May 21, 2014

SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY MAY 21, 2014 ¬ ARTS, CULTURE, & POLITICS ¬ THE KEENEST PAPER SOUTH OF ROOSEVELT ¬ SOUTHSIDEWEEKLY.COM ¬ FREE

One Year On On the first anniversary of the CPS closures, a Bronzeville elementary school grapples with the successes and challenges of a testing year

LSC ELECTIONS, A GUIDE TO YOUTH SUMMER PROGRAMS, REPURPOSING OVERTON

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MORE INSIDE

2 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

¬ MAY 21, 2014

IN CHICAGO

SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

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

The South Side Weekly is a newsprint magazine based out of the University of Chicago, for and about the South Side. The Weekly is distributed across the South Side each Wednesday of the academic year.

In fall 2013, the Weekly reformed itself as an independent, student-directed organization.

Previously, the paper was known as the Chicago Weekly.

Editor-in-Chief Managing Editor Deputy Editor

Bea Malsky Spencer Mcavoy John Gamino

Senior Editors Josh Kovensky, Harrison Smith Politics Editor Osita Nwanevu Stage & Screen Meaghan Murphy Editor Music Editor Zach Goldhammer Jack Nuelle Visual Arts Editor Emma Collins Education Editor Bess Cohen Online Editor Sharon Lurye Contributing Editors Jake Bittle, Rachel Schastok Editor-at-Large Hannah Nyhart Photo Editor Lydia Gorham Illustration Editor Isabel Ochoa Gold Layout Editor Emma Cervantes Sarah Claypoole Senior Writers Ari Feldman, Emily Holland, Patrick Leow, Stephen Urchick Staff Writers Olivia Adams, Maha Ahmed, Christian Belanger, Jon Brozdowski, Cindy Dapogny, Lauren Gurley,

Olivia Dorow Hovland, Noah Kahrs Olivia Markbreiter, Julian Nebreda, Paige Pendarvis, Jamison Pfeifer Arman Sayani Olivia Stovicek Senior Photographer Luke White Staff Photographers Camden Bauchner, Juliet Eldred, Stephanie Koch, Siddhesh Mukerji Staff Illustrators Ellie Mejia, Wei Yi Ow, Hanna Petroski, Maggie Sivit Editorial Intern

Zavier Celimene

Business Manager

Harry Backlund

5706 S. University Ave. Reynolds Club 018 Chicago, IL 60637 SouthSideWeekly.com Send tips, comments, or questions to: editor@southsideweekly.com For advertising inquiries, contact: (773)234-5388 advertising@southsideweekly

Cover photo by Luke White. Jeanette Taylor-Smith, Mollison LSC president

Strategic Slime Rahm Emanuel is probably more than a little bit worried. Toni Preckwinkle, Cook County Board President has reportedly stressed that she isn’t running for mayor. Emanuel seems to think otherwise, or at least his campaign does. John Kupper, Emanuel’s main campaign consultant, emailed the Tribune to suggest they cover stories about Preckwinkles tenure as Board President, some that paint her in a negative light. This email comes a full 9 months before the mayoral election. Kupper took the heat for this, reportedly apologizing to Emanuel and the media for the email, which also criticized the types of stories covered by the Tribune. Rahm was quick to follow up the news of the email with a press conference assuring the public that his relationship with Preckwinkle is a friendly one. Regardless, someone’s got his eye to the future. Quick Rahm, your seasoned politician paranoia is showing. For better or worse.

Suprise, Suprise Hey! You have till the end of this note to guess who the UofC tapped to head a new community arts initiative. (Hint: It rhymes with “Geaster Thates”). $3.5 million dollars from the John S.

and James L. Knight Foundation will go towards the “Place Project,” a development plan that will bring “artists, designers, urban planners, and policy experts” to cities including Detroit and Gary, Indiana for the repurposing of abandoned spaces as locations for art and cultural projects. A 2,500 square foot space next to Washington Park’s Arts Incubator will serve as the Project’s headquarters, but partners in each city are expected to “localize” their approaches to development and, of course, attracting investment—something the Project’s appointed czar excels at. (Answer: Theaster Gates) Trauma Center Campaign This Monday, protestors from activist organization Fearless Leading by the Youth (FLY) chained themselves to fences at a UofC Hospital construction site on 56th and Cottage Grove, inaugurating a “week of action” in support of an adult trauma center at the UofC medical center. UCPD officers forcibly removed the protestors without any arrests. On page 14 in this issue, we interview Veronica Morris-Moore, a leading community organizer with FLY who protested and was forcibly removed on Monday. ¬

