May 18, 2016 by South Side Weekly

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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 Jake Bittle Managing Editors Maha Ahmed, Christian Belanger Deputy Editor Olivia Stovicek Senior Editor Emeline Posner Education Editor Lit Editor Music Editor Stage & Screen Editor Visual Arts Editor

Hafsa Razi Sarah Claypoole Austin Brown Julia Aizuss Corinne Butta

Contributing Editors Joe Andrews, Eleonora Edreva, Andrew Koski, Lewis Page, Sammie Spector, Carrie Smith Editors-at-Large Mari Cohen, Ellie Mejia Video Editor Lucia Ahrensdorf Radio Producer Maira Khwaja Social Media Editors Sierra Cheatham, Emily Lipstein, Sam Stecklow Visuals Editor Ellen Hao Layout Editor Baci Weiler Senior Writer: Stephen Urchick Staff Writers: Olivia Adams, Maddie Anderson, Sara Cohen, Christopher Good, Anne Li, Emiliano Burr di Mauro, 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

Webmasters Alex Mueller, Sofia Wyetzner Publisher 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.com

Cover art by Courtney Kendrick

IN CHICAGO

A week’s worth of developing stories, odd events, and signs of the times, culled from the desks, inboxes, and wandering eyes of the editors

Tony Throws in the Towel It’s over: after getting chased around Chinatown by the feds, pawning off his lesser-known Lao restaurants, and dodging FBI raids and wiretaps, Tony Hu has finally fallen to the law. The informal “Mayor of Chinatown” pleaded guilty on May 16 to concealing more than $9 million in cash receipts from his numerous Chicago restaurants. To anyone who has followed Hu’s series of narrow escapes, this will come as no surprise: the FBI investigated nine of his local restaurants (he also owns spots in Connecticut and Las Vegas—indeed, the Tribune said it’s “unclear how many restaurants he runs” overall) last year and found that he was underreporting proceeds at all of them. Hu is expected to pay a restitution of just over $1 million, and face up to fifty-one months in prison. During the trial, his attorney told the judge that Hu spends eighty percent of his time doing “community service,” and the remaining time running his restaurants. A Slippery Sloop Start pinching your pennies now: Chicago’s hottest new neighborhood is coming to a sixty-two-acre swath of open land, right across the river from the scenic train yards. Bounded by Roosevelt, 16th Street, Clark, and a half-mile of river, the South Loop site has the potential to house millions of square footage of office space, thousands of homes, and new stops on the Red and Orange Lines (just minutes from the ones that currently exist) within the next fifteen years. Related Midwest, the site’s developer, is not new to big Chicago projects: according to Curbed Chicago, the company is behind the redevelopment of the Lathrop Homes and is putting new “temporary landscaping” at the former Chicago Spire site. All that being said, the South Loop development provides a prime opportunity to revitalize the area by repurposing downtown’s second largest parcel of green space as a center for retail and commerce. Goodbye, IPRA In an op-ed published this past Friday in the Tribune, Mayor Emanuel announced that he was following the recommendation of the Police Accountability Task Force report and replacing the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA) with a “civilian investigative agency.” Some (not us) might say the move is more self-serving than altruistic, as it comes in the midst of a turbulent time for Rahm: his disapproval rating is sixty-two percent, an Airbnb bill he supports has been fiercely criticized by aldermen, and perfidious auteur George Lucas is apparently in talks with San Francisco to build the Lucas Museum there. Current IPRA boss Sharon Fairley, though, expressed approval, saying that she sees “an opportunity for true reform.” Others were more cautious: Lori Lightfoot, who headed the Task Force, told the Tribune that “the devil will be in the details.”

IN THIS ISSUE the new dyett

“CPS cannot do that without the community.” by olivia adams.................................4 neighborhood schools vs. noble

“This is not a win-win.” max bloom.........................................6 love, fear, and possibility

“Wherever we land is home.” adia robinson....................................7 working it out

Art is a perfect gateway to activism. bridget gamble.................................8 everyday display

Through symmetry and soft colors, Fowler's work evokes a sense of meditative tranquility. ariella carmell.............................10 safe and sound in chicago

“We didn't know we were gonna make this project.” kanisha williams............................11 i will feel your pain

“i wish i loved anything as much as people from chicago love chicago” austin brown..................................12 an unlikely endorsement

In the meantime, public school advocates, rejoice. troy laraviere................................13

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MAY 18, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 3

The New Dyett

As CPS reopens and reimagines a neighborhood school, Bronzeville residents push for greater community involvement BY OLIVIA ADAMS

ozens of community members, educators, parents, and students gathered at Mt. Pisgah Church at the corner of 46th Street and King Drive on April 14 to discuss the state of Bronzeville’s beloved Walter H. Dyett High School. Jitu Brown, education organizer for the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization, led the conversation and reiterated the struggle between community and city interests regarding public education. In August 2015, Brown and other members of the Coalition to Revitalize Dyett staged a hunger strike that lasted thirty-four days in protest against Chicago Public Schools’ delays of discussions about the reopening of Dyett High School. Dyett was closed at the end of the 2014-15 school year. Today, old tensions with CPS have reemerged in the community as CPS readies the school for its grand reopening this fall. CPS released a request for proposals for a new Dyett in December 2014, effectively reversing the decision to close the school indefinitely. The Coalition submitted a fifty-three page proposal for the Walter Dyett Global Leadership and Green Technology High School; the proposal called for an open-enrollment neighborhood school with a green technology focus and “community-based internships.” This proposal, as well as two others, were rejected. CPS announced on September 3, 2015, that the new Dyett would be a neighborhood, arts-focused school instead. The Coalition continues to oppose the CPS plan, citing anxiety about the practicality of an arts-focused education in terms of job and higher-education prospects, as well as a more fundamental distrust in the district and its role in the larger project of neighborhood development. In an interview with the Weekly, Brown said that the disruptions of community institutions in Bronzeville—the closure of neighborhood schools like Overton Elementary, the takeover of schools like Phillips High School by outside organizations, the closure of police stations (like the 2011 shutdown of the Prairie District Station)—all 4 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

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read as a city-mandated “disinvestment in us.” At last month’s Coalition town hall meeting, Brown described the five requests the Coalition has made for the new Dyett, what the school will offer, and how it will serve the community. The Coalition wants to include green technology programming in the existing science and math curriculum, as well as enable teachers from the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) School of Education and the citywide organization Teachers for Social Justice to lead professional development for the school’s new hires. The Coalition also demands that the school be a “community school,” where the building itself would remain open past school hours for community use. The fight for Dyett, including the protests against the school’s closing and last year’s hunger strike, would be commemorated prominently in the building. The Coalition is also interested in developing an internship colloquium where students will work with local, national, and international businesses and organizations for two and a half hours a week during the school day. Lastly, the Coalition is dedicated to securing an elected local school council (LSC) within the first year of instruction. Most of these demands have been either discussed or agreed upon in conversations between the Coalition and CPS. Those regarding green technology programming, commemoration and the colloquium (reimagined as a seminar with the opportunity for speaker series as well as off-site internships) have been more or less confirmed. According to McLoyd, both the UIC School of Education and Chicago Arts Partnership in Education will be providing professional development for the school's new hires. The community school plan is still in talks. The only demand that remains untouched is the elected LSC; without that, full support of the school by the Coalition is doubtful. “We’re pleased with the fact that we are having conversations [with CPS], but we are not satisfied until the things that we’ve asked for—which we believe is an enormous com-

