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ÂŹ JANUARY 6, 2016
SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY The South Side Weekly is a nonprofit newsprint magazine written for and about neighborhoods on the South Side of Chicago. We publish in-depth coverage of the arts and issues of public interest alongside oral histories, poetry, fiction, interviews, and artwork from local photographers and illustrators. Started as a student paper at the University of Chicago, the South Side Weekly is now an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting cultural and civic engagement on the South Side, and to providing educational opportunities for developing journalists, writers, and artists. Editor-in-Chief Osita Nwanevu Executive Editor Bess Cohen Managing Editors Jake Bittle, Olivia Stovicek Politics Editor Christian Belanger Education Editor Mari Cohen Music Editor Maha Ahmed Stage & Screen Julia Aizuss Editor Visual Arts Editor Emeline Posner Contributing Editors Lucia Ahrensdorf, Will Cabaniss, Sarah Claypoole, Eleonora Edreva, Lewis Page, Hafsa Razi Sammie Spector Social Media Editors Austin Brown, Emily Lipstein, Sam Stecklow Web Editor Andrew Koski Visuals Editor Ellie Mejia Layout Editors Adam Thorp, Baci Weiler Senior Writer: Stephen Urchick Staff Writers: Olivia Adams, Amelia Dmowska, Emiliano Burr di Mauro, Michal Kranz, Zoe Makoul, Zach Taylor Staff Photographers: Juliet Eldred, Finn Jubak, Alexander Pizzirani, Julie Wu Staff Illustrators: Javier Suarez, Addie Barron, Jean Cochrane, Lexi Drexelius, Wei Yi Ow, Amber Sollenberger, Teddy Watler, Julie Wu, Zelda Galewsky, Seonhyung Kim Editorial Intern
Clyde Schwab
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Sofia Wyetzner Harry Backlund
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Cover art by Ellie Mejia.
IN CHICAGO A week’s worth of developing stories, odd events, and signs of the times, culled from the desks, inboxes, and wandering eyes of the editors Et tu, Bruce? Protesters, politicians, and pundits’ calls for Mayor Rahm Emanuel to resign have persisted over the holidays and into the new year; now, they have found support in one of Rahm’s former friends. On Monday, Governor Bruce Rauner announced that he would sign a bill that creates a mayoral recall process for Chicago (currently, there is no legal mechanism to recall Emanuel). The bill, which was introduced by State Representative La Shawn Ford, has not yet passed the state House or Senate, and it may not even be able to be applied to current elected officials. However, Rauner has expressed disappointment with Emanuel’s handling of police shootings, despite years of friendship between the two. When Emanuel returned to Chicago after working in the Clinton administration, Rauner encouraged him to pursue a career in investment banking; Emanuel later represented Rauner’s firm on a major deal. In the early years of Emanuel’s administration, Rauner served as an advisor, and Emanuel’s family even reportedly vacationed at Rauner’s ranch in Montana. Rauner’s break with the mayor now comes after a rough few weeks for Emanuel in the national media, with major news organizations publishing harsh criticism of not only Emanuel’s response to the Laquan McDonald shooting, but also his overall track record as mayor (Emanuel even earned a spot on GQ’s list of “The Worst People of 2015”). We’re Number 3 Despite the “Second City” moniker, Chicago was recently ranked third in a list of most segregated cities in the United States. William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institute, analyzed data from the census bureau-run American Community Survey in order to come to this conclusion. Frey’s analysis showed that white Chicagoans typically live in neighborhoods that are 71.5 percent white, down by nearly eight percent from 2000. Similarly, black Chicagoans typically live in neighborhoods that are sixty-four percent black, a decrease from seventy-two
percent. The past fifteen years have seen a lot of demographic change, in both Chicago and across the country at large: the foreclosure crisis and gentrification have caused shifts in neighborhood makeup in cities across the country. One does not have to be a demographer to observe these changes on the ground in Chicago; neighborhoods near downtown continue to be developed, and black residents are moving to the suburbs. While this rating is better than that of years before, being the third most segregated city is nothing to celebrate, especially when segregation is indicative of further socioeconomic, educational, and safety inequities between regions in the same city. Shooting Blanks At the close of 2015, San Bernardino, the Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs, Umpqua Community College, and the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina all make appearances in one of the United States’s least enjoyable year-end lists: mass shootings. There were 330 shooting incidents with four or more victims last year in America, nearly one each day, and while not every one made it to the New York Times, each affected lives and families. After giving numerous statements following the year’s most prominent shootings, growing more visibly frustrated each time, President Barack Obama has resolved to take executive action on gun control this Tuesday. White House officials have said he will focus on expanding background checks and closing loopholes within the current gun system. The move has unsurprisingly been decried as everything from insufficient action to a complete usurpation of legislative authority. For Chicago, which saw both numerous murders and some of the most publicized incidents of police violence of 2015 (and 2014, in the case of Laquan McDonald), the news is unlikely to turn heads. Fun fact: twenty percent of the guns found at Chicago crime scenes were purchased at four gun shops in the Chicagoland area, none of which are likely to be affected by the executive action.
IN THIS ISSUE after the video
There’s been a lot of fallout since the Laquan McDonald video’s release. christian belanger...4 last year’s new music
Here’s what you might have missed from your neighbors while drinking eggnog and making resolutions. maha ahmed...6
jahmal cole speaks out redmoon: a retrospective
Redmoon announced on December 21 that it would close after twenty-five years of operation. will cabaniss...8
“The integrity of the entire city is being called into question.” sammie spector...11 mythopoeia
Possibilities for catharsis approach, but are held back by the confines of the form. austin brown...12 JANUARY 6, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 3
After the Video BY CHRISTIAN BELANGER
A
illustrations by jasmin liang
lmost exactly six weeks ago, the City of Chicago released the 2014 video of CPD officer Jason Van Dyke fatally shooting teenager Laquan McDonald. There’s been a lot of fallout since the video’s release—including resignations of key city officials and mass protests— and another police shooting resulting in two deaths. In this timeline, the Weekly has collected some of the most important of those events.
Monday, November 30
Tuesday, December 1
Wednesday, December 2
Thursday, December 3
Sunday, December 6
Emanuel states that he has no plan to step down.
A New York Times oped by a former University of Chicago law professor calls for the resignation of city officials, including Mayor Rahm Emanuel, echoing similar calls by protesters.
CPD Superintendent Garry McCarthy is fired by Emanuel after refusing to resign from his position upon Emanuel’s request. The mayor’s office released a statement in support of McCarthy the previous day, but Emanuel now tells reporters, “He has become an issue rather than dealing with the issue, and a distraction.”