IN THIS ISSUE a look at lsc data

repurposing

The most important overton elementary numbers coming out of CPS announced a plan the local school council to repurpose the fifty school buildings closed elections. last year. sharon

a cps closure,

a corner store

lagunitas comes

redmoon

one year later

documentary

to town

“We’re just Mollison now, and these are all my babies too.”

We are shown empty storefronts, wilting vegetables, and shots of the Chicago skyline from afar.

What is the ideal curve itself of a beer belly?

A dozen record players blasted tunes ranging josh kovensky.......11 from the symphonic to the cacophonous.

out-spectacles

patrick leow...............6

lurye.............4

olivia adams............7

grassroots

an interview

student advisory

gurl don’t be

a guide to

david boykin

unionism

with veronica

council

dumb at forever

summer programs

remembers sun ra

“I just want to be a person—the spokesman of all the kids—and make a change, and be the voice of them.”

and always

“It’s no secret the labor morris-moore movement is getting its “We feel like it’s immorass kicked.” al to give a racist inethan stitution the first black currie...........13 president’s museum.”

sarah claypoole....14

olivia adams..........15

rachel lazar..........10

jake bittle..........12

Everything from dance It was like crashing an classes to computer coding, zoology to math intimate party. help. emily

lipstein.....16

“Everything in the universe is vibrating, even though we can’t hear it.”

bess cohen.......17 wednesday quansah.........19

LSCs by the Numbers A quantitative look at last month’s Local School Council voting data

BY SHARON LURYE

O

n April 7 and 8—report card pick-up days—public schools in Chicago held their biannual elections for local school councils, or LSCs. These councils hold real power: they approve the school’s budget, develop the annual School Improvement Plan, and approve the selection and retention of the principal. So how many community residents came out to vote for these council members?

To find out, we crunched the numbers on two datasets provided by CPS: one that listed the number of votes that every candidate got, and one that listed the number of voters at every school. These are the most important numbers coming out of the election results, released at the end of April.

Note that not every school has provided the number of voters or the final vote tally to CPS yet, so both datasets were missing some schools.

The dataset with votes-per-candidate listed 497 schools—474 with traditional LSCs, and thirty-two with appointed councils. The other dataset listed 479 schools. Basically, take these reported numbers with a grain of salt.

Traditional local school councils consist of six parents, two community members, two teachers, one non-teacher staff member, and, for high schools, one student representative. Community residents and parents can vote for the parent and community reps (they can cast their ballot for up to five candidates total), while teachers and staff vote for their respective reps, and high-schoolers select the student representative.

Only the parents and community residents get a definitive say on who their representatives are—the Board of Education appoints the other positions, so the elections for the teacher and staff positions are just non-binding advisory polls.

Some schools, including military academies and some run by the Academy for Urban School Leadership (AUSL), have local school councils that are entirely appointed by the board (the military academies have a board of governors). For these schools, the election results are completely non-binding, and in seven AUSL Teaching Academies, there wasn’t even a poll—the principal recommends every candidate.

181,341

Total number of votes tallied so far for all candidates in every school.

46,284

Number of voters who were parents or community residents.

14,572

Number of voters who were teaching staff (teachers can vote only in their own school).

96.6

Average number of parent and community members who voted per school.

32%

Proportion of schools with fewer than six candidates for the parent representative (schools with no candidates are not counted). For schools that have enough candidates for a quorum, the council will vote to fill the empty seats; for other schools, there will be another election in May.

special thanks to melissa sanchez of catalyst, who obtained the election results from cps through a freedom of information act request and kindly shared that data with the south side weekly, and to the office of local school council relations, which provided the data on the number of voters.

4 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

¬ MAY 21, 2014

15%

Proportion of schools with only one candidate for community representative (schools with no candidates were not counted).

