March 10, 2016 | The Arts Issue

MARCH 10

2 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ MARCH 10, 2016

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SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY The South Side Weekly is an independent 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. The South Side Weekly is 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 Corinne Butta Editor-at-Large Emeline Posner Contributing Editors Will Cabaniss, Sarah Claypoole, Eleonora Edreva,

Lewis Page, Hafsa Razi, Sammie Spector Video Editor Lucia Ahrensdorf Social Media Editors Austin Brown, Emily Lipstein, Sam Stecklow Web Editor Andrew Koski Visuals Editor Ellie Mejia Deputy Visuals Editor Ellen Hao Layout Editor Baci Weiler Senior Writer: Stephen Urchick Staff Writers: Olivia Adams, Sara Cohen, Christopher Good, Emiliano Burr di Mauro, Michal Kranz, Kristin Lin, Zoe Makoul, Sonia Schlesinger, Darren Wan 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 Interns Gozie Nwachukwu, Kezie Nwachukwu, Bilal Othman Webmaster Publisher

Sofia Wyetzner Harry Backlund

The paper is produced by an all-volunteer editorial staff and seeks contributions from across the city.

We distribute each Wednesday in the fall, winter, and spring, with breaks during April and December.

Over the summer we publish monthly.

Send submissions, story ideas, comments, or questions to editor@southsideweekly.com or mail to: South Side Weekly 6100 S. Blackstone Ave. Chicago, IL 60637 For advertising inquiries, contact: (773) 234-5388 or advertising@southsideweekly

Cover Art by Jordan Jackson S VISIT OUR WEBSITE southsideweekly.com SSW RADIO soundcloud.com/ south-side-weekly-radio

WELCOME

In this, our third annual Arts Issue, we explore bridges of all kinds: between the past and the present, between languages, between communities, and, as Jordan Jackson’s cover art illustrates, between individuals. Comedians and muralists, filmmakers and actors, writers, designers, and conceptual artists come together here to offer you a bridge to many distinctive creative practices from around the South Side.

Alberto Aguilar opens the issue with some strong language: his bilingual signs alter the visual landscape of Pilsen, a neighborhood that many of our readers call home. These mysterious signs are reproduced throughout the issue in a similar way, serving to disrupt, startle, and provide intriguing interludes. They bridge the space between stories covering a mural whitewashing, the rise of South Side sewing groups, and a who’s who of Hyde Park artisans.

You’ll be introduced to a number of small and (until now) semi-secret South Side cinema clubs, and you’ll end with a promising lead on Timothy Stewart-Winter’s new book, which uses Chicago’s past and present politics as a jumping-off point for conversations on community action and activism. In the second half of this issue, we offer a print gallery featuring work from a number of local artists, linking the reading experience with the experience of viewing a gallery or a mural. In the same way, we hope this issue can serve as a link from your own interests, talents, hobbies, and concerns to those of the many others around you. room for indeterminacy

“That was the most pizza we’ve ever eaten in our lives.” christopher good...4 making their way

“I was like, ‘I made it!’ and they were like, ‘Well, can you make me one?’” anne li & baci weiler...6 pulling at the thread

“I love to create. Refashion, reuse, repurpose. I love to make stuff.” anne li...8 two arts hubs win macarthur grants

A “more just, verdant, and peaceful world.” clyde schwab...9 past into future

“The pasts they brought with them will enable us to change our future.” sara cohen...10 a whitewashing

“I don’t think painting it over is an appropriate thing to do any time.” darren wan...12

hidden cinema

The cine-club may not stay small and secret for long. austin brown, jake bittle, clyde schwab, olivia stovicek...14 the past keeps happening

“How do you represent the unrepresentable?” christopher good...16 the future of black history

“Light years away, they still got that glass ceiling.” lewis page...18 turning the spotlight toward engagement

The Court Theatre brings a new reading series to various South Side neighborhoods. emiliano burr di mauro...20

place at the center of Chicago. mari cohen...22 a second city for black comedy

“And they did not have to make any excuses for it.” c.j. fraley...24 gay in the midwest

Stewart-Winter’s book is more than a broad education in queer political history. sarah claypoole...25 the agreement, the arrangement, and the betrayal

The politicians in question don’t actually care about pensions. troy laraviere...26 a print gallery

Selected works by South Side artists.

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a musical history of the black metropolis

A musical celebrating black talent for a mostly-black audience took its rightful MARCH 10, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 3

Room for Indeterminacy Talking sales, weddings, and pizza with Alberto Aguilar

BY CHRISTOPHER GOOD

W

ords mean a lot to Alberto Aguilar. During his current residency at the Art Institute of Chicago (2015-2016), Aguilar covered his studio in paper triangles and declared it the “Room for Intimacy.”

But now, with the paper torn down, the studio is the “Room for Indeterminacy.”

As one might suspect, Aguilar, a Chicago-bred and-based multimedia artist and teacher, is no traditionalist.

Aguilar’s work, which ranges from performance art to visual installations, nods to everything from the baroque tapestries of yesteryear to the consumer iconography of pop art. But even as his art zigs and zags from place to place, it is determined to span the gap between point A and point B—whatever those points may be, and whatever the divide 4 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ MARCH 10, 2016

“I liked that it was sort of me using my family as a vehicle for something in my artwork—that’s why the A-B-A structure exists. I like how it works as a bridge. That second word is a bridge to different languages that are spoken in this community.” might mean.

For instance, take Aguilar’s piece “Pizza Parade” (2012), which started with a conversation Aguilar had with

his daughter about nearby mom-andpop eateries. In a moment of inspiration, he rallied up his family, his daughter making pins and his son wearing a pizza

costume, and the group set off westward on Archer from Pulaski to Harlem, asking for a slice of pizza at each pizzeria they crossed.

“It ended up being a way to get to know my community and for my kids to have an experience. They thought it was amazing, and now it’s kind of folklore in my family, it’s part of our history,” Aguilar said. With three major diagonals (Archer, Ogden, Milwaukee) still un-paraded, a second round isn’t completely out of the question, but Aguilar says he and his family are in no rush.

“That was the most pizza we’ve ever eaten in our lives,” he joked. “We were all sick by the end of it.”

Two years later, Aguilar was invited to exhibit his work in a show called “Risk” at Columbia College’s Glass Curtain Gallery. The resulting piece, “Wedding to Unknown,” lived up to its name—Aguilar created a real wedding, authentic down to the last detail, where none of the attendees (short of the bride and groom) knew each other. Over a period of weeks, Aguilar sent out invitations to 150 different strangers and found a couple on Craigslist looking for a wedding. But, even the best-laid plans went awry: two weeks before the wedding, Aguilar’s couple “chickened out.”

Undaunted, he went to City Hall with a sign offering “a free wedding and reception,” and found a new couple at the last moment.

“No one really knew each other, but there was this moment everyone shared,” Aguilar recalled. “The groom gave a speech and started crying, because somehow, he felt love coming forth. It was like the Pizza Parade—I wasn’t sure it was going to work, but I took that chance, and it worked. That’s what made it an artwork: the risk and surprise and chance involved.”

Aguilar’s latest project, an upcoming self-titled show at the Antena Gallery in Pilsen, is ostensibly new—but it develops on a motif that winds all the

VISUAL ARTS way back to Aguilar’s childhood in Cicero, where his parents owned the suburb’s first Mexican grocery store. In the days before LCD flat screens, neon sale signs with slogans like “BUFFALO WINGS $1.25” and “EVERYTHING MUST GO” were ubiquitous in markets like theirs. And so, many years later, Aguilar asked a grocery store employee what happened to the signs after a sale.

After learning that they were thrown out, he got an idea.

“I started collecting them, putting them in the windows of my house, and creating obscure, puzzling text to scream out to the neighborhood,” Aguilar recalled. “Most of the time, my neighbors were confused. But that was part of the fun.”

Aguilar decided to look for the signs’ manufacturers. The search, however, didn’t lead him far from home: he discovered that the signs were printed in his neighborhood, near Midway Airport on the Southwest Side. Now, Aguilar is able to professionally print his messages—but he continues to work within

self-imposed artistic constraints.

“That’s one of the things I decided from the get-go, I would never go in and reinvent [the signs’] language, their medium,” Aguilar remarked. “I would look around and see what sort of imagery and text and font they usually use and then only navigate within their vocabulary.”

In the past, this approach to language has made for striking slogans: signs from prior exhibitions read “LOCAL PATRON LOCAL,” “INEVITABLE INVASION INEVITABLE,” and “CRISIS INEVITABLE CRISIS.” As Aguilar explained, these A-B-A phrases consist of cognates: words with identical spellings but different meanings in Spanish and English. The first two words of “FAMILIAR PROPAGANDA FAMILIAR,” for instance, can be read in English to mean “propaganda that is familiar.” In Spanish, however, the connotations are different—the phrase translates to familial propaganda.

“I liked that it was sort of me using my family as a vehicle for something

in my artwork—that’s why the A-B-A structure exists,” Aguilar commented.

“I like how it works as a bridge. That second word is a bridge to different languages that are spoken in this community.”

The bridges that Aguilar creates in his work are not, however, bound to the gallery. For the Antena exhibition, Aguilar plans to display his signs in the windows of markets throughout Pilsen, as he did some years before in a similarly gentrifying neighborhood of St. Louis.

Just as the language of the signs aims to link English- and Spanish-speaking communities, Aguilar hopes their placement will act as a bridge between Antena and the greater Pilsen community.

“When I come up with an idea, I think of it as a solution. I’m never going to solve the issue of gentrification. But at least I can create a kind of bridge.” ¬

MARCH 10, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 5

Making Their Way A stroll through the Hyde Park Handmade Bazaar

Chris Umhoefer Lincoln Apparel – T-shirts, etc.

BY ANNE LI & BACI WEILER

T

he morning of February 28 felt like summer, a feeling that only increased as one stepped inside the Promontory and looked around at the dozens of vendors displaying their colorful, handmade wares on the restaurant and bar space’s second level. The festive event was the Hyde Park Handmade Artisan Bazaar and Farmers Market, a monthly fair where local artists exhibit and sell their products. Rows of tables were set up with one-of-a-kind jewelry, clothing, food, décor, and more.

The Bazaar, organized by Hyde Park Handmade, has attracted businesses of all ages—many of the vendors were exhibiting their work for the first time that day, while others had participated from its start. The diverse products often shared a common beginning: many of the artists said that their businesses started as hobbies, or from making pieces for solely themselves. We asked some of the artisans to share a story about their favorite pieces.

The bazaar will return to the Promontory on March 20 and April 10, and hopefully, as the days grow warmer, the art will only become more enticing.

Vanessa Stevenson “Vs” Delight – Jams

I

love Abraham Lincoln, and my shirts evolved just as a way to spread that, and to spread his message, which is just as important today as it was in his time. I’ve been doing this for about sixteen years.

This is a younger version of Lincoln based on a picture of him without a beard. I created it in part because that was the best time of his life.

The picture it was based on has a lot of scratches on it, so I started to retrace the scratches and make that an actual part of the design.

I

started making jams when I was a little girl— my grandmother taught me. One day I remembered how much I really loved making jams and jellies. When I first started, I just served it to my friends. But they said, “Oh, you should be selling this, this stuff is great!” And here I am.

It’s been about four years. I’ve been at the farmer’s markets in Hyde Park and Bronzeville, but this is my first time here.

My favorite is sold out: strawberry lime marmalade. But my second favorite is apple jam.

It tastes like apple pie. It’s got chunks of apples in it.

Moji Akinde Fehinti – Pillows

I

’m Nigerian, and as Nigerians, we have tons of hand-dyed fabric just sitting in our closets. My pillow covers were starting to tear, and I said to myself, “Well, I don’t really want to go buy a new one, why don’t I just make it?” I kept talking about it, and my friends kept saying, “Well, do it.” My ‘eureka’ moment was when my friends actually bought the test ones. So if they, as critical as they were, could actually pay money for something I made, I knew there was something there. I believe that Nigerian fabric can be seen and incorporated into so many other aspects than just clothing: home décor, throw pillows, place mats…This started about May of last year, so it hasn’t been a year yet.