promise—are honored,” Brown said. Brown also told the Weekly that the Coalition has been in talks with several organizations and foundations to support the school both financially and academically. The American Federation of Teachers has pledged to provide funding for the school through its Innovation Fund. Furthermore, Amnesty International, the Annenberg Institute, the Advancement Project in D.C., and Equal Education in South Africa are all interested in providing internships for students as part of the aforementioned seminar programming; this support is not guaranteed, however. “It’s contingent on what the community asks for being honored,” Brown said. “And we wouldn't ask [the organizations] to support a school that we had no say-so in. That did not honor the wishes of the community.” Enter Beulah McLoyd: Bronzeville resident, CPS parent, and former educator and

ration for Dyett Arts’s opening this fall. She is also working with the CPS design team for the school, as well as two Technical Advisory Councils (TAC)—one for arts and one for technology. The former includes members of Chicago’s arts scene, such as ballet’s Homer Bryant, jazz singer Joan Collaso, and Theaster Gates of the University of Chicago, among others. TAC members act as consultants for McCloyd, answering questions regarding the specifics of arts- (or technology-) focused programming and curricula; in the end, teachers make final decisions regarding curriculum. The school will offer five different pathways for the arts-based side of the curriculum: digital media, dance, music, theater, and visual arts. Students apply directly to Dyett Arts, but are not required to apply to a specific discipline. According to McLoyd, there are currently no caps on any of the options: students simply request whichever pathway they’d

“If Dyett does not work, we view it as further disinvestment in the quality of life and the basic quality of life institutions of a particular population of people.” —Jitu Brown, Kenwood Oakland Community Organization administrator with the district. As the new principal of Dyett, McLoyd would “oversee planning and preparation at the school to ensure it is ready to provide a high-quality education to its students on day one,” according to the September 24 CPS press release announcing the hiring decision. Since then, McLoyd has overseen staff hiring, middle school recruitment, infrastructure, programming, and curriculum in prepa-

like during a meeting with their parents and the principal. Students will also take courses in the standard areas of instruction, like math, reading, and history, alongside courses in their chosen pathway beginning in grade nine. Starting students in the arts curriculum as soon as they arrive enables them to receive “a well-rounded, in-depth experience,” rather than the two years of arts instruction they’d see in other schools, according to McLoyd.

EDUCATION

Coalition Requests

CPS Response

Neighborhood School

√

"Community School" Elected LSC

...in talks with CPS staff —

Green Technology in the curriculum Coalition to Revitalize Dyett involvememnt in Professional Development

...instead an arts-focused neighborhood school √

OLIVIA ADAMS

Advanced Placement (AP) courses will also be offered at the school. Because the former Dyett was a neighborhood school with no particular focus, several changes to its infrastructure are in the works. A dance studio, a digital media lab, a visual arts studio, and a black box theater will all be added to the existing building in order to accommodate the new programming. In addition, an Innovation Technology Lab will be established within the Dyett building; the Lab, a collaborative project with both the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) and DePaul University, will be open to Dyett students, but will ultimately function separately from the school. Instead, it will act more as a community hub for digital technology. The technology TAC includes Gerald Doyle of IIT and Dr. Nicole Pinkard of DePaul. According to McLoyd, the Lab will provide coding classes for area middle schools, and will also house professional development workshops for teachers. Based on outreach and recruitment from elementary schools in the area, McLoyd notes that the students she’s spoken to are “extremely excited” about the programming at Dyett, especially the arts focus of the school. After visiting Burke Elementary to campaign for the new high school, she said, she received twenty grade nine applications from a single class of Burke eighth graders.

McLoyd views the district’s decision to reimagine Dyett as an arts rather than a green technology school as a positive choice for the neighborhood. In an interview with the Weekly, she cited a 2014 study by Adobe that ranks creativity as a skill set that employers actively seek out. According to the study, sixty-seven percent of surveyed hiring managers agreed that creativity was a foundational goal for success in their respective industries, and “creativity and innovation” have gained significant influence in salary increases in the last five years. “It’s not necessarily about teaching a student how to dance,” McLoyd said. “But it’s also about those other skills that are not necessarily presented at the forefront. If I can teach a student how to think creatively, I can teach them how to create a job, and I can teach them how to get a job.” Aspirations of college readiness for graduating students also informed many of the curriculum and programming decisions regarding Dyett. The school is offering an “early college pathway,” where students can take their first AP course, Human Geography, during freshman year. Students can also take an additional geometry course the summer after freshman year, enabling them to take five math courses in four years. Students will also be able to take courses at Harold Washington College as part of this rigorous

academic pathway. McLoyd notes that this college-preparatory system works particularly well with the school’s arts focus, resulting in well-rounded high school careers for all students who attend. “It's a myth that we’re not preparing kids for college, because we’re providing a holistic, well-rounded education that to me, in my mind, prepares kids even more for twenty-first century work.” It is currently unclear how many applications to Dyett for the 2016-17 school year have been received from within the school’s attendance boundary versus the rest of the city. According to Brown, although students from Bronzeville are applying, “a great deal more” of the applications are from outside the boundary. On the other hand, McLoyd says that most of the applications are coming from the Bronzeville area, but not necessarily from within the formal attendance boundary or a “preferred attendance zone” created by CPS. Because Dyett will be a neighborhood school, students within the boundary are not required to apply as out-of-boundary students are— this allowance may help to explain the discrepancy. CPS did not respond when contacted for clarification on this question, as well as the definition of a “preferred attendance zone”. So the question remains for every party invested in Bronzeville’s public education

system, and the viability of Dyett as a neighborhood school: if enrollment proves to actually favor citywide applicants rather than those from the Bronzeville community, what will happen to the Coalition’s dream of creating a public school system sustained by the community itself? “If Dyett does not work, we view it as further disinvestment in the quality of life and the basic quality of life institutions of a particular population of people,” Brown said. Disinvestment in the community comes in the form of school closures and turnarounds, but it has also compounded the closure of other institutions like police stations. For Brown, this is a human rights issue. “Where do our children go?” Brown asked. For now, Dyett’s development continues to move forward. The Coalition, despite their misgivings regarding the new school, are open to conversation with CPS and the Dyett leadership “as we’ve always been,” Brown told the Weekly. But without cooperation between CPS and the Coalition, the fight for Dyett— ultimately a fight for community-driven investment in Bronzeville schools—will likely continue. “What we want to see is a solid K-12 system in our neighborhood,” Brown said, “and CPS cannot do that without the community.” ¬ MAY 18, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 5

EDUCATION

Neighborhood Schools vs. Noble The charter school controversy on the Southwest Side BY MAX BLOOM

n Thursday, April 7, several hundred students, teachers, and administrators packed into the auditorium of Curie Metropolitan High School in Archer Heights. They came from fifteen schools across the Southwest Side of Chicago to celebrate the formation of the Southwest Chicago Public Schools Coalition (SWCPS Coalition), an organization dedicated to advocating for greater funding of neighborhood public schools, and to protesting the establishment of new charter schools on the Southwest Side. The event was a culmination of a movement that has been campaigning to stop Noble Network, a charter school organization, from opening a new campus in Brighton Park. The proposed Mansueto High School has been the subject of contentious debate in the neighborhood since Noble Network announced it in April 2015, and especially after Chicago Public Schools (CPS) approved it on October 26 of last year. The Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, a local neighborhood organization that helped organize the SWCPS Coalition, gathered over 6500 signatures from residents opposed to the school, while Noble Network gathered over 1800 signatures for a letter of support. The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) has criticized Noble Network for several years, and CTU organizers spoke out against the new campus at city meetings last fall. Supporters of the project have included Alderman Edward Burke (whose ward encompasses the proposed site), state senator Antonio Munoz, and the CEO of CPS, Forrest Claypool. Mansueto has also been endorsed by the Sun-Times, which cited overcrowding and poor performance by local neighborhood public schools. Noble Network, which operates seventeen campuses across Chicago, has been a divisive presence in the city for years. It has been criticized for expelling too many students and harsh discipline, and a recent campus proposed for Uptown was scuttled after community opposition organized over fears that the campus would threaten existing public schools in the area. But the or6 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