Schools with the most parent or community voters: Sutherland (907) Lakeview High School (863) Morgan Park High School (663) Gary (642) Lane High School (572) Taft High School (531) King High School (529) South Shore International High School (516) Castellanos (513) Kellogg (444) Schools with the most candidates (all positions): Farragut High School (34) Skinner North (28) South Shore International High School (26) George Westinghouse High School (26) Juarez High School (26) Beasley (25) Stem Elementary School (24) Von Steuben High School (24) Belmont-Cragin (23) Roosevelt High School (23)

70%

27

Proportion of schools in the top ten for voter turnout that are on the South Side.

Number of schools where post-election challenges have been filed.

The final results will be decided by May 30.

One Year On

EDUCATION

On the first anniversary of the CPS closures, a Bronzeville elementary school grapples with the successes and challenges of a testing year

BY PATRICK LEOW

A

nother spring day begins at Bronzeville’s Mollison Elementary School. Two blocks away, a seventh grader yanks at the arm of his little sister. She’s insisting on picking a palmful of yellow flowers for a friend’s birthday, but her brother knows the consequences for arriving after nine o’clock. They scurry in, just in time.

Inside, they’re greeted by Principal Kimberly Henderson, dressed down in a grey Mollison P.E. t-shirt. Squatting on her haunches for the kindergartners, she greets each of the children who passes through, then heads into her office to start the school day. As her cheery “Good morning, Team Mollison” over the P.A. system transitions into a drone of announcements about impending tests and visiting book fairs, Ms. Takyra Flowers instructs her eighth grade reading class to continue with their semester-long research projects, preparing them for the work they will see next year in high school. The girls scramble up from their seats, chattering as they make for the district-provided gray iPads by the side of the classroom.

In the arterial hallway that runs through the front of the school, Ms. Linda Thomas, one of two first grade teachers, gathers her charges. On this particular Friday, the first and second graders are going on a field trip to the Brookfield Zoo, located fifteen miles west of the city. The culde-sacs, wooden forests of Brookfield are a change of pace for these roughly 100 kids, most of whom will have spent their entire lives in the blocks immediately surrounding Mollison, a dense center of activity on what is otherwise a quiet stretch of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.

But these kids are all seven or eight years old, and there are more immediate treats in store today. After all, there are monkeys at the zoo. “There are monkeys!

I’m going to see monkeys! I LOVE monkeys!” one boy exclaims to a friend, now just as excited. “I love monkeys too!”

Despite Mollison’s strapped budget, Principal Kimberly Henderson has tried to create a college-going culture in the school.

I

’ve spent three months at Mollison Elementary, speaking to school leadership, teachers, and parents, and I have seen the Mollison community work tirelessly to maintain a sense of normality in the midst of a year of upheaval. Academic success, student safety, and cooperation between the principal and parents remain sacro-

sanct goals, even if the challenges of the past year have presented themselves on a scale Mollison has never seen before. On the first anniversary of the school closures, it’s time to ask: how exactly was an otherwise unremarkable school like Mollison impacted by this huge change?

In the past twelve months, Chicago

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has closed fifty elementary schools that it deemed “underutilized” and a drain on district finances. The closings have had a disproportionate impact on the city’s South and West Sides, which has led to accusations that Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his appointed school board have failed to adequately care for the plight of Chicago’s MAY 21, 2014 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 5

African-American population.

Overton Elementary, long a mainstay of the Oakland neighborhood and a ten-minute walk from Mollison, was one of those closed schools. Its 431 students were left to find alternative educational accommodation for the next school year. The vast majority of them made their way to Mollison, their designated welcoming school, whose population grew from 237 to 510.

The new and unpredictable challenges associated with the drastic increase in population are compounded by a litany of familiar worries. Money remains tight, given the district’s high-profile budget deficits, with the extra funds designated to ease the process of school consolidation due to expire after just one year. There’s also never enough space. One of the school’s proudest after-school programs is its association with the Joffrey Ballet Company. The room they had dedicated just for dance last year was turned into a classroom, so eighth graders must push the library tables to the side twice a week to make room for their dance lessons.