These are hand-dyed in Nigeria. I hate to be so cliché, but it is in my home town—my aunt brought them over.

My goal is if just that one woman or that one man is my person that I’m personally funding through selling the fabric, I’m happy with that.

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I

Ruby Pinto Adornamorphosis – Jewelry

’ve been an artist my whole life. I really got into copper jewelry about a year and a half ago. This is all repurposed scrap copper.

My dad is a contractor, so he sends me the scraps he can’t use that would otherwise end up in the garbage. I use it to make this amazing jewelry. I take a piece of copper and put it in a patina mixture; every time there’s a random outcome, depending on the environment that the patina works on the copper within.

This time, I put it on a heater. What I love about this one is that it looks like a river. It really reflects the natural beauty of the random patterns and the chemicals. And it even looks like a little painting, which I love.

VISUAL ARTS

I

used to teach industrial arts in junior high, so I’ve been woodworking for a long time. I have a shop at home, I just do things…we’re retired; a lot of it started out as using whatever scraps are around.

That’s why I have segmented things: I use things that I find and combine things together. Our daughter lives in Hyde Park, and she told us about this. We’re just getting back into it now.

I

E. J. Lipinski Woodturner

Melvina Stemley Vina’s Millinery – Hats, Fiber Art

These are all turned on a lathe. The segments are cut on a table saw, glued together, and sometimes layered up. I’ll do some of the rings and set them aside, then work on something else.

Joane S. Lipinski Homeware

M

y daughter is a painter, and she took up all the walls; my husband took up the shelves and flat surfaces; so I had to hang things from the ceiling. I use a lot of available materials.

This is one of my favorites.

We visited the Shetland Islands, and there are sheep all over. I had to do that. Thistle, acorn, lily, seedpods, and then I grow bamboo.

Rhonda Berry Blackberry Jewels – Jewelry, Handbags

They all become my favorites until they go away. And I really want them all to go away.

They’re like your children: you raise them, then you let ‘em go…

These take me close to four hours to make; it’s time consuming. This Star Wars one—my client had a Star Wars party, everybody was dressed up in costumes. So I designed this tissue box for the party! When the tissues run out, you snap it off and pop the new box in. This is stitched, nothing is glued. I sew everything myself.

Shervon Coleman Geosuff Geere – Apparel, Jewelry

I

use mixed media; anything I can find to make jewelry out of, or handbags, I do. The handbags are basically recycled rubber, from tires, things like that. My jewelry is mixed media—from hardware to rubber to textiles. Anything I can find. I started making jewelry almost 10 years ago. I was in the military, so it gave me something to do in my off time.

And, actually, it started selling! So, here I am. It’s my first time doing this market.

’ve been in the hat business for 20 years. I just got my first studio, and I’m moving into the art gallery now. Once I went to the shop to get my hair done, and the lady stripped out my hair with the peroxide. I had to get my hair cut off to about a quarter-inch long, so I was kind of self-conscious, and I found myself wearing a lot of hats... I started making the hats I was wearing, and people were saying, “Oh, where’d you get that hat from?” and I was like, “I made it!” And they were like, “Well, can you make me one?” It just grew and grew. Then people started saying, “Well what else do you have? I don’t wear a hat.” So now I’ve got something for everybody—that’s why I like the tissue boxes and pillows.

I

In one of Spike Lee’s movies, School Daze, one of the characters at the end of the movie does a wake-up call where he’s screaming to all the students. And people love coffee, so I did this original painting with coffee.

’ve been sewing since I was 12. I quit my corporate job in December of 2014 so that I could continue to be an artist. I paint, I make stained glass windows, and I’m interested in woodwork—just anything that has to do with textiles in general.

Right now I’m just doing vendor-y bits, just trying to get my name out, so that hopefully I’ll do more custom orders in the future.

I had a client that had four cousins that were all born in 1976, so she requested four pairs of earrings with that year. On each of their birthdays, she gave them a pair. photos by baci weiler

MARCH 10, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 7

Pulling at the Thread The new popularity of local sewing and design groups

BY ANNE LI

T

extile arts have long served as a way for women to empower and provide for themselves. This tradition is alive and strong on the South Side today, with a resurgence of interest in sewing providing an opportunity for many women to start design-related businesses. Some of these new organizations seek to inspire and teach practical skills to youth, and others serve as private enterprises whose owners want to share their craft with the world, but all of them point to sewing’s potential to expand beyond crafting circles into wider popularity.

Felicia Alston runs My Crafty Table, which was started in the last few years; she describes it as a “sewing craft café that teaches kids how to use math skills to sew.” Alston got her start in sewing at her church and continued studying it in high school. She spent the past twenty years teaching special education, but now, she said, “I am ready to get back into my passion: sewing and anything crafty. I can pretty much make or replicate anything I see, though I am not a very good designer.” Like many small business owners, Alston takes great joy and pride in her work. “I love to create. Period. Whether it’s clothing, accessories, home decor, recycling, or scrap projects. Recycling is my second passion—refashion, reuse, repurpose. I love to make stuff.”

As a teacher, Alston seeks to use sewing to provide struggling students with a way to generate interest in reading and math. “Sewing involves lots of reading comprehension, interpretation of images and directions, self-correction when it doesn’t turn out like you plan,” Alston explains. “It requires organization skills, planning skills, accepting mistakes and patience. It also involves lots of math...laying out patterns without waste, adjusting pattern shapes and lines when going from flat dimensions to 3D, and more. Science comes in when discussing textiles and materials that are compatible or appropriate for outdoor use, or bedding, or sleepwear...etc.” Sewing allows her students to apply the skills they learn and provides an 8 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ MARCH 10, 2016

answer to their eternal question of “When am I ever going to use this?”

To that end, Alston is working with community groups such as Bethany Union Church in Washington Heights to offer free sewing lessons, and as part of her business she hosts the Sew-cial Club, a free monthly “community class” designed to introduce people to her classes and create a meeting space where those working on craft projects can connect. “All ages are welcome, but I cater to students who struggle in school or who may never aspire to go beyond high school,” she says. “Sewing and crafting continue to be skills that will likely allow them to support themselves on a small local level or on a larger level should they pursue mastery-level skills.”

Further north, Khalilah Howard-willis is the head designer and instructor at Cayenne Couture Atelier, a Bridgeport business started in 2010 that sells her creations and offers sewing and design classes. Howard-willis is also driven by a love of creating and teaching, explaining that what she finds most satisfying about her work is “drawing and then creating a design, tailoring it, and finally seeing it in motion. My love of fashion prompted me to share my knowledge with others interested in learning my craft.” In addition to teaching classes through Cayenne Couture Atelier, Howard-willis has worked with various charter schools and online groups, as well as Urban Threads Studio (UTS), a nonprofit that educates through textile arts.

UTS, which has been located in the Bridgeport Art Center since 2013, emphasizes empowerment, proclaiming its mission is “to teach twenty-first century skills, through the design and production of functional textile arts, to youths from under-resourced communities in Chicago.” As Ilona Mestril, executive director of Urban Threads, explained, “Urban Threads Studio was founded on a set of beliefs: that fashion and textile art activities, which are simultaneous skills, design, and visual-arts based, can serve as a bridge

ellie mejia

between Chicago’s most underserved and under-resourced communities and the exciting opportunities that a visual arts and design background can offer youths for their future. These opportunities range from college acceptance, workforce acceptance, and creative entrepreneurship.”

The inspirational and creative outlet provided by design work is also important to UTS, though. Mestril describes this impact, saying that Urban Threads was founded on the belief “that the warmth and creative energy of a textile studio could be an escape from the harsh realities that many of our young students face on a daily basis. The calm that ensues amongst the teens during sewing or weaving sessions is a testament to the transformative nature of these textile activities.” The artistic work coming out of UTS is a testament to that belief; according to Mestril, “The patterns and designs imagined by these young designers are beyond amazing.”

Mestril says that this is a good time to be teaching textile art and design skills to young people, positing that “while manufacturing jobs in the textile industry are disappearing, there are exciting new

developments on the smart wearables and renewable technologies front, which can and will [extend into] other industries.

Creative and design entrepreneurships are therefore a perfect conduit for life‐enhancing opportunities for youths, their families, and their communities.”

Howard-willis says that she’s noticed the popularity of the field growing among young people. “What I see is a lot of interest in creating one’s own style. Many people want something other than what’s cookie cutter,” she says. Mestril agrees; she remarked, “In general, in recent years people are looking for experiences. All handcrafts appear to have benefitted from this desire to create something tangible by hand, whether it is a piece of fashion, art, woodwork, clay, etc.”

Interest in sewing is clearly alive, well, and growing on the South Side; whether as a hobby or a business, it seems to pull creative energy in its wake. Howard-willis, for one, is sure that “if young people had more access to sewing and fashion design classes on Chicago’s South Side, a fire would ignite.” ¬

VISUAL ARTS

Two Arts Hubs Win MacArthur Grants

BY CLYDE SCHWAB

T

wo South Side art organizations, the Chicago Film Archives and the Hyde Park Art Center, received MacArthur Awards for Creative and Effective Institutions late last month. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, perhaps best known for its annual “Genius” grants to individual artists and scholars, is the tenth-largest private grant foundation in the country. This year, for the first time, all fourteen grantees were organizations based in Chicago. They included art galleries, theaters and theater companies, and musical groups, as well as creative writing organization Young Chicago Authors.

The Chicago Film Archives (CFA), a regional film archive based in Pilsen, identifies, collects, preserves and provides access to private and institutional footage from across the Midwest. Founded in 2003 by current director Nancy Watrous, CFA began by cataloguing and preserving over five thousand 16mm films initially donated by the Chicago Public Library. CFA then began collecting footage from amateur and home movies filmed in Chicago.

CFA’s philosophy focuses on preserving film that reflects the cultural and historical identity of Chicago and the Midwest, though the organization’s collections are notably broad in their subjects. Currently, the archive has collected over twenty-five thousand films and provides access to them online, onsite, and at screenings, in addition to providing footage for other artists’ individual projects. CFA says it will place the $200,000 it has been awarded in a reserve fund while continuing to work on developing its digital assets.

“The critical nature of moving image preservation often goes unnoticed, giving way to other cultural pursuits, leaving history behind as something merely made of nostalgia,” wrote Collections Manager and Digital Archivist Amy Belotti in a post on the CFA website. “The ability to recognize

that moving image records offer a glimpse into our future as well as our past is something rare. Moving images can offer a more visceral, dense and rich reflection of our collective past than either text or photographic images can provide.”

The Hyde Park Art Center (HPAC) will receive an award of $625,000. HPAC is a community art center that focuses on playing a positive role in the Hyde Park and South Side communities through studio-art classes, artist talks, and free public events. HPAC hosts exhibitions by emerging contemporary artists and provides artist residencies. It also helps historically underserved South Side neighborhoods through teen outreach programs and classes. In the words of the MacArthur Foundation’s grant award, HPAC serves as a “a model for how an institution can develop its city’s artists while remaining accessible and relevant to the community.”

According to the MacArthur Foundation website, HPAC will use the money “to supplement its cash reserve and broaden access to its resources through technology tools.” At press time, HPAC could not be reached for further comment. wThe award, which targets nonprofits working to build a “more just, verdant, and peaceful world,” chose exclusively Chicago organizations as a tribute to the foundation’s city of origin, and also to “strengthen the city’s vibrant cultural life.”

“These superbly imaginative arts organizations, competitively selected, bring diverse new audiences to opera, inject storytelling into dance, create new types of music, add humor to theater classics, and even partner with jazz musicians in Cuba,” wrote Julia Stasch, the Foundation’s president, in a press release. “Chicago’s arts community is vibrant and economically vital to the region.

