Oh, the collective emotional experience in a room.” When I found music I was like, “Oh, this is what I’ve been looking for.”

Athens was a diverse place. I got to meet a ton of people with different gender expressions and identities. There was this crustpunk house called BrownTown. All these crust punks were always coming through and making meals for everyone who came to shows. It was this type of communal living—and community—that I had not really experienced before. It felt special.

Ash Dye took this self-portrait with an air-controlled shutter-release cable. ASH DYE

I felt like my time there was winding down. I never really acted with much foresight. It was, like, “Oh, Athens is a small town. I’ve only lived in small towns.” A couple of my really close friends had moved away, and Chicago is the closest big city—it felt the most accessible. A group of us from Athens split the cost of a U-Haul—like, a giant one. It felt kind of easy. I wasn’t totally alone, logistically. When I got here, I didn’t know anybody and was alone in that sense. But the logistics behind moving felt a little easier, ’cause I was like, “Yeah, I’ll pile all my shit in this truck with these other folks and figure it out when we get there.”

Moving to a big city, there were things that blew my mind. Like, dog walking as a job. Never really being alone. It’s kind of jarring at first, which I didn’t really expect. But getting that internship at the Bottle, that totally paved the way for me to find my place in the city.

It was a while before I started bartending there, and I feel like that was the key for me. I met so many people and saw so many shows. I would say 90 percent of the people I know now I either met at the Bottle or through the Bottle. Bartending there, it was so much more of a social job. Interning in the o ce—the people in the o ce were cool, but bartending, you talk to a million people a night. Bands are coming through—if it’s a band you really like, then you’re like, “Most of the people at this show, I have got this in common with at least.” I think that really let me find out where I felt most at home in the city.

One of the earlier photo projects that I showed in Chicago was this thing called “Personal Space.” That was something I did when I first moved here. I was like, “Wow, I don’t have any friends, but I still want to take photos.” So I met people online or in person, and I would go to their house and take photos of them nude in their bedroom. I thought of it as an intentional way to push myself past having to be friends with someone to take their photo. Like, being in this really intimate space with a stranger, could I still craft an image with them?

I showed that at the Bottle. Everyone was open to receiving it, I feel, because they knew me and they asked about the work that was up. I’d be working the bar while they’d be hanging up in the bar. I felt like people were open to seeing it, because I was a new member of the community and becoming friends with people and making connections that way.

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For future projects, when I started doing more legitimate studio work and band photos, people knew I was a photographer already, and they knew me from the Bottle. I think those two [factors] made me a comfortable person to reach out to, to get band photos done.

In 2015, I remember, I did my first legitimate paid band photo, for Negative Scanner. It was also the last B Side cover of the Reader. That was the first time a band had really intentionally reached out to me for photos. Then I think I got more focused on doing portraits and studio work, not necessarily band photos. I was most often reached out to for those initially—because, I think, of the Bottle.

In 2016, 2017, I started renting a studio space and got really serious about teaching myself studio photography. I went to school for a year and a half, but I only learned the basics of how to shoot manually—so studio equipment and lighting, I had to teach myself all of that. Thankfully there were places like Latitude. I took a bunch of classes at Latitude, this print shop in Chicago, and they really helped fill in some educational gaps.

I felt like part of the music community pretty early on. I’m just now starting to feel like I’m part of this photo community. That is a recent development. I’ve been shooting long enough, and I feel comfortable and sound enough in my skill sets that I can say I’m a photographer and I’m a part of that community. But Chicago has always felt like a really welcoming place to me. That’s my experience—that’s why, once I got here, it felt so easy to stay.

I don’t have a lot of strong family ties or long-term people in my life. I’ve been in Chicago for almost ten years now. There’s something so wonderful about entering a room or space and seeing someone that maybe you’ve seen peripherally—like maybe I just see them at shows, but I’ve been seeing this person at shows for a decade, and there’s so much comfort I find in that, knowing that I do have ties, a history, and a sense of belonging in a space.

And I think the Chicago music scene—and especially at the Bottle, and the way shows were run there and how seriously everyone took making people feel comfortable in the space—it feels like a community to be proud of being a part of.

Portraits by Ash Dye of notable folks from the Chicago music scene, clockwise from top: Jovana Savic, tour manager and founder of the Thick Mall vintage market; Maria Jacobson of Fran; Nick Levine, aka Jodi; Kara Jackson  ASH DYE

Levine, aka Jodi;

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It’s never too late to give soul-blues master Bobby

Jonz his flowers

When he died from COVID in July 2020, the country could barely spare a moment to revisit the gritty, funky, passionate music he’d spent decades making.

By STEVE KRAKOW

Since 2004 Plastic Crimewave (aka Steve Krakow) has used the Secret History of Chicago Music to shine a light on worthy artists with Chicago ties who’ve been forgotten, underrated, or never noticed in the first place.

We Americans don’t seem to want to deal with this pesky pandemic anymore—not to take precautions and certainly not to grieve our country’s losses, which topped one million lives almost a year ago. Even our president, who at first seemed to have our backs, has declared the crisis over. Meanwhile the body count keeps climbing, and this poorly understood virus leaves more and more people with ongoing health problems, some of which may never go away.

It seemed like everybody heard when John Prine and Fountains of Wayne cofounder Adam Schlesinger died from COVID. Without going further into the racial inequities of the pandemic, I’ll just say that the passing of Black artists such as Charley Pride and Manu Dibango got far less attention. And when COVID killed blues and soul man Bobby Jonz in July 2020, it barely made a ripple. Though he’d had a long, varied career, attracting an audience of blues and soul-blues fiends, Northern Soul

fans, and lovers of gritty R&B, his passionate songs never caught the ear of the general public.

Bob Willie Jones (or possibly Bob Willy Jones) was born in Farmerville, Louisiana, in 1936. He was raised till age seven by the plantation owners who’d hired his mother, at which point his grandparents took over. “Basically all we had to listen to was people like Eddy Arnold, Hank Williams and Roy Acu ,” Jonz told Soul Express in 2004. “I was also

involved in gospel, when I was younger and going to church.” Lore has it that a teenage Jonz once worked as a driver for countrymusic patriarch Hank Williams.

In 1959, Jonz moved to Chicago. “My dad and my uncle were there,” he told Soul Express. “I started working at Republic Steel, a steel mill, and I was always singing at work. Everybody was consistently saying that ‘you sound so good, you need to go sing professionally.’”

Jonz had a fateful encounter while looking

for a shop to repair his shoes near 43rd and Drexel—he happened upon a blues club. “The name of the club was [Frader’s] Juke Box Lounge,” he said. “I heard the music coming out the door. [Baby Face Willette] was playing.” Jonz talked the skeptical owner into auditioning him as a singer. “I told them to play a Ray Charles tune. When I came down, he said ‘listen, let me tell you, you got a bright future ahead of you. We have talent shows down here every Monday night, and if you win the talent

STEVE KRAKOW

SAINT MOTEL

DREAM DAY

4544 N LINCOLN AVENUE, CHICAGO IL OLDTOWNSCHOOL.ORG • 773.728.6000

5/7

MUSIC

6/9

6/17

6/25

SATURDAY, MARCH 25 5 & 8PM

Ladysmith Black

Mambazo In Maurer Hall

SATURDAY, APRIL 1 8PM

Bailen with special guest Rett Madison In Maurer Hall

SATURDAY, APRIL 8 8PM

Susan Werner In Maurer Hall

SATURDAY, APRIL 8 8PM

Fantastic Negrito

In Szold Hall

FRIDAY, APRIL 14 8PM

Windborne In Szold Hall

SATURDAY, APRIL 15 2PM

Mark O'Connor

Crossing Bridges

A Retrospective on His Childhood Years in Music

SATURDAY, APRIL 15 8PM

Tom Paxton & The DonJuans In Maurer Hall

SUNDAY, APRIL 16 7PM

Aynur In Maurer Hall

SUNDAY, APRIL 16 7PM

Arlo McKinley In Szold Hall

FRIDAY, APRIL 21 8PM

Steve Poltz In Szold Hall

SATURDAY, APRIL 22 8PM

Ivan Neville In Maurer Hall

continued from p. 64

show then you get to work on weekends, and get paid.’”