Protesters stage a sixteen-hour sit-in outside the office of Anita Alvarez, calling for the State’s Attorney’s resignation. In response, Alvarez says, “There’s no way I would ever even consider resigning,” and “I think it’s disgusting what they’re trying to do, to turn this into their own political game.”
Scott Ando, head of the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA), the agency charged with overseeing investigations into police misconduct, resigns. Sharon Fairley, a member of Chicago’s Office of the Inspector General and a former federal prosecutor, is Ando’s replacement. The same day, several newspapers report that the Justice Department will be conducting a probe of the Chicago Police Department’s practices with regard to police shootings and investigations, which Attorney General Loretta Lynch officially announces the following day.
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POLITICS
Tuesday, November 24, 2015
Wednesday, November 25
Friday, November 27
The City of Chicago releases the video of CPD Officer Jason Van Dyke fatally shooting seventeen-year-old Laquan McDonald sixteen times on October 20, 2014. The release comes just hours after State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez brought first-degree murder charges against Van Dyke, the first time since July 1980 an on-duty CPD officer has faced such a charge. Protests begin almost immediately after the video’s release, and five protesters are arrested that night, including well-known youth activist Malcolm London of the organization BYP100.
Protests continue at City Hall during the day, where activists demand a meeting with Mayor Rahm Emanuel, later at night on Michigan Avenue, blocking traffic, and in Millennium Park. After an intensive social media campaign, London is released from prison with all charges dropped, a decision his own attorney says she is “stunned” by. A couple of days later, an anonymous woman writes a Facebook post alleging that London sexually assaulted her. BYP100 suspends London until the charges are investigated and resolved in what the group calls “a transformative and restorative justice process, rooted in compassion, accountability and a belief that no one is disposable.”
From approximately 11am to 4pm on Black Friday, hundreds of protesters, including Reverend Jesse Jackson, block off stores like Ralph Lauren and Victoria’s Secret along the Magnificent Mile. Though retailers won’t detail the exact economic damage, one store manager tells the Tribune the effects were “obviously bad for us.”
Monday, December 7
Tuesday, December 8
Saturday, December 26
Wednesday, December 30
Thursday, December 31
The city releases the video of CPD Officer George Hernandez fatally shooting twentyfive-year-old Ronald Johnson on October 12, 2014. Alvarez announces that, because Johnson was carrying a gun, no charges will be brought against Hernandez.
A poll of likely Chicago voters by Ogden & Fry shows that fifty-one percent of Chicagoans think Emanuel should resign.
In West Garfield Park, police fatally shoot nineteenyear-old Quintonio LeGrier and fifty-five-year-old Bettie Jones after LeGrier’s father called the police to his home because of a domestic disturbance. In a later statement, the police acknowledge that the death of Jones was an accident. The killings spark a national outcry on Twitter, forcing Rahm Emanuel to return from his winter vacation.
Jason Van Dyke pleads not guilty to six counts of first-degree murder and one count of police misconduct. His attorney says he may seek a change of venue for the court case away from Cook County. The same day, Emanuel holds a press conference in which he outlines plans for increased Taser use within the police force, as well as training for officers to make situations “less confrontational and more conversational.”
The city releases thousands of internal emails related to the Laquan McDonald shooting.
JANUARY 6, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 5
Last Year’s New Music I
n the weeks since the Weekly’s first ever Holiday Issue went to print, several Chicago musicians and rappers have released brand new projects to ring in the new year. Some went under the radar; some got flying praise from the likes of Rolling Stone (yes, we’re looking at you, younger Bennett). Below, whether because of their astounding quality or lack thereof, find what we thought were some of the most notable last releases of 2015. New, old, and in between, Chicago music is clearly starting 2016 out some type of way. In other words, here’s what you might have missed from your neighbors while drinking eggnog and making resolutions. (Maha Ahmed)
Taylor Bennett, Broad Shoulders
Säge the 64th Wonder, Tenkaichi II 6 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
The similarities between the brothers Bennett extend from the pace of their flows to the shape of their noses. And when you’re Taylor Bennett, the little brother of megastar Chance the Rapper (born Chancellor Bennett), these comparisons, too many to list in full, are pretty familiar. But when listening to the music of the younger Bennett, who just released Broad Shoulders, his first LP-length project, it is far more interesting to look at their differences. There’s something new in Taylor’s voice: it’s even more untamed and raw, cutting through beats with clarity and resonance. As he bounces his way around the first nine of the album’s ten songs, all streaming for free on SoundCloud, his brother’s endearing, cigarette-fueled rasp is nowhere to be found. The album’s slow-wobbling synthesizers and stuttering snares have a hard time keeping up with the uncontained enthusiasm of Bennett’s nineteen-year-old tongue. He’s young, but he’s already too big for these beats. He clears the musical stratosphere of his own album after two or three tracks of uninspired production, ready for something more sophisticated than what Detroit-born producer LudLow can offer. (Though if Bennett’s rhymes are ready for primetime, the rest of his act may need some more work: the house party video shot for album opener “Happy Place” features enough across-the-dance-floor-longing and gender-segregated break routines to bring back bad memories of early-2000s teen pop.) Throughout these first nine tracks, Broad Shoulders is a stew of textures and ideas bubbling with a lot of potential but not a lot of spice. Strong “We begin our journey with Säge, the 64th Wonder, at the second annual Tenkaichi Budokai...” This sample of the introduction accurately telegraphs half of this mixtape: pure nerdiness. Tenkaichi II is, after all, a concept album based on an episode of Dragon Ball Z. There are plenty of “otaku” artists in the rap world, including both Akira-obsessed Kanye and Lupe Fiasco with his side project Japanese Cartoon, but Säge is aspiring to be the Son Goku of rap (in honor of that aspiration, his Twitter handle is Japanese for “Son Sage”). Often these thematic influences tend to be a peripheral aspect of a mixtape, but here it is the driving force. One of the tracks is literally a minute of Dragon Ball Z dialogue. Tenkaichi II itself is at its heart a fight scene in an anime, with every song titled after and representing a move, a punch, an intermission, or exposition. Säge’s battle rapping style adds a combative feel to some of the “attack” songs, though the secondary titles (“Left Punch,” “Recovery From