Support for these leading organizations reflects our enduring commitment to Chicago and to its cultural life that enriches us all.” ¬

MARCH 10, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 9

STAGE & SCREEN

Hidden Cinema A sampling of the South Side film clubs

BY AUSTIN BROWN, JAKE BITTLE, CLYDE SCHWAB, OLIVIA STOVICEK

W

hile there are plenty of theaters throughout the South Side to satisfy your moviegoing needs, the Weekly wants to point out a few small “microcinemas” that might’ve slipped your mind. These theaters and collectives, either out of necessity or by design, are more out of the way. They play movies and help promote projects that otherwise might not have the support necessary to get a debut. This is by no means a comprehensive list; we just want to give curious and adventurous readers a starting point. Other great film clubs include the Bridgeport Film Club and the Community Film Workshop in Woodlawn.

(Austin Brown)

1 The collective of artists known as Group 312 is serious about pull-

THUMY PHAN

Group 312 Films

ing together filmmakers whose experience and background runs the gamut. They gather contributors from not only seasoned video artists and musicians, but also fledgling filmmakers. “Almost nobody has an excuse not to participate,” an organizer once told Newcity. The group holds monthly meetings to share short films created in response to a particular theme, such as “The End,” and provide support and feedback.

Film screenings are free, and membership in the group comes without obligations or fees; Group 312 describes its endeavors as being about “creativity for creativity’s sake.” The group’s online presence has dropped off recently, so it may take a little time to get in touch, but the community should be well worth the effort. Group 312 Films, 1932 S. Halsted St. facebook.com/Group312Films (Olivia Stovicek)

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filmfront

The premise of filmfront, a Pilsen cine-club, is simple: bringing together artists, writers, and anyone who enjoy film and conversation. Through free screenings of films, ranging from classic to foreign to amateur, filmfront aims to go past simply watching movies in order to examine their cultural role for a public audience. For founder Oscar Solis, a former neuroscience and psychopharmacology researcher at the University of Chicago, open discourse is the name of the game.

Despite its lofty goals, filmfront (whose

Little House

With the exception of a brief blurb in the Reader last June, there’s not much on the web about this Pilsen private residence turned experimental cinema, and that seems to be the way the organizers like it: the information on the movie house’s Facebook page consists of one email, one home address, and most recently, a flow of cryptic pictures that seem to “advertise” upcoming show-

name is a play on the idea of a storefront) is deceptively small, consisting of a small screening room that also houses panels, discussions, lectures, and exhibitions.

Additionally, the minimal website design and contact information leave prospective viewers with a sense of mystery, and little more is available on the work of filmfront than a few Facebook event descriptions of past films. The cine-club may not stay small and secretive for long, however— filmfront received a $6,000 grant from the Propeller Fund in late November. filmfront, 1740 W. 18th St. filmfront.org (Clyde Schwab)

ings, though without saying what films, exactly, are going to be shown.

In addition to these “mystery screenings” of 16mm films, Little House’s founder, director, and sole employee Michael Wawzenek says he’s particularly proud of past screening series he’s put on, one about police brutality and one showing the films of an arts collective from Mexico City called Vico. The club, which runs out of a room in the back of Wawzenek’s house, began a year-and-a-half ago

with a few of his friends, but has since drawn film enthusiasts from Pilsen and Bridgeport. Since the “theater” can only hold fifteen people comfortably, screenings are always intimate, but Wawzenek’s range is limited. For that reason, he’s begun to collaborate on larger screenings with another Pilsen movie club, filmfront. Little House, 1851 S. Allport St. facebook.com/littlehousechicago (Jake Bittle)

MARCH 10, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 11

The Past Keeps Happening Suspending disbelief with filmmaker Christopher Harris

BY CHRISTOPHER GOOD

T

he first thing you notice about A Willing Suspension of Disbelief is the drone of church bells, played back in reverse, reverberating over the sound system. The frame is stretched to a panorama and split into a triptych: we see black-and-white footage of a black woman, sitting in a chair and reading Roland Barthes’s Camera Lucida, flanked by blocks of text on both sides (“I am a friend, and come not to punish / Go, fierce man of bones!”)

In the catalogue, the film is said to be inspired by “an 1850 daguerreotype of a young American-born enslaved woman named Delia, who was photographed stripped bare as visual evidence in support of an ethnographic study.” But the woman on the screen locks eyes with the audience—whispering that things are “partially true, and therefore totally false”—before her figure is duplicated, flipped upside-down and inverted like a photographic negative, before the two images are connected with dotted lines like a haunting model of the human eye.

This is Christopher Harris’s filmmaking.

On February 26, Harris, an award-winning experimental filmmaker, returned to Chicago for a screening and discussion at the Rebuild Foundation’s Black Cinema House. Harris’s selections— the first three are what he calls his “Florida films,” and the latter are his “Black diaspora films”—were created over the course of a decade, but they hone in on closely-linked themes and motifs.

Harris, who now lives in Florida but was born and raised in the Midwest and

attended school in Chicago, creates films with a unique approach to structure. In a post-screening conversation with Indiana University professor Terri Francis, Harris talked about his love for experimental jazz and the Art Ensemble of Chicago.

“The first person I always wanted to be besides me was Jimi Hendrix,” Harris quipped. “Filmmaking was a consolation prize.”

But despite Harris’s love of music, the first film of the evening, the mesmerizing Bedouin Spark, is rendered in absolute silence—with music, he remarked, it “would have been too cute.” Spark, what Harris later called his own “music of the spheres’ moment,” is three minutes of tiny silver stars floating in a fluid: macroscopic footage of the night light Harris bought for his daughter when they moved to Florida.

The importance of this move and the Floridian environment recurs throughout Harris’s films, but it is especially crucial to 2007’s Sunshine State (Extended Forecast). The film consists of idyllic suburban footage awash in a mesh of static—chalk drawings, yellow pinwheels, beach balls floating in a pool. Meanwhile, a narrator with a mid-Atlantic accent speaks calmly about the inevitable heat-death of the sun.

Later in the evening, a lighthearted Harris called his move to the suburbs a “traumatic” identity shift: in one moment, he mused on how quotidian life drove him to meditate on the precious and finite nature of life, and in the next, he discussed how strange it was to find a swimming pool in every backyard.

“I’m a person where nothing is all

12 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ MARCH 10, 2016

courtesy of christopher harris

STAGE & SCREEN

But the woman on the screen locks eyes with the audience—whispering that things are “partially true, and therefore totally false”—before her figure is duplicated, flipped upside-down and inverted like a photographic negative. good or all bad,” Harris remarked. “There are things I like about it—the peace and quiet and eighty-degree weather. I told myself, maybe this isn’t the worst thing!”

In 28.IV.81 (Descending Figures), the screen is split into two halves, each playing sun-bleached footage of a crucifixion. The film, Harris said, was shot at a “Holy Land Experience” theme park in Florida, where tourists would travel to see actors reenact the passion of Christ.

“It’s really bad! It’s just not good,” a laughing Harris insisted about the theme park. But despite the kitsch of the subject matter—microphones are visible on the actors’ clothing; visor-clad spectators can be seen wielding camera phones—the result is undeniably striking.

As he discussed the film, Harris talked about his fascination with the ways in which a group of people choose to represent their religion.

“How do you represent the unrepresentable? How do you grasp the ineffable?”

Next up was Halimuhfack, Harris’s newest work. In the garishly colorful short, an actress, superimposed over footage of an African tribal dance, lip-syncs to an interview with Zora Neale Hurston, another adopted Floridian.

Harris and Francis discussed the film’s use of “obviously fake” techniques—outof-sync movement, cheesy rear-projection—as a means of “disrupting authenticity.” The film’s artifice is as clear as day: the

dialogue is fake, the clapboard is in frame, and the tribe onscreen is the Masai tribe from East Africa, a group that never faced trans-Atlantic slavery. Then, at the end of the film, Hurston’s dialogue snowballs into a thunderous feedback loop.

The feedback loop persists in Harris’ other diaspora films: first in A Willing Suspension of Disbelief, then again in “Reckless Eyeballing.”

In the brutalist, monochromatic Reckless Eyeballing (2004), grainy Blaxploitation footage is looped and chopped into coils as a doleful voice whispers that “she will never look,” ad nauseam.

But it is the ending of A Willing Suspension that leaves the most lasting impression. After the photographic inversion and the Barthes reading, numbers appear on screen in plain white text. They’re years: from the 1990s, from the 1800s, from the 2000s. Our narrator reads them in a monotone, and her voice piles upon itself. 2008, 1856, 1932: the years are compressed into the roar of feedback.

As the evening drew to a close, Harris briefly discussed his own political influences while answering a question from the audience. The ending of A Willing Suspension, he said, is as much about Jim Crow as it is about Laquan McDonald: the years make little difference.

“The past keeps happening,” he said.

“I wish it wouldn’t, but it does.” ¬

MARCH 10, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 13

Past into Future

Sanford Biggers on history at work

BY SARA COHEN sanford biggers

O

n a dreary evening in February, as the sound of gunshots reverberates through a whitewashed room, a number of individuals approach its source. This is no crime scene. Rather, these bullet blasts issue from a video documenting the inception of two sculptures of esteemed interdisciplinary artist Sanford Biggers. Both the film, playing on a continuous loop, and the sculptures it features are elements of Biggers’s temporary exhibition at the Monique Meloche Gallery, entitled “the pasts they brought with them.”

“It’s part of the larger phrase, ‘the pasts they brought with them will enable us to change our future,’” said Biggers of the exhibition’s title. “I’ve always been interested in our ability to change our future by knowing about our pasts, so that phrase

is sort of a poetic way of saying that.”

He explores this theme in a variety of ways in the pieces on display at Monique Meloche. On the walls hang vibrant and multifaceted textile pieces. Acrylic and spray paint overlay strata of fabric, serving to color, complicate, and amplify the material on which they are placed: historic quilts from the Underground Railroad era.

“I was doing some research on the Underground Railroad, and I found that quilts were used as sign posts on the Underground Railroad to communicate whether a safe house was opened or closed, or sometimes even [to give] directions,” Biggers explained. “Conceptually that got me very interested in the idea of adding another layer of meaning or code to them hundreds of years after the origi-

14 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ MARCH 10, 2016

nal ones were made.”

In his artmaking, Biggers describes himself as “defiantly, always interdisciplinary.”

“My work explores several different themes, creating tension through use of clips ranging from old Fat Albert cartoons to Buddhist monks making sand mandalas, to 1960s film noir… I am not so interested in making a singular signature style—I find that very limiting—but I’m interested in finding different ways to communicate various ideas.”

Native to Los Angeles and New York-based, Biggers credits Chicago for furthering his prolific career. “I went to the Art Institute of Chicago for my masters, and I’ve debuted in Chicago several times over the last fifteen years, and I’m also one of the Board Members at the

School of the Art Institute of Chicago,” he said. Local artists, including Brian Sikes, Kerry James Marshall, and the late Ray Yoshida, had a significant influence on his work.

At “the pasts they brought with them,” Biggers’s piece “DAGU” zig-zags across the wall. It is named after the communication system used by the Afar, a migratory people of northeastern Ethiopia.

“They used to walk hundreds of miles a day,” explains Biggers, “But as they walk, their people cross directions, so that they learn everything that’s happening in one direction, and the other group learns everything in the opposite direction. So then they exchange, ending up so that they know everything.”

Comparably, the elements of “DAGU” interact and inform one an-

VISUAL ARTS

other; strips of hand-stitched, geometric fabric fragments bind the antique quilt pieces together, embellished by spiderlike metallic paint splatters and colorful yet ominous clouds.

The other larger textile piece, “Hat and Beard”, is a true amalgamation of several of the exhibition’s overarching themes, speaking simultaneously to racist disguise and obscured identity as well as cultural fusion and temporal overlap.

“This was a painting that I was struggling with, so I put on an old song by a jazz musician I love, Eric Dolphy from the album Out to Lunch! My favorite song on that album is called ‘Hat and Beard.’ I also like the double entendre of ‘hat and beard’—actually, the ‘beard’ can be the heterosexual mask of a homosexual person. So I sort of liked the play between those two ideas.”