Jonz became a regular at those talent shows—he claimed to have won every one for three months, kicking o his career in Chicago. “They would give whisky for the winner, but I didn’t drink,” he said. “So I would sell the whisky back to the owner.”

Jonz’s rich, supple baritone lent itself well to soul as well as blues, and soon he began singing at the famous Pepper’s Lounge a few blocks west at 43rd and Vincennes. He worked there for six or seven months—as he explained to Soul Express, he filled in for harmonica ace Junior Wells, who’d just scored a hit with his classic “Messin’ With the Kid” and was touring a lot.

Jonz sang at Pepper’s with the Aces, who’d been sharing the gig with Wells. Founded by guitarist brothers Dave and Louis Myers, they’d become one of the most influential backing bands in Chicago blues during the 1950s, and Wells had been an early member.

(They’d previously gone by the Three Deuces, the Three Aces, and the Four Aces, among other names.) The Aces had also backed fellow harp legend Little Walter after he left Muddy Waters’s band in 1952, but given the lineup changes they’d undergone in the mid-50s, it’s hard to be sure who exactly Jonz was singing with in the early 60s.

At this point Jonz was still performing and recording as Bobby Jones. Beginning in the mid-60s, he put out a flurry of singles, including “A Certain Feeling” b/w “Sugar Baby” on Vee-Jay in 1965. Both tunes were written or cowritten by Barry Goldberg (who backed Bob Dylan at his infamous first electric concert that same year), and the B side is a rollicking electric blues with weedy organ. In 1967 Jonz collaborated with girl group the Para-Monts for a smoothly soulful USA Records release.

The 1968 Expo single “Talkin’ ’Bout Jone’s” b/w “You Gotta Have Love (in Your Heart),” bafflingly credited to Bobby Jone’s, gave Jonz’s first proper LP its title. Released by Toya in 1972, the album Talkin’ ’Bout Jones is a sought-after item these days, often fetching three-figure sums among collectors.

“We had two big records on that album, ‘[I Am] So Lonely,’ written by Chuck Barksdale of the Dells, and a song called ‘I Got a Habit [(of Lovin’ You),’]” Jonz told Soul Express . “We also had a duet with Pauline Chivers—she’s passed away now—and that song was ‘Please Bless Our Home.’ Syl Johnson played on that album. Syl is a dear friend of mine. Mighty Joe Young was one of the guitar players on that album.”

The gritty-smooth “I Am So Lonely” and “I Got a Habit” had already appeared as a single in ’71 on New York label Lionel. And the bluesy, pleading “Welcome Back a Foolish Man” b/w “Lovin’ Hard, Livin’ Good,” a personal favorite of mine, had arrived on Kack Records in 1969.

Jonz moved to Florida in the early 70s, where he cut “My Confession,” now beloved by the Northern Soul scene in the UK (it came out on two di erent Miami labels, Top Hit and Adam). He also released the supremely funky “The Boogie Train” in 1974 via Chicago imprint Capri. “I worked all over Florida,” Jonz told Soul Express. “I opened for Debbie Reynolds at the [Fontainebleau]. I worked at the Diplomat, where I opened for Lou Rawls.”

Jonz returned to Chicago in 1977 and was soon using the name Bobby Jonz (to avoid confusion with gospel artist Bobby Jones). His great 1980s singles include “Win Your Love” b/w “You Don’t Know What You’ve Got!” on the Dispo label in ’82 (cut at Solid Sound in Hoffman Estates) and contemporary soul anthem “Thought You Were Loving Me” on the Expansion label in ’84 (another favorite of the Northern Soul crowd, it’s also the title track of an album that came out two years earlier).

Jonz even delved into disco for the 1986 Fantasy track “I Got the Touch if You Got the Time,” produced and written by General Crook—one of the very first Secret History subjects nearly 20 years ago.

Jonz packed up for Victorville, California, in ’86, and commuted to Hollywood to do soundtrack and acting work. By 1989 he’d settled in Las Vegas, where he’d come at the urging of old Chicago pal Tyrone Davis. (Jonz claimed that Davis’s 1969 hit “Can I Change My Mind” was originally written for him, but nobody seems to agree—though Jonz did later

record songs by its cowriter Barry Despenza.)

In 1997 Jonz hooked up with Johnny Vincent and his Mississippi-based Ace Records, releasing the albums that would define the next phase of his career. His first CD, In the Mood for Love, revealed him as a fully formed master of soul-blues (also called southern soul) and included two songs that would become signature numbers: the title track and “Innocent til Proven Guilty.” The album even dipped into Jonz’s country roots, which he explored further on This Is Bobby Jonz Country in 1998. That album came out on Avanti Records, which Vincent had founded upon selling Ace to a UK company in ’97. By the time Vincent died in 2000, Jonz had put out 1999’s megafunky Your Freak Is Here with New Orleans imprint Big Bidness.

Jonz continued to record and release music throughout the aughts, and in his final years he worked with a California-based label called Loveforce International. He kept performing too, sometimes as a member of Los Angeles band the Mannish Boys, sometimes with guitarist Honey Davis, and sometimes just using his charisma to power an open mike.

On July 21, 2020, Jonz died of COVID-19 at the North Las Vegas VA Medical Center. The virus had taken his brother in March, and a week before Jonz’s death, his longtime girlfriend Easter Morris also passed from COVID. By then Jonz had fallen into a coma, so he never learned she was gone.

I’m not sure what we can do about tragedies like this, which have all but destroyed so many families and left the survivors barely any time to recover before the next variant wave arrives. My friends are still getting the virus, and a dancer I know is using a wheelchair due to long COVID. Would education help? Improving ventilation surely would, and so would updated vaccines. Maybe one day we’ll heal enough as a society to reckon with all of our losses— but for right now, I’d like to ask you to spare a thought for Bobby Jonz.

The radio version of the Secret History of Chicago Music airs on Outside the Loop on WGN Radio 720 AM, Saturdays at 5 AM with host Mike Stephen.

Recommended and notable shows and releases with critics’ insights for the week of March 23

Chicago’s Djunah meld poetry and hard rock to power up Femina Furens

CONCERT PREVIEWS THURSDAY23

They Are Gutting a Body of Water Knifeplay, Old Coke, and Illusion of Choice open. 8 PM, Beat Kitchen, 2100 W. Belmont, $15. 17+

Philadelphia band They Are Gutting a Body of Water toy with shoegaze like Van Leeuwen screws around with ice cream—their delightfully askew music draws me in, though, while Van Leeuwen’s Hidden Valley Ranch flavor repels me. TAGABOW have made a lot of creative choices that depart from shoegaze’s traditional wall-of-sound warmth. They’ve collaborated with Chicago breakcore heartthrob Casper McFadden on the frenetic, throbbing “Menthol Box,” from the 2021 EP EPCOT. They’ve incorporated samples and electronic percussion, such as the stuttering harp and reggaeton-inspired riddim on Destiny XL track “ES Beautyhand.” And on the title track of last year’s self-released Lucky Styles (uploaded to streaming services as S, in a mistake they turned into an inside joke), the band foreground a whimsical steam-whistle melody that could score an aquatic level on Super Mario 64 TAGABOW’s musical weirdness is less surprising when you consider their hometown. The Philly scene has developed a reputation for (or at least an acceptance of) indie rockers with mischievous experimental streaks. “It’s always been wacky here,” front man Douglas Dulgarian recently told the Pittsburgh City Paper . “Like, motherfuckers are using children’s keyboards on every song. You know, Alex G set the tone with pitch-shi ing his voice and now he’s on the auto-tune wave. There are things here that aren’t happening elsewhere.” Everybody should encourage more wackiness in their own scenes, especially if it leads to more of the loose, uninhibited creativity that makes Lucky Styles so charming and confounding. —LEOR GALIL