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bursts of flavor shine through intermittently, like a lovely and memorable melody on “Cake” or a reliably soulful Donnie Trumpet on “Dancing in the Rain.” Bennett and Hyde Park Academy alum King Louie drop playful verses side-by-side on “Favorite Drink.” It’s not until the album’s eponymous closer that we’re comforted by an upright piano and strong family values, staples that Chance fans are well acquainted with. “Broad Shoulders,” which features Chance, is a ballad about the challenges of growing up, a topic very much on the Bennetts’ minds just months after the birth of Chance’s daughter. It’s this hyper-intimacy, especially when it comes to talking family, that’s made Chance such a thoroughly relatable celebrity. It rubs off on Taylor: “Broad Shoulders” is snuggly, enough that it feels like the Bennetts are trying to adopt you, tucking you in with the love that seems to flow effortlessly within their family. Chance, all of twenty-two years old, sounds like the wise older brother he has become. Taylor devotes a verse to his newborn niece, telling Chance all about how hard it will be to separate himself once she gets older and “don’t wanna be known as your daughter.” But his ode to this baby girl also reads like a reminder to himself: he’s got some more growing up to do. Needless to say, he’ll have people keeping tabs on him over the next few years, as his style incubates in Chicago’s melting pot of hip-hop talent. But how Taylor Bennett will next take advantage of his gifts and his circumstances is in no one’s hands but his own. (Will Cabaniss)
Kick!”) don’t feel as though they cohesively correspond to the feel of the songs. Trying to understand this series of songs led me to spend an inordinate amount of time on the Dragon Ball Z Wikipedia page. If mentions of the “evil containment wave” bring back warm childhood memories, this mixtape was made for you—Track 4 is indeed a tutorial on how to create one. If, on the other hand, you have no idea what a “Somersault Cloud” is going into the listening experience (answer: it’s the literal translation of the Japanese name for the Nimbus, the cloud that Goku rides around on in the show), then the case for this album is still strong, but not as strong. Nerdy themes aside, Säge and his fellows are variably talented producers who switch between two modes. In the first, which is present throughout much of the mixtape, the instrumentals run on something akin to autopilot; it’s neither off-putting nor exciting. The second mode, more occasional in its appearance,
culminates in a different sort of song, in which Säge truly combines all the genres he describes as his influences, from Tyler, the Creator-esque sounds to chillwave. In the first, more uniform mode, there’s a layer of synths and a layer of drums, and occasionally some extra effects that manage simplicity without being basic. It’s not a problem until later in the album, when that uniformity approaches monotony. Still, for most of Tenkaichi II the melodies feel both heavy and ephemeral, aiding the lyrics but never distracting from it. Songs like “Capsule XV: Goddess of Twilight” break into that second mode, adding jazz sax, piano, harp, and, most importantly, narrative elements to the original basic pattern. The previously uniform feel transforms into something complex and multileveled. It is this second mode that suggests there’s more to Säge than a battle rapping otaku, making Tenkaichi II worth the download. (CJ Fraley)
MUSIC
Juice, Bar’d Up
Katie Got Bandz, Drillary Clinton 3
Dreezy, From Now On
There are many superstar rappers, like Kanye West and Drake, who are great at writing raps for the studio but can’t freestyle to save their lives. The long-awaited Bar’d Up EP from Chicago freestyler Juice demonstrates exactly the opposite case: Juice, a master freestyler best-known for defeating Eminem and Supernatural at a nineties rap festival, sounds lazy and unoriginal in the studio. It’s hard to imagine how one could be better at rapping on the spot than when one has time to write it down, but that’s how it works for the Chicago native on this seven-song release, his first in more than five years. The bread and butter of the EP are a few songs announcing the triumphant return of Juice (he pronounces it “J-U-Ice”), the self-proclaimed “best writer in the universe.” It’s certainly impressive that Juice can come up with up to twenty rhymes for a single syllable, but he often sounds ridiculous while doing it—what can you really say about phrases like “metaphorical oracle” and “Danish bitch in a drainage ditch”? Even worse, what does Juice mean when he says he’s “coming for that ass like Jason Voorhees”? Maybe rappers like Future and Kendrick Lamar have conditioned us into expecting challenging or at least unusual things out of our rap, but most of the time Juice just sounds like an artifact. Aside from name-drops of Englewood, Roseland, Rogers Park, and the 95th Red Line station, The simmering Jeremih collab “Make Me Rich” that comes as the first “song” on this tape, following an intro and a skit, is the most immediately lovable track here, simply by being the most surprising. The loping rhythm and quietly insistent “make me rich” during the chorus go against everything you’d expect from the self-proclaimed “First Lady of Drill”: unhurried, even a little sensual, and heavy on the low-end. There’s not an air-horn to be found. But it works: first, as a “look at me” move for the undeniably talented rapper who made it big with “Pop Out” in 2012, but who has received less and less attention with each successive mixtape, and second, as a statement of intent and scope, one that’s somewhat unexpected from the traditionalist Katie. Songs like the former, along with dancehall excursion “Lick Off Dem Head,” see Katie testing out new flows and global beats that suit her to varying degrees but brim with vitality. Even “Juice Got Me Loose,” which cedes most of its
there’s nothing memorable in his brags. The second half of the EP contains more thematic, narrative-based songs, but unfortunately these are not much better. In a freestyle you can talk about whatever you want, whenever you want—one line doesn’t necessarily have to be related to the next—but Juice ’s writing abilities wear thin when he has to stay on topic. “Sound of a Gun” is a scathing portrait of gun violence in Chicago that starts from a single shooting in Roseland. It certainly contains Juice’s fastest and best rapping, though it’s worth noting that he lives in California now. The last song is the real kicker: “Thirteen,” a nine-minute epic that samples the theme from Requiem for a Dream and contains hilariously bad fake dialogue and excerpts from fake news reports, is quite simply embarrassing. The song tells the story of an overweight white loser who goes into a fugue state and kills a prostitute when he discovers that his sister has a boyfriend. This foray into a character-driven story stretches Juice’s writing skills too far and makes it hard to enjoy the rest of the album in retrospect. I don’t want to detract from Juice’s well-deserved reputation as a freestyler (seriously, go look up videos), but it seems that improvisation, not storytelling, is his real strong point. That said, it’s unfortunate that rap battles don’t get as much hype as they used to. (Jake Bittle)
track time to up-and-comer Plies, rides it out on the sensuality of Katie’s vocals in its chorus and the descending melody in its production, along with a dynamic Katie verse that conveys confidence without just being loud. Here Katie sounds invigorated, lackadaisical in her delivery but never without drive. This renewed sense of purpose only throws into relief the inconsistency of more traditional drill cuts here, like “Numbers” and “Jump Off The Porch.” The latter in particular has a lyric that feels like a low-stakes version of Vince Staples’s apocalyptic “Jump Off The Roof”—the lyrics, combined with a flowing double-time delivery from Canno in the second verse, reveal Katie’s limitations when it comes to naked aggression. She’s been able to hold her own on previous posse cuts like “Straight Outta Chicago” earlier this year, which matched her up with peers like Sasha Go Hard and Chella H, but all too often on Drillary Clinton 3, Katie’s raw delivery gets the