This idea of masking manifests in the layers that compose the surface of “Hat and Beard.” Most prominent is the centered outline of a smiling pair of lips in thinly painted black, encaged in a cobalt blue grid that mimics the original antique quilt’s grid-like pattern. The lip shape, which has been a motif in many of Biggers’s previous works, alludes to both the disappearing figure of the Cheshire Cat and the demeaning blackface makeup of minstrel show players in the early nineteenth century.

On pedestals in the center of the room rest the bronze sculptures whose construction through violent deconstruction is documented in the aforementioned video, “BAM.” “I had been collecting wooden figures for fifteen years,” Biggers said, “and with them I’d done a small piece here and there, but it was never a concentrated series or body of work. So when I came up with this recent idea it was in response to reading newspapers and watching news reports of multiple shootings of unarmed citizens.”

“For Michael” and “For Sandra” are bronze replicas of the altered wooden effigies, stained with a dark black patina. Missing chunks and bullet holes mar the feminine figure of “Sandra”; notably, her face and left arm are entirely severed.

Similarly, “Michael” stands somberly on

one leg; his other is merely a stump, and a great block is missing from the back of his head.

Despite the direct reference to the Michael Brown and Sandra Bland cases of racially-charged police brutality, Biggers wanted the significance of this series to be even more broad in scope: “Obviously there’s a lot of these events happening, even specifically happening in Chicago in the past several years, but they’re happening everywhere. Unfortunately, it’s a widespread epidemic.”

Equally as impactful as the end product of these masterfully transfigured memorials, overtly and unapologetically political in nature, is the methodical process that went into their creation.

“I dipped them in brown wax just to make them a bit more abstractw and erase their identity, and then I took them to a shooting range and I sculpted the figures with bullets, as a symbolic gesture.

Then I took the remaining fragments of those sculptures and cast them in bronze, so what you’ll see at the gallery are the bronze castings.”

In “BAM”, this disfiguring is illustrated through a wide array of filmic techniques: slow motion, reverse chronology, extreme close-ups, rapidly varying cuts, and amplified sound. Shards of wood explode and rotate in midair as the bullets come in contact with the figures. Then, just as the video ends, “Michael’s” leg is blown out from under him, and he dramatically and pivotally collapses.

Towards the end of the exhibition’s run, Biggers hopes to perform with his band Moon Medicin, which composes pieces through a process of compiling and reinterpreting clips from the past in the context of assorted cultural, geographical, and period-specific musical modes.

In response to the projected impact this exhibition will have on viewers, Biggers expects diverse, idiosyncratic reactions. “There’s great relevance because a lot of communities in Chicago have brought pasts with them. First there’s the Great Migration, but there’s also the Polish, Irish—there’s a ton of different groups here…I think it really depends on the experiences a viewer brings to the exhibition: ‘the pasts they bring with them.’” ¬

“I am not so interested in making a singular signature style—I find that very limiting—but I’m interested in finding different ways to communicate various ideas.”

hat and bird by sanford biggers

MARCH 10, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 15

A Whitewashing

courtesy of chicago public art group

William Walker’s mural All of Mankind painted over

BY DARREN WAN

T

he Northside Stranger’s Home Missionary Baptist Church stands alone on the field of grass where the Cabrini-Green public housing complex once stood.

Located at the intersection of Clybourn Avenue and Larrabee Street, the church is a brick building whose architectural style sets it apart from other less dated buildings in the 16 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ MARCH 10, 2016

vicinity. But what is most noticeable is the gaping emptiness of the white facade. Any passerby can tell that something is missing.

On that wall, until December of 2015, there used to be a mural entitled “All of Mankind.” In the mural, four people of different genders and ethnicities stood abreast, clutching each other’s hands. Most strik-

ingly, the four individuals shared five eyes, each individual’s face interlocking with the faces next to it. They were standing in front of a painted stained-glass window that bore symbols of various religions, while a dove flew overhead. Under the cross on the roof of the church, the mural asked, “Why were they crucified?” Names like Jesus, Dr. King,

VISUAL ARTS

“But we’re not done with the issues that were in that mural. We’re not done and resolved with them at all, but at this moment all we can do is look at photographs of them.”

—Jon Pounds, Executive Director Emeritus, Chicago Public Art Group Kennedy, and Hampton were inscribed on the wall, along with groups like Jews in Nazi Germany and incidents like Kent State and My Lai. At the base of the mural, a little higher than eye level, was a crowd of silhouettes gazing somberly at the four individuals and the list of names.

When William Walker painted this mural in 1972, the building housed a Catholic church called San Marcello Mission.

Recognized as the father of the community mural movement, Walker was a prominent member of the Organization for Black American Culture (OBAC) and cofounder of the Chicago Mural Group, now known as the Chicago Public Art Group (CPAG).

Among his most famous works was his contribution to the “Wall of Respect”, painted at Langley Avenue and 43rd Street, alongside other artists from the OBAC in 1967.

Many sections were painted as a response to the Civil Rights Movement, attesting to the mural’s historical significance. Unfortunately, this piece of history was obliterated when a building fire destroyed the mural in 1971. Jon Pounds, the Executive Director Emeritus of the CPAG, highlighted the significance of “Wall of Respect” in the history of the community mural movement in Chicago, saying, “It would be today what we would consider a social happening, with poets, musicians, and artists converging on a site for the visual artists who are painting directly out of doors, and making this really positive statement about African American culture. This was certainly a moment when African American artists established a vision for what artists might communicate.”

The comparable historic significance of “All of Mankind” is heightened by its proximity to Cabrini-Green. Pounds explained the poignancy of the mural’s spatial and temporal context. “The mural that Bill did in ’72 was quite outside what our social and cultural thinking was at that time,” he says. “That was a time of separation and pride in our differentness. It was a time when the individual was of primary importance, as determined by their identity. And what Bill’s piece did in

“All of Mankind” was to link us all in a way that now we have a slight consciousness of, but we have not accomplished.”

The importance of “All of Mankind” is inextricably linked to the history of Cabrini-Green. During Richard M. Daley’s fourth term as mayor, the Chicago Housing Authority initiated its ten-year Plan for Transformation. Bounded by wealthy, largely white neighborhoods like Lincoln Park and River North, Cabrini-Green had always been, to municipal officials and residents of adjacent neighborhoods, the eyesore of the Near North Side. With the last apartment building demolished in 2011, it was only a matter of time before the church changed hands. Already, in 2004, a separate mural by Walker in the church’s interior was whitewashed, despite the CPAG advocating for its restoration. In the fall of 2015, the owners of the church, the family of Rev. Dempsey Thomas, found a buyer for $999,900, according to the Chicago Reader. Pounds mentioned that the owners of the church believed that the mural would have complicated the sale, so they decided to have it whitewashed without further discussion. “All of Mankind” was the last of three William Walker murals around the Cabrini-Green neighborhood.

Lee Bey, an architecture critic and writer, was a member of the All of Mankind Coalition. The coalition, of which Pounds was also a member, advocated for the preservation and restoration of the mural for years, and included architects, artists, and writers.

Bey expressed regret at the destruction of Walker’s work. “I think it’s terrible. I think in this city, we are currently running the risk of losing things that speak to the black experience in this city, particularly during those times in the sixties and the seventies when African Americans were emerging from horrible conditions in the South, finding hope in the city, and establishing identity through culture and art.”

“And for a William Walker mural,” added Bey, “the father of this movement, for one of his significant works to be wiped

away…This would be like a Frank Lloyd Wright building being just wrecked for a parking lot. It’s of that import. In other parts of the city, his murals are being restored, so his work isn’t totally lost. But this one, given where it is, given the message, this one needed to be saved.”

According to Pound, the whitewashing of “All of Mankind” happened due to pressures from private actors. Pounds stated, “It seems like such a short-sighted and cash-driven decision that lacked a spiritual or social conscience.” Nonetheless, the 27th Ward Alderman Walter Burnett, Jr., himself raised in Cabrini-Green, advocated for the restoration of “All of Mankind.” “[Burnett] was really concerned about this, talked about it, and entertained dialogue about saving it, but the city’s hands are tied in many ways in this,” said Bey. “You don’t need a permit for this kind of thing, there’s no permit to deny. Even if there was, the grounds would be specious.”

Murals as an art form are not meant to last in perpetuity. “Muralists don’t think their projects are going to last forever,” says Pounds. For him, however, whitewashing a mural is never a defensible act: “I don’t think painting it over is an appropriate thing to do any time, because all that does is adding a layer of paint, which is blank, to the surface that had some meaning on it,” he explained.

Despite the whitewashing of “All of Mankind,” other murals of Walker’s remain, mostly on the South Side. “Childhood is Without Prejudice,” for instance, is a similarly styled mural of four children of different ethnicities sharing eyes and embracing each other; it’s located at 56th Street and Stony Island Avenue. Despite the cultural loss of whitewashing, Pounds emphasized that it was important to consider the issues “All of Mankind” brought up, especially the mural’s call for mutual understanding. “We can no longer stand in front of a sixty-foot tall mural and consider the scale and the visual impact of having this in our field of vision,” he said.

“But we’re not done with the issues that were in that mural. We’re not done and resolved with them at all, but at this moment, all we can do is look at photographs of them.”

Since the establishment of Walker’s Chicago Mural Group, murals have enriched public life in Chicago, but the future of public art in the city is in question. “I think the larger issue is that we, as a society, have to decide how we’re going to be vigilant about such acts, and maybe a lot can be changed,” said Bey. “But I think that really, it comes down to people caring about the stories that these murals tell. And I think that’s not the case.” MARCH 10, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 17

The Future of Black History Black World Cinema celebrates Black History Month in Chatham

BY LEWIS PAGE

18 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ MARCH 10, 2016

A

s Syanna, a young slave from Martinique, comes face-to-face with her colonial captors, she conjures a golden cadre of cat-women out of thin air.

The ensuing battle took place in a virtual world in the animated future, but also appeared projected on a screen in Chatham this February. It was the climactic scene of Battledream Chronicle, an independently produced animated epic, and the screening was the third of four in a weekly series presented by Black World Cinema in honor of Black History Month. Floyd Webb, co-founder of Black World Cinema, describes the series—titled Black Future Month—as a set of weekly explorations in Afrofuturism, which he poetically defined during one screening as “imagination am-

courtesy of floyd webb

plified to the point at which it impinges on reality.”

When Webb, on the last night of the series, asked audience members what their favorite of the month had been, a few voices nominated Crumbs, Miguel Llansó’s journey through a post-apocalyptic Ethiopia populated by pop-culture memorabilia, second-generation Nazis, and an encounter with Santa Claus himself. The rest of the audience nodded in agreement. “Did that one stick with you?” asked Webb. “That’s how you know it’s good. Unlike the new Star Wars for example. Twenty minutes out, that movie was gone from my mind.”

Webb made a concerted effort to make the series memorable, curating an eclectic selection that ranged from a self-pro-

STAGE & SCREEN

claimed “African Purple Rain Remix” (Rain the Color Blue with a Little Red in It), to a documentary championing the tech boom in Nairobi (My Africa Is: Alternative Nairobi), to the meditation on video games and decolonization that is Battledream Chronicle. The subject material and genre varied, but the films were all independently produced, largely international in origin, and representative of a sense of possibility and invention that Webb aims to prove is still alive and well on the margins of the film industry.

Webb was raised in Chicago on a steady diet of art house and international cinema (he points to Japanese film as particularly influential) and spent his adult life traversing the Atlantic as a photojournalist and cultivating a resume that includes founding Blacklight Film Festival (which took place at the film center at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 1982 through the mid-nineties) and working as an associate producer on Julie Dash’s seminal Daughters of the Dust before co-founding Black World Cinema in 2005. He identifies his influences as “more Tarkovsky and Fellini than Lucas and Spielberg.” He likes the realism and grit of European film.

“That flashy stuff does it for some people, but not for me.”