FRIDAY24

Djunah See Pick of the Week at le . Huntsmen open. 10 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, $10. 21+

I WISH MORE HARD-ROCK BANDS played with the fervor and aggression of heavy Chicago two-piece Djunah. The duo’s music blazes with such bracing intensity that I’d half expect a vinyl copy of their 2019 album, Ex Voto, to scorch my fingers. Front woman Donna Diane delivers much of the band’s power, in part because she creates so much of their sound. She sings, she plays guitar, and she uses her right foot to operate a Moog Minitaur synth bass via a Roland PK-5A MIDI pedal controller—and seeing her do it all at once adds to Djunah’s already striking live performances. These days, Djunah is rounded out by drummer Jared Karns of Hidden Hospitals and Their/They’re/There, who also appears on the band’s new selfreleased album, Femina Furens. Diane roots the album in a series of her poems, which incorporate allusions to poets Sylvia Plath and John Donne and take inspiration from Greek and Egyptian myths. In the middle of writing these allegorical pieces, she was diagnosed with complex posttraumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD), which further influenced their tone and shape. When Djunah launched preorders of Femina Furens, they made two di erent limited-edition vinyl sets that included chapbooks of Diane’s poems. Both have already sold out, but you don’t need the chapbook (or a master’s degree) to understand Femina Furens: Djunah’s controlled ferociousness ensures that even the album’s nuanced points about autonomy and feminine power come to the fore. Knockout single “Seven Winds of Sekhmet” invokes an Egyptian war goddess who could heal anything, and when Diane’s mighty bellow cracks into a snarl to match its razor-blade guitars, she sounds like she has the same power. —LEOR GALIL

Rob Mazurek’s Exploding Star Orchestra 8:30 PM, Adler Planetarium, 1300 S. DuSable Lake Shore Drive, sold out with waiting list. b

Rob Mazurek’s Exploding Star Orchestra sounds like a tributary of Chicago’s avant-jazz traditions. In 2005, the Chicago Cultural Center and the Jazz Institute of Chicago commissioned the multidisciplinary artist and trumpeter for a concert at Pritzker Pavilion, which inspired him to assemble a supergroup of the city’s bleeding-edge creative musicians. Together, they bundle the cosmic trippiness of the Sun Ra Arkestra, the large-group intricacy of the AACM’s Great Black Music Ensemble, and the coolly sophisticated experimentation of the 90s postrock scene that coalesced around Chicago label Thrill Jockey (which released Exploding Star’s first two albums). The members have hung together in

DJUNAH, HUNTSMEN Fri 3/24, 10 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, $10. 21+

COURTNEY BROOKE HALL

a loose constellation ever since, even as some core players, including guitarist Jeff Parker, flutist Nicole Mitchell, and Mazurek himself, have le Chicago.

On March 31, the Exploding Star Orchestra will release their latest album, Lightning Dreamers, on International Anthem. To celebrate, they’re making their first hometown appearance in five years. A nine-piece iteration of the ensemble that consists of Mazurek, Mitchell, keyboardists Craig Taborn and Angelica Sanchez, cellist Tomeka Reid, bassist

Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, drummers Chad Taylor and Gerald Cleaver, and narrator and sampler maestro Damon Locks will perform in the Adler Planetarium’s domed Grainger Sky Theater amid enveloping projections of Mazurek’s abstract video art.

Lightning Dreamers was mostly recorded in September 2021 in a West Texas border town near where Mazurek now lives. After beloved experimental trumpeter Jaimie Branch passed away last year, Mazurek dedicated the album to her memory

and stitched in samples from a 2022 Exploding Star concert featuring Branch on synths. That became the basis for the album’s tour de force, the teeming, unabashed “Black River.” At first it sounds raw and writhing, but during a recitation by Locks a few minutes in, the heavens seem to open up. Sounds of the past and present mix freely until listeners can scarcely tease them apart. It’s beautiful chaos. Isn’t that the best any of us can hope for, during our toobrief planetary stay?

—HANNAH EDGAR

WEDNESDAY29

TmbaTa Orchestra 8:30 PM, Constellation, 3111 N. Western, $25. 18+

Armenian folk music has retained its compelling singularity for centuries, through all the tribulations faced by the nation and its people, but TmbaTa Orchestra show that a deep respect for this tradition does not preclude reinventing it. The band, whose name derives from a musical exercise, grew out of an education program launched a decade ago by guitarist Arik Grigoryan at the teen-oriented Tumo Center for Creative Technologies in Yerevan. In the spirit of that youthful energy, TmbaTa titled their 2019 album ZarZ’ng’ , which translates to “ring the bells”—short for the even more enthusiastic phrase “ring the bells so we can dance all night long.”

Here, electric guitar and bass re-create the type of lines traditionally made by ancient strings, such as the oud and kanun, while arrangements for clarinets and brass transpose Indigenous woodwinds, including the double-reed apricot-wood horn called the duduk. While TmbaTa’s driving rhythms take their cues from rock, their melodies adhere to long-standing Armenian modal lines that occasionally echo Middle Eastern idioms. Similar to their

more folkloric peers, such as Armenia’s Shoghaken Ensemble, TmbaTa’s repertoire mixes such upbeat tunes as “ZarZ’ng’” with quieter devotional pieces. In 2021 TmbaTa self-released Fantastic Komitas, titled in honor of Komitas Vardapet (born Soghomon Soghomonian), an Armenian priest and musicologist who collected thousands of folk songs in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. TmbaTa adapt a selection of those songs for this record, and their version of “Ampel a Kamar” (“Heaven Has Become Clouded in Arches”) features serene vocal harmonies over a slow, enthralling beat. If Komitas could time travel to the present, he might not quite recognize the tune in its modern, electrified state, but the orchestra’s spirit and dedication nonetheless embody what his work was all about. —AARON COHEN

THURSDAY30

Algiers Party Dozen open. 9 PM, Sleeping Village, 3734 W. Belmont, $18. 21+

The cover imagery on Algiers’s new album, Shook, can be interpreted as empowering or forsaken. A black wolf with feral or fawning eyes—you decide— stands in profile with its head lowered, a chain dangling from its mouth. I like to think that the wolf isn’t genuflecting but rather holding the tools of its oppressor between its teeth—and it’s not a stretch to say that the band think the same.

The apocalyptic soul quad have always made staunchly political music. They named their band a er the capital city of Algeria, a home base in the battle against French colonization for more than a century. On Shook as on their previous albums, the band’s lyrics reflect that spirit of resistance.

Conceptualized by bandleader Franklin J. Fisher and bassist Ryan Mahan, Shook centers racial sol-

They Are Gutting a Body of Water JULIETTE BOULAY

Rob Mazurek of the Exploding Star Orchestra BRITT MAZUREK

TmbaTa Orchestra COURTESY THE ARTIST

MUSIC

their performances on what the promoters are touting as “two floors of horror” within the church. The headliners alone are worth staying up late for: occult-leaning Los Angeles postpunk act Sextile and French Canadian synth-pop whiz Automelodi (aka Xavier Paradis, who you might remember as part of Echo Kitty). Also on the bill are 80s-inspired electronic duo Xibling, industrial dance producer Kris Baha, and otherworldly sound provocateurs Conjunto Primitivo—an alluring Chicago duo who might be the biggest draw of the night.

press release, Joseph says that 90 seconds is how long you can survive in space without oxygen, and that the song is influenced by the 1995 Yoko Ono album Rising).

continued from p. 69

idarity and revolution. With hotheaded wails and earnest clamor, Fisher recounts the Atlanta child murders of 1979-1981, in which more than 30 Black people, predominantly children and adolescents, were targeted and killed; the 1985 Philadelphia police bombing of Black liberation group MOVE; and other instances of police brutality that color our country’s past, present, and future blood red.