From Now On is a huge step for prolific Dreezy; the South Side rapper spits rhymes with a confidence that makes her seem well beyond her twenty-one years, despite how current her references tend to be. The new EP, her second in 2015, encapsulates a Dreezy spitting bold verses through clenched teeth. While Metro Boomin’s fingerprints are all over this release, he keeps his material fresh by crafting beats sparser than on his other recent projects. For example, while the opening to Dreezy’s “Nonstop” is vaguely reminiscent of What a Time to Be Alive’s “Digital Dash,” a track for which Metro Boomin shares production credit with Southside, the beat goes on to pit Dreezy’s quirkier synth melody against its snare-dominated production. Still, each track sounds specifically engineered for Dreezy, and leaves room for her to completely dominate within. Throughout the album, Dreezy is confident, aggressive, and intimidating. However, it is her ability to morph her flow from track to track that piques interest. From the role of threatening newcomer on “Juice,” to the bad girl tag team she builds with Dej Loaf on “Serena,” Dreezy show us sides of herself that are not only believable but compelling. Her aggression
better of her while her fellow rappers keep their cool. Only “P-E-T-T-Y,” perhaps the most “Katie Got Bandz” track on the whole tape, is able to reconcile that new appetite for experimentation with the directness that made her such a force in 2012 and 2013. On “P-E-T-T-Y,” the message is simple: on Instagram you might be “Insta-famous,” but that doesn’t mean much outside of the digital world. It’s a blunt (and somewhat antiquated) sentiment, but Katie sells it with a stern and guarded set of verses and an earned rejection of social media’s conventions. You have to do your business in the real world, she says, and not get caught up in the online numbers game. It’s biting, memorable, and, most importantly, hooky. And for someone who once made her name on her provocative Twitter persona and for whom social media is essential in being the “Queen of Drill,” it might just be an exercise in self-awareness. (Austin Brown)
matures as the EP moves along, revealing a confident protagonist who seems completely unbothered by her opponents’ antics, exerting no effort in shutting them down. What’s also particularly interesting about this EP is the fact that Dreezy is an aggressive female rapper, but her verses rarely touch on femininity or sexual prowess. Instead, she spends most of her time pitting herself against any and everyone, with special attention toward her male counterparts, judging from her assertions of ambition, physicality, and wealth. On “Nonstop,” Dreezy spits the line “Feeling bitchy with my hat cocked” with violence, and while she uses a gendered term to refer to herself, it comes off as ironic, both owning her gender and choosing to transcend it in one line. From Now On lives up to the definitiveness of its title. Not only is it an entertaining listen, but Dreezy proves she is more than prepared to be a dominating force in rap landscape this coming year. With a distinctive sound and succinct, funny verses, Dreezy deftly uses each line to debilitate whoever she’s targeting. Her EP sets standards for quality, trendiness, and blind aggression that will indeed last indefinitely. (Kanisha Williams) JANUARY 6, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 7
Redmoon: A Retrospective F
BY WILL CABANISS
or the wide-eyed artists at Redmoon, an experimental theater based in Pilsen, taking bold ideas to extremes seemed to be a guiding principle, whether or not it was practical to do so. But you would also be hard pressed to find an artistic institution in the city of Chicago more committed to the practice of geographic outreach—or, for that matter, more willing to make community engagement a centerpiece of its mission—than Redmoon. Not only was the company based on the South Side, but the performances, workshops, and opportunities it provided reached as far south as Calumet Park and as far west as Lawndale. And so it came with sadness, though not a great deal of surprise, when Redmoon announced on December 21 that it would close after twenty-five years of operation, vacating the 57,000 square-foot warehouse and performance hall it had rented since 2013. Redmoon’s years of success under the leadership of artistic directors Jim Lasko
and Frank Maugeri were made all the more miraculous by its lack of a consistent cash flow; in a goodbye letter posted to its website, the company lamented that there existed no reliable funding model “for this civic and social artistic vision.” The outdoor spectacles that Redmoon put on—“spectacle” was the only word that could describe them—were a mix of the odd and the fantastical, employing technically deft stagecraft to tell imaginative stories infused with mysticism. But with the acquisition of a large new space in 2013, the company began to pull their spectacles indoors, too. Descriptions capturing the controlled chaos these indoor shows often produced regularly appeared in the Weekly’s pages. Redmoon’s offerings were diverse, showcasing performers and musicians from all over the city in performances at its space. Its annual Winter Pageant offered a strange, secular alternative to traditional mid-December celebrations. A Redmoon production this past spring, The Devil’s Cabaret, literally personified the seven deadly sins. But taking its experimentation public,
often in grandiose ways, was where Redmoon excelled. Lasko and Maugeri worked to bring their art to the public by physically moving it to the most public of spaces. The two were as conscious of space and place as any architect or urban planner, using heady vocabulary like “ephemeral placemaking” to describe their work. “I love sitting in the silence of a theater,” Lasko once told the Harvard Graduate School of Design for a video it produced about his work with Redmoon. “It’s also a very socially tight sphere, meaning it’s a very narrow band of the public that cares about what happens in the theater space.” In its drive to grow that narrow band, and because of the company’s eagerness to shoot for the stars, Redmoon ended up on the city’s biggest stages and in the public eye. Its utter fearlessness could, and did, lead to failure. For all of the participation Redmoon elicited across the city in its 2014 “Great Chicago Fire Festival,” the city directed its rage at the company after the festival’s closing ceremony flopped. The faux houses it put to float in the middle of the
Chicago River failed to light. It was theatrical disaster by any stretch of the imagination, enough to compel Lasko to write an apologetic op-ed in the Tribune days later. In a remarkable comeback, Redmoon ran a second iteration of the festival the next year on Northerly Island. Filled with music, dance, and liveliness, it “made Northerly Island feel more like a village green in colonial New England than anyplace else,” the Weekly wrote. Redmoon’s willingness to consistently break the fourth wall of theater in jarring ways during the festival sometimes came off as tacky. Nevertheless, it was a product of the company’s commitment to creating theater for the people, no matter what it had to do to get them to pay attention. But sometimes that meant stretching budgets, a reality that became clearer after the Reader reported how much the company owed its landlord in unpaid rent: $60,000. For all of the attention it paid to shared space, Redmoon was ultimately unable to maintain its own.