Webb prides himself on being a lifelong fixture of the film industry who has never worked in Hollywood, which he frequently jokes should be referred to as “Hollywon’t” or “Hollycan’t.” His film industry origin story, as he tells it, is a conversation he had at nineteen during a visit to Los Angeles. Webb spoke with a film editor who worked on the Academy Award-winning Midnight Cowboy, who ominously warned, “If you’re here, you better have a plan to get out.” The editor said that he planned to return to his home in Trinidad and start a film school instead of continuing to struggle with the racial tensions in Hollywood. Webb took the advice to heart and moved to Europe a few weeks later. To

this day, Webb has little patience for the glacial pace of what passes for progress in mainstream cinema. He was unimpressed with the latest Star Wars film and the attention it received for its inclusion of a black protagonist.

“The brother wasn’t even a Jedi! As a matter of fact, he was a janitor. Out of all the jobs in the military. How come he couldn’t be a guard?” Webb commented.

“They were trying to be realistic!” a voice from the audience interjected.

Webb laughed. “Light years away, they still got that glass ceiling. Another entry within the annals of white supremacy in Hollywood.”

Unsurprisingly, none of the films in the series were products of the industrial movie mill of southern California. The films hailed from abroad, with the notable exception of 1993 science fiction thriller The Gifted, directed and written by Audrey King Lewis. After screening the film, Webb called Lewis on speakerphone and chatted in front of the audience. Lewis worked on sets in Hollywood in the late eighties, a time and place where she notes that it “was not popular to be a black woman.” With the knowledge and connections she had gained from her years in Hollywood, money she had saved, and a plotline which came to her in a series of visions, Lewis undertook the independent creation of The Gifted. The result of her efforts is a carefully plotted and surprisingly well-acted low-budget sci-fi horror movie based on the secret of the Dogon people, a tribe in Mali which purportedly possesses uncannily accurate astronomical knowledge.

Lewis is an early exemplar of the doit-yourself ethos that Webb championed in this series. Battledream Chronicle is a richly animated on a minuscule budget, with a single creator’s name listed under half the credits. My Africa Is: Alternative Nairobi celebrates the technological ingenuity of a generation of Kenyans, such as one engineer who builds drones completely out of

recycled parts in an attempt to solve the country’s poaching problem.

“People see that it’s time to stop waiting on someone else to do it for them,” Webb responded when asked about the current state of the film industry. “That’s the most exciting thing to me. And that people have access to technology.”

“If you really love film, you’ll be making films on your phone. If you love the form, then you’ll do a lot.”

Black World Cinema was co-founded by Floyd Webb and Alisa Starks in 2005. Regular screenings take place on the first Thursday of every month in Chatham, showcasing “seldom seen classic features and new films from around the world” with “compelling content and a human dimension seldom present in mainstream cinema.” Screenings take place at Chatham 14 Theaters, 210 W. 87th St. $6. blackworldcinema.net ¬

MARCH 10, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 19

STAGE & SCREEN

Turning the Spotlight Toward Engagement A new three-year grant is helping the Court in its continued efforts for diversification

BY EMILIANO BURR DI MAURO

O

n a Monday night in February, 170 people flooded into one of the performance halls of the Logan Center for the Arts for the first of five events in a new Spotlight Reading Series organized by Court Theatre. The series, which is free and open to the public, challenges the notion of what makes a play a “classic” by putting on staged readings of works by playwrights who are often neglected within the classical anthology of theater—including Joseph A. Walker, Douglas Turner Ward, and René Marqués, to name a few. The series, which started on February 22 with Blues for Mister Charlie by James Baldwin, has come to fruition because of a three-year Spotlight Grant the Court received in May 2015 from the Joyce Foundation, a longtime partner.

Over the course of the next three years, Court will use the grant, totaling $240,000, to curate and produce fifteen plays by writers of color in various organizations housed in neighborhoods all over the South Side. Court is one of ten organizations to receive this grant, which is meant to provide support for systematic diversification that the Foundation hopes will produce lasting effects on the arts and culture in Chicago. Just two other South Side-based organizations received the grant—$225,000 went to the Hyde Park Art Center, and the National Museum of Mexican Art was one of four organizations that received the highest amount, $300,000.

Court’s use of the grant is a continuation of efforts to diversify production and subsequent audience engagement rather than a shift in their goals—productions like the recent Satchmo Festival celebrating Louis Armstrong’s legacy are spiritually connected to this enduring mission. “The idea of creating a reading series which is focused on classic African-American texts

ellen hao

takes our work on the African-American canon to other parts of the city as a part of new audience development,” Stephen J. Albert, executive director of Court, said over the phone last week. Court’s previous efforts have mostly been centered on productions in its main season by directors and writers of color; the reading series is the first endeavor of its kind under the umbrella of this mission.

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t the core of this series is Ron OJ Parson, who first arrived about ten years ago to direct Fences by August Wilson, and soon after became Court’s Resident Artist, now with about ten shows under his belt. Court has supported Parson’s ongoing work to diversify the Court’s productions through the Joyce Foundation, with yearly grants of smaller sums since 2007. Court will use some of this current grant to continue supporting Parson.

Parson has created diversity at Court through production—not only was he deeply involved enough in the Satchmo Festival to recommend Barry Shabaka Henley, the actor who portrayed Louis Armstrong in the current production of Satchmo at the Waldorf, but he also came up with the idea for the reading series. When the Joyce Foundation invited Court to apply for the three-year grant, the already concocted reading series seemed like a good fit, Albert said.

“We want to open up the possibilities for what is vibrant and culturally diverse,” Parson said. “We should have theater that exhibits that.”

The goals for the current grant are twofold: first, to be able to produce the ongoing reading series, which is being headed by Parson, and second, to develop an internal mentor-mentee structure at Court to give opportunity to talented directors

20 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ MARCH 10, 2016

and actors of color, says Albert. Court has found the first (and currently, only) recipient of the Joyce Fellowship in Aaron Mays, who will work alongside Parson to co-produce the series for the next three years. After the grant (and the series) is over, Albert says, Mays may move on from Court, and other mentorships may be created, but this professional mobility for mentees is exactly what they’re trying to accomplish.

“Building a framework, a pipeline to our goals, we are bringing people who are not used to working with an institution from within, and helping them build themselves professionally,” Albert says.

Within this framework, Parson has created a fortified network of colleagues, recruiting, actors and directors he has worked with in the past decade who haven’t necessarily worked with Court before. With their help, he goes about the day-to-day tasks of what it takes to organize these events and attract larger and larger audiences, always working to “spread the word of the theater,” he says.

Ultimately, however, these initiatives are meant to provide a more engaging and inclusive experience for their audiences by producing the typically overlooked African-American canon of theater and performing artswork Parson has personally undertaken since his arrival at Court directing August Wilson’s work. “These are plays I either acted in or directed—they’re plays from history,” Parson said. “I wanted to do history that showed some of the classics, but what people don’t realize is there are classics in black theater, Latino theater, and Native American theater.”

Such a reading series, named after the grant, surely makes a clear statement about Court’s intentions on delivering such promises for cultural expansion; after all, the series is fueled by both Court’s extensive fi-

nancial capacity and its cultural capital and recognition on the South Side. At the heart of this proliferation of the African-American canon is collaboration with South Side organizations. This potential for engagement with surrounding communities can only be amplified by partnerships between those that have the biggest stake in the cultural landscape. While the first reading took place in Hyde Park, most of them do not: other readings will be hosted at the National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture, the Stony Island Arts Bank, and the South Side Community Arts Center.

By bringing the work to different neighborhoods, Court will garner the attention and participation of different people, and chances are, they’re people who don’t usually go to the theater.

“We see [this work] as removing certain barriers that exist, some of which are geographic, some are economic,” Albert says.

A reading series may seem like a curious choice for a grant of such large proportions. More important than a desire to make more representative, diverse theater, however, are the initial steps towards a more comprehensive structure that promotes inherently diverse production. Court found this potential in Ron OJ Parson, and supporting his role in Court’s current structure with this financial jumping-off point exhibits a larger commitment to what they hope to do as an institution. Once the series ends, for example, Court hopes to continue collaboration with these other South Side institutions in future projects, Albert said.

In other words, a conscious effort to popularize and disseminate the African-American canon is great, but making sure there is structural support for the compassionate people on the inside who are helping to develop that mission is far better. ¬

MARCH 10, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 21

A Musical History of the Black Metropolis Chicago’s Bronzeville: The Musical stages a one-night performance at the Chicago Theatre

BY MARI COHEN

T

he energetic highpoint of Chicago’s Bronzeville: The Musical, a onenight show that played on February 27 at the Chicago Theatre, came early in the second act. Cab Calloway—impersonated by nineteen-year-old Chicago State University student Brandon Sapp— bounded onto the stage and began belting “Minnie the Moocher.” When he got to the traditionally repeated sequence “Hide hi-de hi-de ho,” the audience responded in full force, shouting the lyrics back in a joyful, communal burst as Sapp conducted along with exaggerated gestures.

While this was one of the most explicit moments of audience participation, the wall between stage and audience rarely felt solid throughout this dynamic, interactive telling of history, which often succeeded in making the audience feel part of its celebration—a difficult task in the spacious Chicago Theatre. For several hours,

Chicago’s black history was brought to life by an all-black cast performing a whirlwind of song and dance that didn’t shy away from tragedies of oppression but, nonetheless, remained a celebration of black culture and achievement.

Bronzeville: The Musical is a work of the Mahdi Theatre Company, which, according to its mission, aims to “Educate, Elevate, and Entertain in the ARTS.” Margaret Mahdi, the writer and director, grew up on on the South Side. For this performance at the Chicago Theatre— they have previously put on shows at the Harold Washington Cultural Center and the DuSable Museum—the company brought together an impressive array of local talent: the actors on the cast list range from amateur high school students to professional performers, and many played multiple roles throughout the production. Mahdi also made an effort to attract a robust audience, visiting local schools and encouraging people to attend, according to a February article by Medill Reports Chicago.

Rather than an exploration of a single plot or set of characters, the musical was a collage of historical moments from the African-American experience, mostly represented through songs that drew on jazz and gospel styles. Starting with the characters Father and Mother Africa blessing their grandchildren in Africa, the narrative moved through scenes of slavery to emancipation to the multiple waves of the Great Migration that saw six million African Americans leave the south. Once situated in the north, the show touched on significant events in Bronzeville’s history, from the 1919 race riots to the job scarcity of the Great Depression. Much

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of the musical involved showcasing historical figures, like Margaret Burroughs, the founder of what would become the DuSable Museum, and locations, such as Bronzeville’s Regal Theater and Savoy Ballroom.

The risk of a “timeline”-style show is that the audience won’t stay invested without a consistent set of characters to pin their emotions to. This sometimes rang true for Bronzeville; it could be easy to get lost in the quick shuffle between historical figures and moments, which sometimes felt uneven and rushed. The Gwendolyn Brooks character was only onstage long enough to recite the words of her famous poem We Real Cool. However, the quality of the singing and dancing—as well as the variety of costumes, like the bright dresses glittering in scenes of Bronzeville’s nightlife—generally kept the production engaging.

The use of a variety of historical subjects did make the show well situated to offer historical commentary. In one song, a woman representing the Chicago Urban League greeted new Chicagoans, reciting various rules that the League put together for migrants. She pronounced these rules, such as “don’t talk too loudly in public places,” and even “don’t eat watermelon on your front porch,” in a drawn-out, hoity-toity voice to roars of laughter from the audience. The scene effectively mocked efforts of middle-class black organizations like the Urban League to try and ensure that new residents of Bronzeville conformed to their standards of respectability. The production’s tone wasn’t always spot-on—at times, overdramatic acting and weak dialogue provoked audience laughter at moments that shouldn’t have

been funny, such as scenes of slavery or a song about a lynch mob—but the Urban League scene was an example of use of drama and humor at its best.

Cab Calloway’s rousing back-andforth with the audience was part of a larger sequence of performances at the Regal Theater, a highlight of the production.