While Algiers’s ethos has always been rooted in brotherhood, on Shook they double down on their zest for collaboration by corralling an impressive roster of contributors—among them Rage Against the Machine front man Zack de la Rocha, jazz musician Patrick Shiroshi, Alabama rocker Lee Bains III, and Canadian rapper Backxwash—and emblazoning their names on the album cover. These contributors amplify the record’s white-knuckle feel: de la Rocha’s madcap barks stoke the blistering violence of “Irreversible Damage,” while Jae Matthews (Boy Harsher) and Samuel T. Herring (Future Islands) sing slinky, soulful verses on “I Can’t Stand It!”

Much of Shook orbits Atlanta, where the band members grew up together. It opens with a field recording plucked from Hartsfield Airport and incorporates chopped-and-screwed samples from Peach State artists such as soul singer Lee Moses; elsewhere its tracks are woven together partly by the baritone voice of Atlanta spoken-word legend Big Rube. In the hands of a less seasoned band, Shook could’ve ended up clumsy bricolage, but Algiers capture a perfect snapshot of everyday chaos. Shook is the sound of protest and house parties, the clangor of relationships dissolving and new love beginning. It’s the sound of life as we know it—even when it’s harrowing, it’s rooted in truth. —SHANNON NICO

SHREIBAK

FRIDAY31

Molder Obscene, Detherous, and Cryptual open. 8 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 2109 S. State, $15. 17+

Joliet four-piece Molder know what’s awesome about classic death metal—and that includes its deliberately disgusting aesthetics. “I think some of it goes a little overboard and it’s a little silly, but to each their own,” guitarist and vocalist Aaren Pantke told Invisible Oranges last July, when Prosthetic released Molder’s second album, Engrossed in Decay . “It’s all about death, gore, decay,” he said. “Your typical run of the mill death metal topics.” Pantke, drummer Kyle Pooley, bassist Dominic Vaia, and guitarist Carlos Santini focus on what makes death metal exciting and gross—and demonstrate how even the grossness can be played up till it’s exciting too. Throughout Engrossed in Decay, Pantke delivers visions of slimy viscera in inhuman belches while the band relentlessly plow through morbid, sludgy instrumentals whose circular-saw guitar riffs could gut an alligator. Molder don’t even try to reinvent the wheel, but when death metal sounds as delightfully putrid as the pummeling “Ghastly Mutation,” it doesn’t need to be innovative to rip.

—LEOR GALIL

SATURDAY1

The Vampire’s Ball Featuring performances by Sextile, Automelodi, Xibling, Kris Baha, and Conjunto Primitivo, as well as DJ sets by Club Drippy, Flores Negras, and Veri Peri. Hosted by Cae Monāe and Nico. 7 PM, Epiphany Center for the Arts, 201 S. Ashland, $45. 21+

The event producers who debuted multiday gothic music festival Sanctum in Chicago last November are now attempting to make April Fool’s Night a thing with the 2023 Vampire Ball. The ball, which features a curated lineup of dark art and music, takes place at the Epiphany Center for the Arts, the near-west-side cultural center built inside the shell of the historic, stunning Church of the Epiphany—making the night feel all the more sanctified. The musical acts include a variety of goth, industrial, and experimental noise artists who will stage

A number of DJs will spin throughout the event, including ambient techno producer Club Drippy, aka Jonathon Freund of electronic trio Pixel Grip; industrial EBM master Flores Negras, founder of inclusive event company Mictlan Productions; Veri Peri, who’ll bring a mixed bag of Italo disco, acid house, and darkwave; and Beau Wanzer, who’s just as inspired by 70s and 80s minimal synth as he is by horror films. Also making some noise will be event coproducer Nocturna—allegedly going live from the “catacombs.” Dress for the occasion, as there will be a costume contest and photo-booth opportunities. The night also offers art vendors and visuals by Videowaste, and those who arrive early will be able to visit the Epiphany galleries free of charge before the ball kicks off.

—SELENA FRAGASSI

ALBUM REVIEWS

Acid King, Beyond Vision Blues Funeral acidking.bandcamp.com/album/beyond-vision

Acid King’s new full-length, Beyond Vision (Blues Funeral), wasn’t originally intended to be an Acid King record at all. As lead guitarist, front woman, and sole permanent member Lori S. (aka Lori Joseph) told Guitar World magazine in a February interview, she meant to make an experimental collaborative album with guitarist Jason Landrian of Black Cobra. Along the way they acquired bassist Bryce Shelton and drummer Jason Willer, so that a full-band sound emerged. And what a sound it is. Acid King are a pillar of the stoner-metal genre, and though they’ve been active since 1993, they haven’t released a new album since 2015 or toured since 2019 (when they commemorated the 20th anniversary of the landmark Busse Woods, named for the forest preserve near Joseph’s hometown in Chicago’s northwest suburbs). This is as powerful a comeback as anyone could have hoped for.

Eventually, Joseph and her comrades accepted that Beyond Vision was an Acid King record. It maintains the raw heaviness of the band’s classic sound while adding synths and keyboards (played by Shelton and Landrian, respectively) to create a lush psychedelic garden of noise whose fluid transitions and satisfying climaxes are never rushed, always earned, and consistently infused with deep cosmic patience. Willer’s dense but steady drumming carries “Color Trails” to a mesmerizing conclusion, and an eerie spacescape in “One Light Second Away” stalks along underneath heavy riffs, leading into a release worthy of the moment in 2001: A Space Odyssey when David Bowman says, “My god—it’s full of stars.” The majestic terror of “90 Seconds” evokes the idea of death in space (in a

The songs on Beyond Vision are so good that I could never fathom ranking them, but for me one of the brightest highlights is the shi ing, phasing planetary landscape of the long intro to “Electro Magnetic.” Joseph’s transcendent, agonized lead guitar writhes like a serpent in the hand of an angry god before finding escape through the track’s major dynamic shi s. Acid King have booked a few oneoff dates in California and Texas, and they’re hitting the European festival circuit, so let’s hope they come to Chicago before too long. In the meantime, Beyond Vision is a gourmet treat for your headphones—or you could blast it through speakers and wait for your neighbors to thank you for turning them on to Acid King’s warm, heavy sounds.

—MONICA KENDRICK

Mats Gustafsson & Joachim

Nordwall, Their Power Reached Across Space and Time—to Defy Them Was Death—or Worse

Thrill Jockey

gustafssonnordwall.bandcamp.com

Free improvisers, experimental musicians, and foley artists differ in their methods, but practitioners of all three arts can unite around their attraction to sounds that’ll raise your hackles. This collaboration between improvisational woodwinds player Mats Gustafsson and electronic musician Joachim Nordwall (of the Skull Defekts and the iDealist) could soundtrack a bookshelf full of straight-to-video freak-out flicks. The hyperbolic, mostly all-caps titles that these two Swedes have conferred upon the record’s eight tracks suggest that they aren’t unaware of this. “THERE ARE SOME WORLDS WHERE DREAMS ALL DIE (en glad stund),” for example, opens the album with a commingling of bring-out-the-dead cadences and lung-withering exhalations that will give your subwoofer and the more panic-inclined recesses of your unconscious a workout. Many of the sounds on the album could perform cinematic functions or trigger a reflexive response from an unsuspecting audience. The sputtering synths on “LOVE SHOWS IN HER SMILE: IT IS CONFIDENT (panik),” for instance, could score a ray-gun shoot-out scene. If the subliminal pulses and long tones on fluteophone (a flute fitted with an alto sax mouthpiece) from “OH, SAID THE STRANGE MIND, YOU WANT ME TO THINK FOR YOU (det blir aldrig bättre)” don’t have your date leaning into your neck to hide their eyes, they’re really not into you. —BILL

MEYER

Baaba Maal, Being

Marathon

spektralquartet.com/btw-project

Senegalese superstar Baaba Maal has been recording for close to four decades, and at age 69 he still sounds relentlessly, almost eerily contemporary. While his first album, 1984’s Djam Leelii , features himself and his teacher Mansour Seck on acoustic guitars in a mesmerizing, fluid triumph of griot tradition, he’s since embraced electronics and trans-

Algiers EBRU YILDIZ

national collaboration. Maal has forged an uplifting, soulful, and danceable Afrofuturist sound that also feels rooted in the past—director Ryan Coogler and composer Ludwig Göransson cannily recruited him to collaborate on music for the Black Panther films (and he makes a cameo as a funeral singer in Wakanda Forever).