We Show Up With Big Machines BY BEA MALSKY At Redmoon Theater there is little separation between construction and performance; it’s an animal that willingly rolls over and offers up its mechanical underbelly, equal parts absurd and endearing. / [Frank Maugeri, Redmoon’s artistic director]: What we set out to do over the past four months, at sixteen different events, was to devise a machine—the Sonic Boom—that would be a platform for people in various neighborhoods. We’ve added onto it a bunch of our general aesthetic, so there’s drums all over it; it’s a parade item. It lifts up and down, and it shoots fire, and it’s a really wild machine. And that machine, alongside free drumming and poetry workshops for close to 100 people, would parade through neighborhoods. The Sonic Boom—a rolling podium equipped with speakers and a fifteen-foot flamethrower—was the centerpiece of Redmoon’s 2013 summer season. 8 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
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AL ZAYED
STAGE & SCREEN
Slow Burn
BY STEPHEN URCHICK The Great Chicago Fire Festival was not intended to be brief and ephemeral. It was an exploration of a static trait. Redmoon trailers chugged tirelessly from Austin to Avondale, Englewood to Woodlawn, North Lawndale to South Shore in pursuit of this idea. / The riverbank crackled with applause as the engineer pushed himself up from his precarious fall and bowed off, ducking around the smoldering pontoon’s southwest corner. What Redmoon lacked in their trademark spectacle, misfortune repaid in dangerously genuine theater. The Fire Festival was reasserting itself as the human drama it’d been all along. / They trimmed their winding, rambling trek across town into a brief, glorious bite that—on account of a just little wetness—stuttered beneath hundreds of eager flashbulbs. Now that the smoke has settled, Redmoon’s own narrative more clearly reads as an effort to build relationships up, though they couldn’t burn their own houses down. Chicagoans eagerly await the promised flames on the Chicago Riverwalk.
Spectators enjoying fireworks over the Chicago River after the floating wooden houses failed to ignite
Setting up the 2014 Great Chicago Fire Festival
photos by luke white
JANUARY 6, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 9
STAGE & SCREEN
Ashes to Ashes BY WILL CABANISS Redmoon took its unique brand of pop mysticism and grafted it onto the landscape of an entire island, creating a blaze that was nothing if not memorable. / For this year’s festival, Lasko’s company ventured out into the city once again, presenting performances and working with adults and children alike to build “community portraits” of eight neighborhoods, including Calumet Park, Little Village and Lawndale. / It was the “‘Great Chicago Fire Festival” in name only. The fire itself, an event in the city’s collective memory important enough to warrant its own six-pointed star on Chicago’s flag, served mostly to unite what was otherwise a scattered set of performances, speeches and, of course, conflagrations. The spectacle had little time for history. / Even more than unity, what emerged during the festival was the small-town persona that hides behind Chicago’s big-city sheen. To see thousands of people invested in a ritual intimately tied to the history of their hometown made Northerly Island feel more like a village green in colonial New England than anyplace else.
Give In to the Devil
photos by al zayed
BY WILL CRAFT
photos by will cabaniss
Northerly Island at the outset of the 2015 Great Chicago Fire Festival
After fizzling at The Great Chicago Fire Festival in October, Redmoon has produced a triumphant success with The Devil’s Cabaret. The show is a truly interesting and fun spectacle—a return to classic Redmoon. The theater company has taken a simple concept, the cabaret, and transformed the experience into something far grander. / The simple conceit of the show belies the production’s sophistication—behind the sheer spectacle, The Devil’s Cabaret displays an impressive degree of technical mastery... As their motto promises, Redmoon quite literally engineers wonder.
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A memorable blaze ended the day’s festivities at Northerly Island.
POLITICS
Jahmal Cole Speaks Out
The nephew of Bettie Jones, accidentally killed by the CPD on Christmas Day, on police violence BY SAMMIE SPECTOR
IAN MOORE
L
ast January, the South Side Weekly interviewed Jahmal Cole, an energetic community member and activist, who founded My Block, My Hood, My City, an organization that enables adolescent mentorship. Last week, Cole’s aunt, Bettie Jones, a mother of five, was accidentally shot by a Chicago police officer. In this interview, the Weekly talked with Cole about what this tragedy and the calls for an end to unjustified police violence mean for him, his family, the teens he works with, and the city.
How has the past week been for your family? It’s been a difficult week, we’ve been in shock. Especially as it was at the hand of a Chicago police officer, a double whammy. You don’t want anyone to go through this. There have just been a lot of tears and pandemonium the past week. For me personally, I’m an activist. This event made me focus harder; I’m not changing who I am or love, I’m not changing my routine, but I’ll tell you this: seeing it happen to Laquan made me feel like it was my brother getting shot down. Just because it’s my aunt does not mean I have any less sympathy for the other tragic losses that have occurred.
What do you think should be done about this and other recent police shootings in the city? The integrity of the entire city is being called into question. Protestors are expressing grief toward agony, and they should be allowed to go on protesting. Protests occur when there are inadequacies within institutions with power, which seems to be right now in Chicago. The only way to get mobility and awareness is to protest and speak up in positive ways, like marching. How do you see your work in M3 being affected by the ongoing protests and violence? How are the kids you work with reacting?
When you’re a child, you feel like a child. When you’re a teen, you feel like a teen; they’re not adults. Lots of kids express that they want justice, they want to get out and yell and scream. I tell them that there need to be solutions behind the screaming though. Primarily, I’m glad they have been calling me up to talk about issues like these. Explorers in my program come from all over the city. Pullman, Roseland, North Lawndale, Chatham, Englewood, South Shore, Humboldt Park, Little Village. To truly make our city better, we need [teens] to expand their world view and resources. I don’t want their mentors to be drug dealers, I want them to be guided well. I want to guide their frustration, not take it away from them, but guide it into a more positive
JANUARY 6, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 11
Mythopoeia
POLITICS
Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq aims for greatness, but gets bogged down in the details BY AUSTIN BROWN direction. If I can show them resources to help them, I do. If I can take them to a politician, or news anchor, etc. I will. We last spoke to you about your project, My Block My Hood, My City, in January. How has it been developing since then? We recently received 501(c)3 status as an organization, so we are on the road to sustainability. We still sell hoodies and tees to everyone, and we have a big January coming up with some great partnerships. We’re more than just field trips for these kids, it’s about the community and mentorship. I go to their basketball games, and they have access to me at all times. I stay a part of their lives, but it takes five to six months for them to trust me, to communicate. It takes a lot of comfort. But when you’re passionate about what you do, like I am, you need to give yourself. I hope over the two-year program they can grow to a level of comfort with me that they can be guided. Sometimes, I don’t feel worthy of the fact that they look up to me, but I take it very, very seriously. I was looking at a picture from about two and a half years ago, when I took a group of Explorers
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for pizza, and one of them now goes to a university. He didn’t go to Robert Morris downtown, but instead went out-of-state, like he told me he wanted. It was the greatest feeling. What do you want your mentees to take away from incidents like this? I live in Chatham on the South Side of Chicago. But when a school closes down in Austin that should matter to the people in Chatham. When a 3D printing company opens up in Edgewater that should matter to the people in Englewood. When my aunt is shot down by a police officer in West Garfield Park that should matter to the people in the Gold Coast. There are seventy-seven different community areas but there’s only one Chicago. This was my aunt but could’ve easily been your grandmother. As an activist, I started a petition the day after my aunt was shot. It already has nearly 45,000 signatures. I will bring these petitions to Springfield. I’m calling on State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez to not send this case to a grand jury and for the Illinois legislature to ban the grand jury process in Illinois police shootings.