O

n the second floor of the school, thirty boys in the sixth grade have their heads bent in clusters of tables, working together on a word search centered on the themes and characters present in Brown vs. Board of Education.

It’s not all quiet, and there’s a tension in the air. The two fastest groups of five are promised chocolate at the end, a prize tantalizing enough to focus most of these active twelve-year-olds. But some within the classroom still have bigger problems with group work, and need reprimanding or closer supervision from Ms. Amanda Hurst, a fresh college graduate in her first year in Mollison.

Each Wednesday morning, instructors from the citywide Umoja Student Development Corporation come to this sixth grade class to lead rigorous courses designed specifically to prepare these students for college. For most of the spring, the curriculum has been dominated by seminal events in black history. This week’s focus on educational equality and progress is timed especially well, coming just two weeks before the nation marks the sixtieth anniversary of the Supreme Court decision to outlaw segregation in the nation’s public schools.

“Did you find Earl Warren?” One boy’s voice rings through the chatter, reaching a crescendo as the groups inch closer to the 6 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

¬ MAY 21, 2014

end. The reply soon comes. “No, but this is the 14th Amendment right here in the corner!” The five closest to the door leap up in triumph, and those who missed the remaining clues (Topeka; equality) explode in minor recriminations.

The conversation meanders toward a lengthy discussion on the adverse psychological effects associated with school segregation. One shy boy hesitatingly reads aloud from a PBS overview of the landmark decision that struck down legalized segregation in the nation’s public schools, urged on by his teachers when he stumbles over the word “unconstitutional.” A

dent for the rigors of college is unlikely to be well-received by students who struggle with the basics.

“My higher-performing students have not shown the growth we wanted them to show this year. What that says to me and my staff is that we have to differentiate our instruction, to challenge them,” Henderson says.

However, that desire to push students to a higher level is stymied by an acute lack of resources. There’s a hint of exasperation in her voice as she rattles off a series of hypotheticals: “Do I have the staff to challenge them? Do we have the resources to

“I just want us to move away from the political argument, from whether we agree or disagree. It is done, and I’m here to do the best I can in my situation. These disagreements take up too much of our time and energy.” classmate speaks glowingly of the progress made in this bygone era: “There were black schools and white schools, and then they stopped being unequal!”

Today, Mollison is ninety-nine percent black, and more than four-fifths of its students qualify for reduced price lunches.

Most of Mollison’s sixth graders will go on to the nearby Wendell Phillips Academy High School. In 2013, about thirty-nine percent of Phillips’s students graduated from high school in four years, compared to a statewide rate of eighty-three percent.

Of that pool of graduates from Phillips, just slightly over half will make it into college at all, and another half of those will graduate with a diploma. If those trends hold, only three of these boisterous boys are likely to make it into the working world armed with a college degree.

Principal Henderson has been at the school for two years, and she is acutely aware of the odds that her charges face. For one, the students she receives differ greatly in their individual aptitudes, and making sure that an education at Mollison works for each student is particularly difficult.

Work that is designed to prepare a stu-

do that? Where do you get more challenging, more advanced work from?”

She insists that these are not problems unique to Mollison. Principals in cashstrapped schools around the city are also similarly bound by the opposing demands of providing advanced work and remediation within the same classroom.

But Principal Henderson is unfailingly optimistic. She smiles when she recounts the deep hope she holds in her sixth grade classes. The sixty-one boys and girls constitute what is currently the highest performing grade level in her school in both reading and math, as measured by the midyear Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) assessments mandated by the state of Illinois’ move to a Common Core curriculum in 2010.

Thirty seventh and eighth graders participate in Spark Chicago, a national program that provides apprenticeships throughout the city. Principal Henderson explains that this early exposure to the workforce has untold benefits for her “sparklers,” both academically and socially.

Despite the school’s strapped budget, Principal Henderson has tried to create a

college-going culture in the school. It’s impossible to go two steps in Mollison’s hallways without seeing yet another university pennant, and there are college weeks, where teachers sign up to explain the benefits and attractions of going to their own alma maters.

The recent transformation of the school’s academic culture has had noticeable results. At the end of the 20122013 school year, one year into Principal Henderson’s tenure, Mollison gained a much-coveted Level 2 designation from CPS, an improvement from its long-held status as a Level 3 probationary school.