On his new record, Being (Marathon), Maal continues to experiment without losing his signature sound. “Yerimayo Celebration” is a deep, heavy track reminiscent of dub or the work of the innovative electronic artists released by South African label Gqom Oh!—Maal’s unmistakable vocals

soar above while the bass thumps hard enough to shake your sternum. “Freak Out” is fuzzed-out dreamy psychedelia, with Maal and Malawian singer Esau Mwamwaya (formerly of the Very Best) switching leads while chasing each other into the stratosphere. “Agreement,” by contrast, turns back toward the sparseness of Maal’s earliest work; while there’s a big, measured beat, the drama is in his guitar playing and his amazing voice, which moves between intimate whispers and an ecstatic call that seems to sweep into heaven itself. In a career filled with gems, this is another highlight.

—NOAH BERLATSKY v

Baaba Maal MATTHEW DONALDSON

Sextile are among the performers at the Vampire’s Ball. SARAH PARDINI

EARLY WARNINGS

Hot Chili Peppers, Odesza, Lana Del Rey, Karol G, the 1975, Tomorrow X Together, Fred Again, Noah Kahan, A Boogie Wit da Hoodie, Maggie Rogers, Carly Rae Jepsen, Thirty Seconds to Mars, Diplo, J.I.D, Louis the Child, Pusha T, Subtronics, Rina Sawayama, Newjeans, Lil Yachty, Mt. Joy, Backseat Lovers, Sofi Tukker, Portugal. The Man, Alan Walker, and more 8/3-8/6, Grant Park b

Lovely World, Motherwind 7/13, 8 PM, Reggies Music Joint

Lovesexy: A Journey Through the World of Prince featuring DJ Salah Ananse, DJ Duane Powell, and more 5/26, 10 PM, the Promontory Mahjong Crib 4/29, 9 PM, Hungry Brain Material Reissue, Frisbie 6/10, 8 PM, Schubas

GOSSIP WOLF

8/11, 9 PM, Sleeping Village

Poster Children 5/27, 8 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+

Project Blackbird, Tukkiman

7/19, 9:30 PM, Hideout

Rav, Scuare 6/25, 8 PM, Subterranean, 17+

Rebelution, Iration, DJ Mackle

7/1, 8:30 PM, Aragon Ballroom, 17+

Sad Summer Fest featuring Taking Back Sunday, the Maine, Motion City Soundtrack, Pvris, Hot Mulligan, Mom Jeans 7/21, 2 PM, Huntington Bank Pavilion b

A furry ear to the ground of the local music scene

Amazons 6/3, 8 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+

American Music Festival featuring Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Dave Alvin, Shinyribs, Amythyst Kiah, Cactus Blossoms, Soul Rebels, Jaime Wyatt, Sarah Shook & the Disarmers, DeeOhGee, Deslondes, C.J. Chenier & the Red Hot Louisiana Band, Logan Ledger, Sunny War, Texas Gentlemen, Arlo McKinley, Uncle Lucius, Steel Wheels, Chris Pierce, Tributosaurus, Leon Timbo, Miss Tess, Minks, James Hunter Six, Selwyn Birchwood, and more 6/307/3, FitzGerald’s, Berwyn b

Arab Blues 5/12 and 6/17, 9 PM, Hungry Brain

Baby Teeth, Bronze 5/5, 8 PM, Hideout

Marcia Ball & Tinsley Ellis 4/13, 8:30 PM, FitzGerald’s, Berwyn

James Bay 8/27, 7:30 PM, Riv-

iera Theatre b

Beck, Phoenix, Sir Chloe 8/31, 6:30 PM, Huntington Bank Pavilion b

Bikini Kill, Ganser 4/22, 8 PM, Salt Shed b

Billy Strings 6/17, 7:30 PM, Huntington Bank Pavilion b

Blanco White 10/13, 9 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+

Blondshell, Hello Mary 7/12, 8 PM, Schubas, 18+

Gina Bloom & the Heavy Sounds 4/7, 8:30 PM, FitzGerald’s, Berwyn

Boney M, Samantha Fox, Bad Boys Blue 8/24, 8 PM, Copernicus Center b

Jack Botts 10/2, 8 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+

Bright Light Social Hour 9/16, 8 PM, Schubas

Broadway Rave: The Musical Theatre Dance Party 5/20, 9 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+

Casey 9/29, 8 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+

Chicago Yestet 6/30, 8:30 PM, Constellation, 18+

Cobra Man 5/9, 8:30 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+

Cold Waves XI official kickoff show featuring Riki, Male Tears, Club Drugs, DJ Scary

Lady Sarah 9/21, 9 PM, Sleeping Village

Cold Waves XI night one featuring IAMX, Twin Tribes, Ash Code, Nuovo Testamento, Harsh Symmetry, Bloody Knives 9/22, 7 PM, Metro, 18+

Cold Waves XI night one featuring Street Fever, Club Music, Riki (DJ set), Richard 23 (DJ set) 9/22, 11 PM, Smart Bar

Cold Waves XI night two featuring Front Line Assembly, A Split Second, 16 Volt, Acumen Nation, Kanga, Mvtant 9/23, 7 PM, Metro, 18+

Cold Waves XI night two featuring JK Flesh, Enduser, Zoltar (DJ set) 9/23, 11 PM, Smart Bar

Cold Waves XI night three featuring Godflesh, Lead Into Gold, Sierra, Rabbit Junk, Lana Del Rabies, Cel Genesis 9/24, 7 PM, Metro, 18+

Marilyn Crispell; Jason Stein, Damon Smith, and Adam Shead 6/3, 8:30 PM, Constellation, 18+

The Cure, Twilight Sad 6/10, 7:30 PM, United Center b

Christopher Dammann Quintet 6/28, 8:30 PM, Constellation, 18+

Delain, Visions of Atlantis 9/18, 7:30 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+

Kahil El’Zabar & David Murray 6/20, 8 PM, the Promontory b

Emperor 6/23, 8 PM, Aragon Ballroom, 17+

Evangeline 6/4, 8 PM, Golden Dagger Fever Ray, Christeene 5/7, 8 PM, Salt Shed, 17+

Good Kid, Kevin Walkman 5/8, 7:30 PM, Thalia Hall b

Fareed Haque Quintet 6/96/10, 8 PM, Green Mill

Havok, Toxic Holocaust, I Am, Hammerhedd 8/9, 7 PM, Reggies Rock Club, 17+

Heart Attack Man, Arm’s Length, Super American, Photocopy 6/29, 7:30 PM, Subterranean, 17+

Lauryn Hill 6/17, 8 PM, Ravinia Festival, Highland Park b

Hot Summer Nights featuring TLC, Shaggy, En Vogue, Sean Kingston 6/23, 7 PM, Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre b

Impulse Momentum featuring Télépopmusik, Fortune, HazMat (live), Andrew Emil, Alex Zelenka 5/6, 7:30 PM, Park West

Irish Tenors 12/6, 7:30 PM, Copernicus Center b

Dreamer Isioma, Amindi 6/8, 8:30 PM, Reggies Rock Club, 17+

John Legend 8/13-8/14, 8 PM, Ravinia Festival, Highland Park b

Mike Jones Trio 6/2-6/3, 8 PM, Green Mill

Judson Claiborne, Garden Parties 4/15, 8:30 PM, Hideout

La Santa Cecilia 6/25, 7:30 PM, Park West b

Logan Square Skate benefit show featuring Disq, Lurk, Footballhead 4/20, 9 PM, Sleeping Village Logic 5/27, 8 PM, Aragon Ballroom b

Lollapalooza featuring Kendrick Lamar, Billie Eilish, Red

Jared Mattson, George Arthur Calendar 5/31, 7 PM, Subterranean, 17+

Model/Actriz, Conjunto Primitivo, Brutus VIII 4/6, 9 PM, Empty Bottle

Adam Ness, Sam Thousand 4/6, 8:30 PM, Chop Shop Ne-Yo 7/7, 7 PM, Ravinia Festival, Highland Park b