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ganization has also been praised by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and was featured in The Economist for its success in student outcomes: of the top ten non-selective public schools in Chicago, ranked by ACT scores, seven are Noble Network campuses. “The coalition started out of a reaction to Noble Network of Charter Schools’ proposal to open up a new high school on the Southwest Side,” said Patrick Brosnan, Executive Director of Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, which organized the SWCPS Coalition. “When we heard about that, we started talking with principals and LSCs [local school councils] at different schools in the area who would be affected by the development.” Brosnan argued that the public school leadership was undercutting its own neighborhood schools to push for acceptance of charter schools. “The [Chicago Public Schools] District operates under this guise that there are no quality options on the Southwest Side. I was in a meeting with [Forrest] Claypool when he said that. I mean, you’re the CEO of the district, for Christ’s sake. If there are no quality options, take responsibility for that and work with us to try and improve options on the South Side.” Neighborhood schools, Brosnan argued, serve a critical role in their local communities. This was a fact that he thought was well-understood in suburban districts but that “twenty miles east,” in Chicago, “you forget everything. You forget that schools need resources; you forget that teachers are pillars of the community; you forget that neighborhood schools are essential to the strength and stability of the neighborhood; that they should be pillars of pride.” Although Noble Network has not publicly attacked the local neighborhood public schools, supporters of the charter school have noted that the major public schools serving the Southwest Side have struggled to improve student outcomes. Kelly High School’s college enrollment rate, at fifty-six percent, is well below the average rate for the district (sixty-four percent) and the state

COURTESY OF BRIGHTON PARK NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL

(seventy percent). The other two neighborhood high schools in the area, Curie and Kennedy, do somewhat better, with enrollment rates at sixty-nine and sixty-six percent, respectively. Cody Rogers, Director of Communications for Noble Network, claimed, moreover, that Noble Network had achieved a level of success virtually unprecedented in the CPS system. He pointed to Noble Network’s 96.7 percent matriculation rate to four-year universities and argued that convenient access to such a system would be a boon to large, underserved sections of the city. Amid the ongoing debate, SWCPS Coalition has argued that the specific way Chicago funds its schools means that any charter school expansion would threaten traditional public schools. “This is not a win-win,” said Brosnan. “There are costs associated with expanding those seats and privatizing those seats.” In 2013, CPS adopted per-pupil budgets, which allot funding to schools based on a fixed rate for each student projected to

enroll. If neighborhood students opt for charter schools over local schools, the local schools lose an amount of money proportional to their change in enrollment. But it can be difficult for schools to scale down their operations proportionally: if each class loses just a few students, Brosnan pointed out, the school can’t feasibly lose a teacher. Rogers, addressing worries about the effect on funding that Mansueto High School might have on the local neighborhood public schools, argued that Mansueto would be largely comprised of students who currently make substantial commutes to Noble Network sites from the Southwest Side. According to Rogers, the Southwest Side sends a greater fraction of its children to Noble Network schools than any other part of Chicago, as it’s the largest area in the city without a Noble Network campus. “Wouldn’t it be great if these twenty-four hundred students, kids that had to leave their neighborhood every day, were able to get the same kind of college prep in their own neighborhood?” said Rogers.

STAGE & SCREEN

Love, Fear, and Possibility “Migration” opens at eta BY ADIA ROBINSON Students from Brighton Park or Archer Heights currently have to travel at least as far as Englewood or Pilsen to attend a Noble Network school; both neighborhoods are about forty minutes from Brighton Park by public transportation. Rogers also argued that the existing public schools on the Southwest Side are already overcrowded, a case that has also been made by CPS administrators. Claypool has said that seven of the nine schools in the area are above “ideal enrollment,” and pointed to the possibility of unmet demand as well. The core Southwest Side around the proposed Mansueto site—stretching southwest from McKinley Park through Brighton Park to Archer Heights and south to Gage Park—is served only by the three large neighborhood high schools, Kelly, Curie, and Kennedy. According to a January utilization report from CPS, all three schools are over-utilized: Kelly and Curie are considered at “efficient usage,” while Kennedy is formally overcrowded. But the Southwest Chicago Public Schools Coalition has claimed that the schools are not overcrowded, and the principal of Kelly High, James Coughlin, has argued that Kelly actually has room to accommodate more students than it currently serves. Ultimately, with Mansueto High School projected to open this coming fall, it remains to be seen whether the campus can win over its opponents in the Southwest Side and how the local public schools will be affected. If Brosnan and the SWCPS Coalition are right, Mansueto could pose a serious threat to Kelly High School and other neighborhood public schools on the Southwest Side. Alternatively, if Noble Network and CPS are proved right, Mansueto will bring high-quality education to thousands of students who currently are forced to travel across the city for it. ¬

etween the 1910s and the 1970s, nearly six million African Americans migrated out of the rural south and into northern cities. Why? Because, as Michael Bradford’s representation of Chicago Defender founder Robert Abbott says, in 1919 northern cities like Chicago presented African Americans with the “possibility of living in the full of one’s own humanity.” Michael Bradford’s Migration captures this spirit as it takes a personal look at the movement of millions. Migration, in its premiere run, is the last production of eta Creative Arts Foundation’s 2015–2016 season. Written by Bradford and directed by Kemati Porter, the play tells the love story of Lillian Stride and Noble Johnson, two young African Americans living in Jackson, Mississippi, as well as the story of their migration to and time in Chicago. Lillian, an ambitious young journalist and the daughter of her town’s pastor, wants to leave Jackson for “possibility”—the possibility of fulfilling her dreams, of a better life unattainable in Jackson. She is matched by Noble Johnson, a young horn player who woos Lillian with his music, and although satisfied with his life in Jackson, marries Lillian and follows her north to Chicago. The first act details their lives in Jackson, showing both why each wanted to leave and what was pulling them to stay. The second act depicts the new hardship the couple found in the North, but also their determination to thrive in their adopted city. The play climaxes with the Chicago Race Riots in the summer of 1919, an event that threatens to thwart Lillian and Noble’s dreams. After honest and well-done performances from the cast and writing that artfully portrayed impossibly complicated decisions, the ending of the play moved many in the audience to tears. The storyline of Migration works to portray the reasons that African Americans chose to migrate north, centering on three: love, fear, and possibility. When love and fear crop up in Pastor Stride’s sermons, they’re deployed as reasons to stay put: love for the people living in the South and fear of the unknown in the North. But for Lillian and Noble, romantic love and the fear of racism and violence urged them northward.

NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

A family moves out of their home after it was damaged during the Chicago Race Riots of 1919.