Moving away from the lowest possible rating has provided a shot in the arm for the school, and both the principal and staff are fiercely determined to hold onto those signs of progress.

I

t’s March, just two weeks before spring break, and there are three inches of snow on the ground. Twenty parents and teachers pack into the school library for the monthly Local School Council (LSC) meeting. They unpack Subway sandwiches for an early dinner.

To some particularly vocal parents within the LSC, the influx of Overton students has been handled shamefully by those in power. They believe that the neglect of Mollison after the closing decision is part of the school board’s racist agenda against black families like theirs.

Irene Robinson, long a mother and now a grandmother of Mollison students, is especially piqued. Today, conflict erupts over the proposed summer addition of several mobile units to provide extra rooms for classes and extra-curricular activities in a school where space is now at a premium.

Raising her voice, Robinson situates the school’s current plight in the context of CPS failure. “The board does not care about our children. If they did, they wouldn’t have closed our schools!”

Jeanette Taylor-Smith, president of the LSC and the mother of two Mollison students, ups the ante further. She compares the proposed solution to Mollison’s lack of space to Chicago’s infamous Willis Wagons, referring to the 1961 decision to add portable classrooms to overcrowded black public schools instead of more systematically desegregating the wider public school system.

“This bullshit would not happen up north! I’m tired of being the only voice of reason that says our black kids deserve bet-

EDUCATION ter.”

To parents like Taylor-Smith, the addition of Overton students to the settled and steadily improving Mollison Elementary has been a disaster. These changes have taken a physical toll on her.

“This year’s been chaotic. Hectic.

Overwhelming. It’s ten times worse than I thought it was going to be.” Trembling and tired from the stresses of the year, Taylor-Smith explains why she continues to feel so strongly about a political fact that she realizes is unlikely to be reversed.

“There’s no connection between 125 S. Clark [CPS headquarters] and 4415 S. King Drive [Mollison’s address]. They don’t have a clue. They’re too busy looking at us on a spreadsheet.” She went even further than fingering bureaucratic neglect

as the cause of what she sees as Mollison’s difficult year. To her, CPS under the leadership of CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett is actively undermining the efforts of parents like her in schools like Mollison.

“It’s sabotage. It’s like you’re throwing a grenade in the school, and the LSC are the people who are targeted and made to fix it.”

Taylor-Smith reserves her strongest emotions for the sense of cultural loss that has come with the closures. She was a Mollison student herself, and the closures meant the erosion of many things she held dear.

“The district isn’t taking into consideration that this is the only neighborhood school within a long range that people are bringing their kids to because of that repu-

tation for being a family.” Her voice cracks, and she takes a deep breath. “But that reputation is ruined. It’s totally ruined. It is so ruined.”

P

rincipal Henderson is sympathetic to the parents’ impression that this year has been a drastic departure from the way Mollison was run in the past. She lets on that this has not been an easy transition for her either.

“It really feels like I’m in my first year at this school again, because the two years have been so drastically different from each other,” she says. “As far as setting expectations, creating the learning environment that we want to have in our school, we had to really start almost all over again.”

But Henderson rejects the sense of

doom prevalent in the LSC, and she explains that it is all too easy to exaggerate the scale of the challenges associated with combining the two schools.

“We’re not integrating earthlings and aliens. It wasn’t that severe. Their cultures were not very different from one another.”

Instead, in a peppy flourish, she focuses on the benefits of having more students attending the school. “We have kids now.

We’re a vibrant school! We have to turn people away. I would much rather be in that position.”

First grade teacher Ms. Thomas is one of three teaching staff who came over from Overton and stayed the entire year. Having worked in both places affords her a perspective not available to many parents. To her, their criticisms are founded only on an

Refilling an Empty School One man’s vision for the future of Bronzeville’s Overton Elementary

BY OLIVIA ADAMS

W

here the empty Overton Elementary School building now stands on 49th Street between South Indiana and South Prairie avenues, Royce Cunningham sees a model of environmental consciousness within an urban community: one part produce market, one part office or gathering space, and one part museum of Bronzeville history. If realized, the Bronzeville native and founder of the Bronzeville construction management firm Architectural Services Group says that Overton will be one of the first buildings of its kind on the South Side: a marriage between high-tech sustainability and community involvement.