Ocean Blue, Hang Ups 9/2, 8 PM, Lincoln Hall, 18+

Offspring, Sum 41, Simple Plan 8/26, 7 PM, Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, Tinley Park b

Origin of Animal 6/30, 8:30 PM, BanAnna’s Comedy Shack at Reggies

Joel Paterson Trio 6/3, 9 PM, Hungry Brain

Pitchfork Music Festival day one featuring the Smile, Alvvays, Perfume Genius, Leikeli47, Nation of Language, Roc Marciano & the Alchemist, Youth Lagoon, Ric Wilson, Grace Ives, Jlin, Axel Boman, Mavi, Sen Morimoto, Contour 7/21, noon, Union Park b

Pitchfork Music Festival day two featuring Big Thief, Weyes Blood, King Krule, Snail Mail, Panda Bear & Sonic Boom, Julia Jacklin, Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul, Vagabon, MJ Lenderman, Yaya Bey, Black Belt Eagle Scout, 700 Bliss, Palm, Deeper 7/22, noon, Union Park b

Pitchfork Music Festival day three featuring Bon Iver, Kelela, Koffee, Killer Mike, JPEGmafia, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Mdou Moctar, Illuminati Hotties, Jockstrap, Soul Glo, Florist, Lucrecia Dalt, Rachika Nayar, Ariel Zetina 7/23, noon, Union Park b

Placebo, Poppy Jean Crawford 4/21, 8 PM, Salt Shed, 17+ Plaid, Abstract Science DJs

Siddhartha 10/27, 8 PM, Copernicus Center b

Skáld 9/8, 8 PM, Reggies Rock Club, 17+

Sorry Girls 9/9, 8 PM, Golden

Dagger

Stews 8/1, 8 PM, Beat Kitchen, 17+

Taco & the New Era Band 5/25, 9 PM, the Promontory

Tamino, People Museum 4/26, 8 PM, Thalia Hall, 17+

Aaron Lee Tasjan 6/15, 8 PM, Golden Dagger

3 Doors Down, Candlebox

6/17, 8 PM, Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, Tinley Park b

Bryson Tiller 5/13, 8 PM, Radius Chicago b

Tom the Mail Man 9/29, 9 PM, Schubas, 18+

Unwed Sailor 5/25, 9 PM, Sleeping Village

UPCOMING

Cowboy Junkies 4/6-4/7, 8 PM, Maurer Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music b

Facs, Cabeza de Chivo, Trouble in Mind DJs 4/7, 10 PM, Empty Bottle

Facs, Dim, Beau Wanzer (DJ set) 4/8, 9 PM, Empty Bottle

Kate NV, Fire-Toolz 4/6, 9 PM, Maurer Hall, Sleeping Village Night of the Emcees featuring Qortez, Deen Akbar, Gode, Lyric Versatile, Epik1, Rasrok, Mr. Misfit of Graphic Nature, Buzzed Beyond, Ms. Red Valet, Queen Zenobia, Kaos, Jack Blackout, Robbery 4/8, 9 PM, Subterranean Syzygal, Nasty Buoy 4/6, 8 PM, Golden Dagger Western Bisexual, Pure Intention, Midcentury Llama, Moon Rules Apply 4/8, 7:30 PM, Bottom Lounge, 17+ Mike Wheeler, Alex Wilson 4/8, 9 PM, Buddy Guy’s Legends v

WHEN CHICAGO pianist and composer Bob Dogan died in Tallahassee, Florida, in 2020 a er a brief illness, our city lost a jazz giant. In 2005, longtime Reader writer Neil Tesser hailed his small-group compositions for their “strong, meaty lines with attractive harmonic schemes that engage and propel the soloists,” while also noting the airy, economical statements in Dogan’s own playing—which he’d honed in the early 70s while working in a big band led by notoriously extroverted drummer Buddy Rich. Several talented instrumentalists who’ve spent years gigging in Chicago and elsewhere with Dogan—bass trumpeter Ryan Shultz , saxophonist Juli Wood , drummer Joe Adamik (Califone, Iron & Wine), and bassist Dan DeLorenzo—have convened a quintet to perform a two-set tribute to Dogan at Elastic Arts on Monday, March 27. This estimable ensemble will play new arrangements of Dogan’s songs by DeLorenzo, and it’s rounded out by pianist Tom Vaitsas —who has mighty big boots to fill.

Post Office Winter drummer Eli Schmitt , a key figure in Chicago’s youth DIY scene, has been hosting live performances in his apartment for a YouTube series called New Now for more than a year. On Wednesday, April 5, New Now will debut as a monthly all-ages showcase at Irving Park arts space Color Club Lifeguard drummer Isaac Lowenstein headlines with his solo IDM project, Donkey Basketball , which by then will have released the full-length Donkey Basketball Planet , due March 31. Sky Changes and DJ Sata also perform; tickets cost $10.

On Friday, March 24, Pink Avalanche front man and soundman extraordinaire Che Arthur drops the debut EP from his new solo project, Ha Subliminal. The self-titled release threads a line between artsy postpunk and warm electro- pop, and on early single “Reel In,” Arthur’s processed vocals hang over knotty guitar lines in a way that sure has this wolf on the hook! —J.R.

NELSON AND LEOR GALIL

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CHICAGO SHOWS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT IN THE WEEKS TO COME

Broken by a union

A COMIC BY MADS HORWATH

CLASSIFIEDS

JOBS

GENERAL REAL ESTATE RENTALS FOR SALE

NON-RESIDENTIAL

PROFESSIONALS & SERVICES

CLEANING RESEARCH COMMUNITY MATCHES

JOBS

Canon Medical Research USA, Inc. seeks Software Engineers for various & unanticipated worksites throughout the U.S. (HQ: Vernon Hills, IL) to design, dev & productize reconstruction algorithms for new feature releases of sw products. Bachelor’s in Comp Sci/related field + 2yrs exp req’d. Req’d Skills: C++ programming skills in Windows &Linux platforms; CMake; Python; Boost C++; Multithreaded programming; Linux; Jenkins; Django; Bash scripting. 100% telecommuting permitted Apply online: www.research.us. medical.canon/careers, Req. ID: 1176

We’re Hiring!!!! Upscale barbershop in the heart of Wicker Park seeks experienced barbers and stylists to join our team. Commission, bonuses, and vacation benefits available. GroomingLoungeChicago@gmail. com

773.342.1258 1258 N. Milwaukee Ave

Central Finance Process Lead Mars Information Services, Inc.: Central Finance Process Lead – Chicago, IL. Lead Central Finance deployment for Mars & coordinate related team of internal & external resources to deliver Mars ERP syst transformation against the agreed scope & timeline. Job req’s Bach’s degree in Finance, Acct, Economics, or a related fld + 5 yrs of exp working w/ Finance ERP & mgmt reporting systems for a CPG company. Telework benefit permitted up to 3 days per wk. Up to 10% travel req. To apply, send resume identifying Job Code 123 to MarsTA-PIC@effem.com. No calls.

Assistant Professor (Tenure Track) Loyola University Chicago is seeking an Assistant Professor (Tenure Track) in Chicago, IL to perform research duties including conducting innovative research on emerging media technologies such as HCI (HumanComputer Interaction), user experience, social media, virtual reality & games. Please send res to Ecoffma@luc.edu & ref job 111487.

customizations in Summit v6.0. May work from home 3 days per week. Must live within commuting distance of the office. Apply on-line at fhlbc. com/careers.

Framer / Woodworker Verge is a new art framing company based in Chicago. We are seeking an experienced Framer / Woodworker to fabricate frames. Proven woodworking skills are essential. Requirements include: minimum of 2 years experience in frame fabrication and fine art framing, finishing, fitting; familiarity with table saw, miter saw, under pinner and hand tools; precision with measurements; detail oriented; ability to meet deadlines; ability to read, understand and follow work orders; maintain neat and organized workspace; good communication skills; punctual; art installation skills not required but welcomed. Schedule: 2 - 3 days per week to start. $25-$35 per hour, commensurate with experience. Freelance/ Contractor. To apply, email a cover letter and resume to vergeframing@ gmail.com. Read more at vergeframes.com.