The pair's story is so poignant that you want to believe it is true. Part of this is due to each actor’s heartfelt, convincing performance, part to the care the playwright and dramaturg took to reflect the motivations of the members of the Great Migration accurately. Actors perform monologues, letters from migrants, and ads placed in the Chicago Defender. Bradford, the playwright, said that inspiration for these fragments came from interviews he conducted with people from Jackson who were part of the Migration and from articles pulled straight from the Defender. The chorus actors’ ability to fully inhabit all of these different personas makes them so much more palpable. One actress, Ekia Thomas, transformed everything from her voice to her body language as she shifted from Mildred, a jaded woman who migrated to Chicago, to a child who traveled north with her family, to a Chicago native who disliked the wave of newcomers. Through just a few versatile actors, the play told the many stories that Lillian and Noble could not, capturing the full experience of the Great Migration. The Chicago Defender takes on a key role in the play, as it did during the Great Migration—Lillian comes to Chicago because she wants to work for the paper. During the Great Migration, many were encouraged north by

the writing in the Defender and the proclamations of the glory of the north from its founder Robert Abbott. Bradford’s Abbott does this too, as he fosters hope in migrants like Lillian for the “possibility” of a better life in the North. In the play, Abbott wants to use the Defender to tell the true story of black people during moments of racial conflict. In a way, the role of the Defender in the play reflects the role of plays like Migration in this moment of conflict and racially motivated police brutality, as it attempts to accurately display contested moments of African-American history. Migration is steeped in history and historic trauma. The play recalls African-American history from its beginning, opening not in the twentieth century, but with a sequence featuring traditional African dances and parts of the Atlantic slave trade. The legacy of slavery, the first forced migration of African Americans, simmers underneath the storyline of this work that is already grappling with so much historic material. At the end of the play, when Noble Johnson says, “Wherever we land is home,” he is not just talking about how members of the Great Migration strove to make the North their home. Rather, he gestures towards a long history of migration and determination, of all the black people who made America their home. ¬ MAY 18, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 7

Working it Out Talking income inequality at Uri-Eichen Gallery

BY BRIDGET GAMBLE

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he artwork at Pilsen’s Uri-Eichen Gallery won’t approach you with a clipboard. It seeks no signatures— just time. And maybe a little bit of action. This week, Uri-Eichen launches a fivemonth series on income inequality, featuring an array of artists—from photographers to cartoonists—whose work speaks volumes on the effects of wage disparity. The series opens just as the budget stalemate in Springfield approaches the one-year mark, making Illinois the last and only state in the nation still without a tax and spending plan for the 2015 fiscal year, which began in July. Potential progress has been reported in recent weeks and a so-called "grand bargain" may yet be in the works between Gov. Bruce Rauner and General Assembly Democrats. But meanwhile, the backlog of unpaid bills facing the state is rolling quickly toward the $10 billion mark. In 2011, Kathy Steichen opened the Uri-Eichen Gallery with her husband, Christopher Urias, combining their surnames to form the gallery’s name. Steichen, who hails from Iowa, has been involved in activism surrounding issues such as labor rights and racial justice for more than 25 years. Urias, a native of Pilsen, and Steichen are both graduates of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Shortly after Gov. Rauner’s election victory in November 2014, he revealed a policy plan that focused heavily on reducing the influence of organized labor across the state and particularly in Chicago. This focus has materialized in a forced weakening of collective bargaining rights, as well as the recent elimination of overtime compensation for home healthcare caregivers, to name just a few consequences. Steichen, who has worked in the labor movement for over seventeen years, sees a challenge in helping people understand and voice their concern with the state’s direction. “There’s a goal of every show [at UriEichen] having a component of activism attached to it,” Steichen says. Exhibitions at Uri-Eichen, which have focused around issues including reparations for slavery and the Chicago Teachers Union strike, are commonly curated to raise awareness of pressing issues and inspire visitors to take action. On tables and on windowsills in the gallery, patrons can find materials related to programs supporting teachers unions, racial

justice groups, and more. The gallery also frequently brings in activists and community leaders as speakers to inform others as to how they can join a movement or influence legislation. The genesis of the gallery’s current series on income inequality had several components, Steichen says. The first was the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision on the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case, which allowed corporations and unions to spend unlimited amounts of money on political activities independent of a party or candidate. The ruling has had a drastic effect on the business of U.S. politics in the years since, especially in Illinois. In conjunction with the campaign finance law, the decision has led to unprecedented spending, especially evidenced in the most recent gubernatorial election of 2014. About half of the $65 million invested in the campaign came from Gov. Rauner’s private funds and the funds of nine other individuals, families, or corporations they control. Steichen was then led to consider the fact that the top twenty percent of households in the U.S. possess more than eightyfour percent of the nation’s wealth, while the bottom forty percent of households account for a mere 0.3 percent. The fight for a minimum wage raise to match current costs of living—now known as the Fight for 15 movement—was another motivating factor that convinced the gallery’s board of directors to forge ahead with the nearly half-year program, she says. The first exhibition in the series, <i>A New American Portrait</i>, is a collection of screen-printed pieces by Los Angeles-based artist Oscar Magallanes that juxtaposes the icons of various social movements with pop culture imagery and phrases to construct messages on critical issues including labor rights, slavery, Native American history, and terrorism, among others. Drawing on Diego Rivera and Bertram David Wolfe’s <i>Portrait of America</i> collaboration, in which students of the New Workers School in New York were asked to create alternate histories of the United States, Magallanes has engraved a range of dates at the top of each piece, which read almost like tombstones. While each piece could stand alone, Magallanes’ work maintains consistency by using the same bold colors throughout: orange, red and blue.

VISUAL ARTS

One piece shows an outline of a man carrying a knapsack that appears connected to a huge ball of cotton. In the background are, in all capitals, the words “FREE LABOR.” To the left, a noose hangs over a vertically written message: the name “John Punch,” a man considered one of the first official slaves in the British colonies during the seventeenth century. At the top of the piece, the stripes of the British Union Jack reach out toward the noose; a traditional crown sits at the center. Overhead are the years 1492, the year of Christopher Columbus’ arrival to the Americas, and 1640, which marked the end of the Iberian slave trade. A separate, four-part collection of screen-printed pieces by Magallanes also on display at the gallery combines timeless, all-American motifs with iconography that denotes current social justice issues. The words “See America” border the top of each piece. In one, a man at first appears to be taking in a desert landscape on horseback; the border wall to the right, however, suggests another identity. In another, a car rides over a New Deal Bridge that towers above two tents pitched in its shadow. More than just the art on display builds community and encourages activism at the Uri-Eichen Gallery. The main space of the gallery, which stands at the corner of Halsted at 21st Place, is about the size of a large living room. Steichen says the cozy atmosphere fosters intimate and constructive dialogue among patrons. “It’s the perfect venue to start a conversation,” she says. Elsewhere, in Chicago and beyond, that level of conversation is sorely lacking, Steichen believes. As a consequence of the eight-hour workday and other major societal shifts, “people don’t belong to bowling leagues or engage socially in community settings as much as they used to,” she says. “The biggest challenge is getting people involved. We still have the ability to vote, to get engaged and change things.” Starting Friday, May 13, the public will have an opportunity to view Magallanes’ artwork and learn more about the series on income inequality. To kick off the fivemonth series, the gallery hosted William McNary, co-director of Citizen Action/ Illinois, a progressive political coalition for social justice and the state’s largest public interest group, who spoke on the topic on