One by one, musical stars who performed at the Regal—such as Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne, Billie Holiday, Nat King Cole, and more—came onstage and sang a snippet of their work, usually decked out in elaborate costume. The actors had no trouble imbuing the famous songs with powerful vocals, and the audience was clearly delighted whenever a new star appeared onstage. The re-creation of the Regal Theater inside the downtown Chicago Theater served as a powerful reminder of legal and cultural obstacles that have been overcome. While Chicago retains high levels of de facto segregation, barriers like restrictive covenants and segregated public accommodations that once restricted black Chicagoans to Bronzeville spaces no longer exist, and a musical celebrating black talent for a mostly-black audience took its rightful place in the center of Chicago.

The Mahdi Theatre Company refers to the musical as “Broadway Bound” in its promotional material, and in a speech after the show, Mahdi said she’s hoping for more funding opportunities to be able to take the show on the road. While a national tour may not be able to match the power of performing Chicago’s history in Chicago, the show does deserve more than a one-night showing: many wrote on the show’s Facebook event page that they were disappointed to miss the only

STAGE & SCREEN

courtesy of mahdi theatre company

opportunity to see the production. While Bronzeville’s talent and concept are especially exciting, there are some kinks it would need to work out to succeed on a larger scale. The production couldn’t make up its mind whether it wanted to celebrate known historical figures, such as those in the joyful Regal scene, or to invent new characters. One fictional couple, Jimmy and Betsy, occasionally appeared, arguing over whether to migrate to Chicago and, later, whether to stay in the face of the Great Depression. However, such brief time with the characters made it hard to connect with their domestic dispute, and the audience’s reaction to fictional characters never matched their excitement at seeing a well-known historical character take the stage. Making a choice between history and historical fiction, as well as streamlining some of the songs to focus on fewer characters in-depth, could help organize the show without interfering with

its rousing music and cultural celebration.

After Mahdi’s remarks, she introduced Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan as the honored guest—a surprising moment. Farrakhan gave a brief speech lauding the show as an opportunity to introduce children to black history, and argued that black artists and entertainers have helped the black community to face oppression: “A song carried us through.

A dance carried us through.” Mahdi herself is a member of the Nation of Islam, and at times the movement’s worldview came up in the show; one song featured longtime Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad, snippets of Muslim prayer, and a reference was made to the Creator at the show’s beginning. However, beyond these moments, the musical itself never felt particular to one church or creed.

Black Nationalist leader Marcus Garvey, who influenced the NOI, was celebrated in a song, but so was Chicago Defender

founder Robert Abbott, who was known to oppose Garvey.

The scene before the musical’s finale featured Lorraine Hansberry, another woman who succeeded in bringing her people’s story to a big stage, speaking about race relations to a group of reporters jumping to interview her. As Hansberry departed, the picture of the real-life Hansberry on the projector providing the backdrop for the show glowed brighter, and suddenly switched to pictures previously shown in the musical, of the continent of Africa and slave shackles. While the wisdom of giving the show such a wide historical scope had at times seemed questionable—it’s hard to do justice to stories of slavery and the Great Migration in just one musical—it paid off in the end by setting the stage for that powerful moment of juxtaposition. The sudden flashback to earlier black history reminded the audience how far African Americans were

able to come after so many years of bondage, and how incredible it is that black Chicago’s leaders achieved what they did in the face of the barriers enacted by our racist nation.

However, closing with Hansberry, who died in 1965, raises questions about why the musical didn’t reach into Bronzeville’s present. Ending in the sixties seems arbitrary for a musical that began pre-slavery, and it’s a missed opportunity to connect the Bronzeville of today to its storied history. At the same time, though, at every moment that the musical celebrated Chicago’s historical black culture and talent, it was simultaneously celebrating present-day Chicago black culture and talent by showing off the prowess of the local actors onstage. As Mahdi said in her speech, “Who better to tell our story than us?” ¬

MARCH 10, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 23

A Second City for Black Comedy All Jokes Aside by Raymond Lambert

BY C.J. FRALEY

T

he story of All Jokes Aside, the South Side comedy club responsible for the rise of many of the world’s most famous black comedians, is a story about the black experience. It is a story of pressures: those that come from growing up in a low-income area, that come from being a minority in an elite university, and those that come from corporate structures that don’t want you there. It seems that there could be no one better to tell this story than Raymond Lambert, a co-founder of the club and the last man aboard the sinking ship when it closed down.

Lambert, who quotes classical philosophy as readily as comedy, states up front that he wants to work with entrepreneurs who want to make a difference in the world. In this book alone, he provides a number of lessons that could help not just those entrepreneurs, but anyone who deals with prejudice in networking and leadership. Unfortunately, this serves to make All Jokes Aside, the book Lambert has written about the club with Chris Bournea, somewhat disappointing. Deft at removing both emotion and conflict from many interesting stories, the book is all too ready to skip things that actually sound interesting.

All Jokes Aside was, to be reductive, a South Loop comedy club that flourished during the stand up comedy boom of the nineties. It was one of the favorite locations of Bernie Mac and Jamie Foxx and one of the first filming locations for Def

Comedy Jam, which featured many comedians whose careers were formed by their relationship with All Jokes Aside. But the club was undoubtedly more than just a thriving venue. The late film critic Roger Ebert once wrote that, “what Second City was for Saturday Night Live, [All Jokes Aside] was for virtually every black comedian who emerged in the 1990s.” Even more than that, the venue was significant for its credibility as a business built by black people, for the black community.

“It created a great feeling of pride among comics to have their own five star club,” comedian George Willborn says in the book. “The owners were black, the audience was black, the waiters and waitresses were black, the deejay was black. And they did not have to make any excuses for it.”

The authors point out that the comedian Laura Hayes once said that All Jokes was “the one club where she didn’t feel sexism.” Unfortunately, like many other stories I’d like to have read, the book skips over how a culture like that was created at the club. The book champions end results, yet details none of the conflict or triumph that led to them. Despite the fact that this book at times is more of an instruction manual on entrepreneurship than a true narrative, we don’t even get a cursory explanation of how to make that happen.

Specifics are similarly lacking in the both the book’s discussion of All Jokes Aside’s leap to finally making a regular profit, and Lambert’s admission that he radically overestimated his initial profit stream, a

24 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ MARCH 10, 2016

mistake that nearly bankrupted them.

It sometimes feels like Lambert originally meant to write not a memoir, but a book of lessons for the African-American entrepreneur. Through anecdotes, he extolls the virtues of networking, especially within his close circle of fraternity brothers. He describes the benefits of business school, which include “an excellent education, great contacts, and the benefit of its reputation.”

I’d recommend this book to any entrepreneurs I know, especially fellow African Americans and anyone planning on a career in the entertainment industry. Perhaps one shouldn’t be surprised, but Lambert’s writing is at its most emotionally impacting when getting to the heart of his lessons in entrepreneurship, whether it’s his sobering description of the typical entrepreneur or his descriptions of the “black tax.” Even the club’s closure is written not as a tragedy, but as a lesson in business management. When Lambert opened his second venue, the challenges of being a black entrepreneur became emotional as well as instructional for him. He was praised by his neighbors to his face but found his hopes of starting a comedy club in the Loop destroyed by concerns that “the economic status of the clientele” would not be “conducive to the neighborhood.” It’s here that he addresses the “black tax” at its most devious and explains why he could never do things “the Chicago way.” It’s here that you can feel the frustration and sadness that he expe-

rienced.

Despite Lambert’s MBA-tinged writing style, he manages to provide insight into the urban black experience.

Exactly how he connected with the black community becomes clear through many of his anecdotes, like one about a comedian getting his very first suit in order to be able to perform there. “A comedian could look out into the audience,” he writes, “and see his doctor at one table, his drug dealer at the next, his girlfriend at the next and his college professor at the table next to her.”

The story of All Jokes Aside runs through the center of what Chicago can mean as an incubator for black entrepreneurs. As Chris Gardner, a businessman and one of Lambert’s first employers said, “there wasn’t nothing unusual about a young African American coming to Chicago with a vision and a dream.”

Lambert’s book, All Jokes Aside, perhaps should have been billed as an instruction manual for making it here, as it prioritizes the delivery of lessons over a narrative telling of Lambert’s story, and delivers its most powerful moments in passing down those lessons. Though a frustrating read at times, it is a book that deserves our persistence, as it has the capacity to teach us something. ¬

LIT

Gay in the Midwest Queer Clout sheds light on the forgotten history of Chicago’s political alliance between blacks and gays

BY SARAH CLAYPOOLE

I

n 2013, John Roberts, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, argued that gays and lesbians were too “politically powerful” to deserve the protection of the court. To Timothy Stewart-Winter, an assistant professor of history at Rutgers, this very dismissal shows how far the nation’s queer politics have come in the past half-century. The incident opens his new book from the University of Pennsylvania Press, Queer Clout: Chicago and the Rise of Gay Politics, and he also brought it up at a talk at the University of Chicago campus on February 23. Both the book and the talk traced the rarely discussed coalition of blacks and gays fighting police harassment in Chicago and the circumstances that led to the unraveling of the coalition toward the end of the twentieth century.

One pressing question emerged early in the book and the talk: why did Stewart-Winter choose Chicago as his study’s focal point? Despite the prominence of the Stonewall narrative (New York) and Harvey Milk (San Francisco) as symbols of the beginnings of modern gay political power, Chicago is in some sense more representative of the country at large. Its importance in the Midwest puts it in dialogue with “dozens of regional magnets for gay migration,” according to Stewart-Winter.

And the extent to which gays in Chicago gained political power through political circumstances unique to Chicago speaks to the importance of local political happenstance (instead of grand national events like Stonewall) for gays across the

country.

Also, Stewart-Winter’s doctorate came from the UofC. His thesis treated the same set of topics that Queer Clout investigates. In a room stacked with people who knew him in the years he called Chicago home—and a number of people who were in fact interviewed in Queer Clout— he demonstrated his long-term engagement with and passion for the topic. Gay people in Chicago are still understood to live primarily in the 44th Ward, centered in Boystown. For a resident of Chicago in the twenty-first century, this might be a point of minor wonderment, but for Stewart-Winter it’s a pressing fascination, and his rich academic work sketches a Chicago that will be both familiar and foreign to people who have only known it in the new century: a city as geographically divided as the one we know, but allied along different lines.

While the title suggests a focus only on gay activism, the concern at the heart of the book is the unstable relationship between sexuality and race as political circumstances shifted the acceptability of being black or being gay or being black and gay in Chicago. Queer Clout describes how geographic racial segregation and entrenched racism came to disrupt the political possibility of a more just city put forth by the coalition between blacks and gays that emerged in the sixties and lasted until the AIDS crisis.

While Harold Washington’s candidacy sustained the coalition, AIDS

“forced gay activists to confront questions of economic inequality—resource distribution, welfare provision, and health care,” which, coupled with its stigma and the complications around self-disclosure, tore apart the coalition. Stewart-Winter explains, “[w]hen Harold Washington’s thirty-seven-year-old chief of staff died in May 1985 after a brief hospitalization, for example, it was reported that he died ‘of complications resulting from pneumonia.’” The isolation of having a disease so stigmatized complicated the sense of community curated under Washington.

It also complicated a coalition combining North Side whites and South Side blacks because in the late eighties, seventy percent of AIDS patients at Cook County were people of color.

His story is most compelling when it narrows in on details and characters to press home either injustices or unexpected victories in a national struggle whose horrors are often forgotten in light of recent successes. In dredging up the Schuessler-Peterson murders, an unsolved case in which three boys were brutally killed and the public came to associate their murders with sexual deviancy, Stewart-Winter juxtaposes Mayor Richard J. Daley’s response—a $10,000 reward to anyone who helped solve it, along with his proposal to grant “some program of aid” to the boys’ single mother—to his response to the death of Emmett Till, the Chicagoan lynched in Mississippi two months earlier. After Till’s murder, Daley offered

no reward, and no support was suggested for his grieving single mother.