Sr. Analyst, Patient and Access Analytics Horizon Therapeutics USA, Inc. seeks a Sr. Analyst, Patient and Access Analytics in Deerfield, IL to support initiatives to build and implement management-level reporting/KPIs tracking. Reqs: Masters degree in Applied Stats, Data Analytics, or rel field & 2 yrs rel exp. Alt Employer will accept Bach. degree in Applied Stats, Data Analytics, or rel field & 4 yrs rel exp.

To apply, go to: https:// horizon.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/ Horizon/job/Sr-Analyst--Patient-and-Access-Analytics_ R0004714?q-R0004552

Hardware Engineer II Toast, Inc. seeks a Hardware Engineer II in Chicago, IL. Cndct chipset slctn & rdmap review for h/w prods. Telecomm. permitted.

Reqs 10% domestic trvl thru-out the US. Apply @ jobpostingtoday.com/

Ref: 37393

Destination & frequency impossible to predict. Email your resume to CO@mckinsey.com and refer to Job # 6699058.

INTUIFACE PLATFORM APPLICATION ENGINEER INTUILAB, INC. SEEKS ONE INTUIFACE PLATFORM APPLICATION ENGINEER to work w/ the company’s customers in a 1:1 relationship to assess their needs & propose the right IntuiFace features to match the customer’s goal; define the target architecture into the customer organization; provide technical advice on how to use IntuiFace to implement rich, meaningful user experiences, from design to deployment. Position requires Bachelor’s degree in CompSci, CompSci Engg, or related IT field, or foreign equivalent w/ 3 years’ exp. w/ the following: (i) developing & designing creative technology software & platforms; (ii) creating educational content within the creative technology industry using IntuiFace; & (iii) using C#, HTML, JS, CSS, REST, SOAP, & SQL. Position located in Chicago, IL. May work remotely from anywhere in the US. Applicants should apply at usjobs@ intuiface.com

Assistant Instructional Professors Position URL apply.interfolio. com/121717 Position

ADULT SERVICES

Assistant Professor, Finance Loyola University Chicago is seeking an Assistant Professor, Finance in Chicago, IL to design & teach finance courses. Please send res to slee2@luc.edu & ref job #051390.

Lead Software Developer Federal Home Loan Bank Chicago is seeking a Lead Software Developer in Chicago, IL. Develop new programs

Engagement Manager, Digital Tech, MCKINSEY & COMPANY, INC. US (Chicago, IL). Lead teams of consultants w/in the Digital practice to deliver end-to-end tech-enabled transformations for clients by focusing on IT infrastructure, architecture, data, operations, & overall tech strategy.

Req’s Master’s degree in Info Sys, Comp Eng, or rel field, or foreign degree equiv & 2 yrs of exp working in Digital/IT consulting. Domestic & int’l travel typically req.

seek a diverse pool of applicants who wish to join an academic community that places the highest value on rigorous inquiry and encourages diverse perspectives, experiences, groups of individuals, and ideas to inform and stimulate intellectual challenge, engagement, and exchange. The University’s Statements on Diversity are at https:// provost.uchicago.edu/ statements-diversity. The University of Chicago is an Affirmative Action/ Equal Opportunity/Disabled/Veterans Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national or ethnic origin, age, status as an individual with a disability, protected veteran status, genetic information, or other protected classes under the law. For additional information please see the University\’s Notice of Nondiscrimination. Job seekers in need of a reasonable accommodation to complete the application process should call 773-834-3988 or email equalopportunity@ uchicago.edu with their request.

JSSI – Aircraft Maintenance Pricing Analyst

Position in Chicago, IL

Creative Suite. Send CV and references to HR at Chicago Roof Deck and Garden at 1859 N Elston Ave, Chicago, IL 60642.

(Hoffman Estates, IL)

Tate & Lyle Solutions USA LLC seeks Associate Principal Food Scientist w/Bach or for deg equiv in Food Sci, Food Proc Eng or rltd fld & 4 yrs exp in job offer or food ind (also accepts Mast & 6 mnths exp). Must have exp in food formul & undstd food sys & ingred funct. Freq trvl reqd. Apply online at: https://careers. tateandlyle.com/global/ en

equiv.) in Comp. Sci., IT, or closely related & 3 yrs. Of exp. In Business Intelligence. May work remotely up to 3 days/ week. Resumes to code SHM-SSBID, J. Ximenes, ADMI, 800 W. Fulton Market, Chicago, IL 60607.

Seeking attorney/ of counsel Seeking attorney/of counsel to assist in busy loop office immigration practice. Eventually take over practice. Experience helpful but will teach. If interested, FAX resume to 312-977-0088

HOUSING

8×11 bedroom for rent

Looking to rent my spare bedroom in Rogers Park for $800/Month . Please call John at 847-875-9422 for more info.

PROFESSIONALS & SERVICES

CLEANING SERVICES

CHESTNUT ORGANIZING AND CLEANING

Description The Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics at the University of Chicago invites applications for a fulltime position of Assistant instructional Professor. Teach five courses in the undergraduate curriculum. Advise and mentor undergraduate students, organize student activities, advise and mentor MAPSS students, contribute to recruitment and admissions of MAPSS students. Oversee and plan the core curriculum under the direction of the Director of Undergraduate Studies. Qualifications Ph.D. or ABD in Economics required. Education or experience: Teaching in intermediate level economics courses required. Submit C.V., teaching statement, student evaluations, one published or unpublished paper and three letters of recommendation. Application Instructions Equal Employment Opportunity Statement All University departments and institutes are charged with building a faculty from a diversity of backgrounds and with diverse viewpoints; with cultivating an inclusive community that values freedom of expression; and with welcoming and supporting all their members. We

JSSI is seeking an Aircraft Maintenance Pricing Analyst in Chicago, IL. Process and complete different types of airframe and engine pricing cases submitted in Salesforce System including reading and analyzing various aircraft technical records, logbooks and status reports. Must live within normal commuting distance of the Chicago office; working from home allowed. Apply on-line at https://jetsupport.com/ careers/

Assistant Professor Loyola University

Chicago is seeking an Assistant Professor in Chicago, IL to teach courses in public relations & strategic communications including strategic communication research methods, public relations campaigns, & digital communication. Please send res to Ecoffma@luc. edu & ref job 071883.

Fulltime Interior Designer Chicago Roof Deck and Garden seeks F/T Interior Designer in Chicago, IL to design client specific projects, and sell profitable residential, commercial and retail projects. Bachelor’s degree required in Design, Architecture or closely related field. Demonstrated experience with AutoCAD, Microsoft Office, CRM software, Sketch Up and Adobe

Software Architect (Bachelor’s w/ 10 yrs exp; Major: Comp Engg or equiv.) – Chicago, IL. Job entails working w/ & reqs exp incl: OOD patterns & practices; architecture & devel of SaaS platforms; application architecture patterns; highly distributed, low latency systems at enterprise scale; performance tuning, monitoring & measuring; CI/CD, test automation, & build automation; security domain, standards, & industry trends; devel desktop, web & mobile applications; containers, container orchestration & cloud-native distributed systems; build & deploy enterprise solutions in Cloud Technologies (MS Azure & AWS); agile devel practices; Full SDLC; & C++, .NET, HTML5, JavaScript, React, ASP.NET Core, SQL, EF, NoSQL, DB, Azure Services, MS SQL, MongoDB ElasticSearch, & MySQL. Relo & trav to unanticpt locations w/in USA possible. Send res: Freedom Solutions Group LLC dba Litera, Attn: HR, 550 W. Jackson Blvd, Ste 200, Chicago IL 60661.