the series’ opening night. On Saturday, May 14, the gallery then hosted a reception and photography display, featuring images that celebrate the life of Les Orear, a stockyard-worker-turned-community-organizer. That same day, Illinois Labor History Society dedicated a bench at the historic Union Stockyard Gate in Orear’s memory. Throughout the summer months, until September, the series will introduce a new show focused on income inequality in America each month. In June, Uri-Eichen will feature a collection called Maxwell Street’s Last Hope, a result of a collaboration between the gallery and the Maxwell Street Foundation. Drawing on the oral histories of the historic market’s past vendors, captured by multimedia artist Nicholas Jackson, and featuring the photography of Ron Gordon and Lee Landry, the exhibition will tell the story of the market’s downfall in the 1990s after nearly a century of economic perseverance and cultural significance. July will see the arrival of a photography exhibit 1%: Privilege in a Time of Global Inequality, featuring artists from across the globe whose work highlights wage disparity as it pertains to travel, entertainment, and health care. In one photograph by Guillaume Herbaut, a bride in China poses for her wedding photos on a plush red sofa while two men hold portable lights over her head. In another, by Guillaume Bonn, a chef stands beside a table set in the middle of a grassy Kenyan field, where he waits to serve champagne to guests on a hot air balloon excursion. The exhibit, now at Roosevelt University’s Gage Gallery, has traveled all over the world. To cap off the series, the work of cartoonists Gary Huck and Mike Konopacki, whose work centers on issues around labor and social justice, will be featured in August. According to Steichen, art is a perfect gateway to activism, making Uri-Eichen’s marriage of the two a no-brainer. “Artists are able to encapsulate a lot of ideas in one construction and they get you to think about those ideas in a way that normal interactions in our society—watching television news or reading a newspaper article—may not,” Steichen says. ¬

Artists are able to encapsulate a lot of ideas in one construction. They get you to think about those ideas in a way that normal interactions in our society may not.

COURTESY OF URI-EICHEN GALLERY

MAY 18, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 9

VISUAL ARTS

Everyday Display Luke Fowler at the Neubauer Collegium BY ARIELLA CARMELL

n April 29, multimedia artist Luke Fowler’s exhibit opened at the Neubauer Collegium, the University of Chicago’s center for research in the humanities. The gallery is small—only three rooms— but somehow feels expansive with its sparse openness. The floors are sleek and smooth, but one feels hesitant to make too much noise on them in an environment that so clearly reveres and cherishes art. The minimalism of the space complements the nature of Fowler’s work. The small room where the photographs hang, with its contemplative setting, could easily be one of Fowler’s own photographs. Within the exhibit itself, calmness emanates from both the quiet admiration of Fowler’s art and the art’s simplicity. Through symmetry and soft colors, Fowler’s work evokes a sense of meditative tranquility, of using one’s home as a resting place from all the turmoil in the world. Based in Glasgow, Scotland, Fowler engages with several forms: visual art, music, and film. This multiplicity of mediums coalesces in one of the films on exhibit, For Christian, cinematically representing the New York School composer Christian Wolff. Shot in 16mm, the short film has a grainy, vérité quality reminiscent of 1970s New Hollywood or British New Wave cinema. Wolff ’s music lilts in the background over a series of footage of nature scenes and animals; the editing is jerky, matching the staccato of the score. Fowler’s films, more so than the other art forms he explores, tend to focus on trailblazing intellectuals and creative types, oftentimes avant-garde in their cultural production. He gains insight into their creative processes, the impetus for their pieces of art. In the case of Wolff, though, he lets the music do most of the talking. For Christian is accompanied by Fowler’s rarely seen Tenement Films, which follows four people—Anna, Helen, David, and Lester—dwelling in the same Glasgow tenement. Tenement Films does not employ any artificial lighting, giving the film a murky, textured quality. Also shot on 16mm, the project reflects Fowler’s usual fascinations with the intimacies of people and their homes. Fowler 10 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

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received a degree in printmaking; his background can be sensed through his specific attention to detail. Despite the film’s prosaic nature, Fowler’s use of close-up and the film quality give it a lush feeling. We glimpse the characters’ majestic view of Glasgow, beads of water on a window, the shadows of blossoms through an opaque curtain. For a moment, each of them looks like still photography. When the commonplace details of life are gazed at so deeply, they become something entirely new to the eye. Fowler investigates similar themes in the color photography on display. One set of photographs was shot in the home of Italian photographer Luigi Ghirri, featuring crisp images of his meticulously organized books and magazines. There is a comforting sense of domesticity, the intertwining of work and living space. Fowler captures how artists reflect their aesthetic sensibilities in their domiciles: for them, there is no line between life and work. In honing in on the minutiae of daily life, a facet usually overlooked by the general public, Fowler both makes artists real to us and illuminates them. They are normal humans who go about their lives in domestic areas, but they also bring an artist’s eye to even the most mundane aspects of their lives (exemplified by the precise color scheme of the book spines in Ghirri’s library). The other series of photographs was taken in the studio for electronic music at Cologne’s Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), or West German Radio. In contrast to Ghirri’s organized, hazy-colored space, the studio is cramped with machinery and wires. The objects captured are in the midst of carrying out their obscure functions, lit up and blinking. Fowler is able to engage with varying kinds of milieus while still drawing from them the same type of effect—hushed, pensive. The bodies of the homes and working environments seem to speak more than the actual bodies that inhabit them: the latter are, in fact, oftentimes absent from the scene. Perhaps this is what he is trying to say: what is not there can be felt all around us, much in the way the gallery, and all of its unadorned space, interacts with the art. ¬

Fowler is able to engage with varying kinds of milieus while still drawing from them the same type of effect—hushed, pensive.

COURTESY OF NEUBAUER COLLEGIUM FOR CULTURE AND SOCIETY

MUSIC

Safe and Sound in Chicago Playing—and working—with Ambl Lyrics and L.A. VanGogh BY KANISHA WILLIAMS

“S

afeNSound” is a newly minted collaboration between two upand-coming locals—L.A. VanGogh, a self-described “producer/artist,” and Ambl Lyrics, a self-described “DJ/ producer.” The pair released their first mixtape together, named for L.A. VanGogh, a month ago; individual cuts from the tape have since been referred to as “hidden gems” by various small music blogs. The project, which features only seven tracks, is at once playful and meditative, exuberant and thoughtful—a breath of fresh air when compared to the drill and darker, more seductive R&B that have been trending lately on the South Side and in the city. When I met the two at their “production lab” in Hyde Park, I was expecting mysterious and distant figures—the kind of people you can never quite set a meeting with, but only spend time with when you see them in passing. Sure enough, they were hard to get a read on at first: AmbI, relaxed and reserved, makes a perfect match for VanGogh’s extroversion and friendliness. Yet, despite her quiet demeanor and minimal internet presence, it’s AmbI’s constant jokes that have me rolling: when I ask how the two met, AmbI begins by telling me that they met on Tinder—“He had a picture of himself turned around, and I couldn’t resist that booty.” I couldn’t help but feel that AmbI was sizing me up, seeing what I’m about as I took notes on what she said, but, in hindsight, it seems more as though she was trying to gauge how serious and boring I was going to be during the interview. This intense focus and observation of others comes through in AmbI’s personality, and inevitably, in her work. “I like to dissect other people. I like their music and how they work, and I just want to incorporate it into how I work,” she told me. This philosophy of integration and interpolation is apparent on many tracks on SafeNSound: “the whole nine,” which samples Lil Jon’s classic jam “Lovers and Friends”; “changed my number,” which extends the recent trend of songs about cellphones (see “Hotline Bling,” Maxo Kream’s “Cell Boomin,”