For young queers, Stewart-Winter’s book is more than a broad education in queer political history: it serves as a primer to a number of nationally and locally important characters semi-obscured by the passage of time. One striking example is Anita Bryant, Florida orange juice spokeswoman and singer, whose anti-gay politics sparked a national orange juice boycott conducted mostly by gay bars (they served screwdrivers that replaced orange juice with apple juice called the “Anita Bryant”). When her name came up during the talk, the room seemed to divide along generational lines: older participants laughed, recalling the spectacle of the boycott, and younger audience members seemed unfamiliar with her legacy.

Despite the generational divide, Stewart-Winter thinks that Queer Clout is a story with profound resonance for contemporary politics: the tale of a “left-liberal coalition in the face of a conservative resurgence.” For a city in a turbulent time, grappling with recent events such as the contentious reelection of Rahm Emanuel and the outrage surrounding the killing of Laquan McDonald, the lessons of Queer Clout speak to the power of minority groups acting in a coalition and how successful activism wages war on both legal statutes and cultural perceptions. ¬

MARCH 10, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 25

COLUMN

The Agreement, the Arrangement, and the Betrayal The dangerous false logic in political messaging about public pensions (and how to defeat it)

P

Troy LaRaviere

owerful elected officials are playing a shrewd and cunning game designed to convince Chicago residents to break our contract with our teachers regarding the agreed-upon value of their work. This scheme sets a dangerous precedent that must be stopped and exposed for what it is—an attack on the economic security of working people across our city.

I spent several years teaching in schools across Illinois, and my students often commented on my ability to use clear explanations, metaphors, and analogies to help them see the simple truth behind a concept that may have seemed complex at first. I hope to use that skill here in my analysis of the language used to discuss public employee pensions. This is how I might have explained it to my students.

The primary weapon used by the aforementioned politicians is deceptive language. They use language that gets residents focused on a subset of a teacher’s compensation (pensions) rather than the contractually agreed-upon value of a teacher’s work. This may run counter to everything you’ve heard in the media, but if teachers are going to defeat this attack, they must understand one thing: the politicians in question don’t actually care about pensions. Their goal is to diminish the overall compensation of teachers and other public employees. Attacking pensions is just an easy way to accomplish that goal because it lends itself to public support. To win back public support, teachers must keep their argument—and their bargaining positions—focused on forcing CPS to honor the agreed-upon value of a teachers work, not on honoring pension contributions.

I will attempt to make this clear by comparing the compensation/pension issue with a hypothetical issue involving the worth of a home.

Scenario #1: A Point of Comparison: The Worth of a Home Background: You buy a new home. The monthly mortgage payment is $1,200. You also reach an agree-

26 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ MARCH 10, 2016

ment on the sale of your old home.

The agreement: The buyer for your old home— let’s call him “Rahm”—agrees to buy it for $100,000.

The arrangement: Rahm pays you $52,000 and then requests that you allow him to settle the rest by paying $1,000 toward your new mortgage for the next 4 years (48 months). In essence, he agrees to repay you through a “pick up” of your mortgage payment; he pays $1,000 per month toward your mortgage, and you pay $200.

The betrayal: At the start of the second year of the agreement, Rahm attempts to shortchange you on the agreed-upon value of your home saying, “I’m going to stop making these payments because you don’t contribute anywhere near as much as I do toward your own mortgage. You need to pick up these payments yourself.”

Analysis: In this scenario, Rahm is attempting to shortchange you with a claim that you should pay your own mortgage.

The proper response— particularly if you want others to agree with you—would be, “Okay, I’ll pay my own mortgage, but you still owe me $36,000 for the agreed-upon value of the home you bought from me, and you must pay up.” No sane person would argue with that.

What you don’t want to do is get caught up making a public argument that Rahm should pay your mortgage. There is too much room for public confusion and far more people are likely to side with Rahm on that one, even though he is using false and deceptive logic.

Scenario #2: The Reality: The Worth of a Teacher’s Work Background: The Chicago Public Schools (CPS) bargained with the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) on a compensation package for the educational services they provide CPS students.

The agreement: CPS agreed on the worth of the professional education services provided by public school teachers at each level of experience and education. For a beginning teacher in the 2014-2015 school year, that was determined to be $54,199.

The arrangement: CPS officials requested that they be allowed to pay $50,653 to teachers as salary, while depositing the outstanding amount ($3,546) into a fund for each teacher’s pension.

The betrayal: Now, CPS is refusing to pay that $3,546.

Analysis: Unlike the first scenario, this one is true

to life. For years, CPS officials have been attempting to convince Chicago’s residents to shortchange teachers on the agreed-upon value of their work by claiming teachers must “pay their own pensions.” The shrewd response—particularly if teachers want public support of their position—would be, “Sure. We’ll pay our own pensions, but you still owe each teacher the contractually agreed-upon value of our work—$54,199 in the case of a beginning teacher.” $54,199 is, by the way, $2,565 away from qualifying a family of five for reduced priced school lunch under federal poverty guidelines. The idea that $54,199—a mere $3,546 more—is “excessive” is moronic on its face. Teachers must assert, “We will accept you not diverting part of our compensation to pensions, but we will not accept you shortchanging us on the contractually agreed-upon value of our work.”

Again, not many objective people would argue with that.

What teachers should not do is get caught up making a public argument that CPS should pay teacher pensions. There is too much room for public confusion and far more people are likely to side with CPS on that one, even though CPS is using false and deceptive logic. Unfortunately, the defenders of our educators get distracted by the conversation about pensions—and allow themselves to get lured into a public debate about pensions—a debate they are far more likely to lose.

Teachers must take the conversation back to what matters: the contractually agreed-upon value of a teacher’s work. Teachers are far more likely to win this argument andin doing so, they will have effectively defeated the true purpose of the anti-pension argument: diminishing public employee compensation.

CPS owes billions of dollars both to banks via reckless borrowing, and to teachers via the pension system. So far, the only people CPS doesn’t want to pay are the people who actually worked for what they’re owed: teachers. It is time to put the pension argument to rest so that we can focus on the financial predators that got CPS into this mess and on the elected officials who enable those predators.

Troy LaRaviere is a CPS graduate, a CPS principal, and a parent of a CPS student. He leads Blaine Elementary, one of the highest performing neighborhood schools in Chicago, and relentlessly defends public education. He blogs about education policy and his own observations of CPS policy at troylaraviere.net. Catch Troy’s column every second week of the month.

Teachers must assert, “We will accept you not diverting part of our compensation to pensions, but we will not accept you shortchanging us on the contractually agreed upon value of our work.”

ILLUSTRATION BY JAVIER SUAREZ

A Print Gallery

Rahmaan Statik Barnes grew up on the South Side of Chicago surrounded by murals and urban graffiti. “An arrest for ‘vandalism,’” his artist bio says, “put [Barnes] on a mission to legitimize the production of aerosol murals. He trained at the American Academy of Art and later worked with Gallery 37 to teach mural creation to children. He currently works out of a studio in Pilsen.

Page 28, counter-clockwise from top: “Sharing Handcrafted Happiness,” spray paint on wood panel, Garrett’s Popcorn on 87th and Cottage Grove.

“Master of Can Control,” spray paint on concrete, 59th and Western.

“Renegades of Funk,” spray paint on concrete.

Page 30: “Frederick Douglass,” spray paint on concrete, Baton Rouge, Louisana.

Yemonja Smalls is a Master’s student in Art Therapy at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In addition to her individual work with acrylic paint, she also maintains a clothing and apparel company called Just Human, which she founded “with the intention of bringing the fine art of the living form to the apparel industry.”

Page 31: “Coat of Favor,” acrylic on canvas.

Page 32, from left: “Le Dernier Repas,” stained glass.

“My Spring,” acrylic on canvas.

NYCH Gallery is an art gallery in Pilsen that aims to “promote a level of comfort and understandable simplicity not usually known through the complexity of art.” Jason Patterson, whose works have been on view at NYCH this month, is an artist whose paintings, which are largely based on photographs and videos, explore “the historical timeline of the Afro-American condition, experience, and narrative.” He lives in Urbana, Illinois.

Page 34, from left: “Malcolm X interviewed along side children, at Intermediate School 201, Harlem, 1964 With vinyl recording of ‘Ballots or Bullet’ by Malcolm X,” spray-fixed soft pastel on raw canvas under clear acrylic.

“Drawing After an Ambrotype Of an Enslaved African American Woman Holding A White Child, Taken by unknown photographer, Library of Congress. ca. 1855,” spray fixed soft pastel on raw canvas with acrylic.

“Drawing After an Ambrotype Of an Enslaved African American Woman called Louisa, Holding H. E. Hayward, ca.1858,” spray-fixed soft pastel on raw canvas with acrylic.

“Drawing of a detail of a full-length portrait of a young lady standing by chair with white neck piece. After a tintype by an unknown photographer or studio, ca. 1890. From Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library’s Randolph Linsly Simpson Collection,” drawing, fixed soft pastel on raw canvas.

Project Onward is an art gallery and studio for professional artists with mental and developmental disabilities. After an apprenticeship at Gallery 37, artist Andrew Hall joined Project Onward, where he has been more than a decade. His detailed ink drawings on architectural themes feature Chicago landmarks as well as forgotten corners of neighborhood life.

Page 36, from left: “The Forum,” pen & ink and watercolor.

“Unity Hall,” pen & ink and gouache.

Works by Alberto Aguilar Page 3: “ Wedding to Unknown”: In 2014 Alberto Aguilar organized a wedding free of charge to an unknown couple and invited 150 strangers to attend as guests at a location that was revealed after they accepted the invitation. Page 4: “Forms of Communication”: Plastic letter signage on desks, 2015, photo by Juliet Eldred. Page 5: “50 Ingredient Mole”, pen on grid paper, 2011. Page 10: “Course Echo”, 2015 Latex paint on cement block (Arts Incubator), photo by Nabiha Khan. Page 13, from left: “Open House”, 2009, repurposed sale signs on home. “Propaganda Familiar”, Industrial Poster paint on butcher paper, 2015 (ElTorito Supermercado, St. Louis). Page 17: “11/20/13”, Drawing in Passing Series, Pen on mini legal pad. Page 19: “Multiple Positions”: School desks and Latex paint on wall, 2015, photo by Nabiha Khan. Page 22: “Portal” (Alex Bradley Cohen), 2016, Digital image.

MARCH 10, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 27

Rahmaan Statik

Rahmaan Statik

Yemonja Smalls

Yemonja Smalls

Jason Patterson

Andrew Hall

BULLETIN Church in Social Action: Radical Nuns First Lutheran Church of the Trinity, 643 W. 31st St. Thursday, March 10, 6pm–7pm.

(312) 225-3099. darstcenter.org American nuns were once a classic symbol of conservative values; in recent decades, they’ve developed a radical reputation. Dr. Joel Cruz, of the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, will discuss the history of radical nuns like seventeenth-century scholar Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. (Adam Thorp)

Presentación del libro Voces Migrantes National Museum of Mexican Art, 1852 W. 19th St. Thursday, March 10, 6pm–9pm.

(312) 738-1503. nationalmuseumofmexicanart.org In the spring of 2006, the United States saw mass protests against a proposed immigration bill that would, among other things, build a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border. (Sound familiar?) On the ten-year anniversary of the protests’s beginnings, three authors will reflect on the movement’s impact. (Christian Belanger)

Let’s Talk Testing Blackstone Library, 4904 S. Lake Park Ave. Monday, March 14, 5:30pm. 19th Ward Office, 10400 S. Western Ave. Wednesday, March 16, 7pm. Daley Library, 3400 S. Halsted St. Tuesday, March 22, 6pm. morethanascorechicago.org As politicians locally and nationwide have increased standardized testing in public schools, parent and community groups have been fighting back. One such local group, More Than a Score, will hold community conversations this month to update parents, teachers, and students on the “opt-out” movement and help them organize against the proliferation of high-stakes testing in education. (Mari Cohen)

Englewood Village Meeting Spirit Redeemed Church, 6615 S. Ashland Ave. Tuesday, March 15th, 6pm–8pm.