In March, CPS announced a plan to repurpose the fifty school buildings closed last year, inviting community members to propose plans subject to approval by their respective aldermen. In this first phase of the process, which CPS is calling “Competitive Redeployment Phase,” only firms whose proposals are approved by the aldermen will be allowed to bid on the buildings.

CPS has emphasized community involvement in the approval process to assure that the buildings are not simply sold to the highest bidder, but according to CPS representatives, the buildings will be sold to “the highest bid among proposals that satisfy the designated criteria for each site.” If the Board of Education does not then approve the sale, a school can be re-advertised

as available for bids.

A member of the Bronzeville Community Action Council and the Grand Boulevard Federation, Cunningham is one of many community members with big plans for how to make these buildings serve their communities in new ways. According to the website that CPS has launched to facilitate the repurposing process, proposals include a community center, a boutique hotel, and additional parking for a hospital.

Cunningham envisions taking the building off the electricity grid, and hopes it might surpass self-sustainability to provide energy and produce to the neighborhood. He hopes to take advantage of the extensive window surface area of the building to develop a vertical garden, which could produce fresh crops year-round.

“Instead of going to Jewel or Trader Joes once or twice a month and buying a whole two carts of food that’s maybe two weeks old, [Bronzeville residents will be] coming here and purchasing a head of lettuce that’s no more than a couple days old. So that means that the incidence of some of these chronic urban diseases—high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, start to nosedive. It’s going to make the University of Chicago Medical people not happy—it’s gonna hit them in the pocketbook,” Cunningham said, laughing.

Additionally, he hopes to incorporate education-

al elements into his final design in order to bolster the Overton’s new role as a community hub and tourist destination. He also sees it as a chance to replace young people’s involvement in gangs and violence with education and jobs.

“Most of these kids…have never seen that many black professionals. They probably haven’t seen a college professor or engineer—they see police all the time —lawyers, or rocket scientists, or some of the other professions that some of us have had the fortune to be involved in. So, they need to see us,” said Cunningham.

A representative of 3rd Ward Alderman Pat Dowell’s office, under whose jurisdiction Overton falls, confirmed that several groups have approached the alderman about the school, but no official proposals have been submitted, not even the Architectural Services Group. Further, Cunningham has not yet secured the initial $10 million investment that he estimates will be required to fund the plan. Because of this high cost, he has some apprehension about the alderman’s approval of such a plan, but remains optimistic.

“Normally, [at] four o’clock two years ago, there would be a thousand kids, and another thousand parents, so this would have been a community hub,” Cunningham said of the Overton building. “And we want to turn it back into that.” ¬

MAY 21, 2014 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 7

incomplete picture of Mollison.

“The members of the LSC are here, but they’re not actually here every day.

They understand just bits and pieces, parts of the puzzle. I know it’s hard. It was always going to be hard during the first year.”

Instead, she offers up unvarnished happiness at the way the school managed to include her within the larger Mollison family. “Overton was my home for twenty-one years. It was going to be hard for me,” she says. “At first, I felt like I was going to be the stepchild, like Cinderella. But when I came, everybody was welcoming, everybody just opened their arms.”

She credits the ease of that integration to Principal Henderson. Thomas refuses to accept the LSC’s vocal criticism of the way in which the school closures were handled.

“As a teacher, I know what Mrs. Henderson does. She’s doing a fantastic job. She’s with us, she’s in the trenches with us. I don’t understand the LSC’s perspective of what’s going on in this school.”

Principal Henderson hopes that the day will soon arrive when everyone associated with Mollison stops thinking of it in relation to the school closures, a day when she can just focus on finding common ground with parents in pursuit of their shared goal of ensuring that their kids get the best education possible.

“I just want us to move away from the political argument, from whether we agree or disagree. It is done, and I’m here to do the best I can in my situation. These disagreements take up too much of our time and energy,” she says.

She ends her defense of the past year with an impassioned plea for cooperation in the future. “We all want to be focused on what we can do best for these kids.