Sr. Data Scientist Reveal Data seeks Sr. Data Scientist in Chicago, IL to dsgn & implmnt new funct to augment exstng NLP Lang resources. Multi positions open. Telecom from anywhr in US. Snd CV to hr@revealdata.com ref#vb3ddtfep6_rdbm

Senior SQL Business Intelligence Developer Senior SQL Business Intelligence Developer, Chicago, IL, for Aspen Dental Management, Inc. (ADMI): Responsible for managing the definition, design, and development of reporting/dashboard for ADMI. Responsible for data integration from internal and external source systems into the Enterprise Data Warehouse. Req’d: Bach. (or foreign equiv.) in Comp. Sci., IT, or closely related & 5 yrs. of exp. in Business Intelligence OR Master’s (or foreign

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Assistant Professor – Finance Loyola University Chicago is seeking an Assistant Professor - Finance in Chicago, IL to continue w/ current research & develop new research prjcts to eventually publish research in high level journals. Up to 10% travel req’d. Please send res to Slee2@luc. edu & ref job #051888.

ENGINEERING

Cloudflare, Inc. has job opp. in Chicago, IL: Solutions Engineer (Commercial). Serve as technical keystone for custmrs & prospects thru the entire pre- & postsales cycle. Business travel within U.S. required approx. 5% of time. All travel reimbursed by employer. Salary: $107,000 to $127,000 per year. To apply email resumes referencing Req. #SNC27 to careers@ cloudflare.com

Accurate Group, Inc. seeks Project Engineers for Lincolnshire, IL location to perform civil eng design calculations, quantity estimates & cost estimates. Bachelor’s in Civil Eng/any Eng field/ related field req’d. Req’d Edu/Exp w/:Microstation, FHWA TNM 2.5, CSI SAP 200, CSI SAFE, CSI ETAPS, Autodesk AUTO CAD & Autodesk CIVIL 3D. Send resume:A. Ramos, REF:MA, hr@accgi.com

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Women ages 18+ who have someone else in their life they told about their experience also willing to participate will be paid to complete a confidential online research survey for the Women’s Dyadic Support Study. Contact Dr. Sarah Ullman of the University of Illinois at Chicago, Criminology, Law, & Justice Department at ForWomen@ uic.edu, 312-996-5508. Protocol #2021-0019.

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SAVAGE LOVE

SEX AND RELATIONSHIPS

Size peace

How do I start dating again a er being dumped for being fat?

By DAN SAVAGE

Q : I’m a 41-year-old lesbian. Back when I was 26, I weighed 125 pounds and had a girlfriend. Sex with “Amy” was mind-blowing. Amy was exactly my type from head to toe, and she had more experience than me, so she really opened me up sexually. Our physical chemistry was off the charts. Unfortunately, Amy and I broke up (dysfunctional relationship issues), and then I moved to the west coast. Fast forward to age 31. I weighed 165 pounds,

but I carried it well. Then I fell into a severe depression and had to live with my parents for a while. Amy lived about two hours away from me at that time. She’d seen me at my new weight and was still interested in me. Amy called me every night for months.

After months of talking, we decided to meet up in person. However, because of depression meds and “mom’s cooking” and whatever else, I was approximately 200 pounds when we finally met up. Amy and I started sleeping togeth-

er again, but it was obvious that she wasn’t into me physically anymore. The insanely good sex we once had together never returned. Within a few months, she told me she was attracted to other people, and we ended things. I want to be very, very clear when I say that I do not blame Amy at all for losing attraction to me due to my weight. Going from 135 to 200 within five years is an extreme amount of weight gain. But the experience broke my heart and I have not had sex or even kissed

anyone since. That’s nine years of celibacy.

I was (and am) deeply ashamed of my body. I continued to receive treatment for depression—lots of different psych meds, lots of group and individual therapy, etc., and my mental health has slowly but steadily improved. But I also gained more weight and I lost every last drop of self-acceptance about my body.

I went from loving my body, to being OK with it, to being dumped for it, to becoming severely obese. I finally started seeing a weight loss doctor last year and have begun to slowly lose some of the weight. I’m down to 230 pounds from my 275 max. I really want to have sex again, but I can’t even stay on dating sites for more than a few days before deleting my profile, because I’m so horribly ashamed of how I look. I used to be young! And hot! And pretty! And hot girl Amy wanted to fuck me! Constantly! I don’t want to get back together with Amy, not at all, but I miss the kind of life-altering sex she and I used to have when my body was at its best.

How do I even begin trying to start dating and having sex again when I was dumped for getting fat and have such self-loathing and shame about my body?

—FAT MIDDLE-AGED CELIBATE LESBO

a: “To begin to work on accepting our bodies it’s essential to get to the core of the issue,” said Elle Chase, a certified sexologist, sex, relationship, and body-image coach, and the author of Curvy Girl Sex: 101 BodyPositive Sex Positions to Empower Your Sex Life.

And at the core of your issue, FMACL, you’re not going to find your weight gain or the trauma of being dumped by hot girl Amy.

No, according to Chase, your issues go much deeper, FMACL, and they’re cultural, not individual.

“From the day we are born, we are inundated with madeup, ever-changing standards for beauty and our bodies,” said Chase. “These standards are rooted in systems of oppression like patriarchy, white supremacy, and capitalism. These man-made ideas of attractiveness and desirability distort, skew, and infect our perception and opinion of ourselves—and others—convincing us that we must look a certain way in order to be sexually desirable or deserving. But that’s a lie!”

Because sexual attraction is highly subjective—there are lots of different people out there, FMACL, and different people find different bodies and different body types and different personalities attractive.

“It’s just like art,” said Chase. “We could be looking at the same painting and have two very different feelings or opinions about it. And neither of us is wrong.”

Differing tastes in art may be easy for us to wrap our heads around. We’re not going to take it personally when a friend—or a stranger on a dating app—disagrees with us about pointillism or surrealism or cubism. The stakes are higher when we’re the painting someone else thinks is beautiful (when we don’t feel beautiful) or doesn’t feel is beautiful (when we wish they would).

“When what you see in the mirror doesn’t match that artificial standard it’s hard for your brain to see you as the inherently sexually desirable human that you are,” said Chase. “Your brain becomes an unreliable narrator trying to protect you from the pain of rejection by telling you that you aren’t attractive or sexually desirable enough to deserve a sex life.”

So, how does one—how do you—dismantle this, er, sys-

tem of self-oppression?

“Here’s a ‘CliffsNotes’ version with some hopefully useful tips,” said Chase. “FMACL needs to rewire her brain by disrupting negative self-talk patterns. If she hates what she looks like and her inner dialog is endorsing [that self-hatred], she should acknowledge her feelings—if you feel like crap, you feel like crap, and it’s important to validate that— and then say something true but neutral to herself. Something like, ‘This is what my body looks like today,’ or, ‘I feel ugly, but feelings aren’t facts.’ My favorite mantra: ‘What I think of my body is none of my business.’ Don’t be discouraged. I know it’s challenging, but it’s a lifelong practice that I myself continue to do daily.”

As for dating—as for putting yourself out there on a dating app and staying out there—Chase advises lowering the stakes for now.

“FMACL can take the pressure off herself for now by just dating for practice,” said Chase. “The goal is not to get laid or find a new partner, but to grow more at ease and confident with herself. Notice how it feels to go out with people and have conversations, share experiences, even flirt. She should pay attention to how she’s feeling rather than what she assumes her date is feeling. Prioritize her own joy, comfort, and desires over all else right now—she deserves nothing less.”

To learn more about Elle Chase, her work, and the services she provides, visit her website (ellechase.com).

Chase is offering readers of Savage Love 15 percent off a session or package if you use the code SAVAGE. v

Send your burning questions to mailbox@savage.love. Find full columns, podcasts, merch, and more at savage.love @fakedansavage

MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART CHICAGO

APR 06–JUN 18, 2023

Frictions presents performances by three artists—Will Rawls, Shamel Pitts | TRIBE, and Barak adé Soleil—who explore blackness through bodily movement and performance-driven video installations.

Book tickets: mcachicago.org /frictions