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O
ne emotional peak of Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq comes during a South Side church service, performed in memory of a child accidentally murdered in a drive-by shooting. Gospel choirs and synchronized choreography give way to the impassioned words of Father Mike Corridan (played by John Cusack). Beginning his speech with a shouted “We don’t mourn like other people!” Corridan proceeds to indict gun violence writ large, police brutality, black market gun sales, voyeurism from suburban teens, income inequality, lack of educational opportunities, mass incarceration, and gang culture in one fell swoop. The rhetoric is moving, hitting on many of the talking points of both the Black Lives Matter movement and anti-gun violence activists without contradicting either. But more important than that is the specificity of the church and its leader: while non-Chicagoans might be bemused or annoyed by the idea of a white preacher leading the rest of the community so powerfully, to someone familiar with the city it’s easy to see famed activist minister Father Michael Pfleger and his parish St. Sabina’s (which is invoked by name by Corridan in the film) echoed in the tone and content of Cusack’s acting. It’s a move that’s meant to indicate understanding of the South Side’s nuances, the parts left out of television reports and crime statistics, but also of drill and Chicago hip-hop. But the movie’s inclusion of a Pfleger-like character carries the real-life Pfleger’s baggage: It’s not hard to take the stance of rapper Vic Mensa, who tweeted earlier this week that “the white savior concept solicited through the father Pfleger character is hurtful to our power as dark-skinned people.” But because of that complication, it’s one of the most successful moments of the film, and also one of the most jarring, as the vast majority of Chi-Raq is concerned less with accuracy or policy investigation and more with its straightforward retelling of Lysistrata, the ancient Greek comedy by Aristophanes. In the original play, women of
Athens go on a sex strike in order to end the Peloponnesian War. With the South Side of Chicago as the setting, the two opposing gangs, the “Trojans” and the “Spartans,” fill in for the warring sides in Lysistrata,. To further strengthen the parallel, the protagonist of the film, the instigator of the sex strike, is also named Lysistrata. Far from gritty realism or documentarian rigor, Lee is aiming at modern mythmaking, more Star Wars than City of God. Characters almost exclusively speak in rhyme, and Lee’s direction gives their words poetic gravitas, but also keeps them out of the realm of reality. Sometimes, as in a scene where the mother of a murder victim confronts the potential murderer, possibilities for catharsis approach, but are held back by the confines of the form. In this scene, not long after the murderer repents and confesses to the mother, he begins to preach peacefulness to those around him. However, throughout the heartfelt speech he preserves the rhyme scheme, blunting the effects of the words and depriving the message of the visceral force it needs. Many who praise the film, often from New York or further (positive reviews within Chicago are less common) describe this as a way of creating ironic distance or as a way to focus the film’s message on the power of love and sexuality over violence. “Actually, it’s not a movie about gun violence—it’s a movie about masculinity!” they say, not completely without cause. Indeed, many of the questions about gun violence, and Chicago gun violence specifically, fade as the film enters its third act, shifting to grander questions about the rights of women and men everywhere, and baser (but still important) questions about just how much sex and love dictate our behavior as a society. In one late scene, as the sex strike sweeps across the world, members of both gangs reveal previously unseen sensitivity, questioning the validity of their lifestyle while also hoping for their lovers and partners to come home to them. If one could take that sensitivity and subversion of traditional masculinity away from the confusing
STAGE & SCREEN
realm of the film itself, it would stand tall as a unique moment of progressive maleness in 2015. It’s just near impossible to take the message as meaningful (or, for that matter, realistic) when it’s juxtaposed with the reality of Chicago. Locals, of course, notice this problem immediately. One of the movie’s most outspoken critics, Chance the Rapper, focused on the exaggerated tone of the movie and the encoding of the Lysistratan tale as his main problems with the film, calling it “goofy,” “exploitive [sic],” and “problematic” on Twitter. He also said that “the idea that women abstaining from sex would stop murders is offensive and a slap in the face to any women that lost a child here.” When asked about these comments, Spike Lee had the chance to engage with the criticism headon, perhaps by reminding viewers about the real-life sex strike success story in Liberia mentioned in the film (although this, not unlike Chicago, was much more complicated than Lee suggests). But instead, he decided to respond with an entirely different issue: Chance’s family relationship with Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who receives the brunt of derision of authority in Chi-Raq. "Show me where he’s made criticisms about the mayor. I think your finds will be surprising. He’s not criticized the mayor. Why? His father works for the mayor.” For Lee, Chance’s critique of his film is indistinct from the notices he received from Chicago officials, warning him that the title “Chi-Raq” might detract from tourism in the area. That attitude only serves to expose Lee’s overstep into broad-brush narrativizing, one that bleeds into the film and prevents it from being the message of hope and reason it so desperately wants to be. By singling out Chance as the primary critic of his film, and ignoring his associates and colleagues (like Mensa, who’s been similarly critical without avoiding the mayor), Lee aims to preserve his status as savior of Chicago and thus prevents himself from diving deeper. Similarly, as the film chugs along, carrying the effects of the sex strike across the world and even into the mayor’s office and the White House, any awareness of the complicated history, attitudes, and aspirations of the South Side fades. Lysistrata and her sisters continue to rattle off statistics and injustices at the establishment figures who attempt to dismantle
COURTESY OF AMAZON STUDIOS, FORTY ACRES AND A MULE FILMWORKS
The problem with this type of movie is it's impossible for it to carry the intensity it does without losing nuance. There’s no way to "rehabilitate" Chi-Raq without making a different and infinitely less sensational film. the sex strike, the gangs grapple with their impotence, and everything else goes as expected. There’s no surprise, no real drama, and most of all, no complications. The final outcome of the movie wraps everything up nicely, with clear “good” and “bad” guys but mostly just peace all around, the sex strike having achieved its goal. Every Fortune 500 company ends up guaranteeing employment to disadvantaged young adults: could you ask for a better ending of a modern myth? But with the title and the subject matter that it has chosen, to spend most of the movie reducing Chicago’s landscape and
culture to “No Peace, No Pussy” is to ignore the multitude within. The problem with this type of movie is it's impossible for it to carry the intensity it does without losing nuance. There’s no way to "rehabilitate" Chi-Raq without making a different and infinitely less sensational film. Chicago, especially the South Side, is home to not just gang members, grieving mothers, and shocked onlookers of drive-by shootings, but also shopkeepers, artists, businessmen and women, and musicians. By painting over all of them and reinforcing the narrative of the South Side as the “land of pain, misery, and strife,” at
the expense of seemingly any other interpretation, any knottiness in the way that the world is, Lee seems to imply that stopping violence in Chicago is a fantasy, unattainable by rational means, only through parables and legend. It looks easy, sexual, and even indulgent on screen, all to perversely escape the difficulty of the task off-screen. Chance is complicated, Father Pfleger is complicated, gun violence is complicated, Chicago is complicated. But Chi-Raq is almost never complicated, and suffers for it.