KANISHA WILLIAMS

Father’s “Nokia,” and the entirety of Erykah Badu’s “But You Caint Use My Phone”); and “numb,” a track from the duo’s mixtape that sounds like an underground cousin to Frank Ocean’s breakout track “Novacane.” The last of the three pulsates with persistent drums and its second verse finds VanGogh’s voice in a deep, dark vocal modulation, a style AmbI returns to several times over the course of the project. But despite Ambl’s sensitivity to recent trends and obsessions in production, L.A. VanGogh claims he isn’t a fan of contemporary music, and his flows represent that. The rapper’s voice winds through the playground of AmbI’s production, but grounds each track in a deep kind of soul. No matter how passionate VanGogh’s voice becomes, the duo just wants to have fun: “14,” arguably the most poignant track on the mixtape, shows AmbI and VanGogh

reaching for joy as they try to work through exhaustion, creative jealousy, and distraction. After a song-long struggle against apathy and defeatism, VanGogh ends on a mixed message: “Low key feel like Brown v. Education / We just want the same opportunities in life right now… I swear y’all always trying to cut a brother off when he’s got something to say, man...” He trails off. This playfulness is as visible in the duo’s chemistry as it is in their music: they talk about each other, the music they’ve made together, and their future projects with nothing more than a vague excitement, as if they’ve already well exceeded their expectations in the past, and don’t feel any need to think about what’s to come in the future. When I asked how the SafeNSound project came to fruition, VanGogh responded, “We didn’t know we were gonna make this project. It just became what it was, and it’s

the first of many…We both gon’ be millionaires.” Indeed, the duo is currently at work on their next project. This first offering was all “about” (at the very least, it was named after) L.A. VanGogh, so the next project will be “about” AmbI Lyrics. It’s coming out this June. Whether either project will make them millionaires remains to be seen. But neither Ambl nor VanGogh thinks things should always be playful, nor do the duo’s ambitions revolve around themselves: at the end of the interview, when I ask if they have anything to add, AmbI replies with confidence, “You are now SafeNSound.” After a second, she changes her mind: “Save Chicago State, Don’t pay Dante, Justice for Rekia Boyd.” ¬

MAY 18, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 11

MUSIC

South Side Weekly Civic Journalism Workshops

The Art of the Radio Interview A workshop with IOP Director & former host of WBEZ's Afternoon Shift Steve Edwards

Tuesday, May 24, 2016 7pm–9pm Experimental Station 6100 S. Blackstone Ave. RSVP at bit.ly/SSWSteve The Chicago Civic Journalism Project is presented by the South Side Weekly, City Bureau, University of Chicago Careers in Journalism, Arts, and Media, and Chicago Studies.

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I Will Feel Your Pain On “Coloring Book” BY AUSTIN BROWN

publication is supposed to publish write-ups of albums and mixtapes that let people know whether those projects are worth listening to, whether they’re worth the time and money that listeners have to pay out of their hard-earned salaries. When it comes to Coloring Book, Chance the Rapper’s most recent project—released last Thursday— those considerations are moot for a number of reasons, not least of which that Chance is still committed to giving away his product for free. It’s probably true that as this goes to press, most Chicagoans have already heard the album, so think of this instead as an appreciation—not just for the music of Coloring Book, which is singular, warm, and welcoming, but for Chancellor Bennett, better known as Chance the Rapper, the “blueprint to a real man,” who has remained committed to his city, his people, and his angels on 79th in more ways than any of us could have imagined. And if you haven’t: listen to Coloring Book. Appreciate Chance the Rapper. After all, “music is all we got.” The latest offering from Chatham’s own isn’t the story of “entertainers who always leave” and never look back. It’s another, less common one—of the kid who grew up, saw the sights, made friends in high places, gained hordes of admirers, and then looked around at the world at his feet and said, “You know what, I think I’m good on the whole ‘world-beater’ thing. Do you guys wanna just hang at my place instead?” Previous entries in Chance’s now-storied discography were sprawling, cramming in as much as they could to show, as he said in an interview with Hot 97’s Ebro Darden, “what I can do eventually.” Coloring Book strips away the unnecessary—fewer bars, fewer offhand experiments, less showing off—in favor of something more concise and at ease, even if it’s not the oft-feted “debut album” that he will (hopefully) someday release. Gospel intros, instrumental breaks, and layers upon layers of instrumentation thicken the mix, and allow it to settle in the grooves the songs form, taking the sound Donnie Trumpet and his Social Experiment explored on Surf and allowing it to settle around its natural protagonist. The mixtape features a star-studded cast, making it obvious that Chance is thinking bigger than he was on 10 Day, Acid Rap, or even

Surf. But their quickness and precision leaves room for Chicago’s own sweethearts—check how Towkio easily outstrips Justin Bieber on slow jam “Juke Jam,” or Noname’s honey-coated verse on “Finish Line.” Chance makes some nods to the roots and styles of his collaborators—“Mixtape,” for example, has Chance trying on the triplet flow of partners in crime Young Thug and Lil Yachty for a braggadocio-filled track about their respective idiosyncrasies as artists. “No Problem” is a straightahead banger, complete with 2 Chainz verse. But those “sacrifices” to genre staples and distant rap stars are sandwiched between effusive odes to city, family, and God, which have always been Chance’s three pillars. There’re the gospel interludes from Kirk Franklin, Jamila Woods, and Ty Dolla $ign, plus the featured vocal on “How Great” attributed to “My cousin Nicole.” There's also “Summer Friends,” arguably the most emotional of all tracks on the tape, in which Chance wanders back and forth between fond memories of Harold's and mumbled eulogies for friends of his that have fallen victim to gun violence during Chicago's summers. He repeats his home street of 79th until it becomes a mantra, then slips away to let fellow South Sider Jeremih sing us home. “i wish i loved anything as much as people from chicago love chicago,” reads a recent tweet from Brooklyn writer Morgan Parker. When Chance croons about rolling at “The Rink” (on 87th Street by Avalon Park) or turns 79th Street into his city on a hill, that love becomes the fullest it could be, amplified until the whole world can hear it. ¬

COLUMN

EVENTS

An Unlikely Endorsement By the Mayor’s own evaluation, public schools, not charter schools excel

Troy LaRaviere

tarting with the 2011-2012 school year, the Mayor’s Office began to hand out its principal merit pay award. This award is given to principals based on the performance of their schools. However, the award is not based on high test scores. In the mayor’s own words, it is based on students making significant improvement in four criteria: for elementary school students, those criteria are Growth in Reading, Growth in Math, Closing the Achievement Gap, and College Readiness. There are three levels of awards based on how many of those four criteria a school meets. You can see every award given on a spreadsheet at the bottom of a Catalyst Chicago article entitled “Report raises concern about principal turnover.” That spreadsheet shows that the school I’ve led for the past five years—Blaine Elementary School in Lakeview—is one of only four schools to have met three or more of those four criteria for three years in a row. It is important to remember once again, that this award is not based on having high performing students, it was based on substantially improving the performance of students regardless of their performance level when they arrived. A school can selectively enroll the highest performing students in the district and teach them nothing for an entire year, and that school will still outscore and outperform most schools across the district because its students were already high performing when they arrived. Those students certainly won’t grow and improve their performance as much as they would have with a skilled teacher, but their average performance attainment will remain higher than that of students in schools that do not get to selectively enroll the highest performing students. The question of what makes a school effective is not the overall performance of its students, but the impact that a school has on improving the performance of the students they get, no matter what level they started off at. That—surprisingly—is the criteria of the mayor’s award. So, besides Blaine, which of the more than six hundred schools were the four best examples of consistently effective teaching and learning? First, I think it is important to note that none of the four schools was a charter school. All four were public schools. Only one was a public selective enrollment school, Keller. The others