(866) 845-1032. ragenglewood.org

This Tuesday, the Resident Association of Greater Englewood (R.A.G.E.) will give updates on their ongoing projects— including an initiative to solicit items to help people in Flint, MI—and conduct conversations on the future of the Englewood Line. (Yunhan Wen)

Seventh Annual Woodlawn Community Summit School of Social Service Administration, 969 E. 60th St. Saturday, March 19, 8am–12:30pm. Free. Reserve tickets at bit. ly/1QCii5y People are gathering to shape the future for Woodlawn Community. At an open forum discussion on Woodlawn’s economy, guest speaker Lori Lightfoot, the chair of the Chicago Police Board (CPB), will also share her insight on police reform. (Yunhan Wen)

Natalie Moore: “The South Side” International House, 1414 E. 59th St. Thursday, March 31, 6pm. csrpc.uchicago. edu Journalist and South Side native Natalie Moore is the author of The South Side: A Portrait of Chicago and American Segregation, which will be released on March 22.

Moore is joined by writer Rick Perlstein for a discussion on how racially determined institutions and policies segregate the South Side. (Anne Li)

VISUAL ARTS Chicago’s South Side and the Prison Neighborhood + Arts Project Seminary Co-op, 5751 S. Woodlawn Ave. Thursday, March 10, 4:30pm. (773) 7524381. semcoop.com Join Audrey Petty, Kai Parker, Lasana Kazembe, and Sarah Ross from the Prison + Neighborhood Arts Project to discuss how their work, which brings artists and art classes to inmates at Stateville Prison, impacts broader communities.

(Sara Cohen)

38 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ MARCH 10, 2016

Not Just Another Pretty Face Public Salon Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 S. Cornell Ave. Thursday, March 10, 6pm–8pm. Free. (773) 324-5520. hydeparkart.org Hyde Park Art Center’s Public Salon provides a space to enjoy local contemporary art, socialize with the artists behind the work, and even start building a personal collection through purchase or commission. (Sam Royall)

Present Standard Gallery Talk with Alberto Aguilar Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington St. Thursday, March 10, 5:30pm–6:30pm.

Free. (312) 744-6630. chicagoculturalcenter. org “Present Standard,” a collection of contemporary art by twenty-five U.S.-based Latino artists, is holding a discussion featuring a number of local artists, including Alberto Aguilar. Come enjoy the art and engage in conversation around its themes.

(Sam Royall)

Autonomia Contra la Muerte / Autonomy Against Death Uri-Eichen Gallery, 2101 S. Halsted St. March 11–April 1 by appointment. Opening Friday, March 11, 6pm–10 pm; discussion 7pm, live music 8pm. Free. Profits from posters go towards the Mexican social movements involved. (312) 852-7717. uri-eichen. com An all-in-one event with an impact: peruse social justice-related posters from Mexican collectives Grafica de Lucha, Mujeres Grabando Resistencia, and Escuela de Cultura Popular Martires del 68; join in discussion with some of the creators and activists and stay for live music. (Sara Cohen)

Delight in Weakness Crude Creatures Contemporary Art Gallery, 1747 S. Halsted St. March 11–April 4.

Tuesday–Thursday, 4pm–8pm; Friday– Saturday, 6pm–9pm; Sunday–Monday by reservation. Opening Friday, March 11, 6pm–10pm. Free. (312) 929-3057. crudecreatures.com Yejin So writes, “My stories are boasts about my weaknesses.” These stories take

the form of painted portraits and aim to foster an environment that celebrates the common human experiences of sorrow and failure. Bring your own fear and anxiety. (Lewis Page)

Sympathetic Magic Performances The Archer Beach Haus, 3012 S. Archer Ave. Sunday, March 13, 6pm. $10 suggested donation.

One of Jeremy Pauly’s performance art pieces, Questions Remisent, involves him shirtless and armed with a hatchet. Valerie Kuehne has played her cello with her face painted while screaming. Both artists, along with seven other performance artists—including Mothergirl, Peyton Stewart, the trio PPL, Joern Burmester, and Florian Feigl—will come together for a night of magic. (Lewis Page)

MUSIC Freida Lee Mo Better Jazz Chicago, 2423 E. 75th St. Friday, March 11. Doors 7pm. $10 donation. (773) 741-6254. mobetterjazzchicago. us Come enjoy food and drinks as singer Freida Lee takes the Mo Better stage. A twenty-one-year veteran with experience alongside jazz greats like Chicago pianist John Young, Freida and her singing style are reminiscent of past jazz pioneers while affirming her place as a living legend among us. (Kezie Nwachukwu)

Fantasty Wesley Kimler Studio, 2046 W. Carroll Ave. Saturday, March 12, 9pm. Free with RSVP. 18+. do312.com/fantasty VAM Studio celebrates its one-year birthday with a huge exhibition, featuring live performances and visual art from the city’s coolest underground talents.

Prepare for 3D video, performances by Glass Lux, Daryn Alexus, Owen Bones, DJ Taye, Sirr Tmo, and more...and possibly live animals. (Zoe Makoul)

Jacquees The Promontory, 5311 S. Lake Park Ave. Sunday, March 13, doors 3pm, show 4pm. $20 in advance, $25 at door. (312) 801-

EVENTS 2100. promontorychicago.com A native of Decatur, Georgia, Rodriquez Jacquees Broadnax, who performs under the mononym Jacquees, has made a name for himself as a singer-rapper-songwriter polymath. Come see him perform songs from 19, a 2014 EP that landed him a contract with Cash Money Records.

(Jake Bittle)

Adrienne Locke The Quarry, 2423 E. 75th St. Friday, March 18, 7pm–11:30pm. (773) 741–6254. mobetterjazzchicago.us This Friday, South Shore jazz hub Mo Better will be hosting an evening with Adrienne Locke, a Chicago-area jazz vocalist who self-styles as “The Songstress.”

Her website seems to be down at the moment, but she’s performed in the past with a band called Collective Soul, and she’s very active on Instagram, both of which seem like good signs. (Jake Bittle)

Mavis Staples Thalia Hall, 1807 S. Allport St. Saturday, March 19, doors 7pm, show 8pm. $33. (312) 526-3851. thaliahallchicago.com You might remember Chicago native Mavis Staples from her long tenure as one of the most prominent members of classic soul family The Staple Singers, or from her even longer time playing as a solo artist. No matter how you know her, come see her show off her inimitable pipes at Thalia Hall on the 19th. (Austin Brown)

Frank Russell The Quarry, 2423 E. 75th St. Friday, March 25. Doors 7pm. $10 donation. (773) 741-6254. mobetterjazzchicago.us Experienced bassist Frank Russell, performing for Mo Better Jazz at the end of March, has been described as “one of the escapees from Monster Bass Island.”

Come see the Chicago native who’s played with the likes of Miles Davis and Arsenio Hall. (Christian Belanger)

Tekno at the Promontory The Promontory, 5311 S. Lake Park Ave. Sunday, March 27, doors 3pm. $30 cover, $20 advance. (312) 801-2100. promontorychicago.com

According to Nigerian culture website naijaquest.com, this early-twenties singer has been called the “Chris Brown of Nigeria.” Come watch him and two other DJ’s at this matinee blowout, part of the D.I.S. Entertainment’s “Afro Fusion Best Day Party” series. (Jake Bittle)

STAGE & SCREEN Stony Island Storytime Stony Island Arts Bank, 6760 S. Stony Island Ave. Saturday, March 12, 11am–noon. rebuild-foundation.org Leading with Literacy (LWL) debuts its weekly Story Time for children. Male readers sent by LWL will tell stories thoughtfully selected from the Arts Bank’s Johnson Publishing Company Library and DuSable High School Holdings to help children explore their interest in literature and creativity. (Yunhan Wen)

Seeds of Disunion: Classics in Black Stereotypy Film Series: Gone With the Wind, Part 2 Black Cinema House, 7200 S. Kimbark Ave. Friday, March 11, 7pm–9:30pm. rebuild-foundation.org Didn’t get enough from last week’s screening? Here comes the second half of Gone with the Wind! After two hours of absorbing the romance of the old South, there will be the usual critical post-screening conversations led by UofC professor Jacqueline Stewart and Northwestern professor Miriam Petty. (Yunhan Wen)

Long Day’s Journey Into Night Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis Ave. March 10–April 10. $38, discounts available for seniors, faculty, and students. (773) 7534472. courttheatre.org David Auburn directs Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night. Join aging patriarch James Tyrone at his family home in Connecticut, and watch as the archetypal American dream unravels in the course of an evening. A riveting drama of a couple hours, this journey will no doubt also be long in memory. (Martin Awano)

A Night with Underground Imagist Filmmaker Tom Palazzolo

Race & the Media Series I DuSable Museum of African American History, 740 E. 56th Pl. Friday, March 11, 7pm. $25, $20 for students. (773) 9470600. dusablemuseum.org

Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St. Friday, March 11, 7pm. Free. (773) 7028596. filmstudiescenter.uchicago.edu.

As everyone from Chris Rock to Danny DeVito can tell you, Hollywood has a race problem—so the DuSable is bringing Hollywood to the South Side. Action hero Richard Roundtree, Everybody Hates Chris screenwriter Rodney Barnes, and Academy Award nominee Margaret Avery will lead a star-studded panel about inclusion and representation. (Christopher Good)

Veteran filmmaker Tom Palazzolo displays tastes of his short films chronicling Chicago neighborhoods. Predominantly focused on black-and-white imagery, Palazzolo has cultivated a unique and acclaimed style in his fifty-year career.

A follow-up Q&A will be moderated by Jim Dempsey, co-curator of the Smart Museum’s “Monster Roster” exhibition.

(Martin Awano)

The Set Speaks

Jar the Floor and Proof University Church, 5655 S. University Ave. “Jar the Floor” opens Friday, March 11 at 8pm; matinee on Saturday, March 12 at 2pm. “Proof ” opens Saturday, March 12 at 8pm; matinee and evening performance on Sunday, March 13 at 2pm and 6pm. $10.75. hydeparkcommunityplayers.org What do cross-generational birthday parties and genius mathematicians have in common? They form the crux of the Hyde Park Community Players’s two newest productions: Jar the Floor, a quick-witted family drama, and Proof, a Pulitzer Prize—winning look into a complex father-daughter relationship.

(Christopher Good)

The Blackline DuSable Museum of African American History, 740 E. 56th Pl. Thursday, March 10, 7pm. $15. (773) 947-0600. dusablemuseum.org Make your way to the DuSable for a screening of filmmaker D. Channsin Berry’s seventy-five-minute glimpse into African-American womanhood and identity. With its in-depth look at the foundations and conventions of black culture—from marriage to religion, and everything in between—The Blackline is sure to spark meaningful conversation.

(Christopher Good)

Propeller Fund Studios, 4th floor of Mana Contemporary at 2233 S. Throop St. Through March 31. Open Monday–Friday, 9am-5pm; Saturday, noon-5pm. Free. (312) 850-0555. acretv.org For ACRE TV’s new programming block, seven groups of artists will take turns broadcasting a nonstop camera feed from their studio. Falling halfway between the schlock of Big Brother and the avant-garde stylings of Hito Steyerl, the exhibition—which will be streamed live—promises to deliver everything from #newglobalmatriarchy to soap operas for two months straight. (Christopher Good)

Lines in the Dust eta Creative Arts Foundation, 7558 S. Chicago Ave. Through March 27. Friday and Saturday, 8pm; Sunday, 3pm. $30, discounts available for seniors, students, and groups. (773) 752-3955. etacreativearts.org “Who gets the best education in America?” This is the question asked by Lines in the Dust, playwright Nikkole Salter’s gripping look into education inequity, poverty, and its human cost. Join director Phyllis E. Griffin for the play’s Chicago premiere. (Christopher Good)

MARCH 10, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 39