JANUARY 6, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 13
BULLETIN Understanding Autism Workshop King Community Center, 4314 S. Cottage Grove Ave. Wednesday, January 6, 10am–12 pm. (312) 747-8571. rcadd.eventbrite.com The first in a series of Wednesday morning workshops, the Resource Center for Autism and Developmental Delays’ Understanding Autism seminar will cater to both families and professionals seeking information or credits, providing a broad yet comprehensive overview of the disease. (Sara Cohen)
TIF 101 Webinar Webinar url will be posted at tinyurl.com/ TIF-101-Webinar-1. Wednesday, January 6, 6:30pm–7:30pm. RSVP to receive reminder email. tifreports.com TIF (Tax Increment Financing) may be the most important issue in municipal government you have not yet bothered to understand. The mission of the TIF Illumination Project’s webinar, and its ward-by-ward town meetings, is to make sure you have no excuse. (Adam Thorp)
Chicago After Laquan McDonald: Rebuilding the Trust Quadrangle Club, 1155 E. 57th St. Thursday, January 7, 6pm–7:15pm. (713) 834-4671. politics.uchicago.edu The Institute of Politics is hosting a panel discussion on responsible policing and racial relations in the wake of the shooting of Laquan McDonald. Come to examine the history of Chicago’s police and communities and discuss ways to move forward from the recent tragedies. Panelists include Invisible Institute founder Jamie Kalven, former St. Louis Chief of Police Daniel Isom, and Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell. (Anne Li)
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Elected School Board Teach-in UIC College of Education, 1040 W. Harrison St., Room 3427. Saturday, January 9, 5pm–7pm. teachersforjustice.org A nonbinding referendum calling for an elected school board received more than eighty percent of the vote in each of the thirty-seven wards where it was on the ballot last February; this event, held by Chicago Teachers for Social Justice, will discuss how to turn this widespread support into political reality. (Adam Thorp)
Capitalism in the Web of Life Seminary Co-op, 5751 S. Woodlawn Ave. Tuesday, January 12, 6pm. Free. (773) 7524381. semcoop.com
VISUAL ARTS Endangered Species at Prospectus Prospectus Art Gallery, 1210 W. 18th St. Friday, January 8 through Friday, March 13. Opening reception January 8, 5pm–10pm. (312) 733-6132. Contact Israel Hernandez for more information. This one-man show from local artist Mark Nelson will showcase paintings and prints centered around themes of economic inequality and other contemporary global issues. The subtitle for the show is “Surviving the 1%.” Nelson, who has exhibited before at the National Museum of Mexican Art, frequently draws on his extensive travels in Central America and beyond. ( Jake Bittle)
Under the auspices of the Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory, professor and leftist writer Jason W. Moore will discuss his new book, Capitalism in the Web of Life. By analyzing what he calls “world-ecology,” Moore explores the tension between environmental crises and the accumulation of capital. (Christopher Good)
Gordon Parks: A Segregation Story, 1956
The People Make the Peace: Lessons from the Vietnam Anti-War Movement
The Rhona Hoffman Gallery will present photographs taken by seminal African-American photographer, Gordon Parks, for a series on segregation in Life Magazine. Parks quickly gained recognition for his intimate shots of daily life for black families living in the heart of the Jim Crow South. (Emeline Posner)
57th Street Books, 1301 E. 57th St. Sunday, January 17, 3pm. Free. (773) 684-1300. semcoop.com Four decades have passed since U.S. boots retreated from Vietnamese ground, but the Vietnam War—and the counterculture that challenged it—remains a crucial case study for non-interventionists and pacifists. Organizer and Yippie cofounder Nancy Kurshan will discuss the war with Frank Joyce and Bill Ayers in support of her new book on the topic. (Christopher Good)
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Rhona Hoffman Gallery, 118 N. Peoria St. Opening reception Friday, January 8, 5pm–7pm. Open through Saturday, February 20. Free. (312) 455-1990. rhoffmangallery. com
Fragile States ACRE, 1345 W. 19th St. Opening reception Friday, January 8th, 6pm–9pm. (847) 7785946. info@acreresidency.org This three-artist exhibit, featuring the work of Kate Colon, Bryan Volta, and Jenyu Wang, examines the role of perception and narrative. Through different media, the three explore the uncertain and the unknown through themes of absurdity, obsession, familiarity and more. (Margaret Mary Glazier)
Family Day at the Smart Smart Museum of Art, 5550 S. Greenwood Ave. Saturday, January 9, 1pm–4pm. Ages 4–12. Free. (773) 702–0200. smartmuseum. uchicago.edu This installment of the Smart Museum’s series of monthly children’s events will introduce kids to the expressionist movement. Subtitled “Yellow Trees, Green Beaches,” the program will encourage children to explore the limits of color and shape. If you think your kid has a touch of Klee or Kandinsky, don’t miss this introduction to artistic styles. ( Jake Bittle)
The Weight of Rage Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 S. Cornell Ave. Thursday, January 10 through Sunday, March 20. Gallery walk-through Saturday, January 16, 3pm–5pm. Free. (773) 324-5520. p-nap. org The burden of incarceration affects a vast network of people, from inmates themselves to the surrounding communities. Channeling the frustration, pain, and other emotions that stem from such a burden, Stateville inmates and teachers in the Prison + Neighborhood Arts Program have created this exceptional exhibition of visual and literary art. (Sara Cohen)
Call for Entries: Bridgeport Art Center’s 4th Annual Art Competition Bridgeport Art Center, 1200 W. 35th St. Application deadline January 30. $35 application fee. Applicants must be over 18 and live within a 150 mile radius of Chicago. (773) 247-3000. bridgeportart.com Looking to showcase your art or earn up to $1000 in prize money? Mary Ellen Croteau and William Lieberman will judge artwork in six categories, selecting the best pieces for display in the Bridgeport Art Center’s fourth floor gallery. Submit yours today! (Sara Cohen)
CALENDAR
MUSIC