were all regular public neighborhood schools: Blaine, Chavez, and Laura S. Ward. Blaine is 60 percent white with nearly 20 percent of its students from low-income households; Chavez is 94.5 percent Hispanic with 99 percent of its students from low-income households; and Ward is 94 percent African American with 99 percent of its students from low-income households. Again, all three are public neighborhood schools. What happens when I expand the criteria? The above four schools are those that were able to meet three or more of the mayor’s criteria for three years in a row. What about schools that meet two or more of that criteria in that same timeframe? The list expands to eight schools, and still, none of them are charter schools. The additional four schools with consistently substantial student academic growth are Skinner, Healy, LaSalle, and Whitney Young. Healy is a neighborhood school with 64.5 percent Asian students and 87 percent coming from low-income households. LaSalle is a magnet school, and both Skinner and Young are selective. It is also interesting to note that the magnet and selective enrollment schools that meet this new criteria are among the most diverse in Chicago. For example, Keller—a South Side selective enrollment school—is composed of 34 percent African American students, 33 percent white students, 16 percent Asian students, and 12 percent Hispanic students. The larger point however is that all eight of the schools that have had the most significant impact on the academic performance of their students are public schools: one diverse magnet school, three diverse selective schools, and four neighborhood schools. The Emanuel administration has been touting charters as the place where we might learn something new about teaching and learning, but it appears that his own data clearly demonstrates that the only places in Chicago where you can find the teaching practices that consistently and substantially improve student performance are our public schools, and in particular our public neighborhood schools. In establishing the criteria for excellent student outcomes and then—for three years in a row—identifying schools that consistently and substantially meet those criteria, the Mayor’s Office has acknowledged that its pet project, charter schools, have failed to keep up with the performance of the schools in our public system. The most important question to ask now is “Why?” Why is it that none of the schools the mayor’s office touts could consistently meet his own criteria for excellence in teaching and learning? The answer to that question lies in looking at the strategies for the success of the schools that did meet the criteria. I plan on exploring the answer to that question in an expanded version of this article that I will publish on my blog, troylaraviere.net, in the near future. In the meantime, public school advocates, rejoice. You have a new unwilling partner in your efforts to defend public education: the Office of the Mayor of Chicago. Troy LaRaviere is a CPS graduate and a parent of a CPS student. He was the principal of Blaine Elementary, one of the highest performing neighborhood schools in Chicago, from 2011 to 2016, and he continues to relentlessly defend 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. ILLUSTRATION BY JAVIER SUAREZ

BULLETIN Don’t Take My Stuff. Tell My Story Oriental Institute, 1155 E. 58th St. Award ceremony, Wednesday, May 18, 4pm–8pm. Exhibit through November 1. Free. (773) 702-9520. oi.uchicago.edu The Oriental Institute’s first-ever Teacher Appreciation Night & Award Ceremony also marks the opening of a special exhibit, Don’t Take My Stuff. Tell My Story. The exhibit features artwork by K-12 students around Chicago, on themes of cultural heritage; the award ceremony will feature a curator talk, award presentations, and a curriculum showcase. (Hafsa Razi)

Historic Provident Hospital 125th Anniversary Celebration The Connection, 4321 S. Cottage Grove Ave. Wednesday, May 18, 6pm–8pm. $50. (773) 952-4062. bit.ly/1TkBipl The Provident Hospital was founded in the late nineteenth century, in part to provide the city's first nursing college for black women. This Wednesday, the Provident Foundation is holding a scholarship fundraiser in celebration of the hospital's quasquicentennial. All proceeds will go to the Foundation's scholarship fund. (Christian Belanger)

Educating Out of Poverty Union League Club, 65 W. Jackson Blvd. Thursday, May 19, 8am–10am. $35. (312) 427-7800. schoolpolicyforum.org Join eminent Chicago educators for a convention on how education can support underprivileged children throughout their development. Hear about policies and practices that help children and students become leaders from researchers at the UofC Consortium on Chicago School Research. (Anne Li)

Celebrating the Centennial of the Great Migration Migration showing: eta Creative Arts Foundation, 7558 S. Chicago Ave. Friday, May 20, 8pm. South Shore bus tour: Regal Theater, 1641 E. 79th St. Saturday, May 21, 11am–3pm. $25/event. Register by May 19 at bit.ly/1OyryZL MAY 18, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 13

EVENTS Join The BRIJ Embassy for Black America for a two-day celebration of the centennial of the Great Migration. On Friday, there will be a showing of Michael Bradford's play, Migration (reviewed in this issue) and on Saturday, join a bus tour of South Shore. (Christian Belanger)

Rowan Park Public Meeting Rowan Park Fieldhouse, 11546 S. Ave. L. Tuesday, May 24, 6pm–7:30pm. Free. RSVP online. (773) 646-3180. greatriverschicago. com What does the future look like for the Calumet River? Great Rivers Chicago will hold a public meeting at Rowan Park next Tuesday to answer exactly that. Join the conversation and help to finalize a vision for the river’s access, development, and sustainability. ( Joe Andrews)

VISUAL ARTS Drapetomanía: The Art of Afro-Cuba The DuSable Museum, 740 E. 56th Pl. Friday, May 20–October 16, Tuesday–Saturday, 10am–5pm; Sunday, noon–5pm. $8 Adults; $5 Students and Seniors. (773) 947-0600. dusablemuseum.org. The DuSable’s upcoming exhibition aims to recover the lost history of the Grupo Antillano movement, a cultural group that privileged the African and Afro-Caribbean roots in the formation of the Cuban nation. Just as all roots grow, the paintings leap from the ground of the canvas with bright colors, unique textures, and symbolic stories. (Corinne Butta)

Heal Our City I Grow Chicago, 6402 S Honore St. Friday, May 20, 4:30pm–7pm. Free. (312) 2867392. igrowchicago.org With focus on health and wellness, Heal Our City is a South Side community arts event featuring poetry, photo narratives, oral histories, and documentaries. The free event will include food from Soul Vegetarian and transportation—catch a shuttle to the event from 59th and University or 51st and King Drive at 4:30pm. ( Joe Andrews)

Broadcast from a Serpent-Headed Spaceship 14 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

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Stony Island Arts Bank, 6760 S. Stony Island Ave., Friday May 20, 6pm–7pm. Free. (312) 857-5561. rebuild-foundation.org. What happens when science-fiction and the history of the Americas are combined? Broadcast from a Serpent-Headed Spaceship is an experimental lecture, somewhere between performance and pedagogy, that attempts to remix history in order to recast the past and the future as open to interpretation. (Corinne Butta)

Mindy Rose Schwartz Slow, 2153 W. 21st St. Opening reception Saturday, May 21, 6pm–9pm; exhibition through June 25. Free. (773) 645-8803. paulis-slow.info Set out this Saturday just to look inside: Mindy Rose Schwartz’s work references domestic spaces and personal memories just familiar enough to channel a path through their viewer’s eye and into their personal headspace. (Corinne Butta)

‘What is Movement?’ Workshops High Concept Labs at Mana Contemporary, 2233 S. Throop St. Sundays, May 22, 29, and June 5, 1:30pm–4:30pm. $10 per session. (312) 850-0555. highconceptlaboratories.org Spring into step this weekend and make your way to High Concept Labs to reflect on our human movement. No experience required; just the desire to learn how to use your body to create form and perform. (Corinne Butta)

MUSIC Billy Branch

The Promontory, 5311 S. Lake Park Ave. Saturday, May 28, doors 9pm, show 10pm. $20 advance, $40 VIP. (312) 801-2100. promontorychicago.com Soul Brother #1 will be rocking the wheels of steel at the Promontory next Saturday. With twenty-five years of DJ work under his belt, expect to keep your head nodding as he spins the classic, the obscure, and everything in between. ( Joe Andrews)

Chelsea Wolfe Thalia Hall, 1807 S. Allport St. Friday, May 20, doors 7:30pm, show 8:30pm. $16 standing room, $20 seats. 17+ (312) 526-3851. thaliahallchicago.com Los Angeles singer-songwriter Chelsea Wolfe will be bringing her heavy, moody neo-folk to Thalia Hall, along with A Dead Forest Index. Sway to her gothic experimental guitar playing, smoky vocals, and surreal soundscapes that are sure to leave the crowd in a trance. (Hester Shim)

Pedestrian Deposit and more at CUFF ACRE, 1345 W 19th St. Friday, June 3, 10pm–2am. $10, cash bar. acreresidency.org, cuff.org Performances at the self-described “biggest party of the 23rd Annual Chicago Underground Film Festival” will include the experimental duo Pedestrian Deposit, known for their “highly composed, often abstract sound textures” as well as Hogg, a “Chicago-based post-punk industrial psycho-sexual abstraction.” There are three more DJs and artists on the lineup as well. Get ready for a night of fun…abstract fun! ( Jake Bittle)

The Promontory, 5311 S. Lake Park Ave. Saturday, May 21, doors 9pm, show 9:30pm. $12 standing room, $19 sitting, $30 tables. (312) 801-2100. promontorychicago.com

Gemaine

Harmonica virtuoso and Chicago blues innovator Billy Branch will feature this Saturday at the Promontory in a blustery homecoming. A disciple of Chicago blues legend Willie Dixon, Branch began touring with Dixon after catching the "blues bug" in college and has since become a figurehead of blues education worldwide. (Clyde Schwab)

A Compton-bred artist in hip-hop and R&B, Gemaine has a Soundcloud following numbering in the tens of thousands. If, like the singer’s latest EP, you are “Curious,” come participate in this sweet live event; maybe it’ll go viral! (Neal Jochmann)

Pete Rock

Reggies Rock Club, 2109 S. State St. Friday, May 20, 6pm. $12-15. (312) 949-0120. reggieslive.com

Candy Bracelet Blank Haven, Halstead & 18th. Friday, May 20, 11pm. Free.

What could this be? It’s a pair of DJ sets by Soundcloud stars Kevin Hsia and Tony Rainwater (a timely name, given our recent heavy downpours). The two are scheduled to rock Blank Haven, a clandestine religious space located in the lower west side of downtown. (Neal Jochmann)

STAGE & SCREEN Can I Live: Cypher III Dorchester Art + Housing Collaborative, 1456 E. 70th St. Thursday, May 19, 7pm–9pm. (312) 857-5561. rebuild-foundation.org As the weather warms up and summer creeps ever closer, so does JODB Productions’s Can I Live Block Party, set to take Washington Park by storm in July. Catch the event’s third preview with this latest installment of freestyle performances. ( Julia Aizuss)

Higher Goals and Hoop Dreams Kartemquin Films. Streaming online from Friday, May 20, 5pm. Free. (773) 472-4366. watch.kartemquin.com Perhaps Kartemquin’s most famous film, the 1994 documentary that’s received accolades from Roger Ebert, MTV, and everyone in between will be streaming for free as the next film in Kartemquin’s fiftieth anniversary lineup. Hoop Dreams’s “educational companion piece,” the thirty-minute Higher Goals, also serves as one of the extra treats available online. ( Julia Aizuss)

Animated Folktales from South Side Projections Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St. Saturday, May 21, 2pm. Free. (773) 7022787. southsideprojections.org Spend your Saturday taking in a quartet of animated short films based on folktales from Pueblo, Ashanti, First Nations, Japanese, and Chinese traditions. Viewers will learn about the challenges of dealing with birds who steal the sun, monkeys who try to steal the moon, and dragons generally. ( Jake Bittle)

Flat is Beautiful Max Palevsky Cinema, Ida Noyes Hall, 1212 E. 59th St. Saturday, May 21, 5pm. Free. (773) 702-8670. renaissancesociety.org

This presentation by the contemporary art barons at the UofC’s Renaissance Society will show a black-and-white “live-action cartoon” by the experimental artist Sadie Benning. The 1998 film “investigates the psychic life of an androgynous eleven-yearold” with her mother and gay roommate, and explores how to inhabit the space between identities. ( Jake Bittle)

The Lynching of (Insert the Name of Any white Killer of an Unarmed Black Here) The Promontory, 5311 S. Lake Park Ave. Wednesday, May 25. Doors 7pm, show 8pm. $10 advance, $15 at door. (312) 801-2100. promontorychicago.com David Boykin and the SEBAU have composed an “avant-garde soul jazz hip h-opera” in response to the killings of unarmed blacks by police officers and white civilians. This performance, inspired by nationwide protests and demonstrations, tells the story of two activists and lovers fighting for black liberation. ( Joe Andrews)

One Man, Two Guvnors Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis Ave. Through Sunday, June 12. Full schedule available online. $38, discounts available for students and seniors. (773) 753-4472. courttheatre.org With a comic title and a fondness for fish and chips, Two Guvnors—an adaption of Carlo Goldoni’s classic The Servant of Two Masters, retrofitted for 1963—all but Union hi-Jacks the source material’s hijinks. It’s fast-paced, farcical, and generally ridiculous: in short, quintessentially British. (Christopher Good)

Migration eta Creative Arts Foundation, 7558 S. South Chicago Ave. Through Sunday, June 19. Fridays and Saturdays, 8pm; Sundays, 3pm. $35. (773) 752-3955. etacreativearts.org The history of the Great Migration can be overwhelming—a confluence of important cultural strains, people, and institutions all loaded with historical import. Migration tries to capture the complicated interactions that brought thousands of African Americans to northern cities through music, dance, and dialogue. (Adam Thorp)

LIT Monster Verse Smart Museum, 5550 S. Greenwood Ave. Thursday, May 19, 5:30pm–7:30pm. (773) 702-0200. smartmuseum.uchicago.edu The Smart Museum’s Monster Roster exhibition investigates the history and impact of the Chicago-based group’s work. At this special event, groups will present poetry and prose, and attendees will partake in a mixed-media art activity emerging from the literary inspirations of Monster Roster artists. (Sarah Claypoole)

Stories from the Chicago Freedom Movement Chicago Theological Seminary, 1407 E. 60th St. Thursday, May 19, 6pm–7:30pm. (773) 896-2400. ctschicago.edu In honor of the 50th anniversary of the Chicago Freedom Movement, a panel of activists from the 1960’s—Don Rose, Mary Lou Finley, Prexy Nesbitt, and Brenetta Howell Barrett—will talk about the time during which Martin Luther King lived in North Lawndale. Moderated by Chicago Reporter editor and publisher Susan Smith Richardson. (Sarah Claypoole)

Grown Folks Stories Silver Room, 1506 E. 53rd St. Thursday, May 19, 8pm–10pm. (773) 947-0024. thesilverroom.com Come listen, come tell. Come to share, and to show. Spend an evening with other storytellers of all stripes, except professional ones, in a casual and unrehearsed setting. Tell us about something funny, something crazy, something heartbreaking, something that happened to you—tell us a story about life. (Anne Li)

Ana Castillo Talk 57th Street Books, 1301 E. 57th St. Friday, May 20, 6pm. (773) 684-1300. semcoop.com Chicago-born author and DePaul professor Ana Castillo talks about her new book, Black Dove: Mamá, Mi’jo, and Me, an intergenerational and cross-country account of her life and family. The novelist, poet, playwright, and essayist will be in conversation with Laura Demanski, editor of the University of Chicago Magazine. (Sarah Claypoole)

MAY 18, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 15