The Come Up: A New Music Showcase Double Door, 1572 N. Milwaukee Ave. Wednesday, January 6, 6:30pm. All ages. $5 general admission, $15 VIP. (773) 489-3160. doubledoor.com Here’s something to add to the calendar: a performance by Add-2, who raps with the likes of the Roots and Robert Glasper when he’s not busy getting cosigns from Common. He’ll be joined by Ric Wilson, who—with an excellent EP under his belt and round-rimmed glasses on his face—is quickly becoming one of the South Side’s most compelling storytellers. (Christopher Good)
Atom Meets Bomb Reggies, 2105 S. State Street. Thursday, January 7, 8pm. 21+. $5. (312) 949-0120. reggieslive.com These fledgling Chicago-based rockers might go by the name Atom Meets Bomb, but they sound more like Blink-182 meets Stone Temple Pilots: raw, with a faint nuclear glow. Punk opening act Atomic Sundae might have been chosen just to maintain the lineup’s radioactive motif, but hey—you can leave the Geiger counter at home. (Christopher Good)
Bobbi Wilsyn The Quarry, 2423 E. 75th St. Friday, January 8. Doors 7pm, show 8pm. (773) 741-6254. mobetterjazzchicago.us Bobbi Wilsyn describes herself on her website as “one of the best singers in the Chicago area.” A senior lecturer at Columbia College, renowned singer-actress, and prolific soloist, Wilsyn is sure to live up to this self-description during her solo performance at Mo Better Jazz. (Lewis Page)
Stephen Lynerd The Quarry, 2423 E. 75th St. Friday, January 15. Doors 7pm, show 8:15pm. $10. (773) 741-6254. mobetterjazzchicago.us Stephen Lynerd, a talented vibist, drummer and frontman of The Stephen Lynerd Group, will bring his unique improvisational style to The Quarry. Lynerd will be accompanied by Rob Clearfield on keys, Jon Deitemyer on drums, and Patrick Mulcahy on bass. Don’t miss out on the great vibes. ( Jonathan Poilpre)
Pharez Whitted Logan Center, 915 E. 60th St. Tuesday, January 19, 7:30pm. Free. (773) 702-2787. arts. uchicago.edu The Logan Center’s Third Tuesday Jazz Series features trumpeter and composer Pharez Whitted, performing a concert in celebration of Louis Armstrong. Whitted works to keep his music “accessible to everyday people,” but he also hopes to inspire them to “visualize possibilities that they never imagined.” Come close your eyes and visualize new possibilities to this talented trumpeter and composer’s tunes. ( Jonathan Poilpre)
Goapele The Shrine, 2109 S. Wabash Ave. Saturday, January 23. Doors 8pm, show 9:30. $27.50. 21+. (312) 753-5700. theshrinechicago.com Splitting the difference between upstarts like FKA Twigs and mainstays like Erykah Badu is Goapele Mohlabane, an Oakland, CAbased neo-soul singer par excellence. She’s worked with everyone from Snoop Dogg to Yasiin Bey and scored everything from Victoria’s Secret commercials to the 2010 World Cup, but now, she’ll take center stage. (Christopher Good)
STAGE & SCREEN Reading the Black Library
Stony Island Arts Bank, 6760 Stony Island Ave. Thursday, January 7, 2pm. Free. (312) 857-5561. rebuild-foundation.org
from Salem to the South Side. Miller’s masterpiece might be about witch-hunts—both literal and allegorical—but with a friendly atmosphere and snacks for the post-reading discussion, there’s no need to worry about the stakes. (Christopher Good)
Since its inception in 1942, Chicago’s own Johnson Publishing Company set a precedent for black news media with magazines like Ebony and Jet. Join the Rebuild Foundation for selected readings from the Arts Bank’s collection of Johnson-published works, and stay afterwards to discuss the impact of what is now the nation’s largest African-American owned publishing company. (Christopher Good)
Fall Film Workshop: Student Screenings Black Cinema House, 7200 S. Kimbark Ave. Sunday, January 10, 4pm–6pm. Free. (312) 857-5561. rebuild-foundation.org
Mikel Patrick Avery: PLAY Stony Island Arts Bank, 6760 S. Stony Island Ave. Thursday, January 7, 6pm–7pm. Free. (312) 857-5561. rebuild-foundation.org Come see experimental jazz drummer Mikel Patrick Avery perform a cross between theater and musical performance, featuring mostly “non-musical” objects and lots of audience engagement, at the Stony Island Arts Bank next Thursday. Sit as close as you dare—Avery loves breaking the fourth wall. (Austin Brown)
The Virgin Margarida Studio Movie Grill Chatham 14, 210 W. 87th St. Thursday, January 7, 7pm. $6. (773) 3221450. blackworldcinema.net Set in post-revolution Mozambique in 1975, the film follows the sixteen-year-old Margarida, a virgin, who, along with a bus of female sex workers, is captured by revolutionary soldiers for a euphemistic “re-education.” Despite the grim subject matter, the film manages warmth and humor under the impressive direction of Licínio Azevedo. (Clyde Schwab)
The Crucible Augustana Lutheran Church, 5500 S. Woodlawn Ave. Friday, January 8, 8pm. $5. (773) 493-6451. hydeparkcommunityplayers.org The Hyde Park Community Players’s staged reading of Act II of The Crucible will bring one of Arthur Miller’s most famous works
On the fence about BCH’s winter film workshop? A perusal of the fall students’ final projects could help. Their workshop culminated in takes on the ciné-roman genre, “film novels” that combine still images, text, and sound. If you’re impressed, the screening will be followed by an info session for winter. ( Julia Aizuss)
Self + Otherness Film Workshop Black Cinema House, 7200 S. Kimbark Ave. Wednesday, January 13, 5:30pm–7:30pm. Free. (312) 857-5561. rebuild-foundation.org Start the year right by joining the Black Cinema House’s “Self + Otherness” workshop, meeting every Wednesday. Learn about the technology, artistry, and community surrounding video art and start on your own projects. No need for a heavy-duty camera: even a phone with video capability will do. (Austin Brown)
Satchmo at the Waldorf Court Theater, 5535 S. Ellis Ave. Through February 7. $38, discounts available for seniors, faculty, and students. (773) 753-4472. courttheatre.org Satchmo at the Waldorf, in its Midwest premiere, is a single-actor play that deals with the emotions, legacy, friendships, and fate of Louis Armstrong, set after his last show in 1971. As a highlight of Chicago’s Louis Armstrong Festival, this jazzy journey is not one to miss. (Margaret Mary Glazier)
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