We’re just Mollison now, and these are all my babies too.”

I

n the past year, the biggest upset at Mollison did not come from any long-standing political disagreement.

On March 31, the school gained citywide attention after an eighth grader, Leon Bell, was arrested after he brought a loaded gun to school and sent pictures of himself with it to two friends. Charged as an adult because he had a previous record, Bell currently faces one count of unauthorized use of a weapon on school grounds.

Principal Henderson was the one who

-“There’s no connection between 125 S. Clark and 4415 S. King Drive. They don’t have a clue. They’re too busy looking at us on a spreadsheet.”

8 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

¬ MAY 21, 2014

discovered the pictures, almost by accident, when she was checking another student’s cellphone for pictures for something else.

Nearly a month later, she still found the unwanted publicity difficult to deal with.

“It was devastating to me. It was a traumatic experience for me as a principal.”

Intent on making sure that her students understood the implication of Bell’s decision, Principal Henderson reached out to the Chicago Police Department to bring its Gang Resistance Education and Training (GREAT) program to Mollison.

At the end of April, a class of eighth grade girls lobbed question after question at Officer Beamon, a police officer in a baby blue uniform with tightly cropped hair, representing the GREAT program at Mollison for the first time. Beamon had

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MEMORIAL

First grade teacher Ms. Thomas is one of three teaching staff who came over from Overton and stayed the entire year. never interacted with this class of twenty-eight girls before, but she quickly established a rapport with a group that was intimately familiar with the specter of violence in their communities.

Slowly searching through the recesses of her memory, a student told the class about a murder she had seen in Bronzeville in the recent past. “This girl, she was in the neighborhood,” she began. “She was up by the front door, she was smoking a cigarette. Some people just came up and started shooting at the house, and she got shot in the back. She died.”

The sympathy was unmistakable in Officer Beamon’s voice. “God bless her soul. That’s horrible.”

“You know what? I work with a lot of kids,” she said to the group. “I know y’all go through stuff that kids elsewhere don’t go through, that adults in their sixties and seventies never experience.”

She also took the opportunity to rail against the idiocy of bringing signs of violence into the school, gently informing a girl who thought of Leon as a friend that

what he did was simply stupid.

“On bringing guns to school, I have a complete zero tolerance, because things could have gotten real bad, real fast with that one. Whatever is going on in his mind where he thought it was okay to bring a gun to school, he needs to be evaluated.”

Principal Henderson tries to paint this an isolated incident, not in keeping with the culture she has tried to build within the walls of her school. “It’s one child who made a mistake. It’s not indicative of our school. I shudder to think that a child in my building feels it necessary to have a gun, but no one was hurt.”

After all, a school can only do so much to tamp down the violence present in the wider communities of which it is a part.

When Bell slipped a gun into his backpack that Monday morning, Taylor-Smith suspects it was likely in response to the gang territory he had to pass through to get to school rather than any threat he was going to face once within Mollison’s walls.

Principal Henderson beseechingly underlines the difference between the

street and the school. “Our neighborhoods and the violence that happens is not about CPS, and people need to separate the two.

People need to recognize that, instead of blaming everything on the school system, because that’s not fair.”

On this, Taylor-Smith finally concurs. “He’s just a kid. He made a mistake.

His mother is scared. They’re just trying to make an example out of a kid, and they shouldn’t.” She sighs, and tells me that she and the members of the LSC will be there during his day in court to support his mother.

T

hat spring Friday morning, Principal Henderson’s rundown of the day’s announcements goes on. It goes on above a tinny Solange song from the gymnasium, where the eighth grade girls have congregated in groups of three or four, twisting, dancing, smiling, and waiting for P.E. class to start.

It goes on above the quiet swish of a janitor’s mop, signaling the end of breakfast—egg and turkey sausage, stuffed into

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a breakfast burrito—for those who qualify and who arrive before nine.

“Attendance has been great this week.

Ninety-seven percent of you came to school on Thursday. I am peacock proud!” Principal Henderson continues, over a girl’s grumbling at being caught with a too-short skirt. “Do you really need to call my grandmother?”

Three minutes pass. The first and second graders have stepped out in single file and loaded themselves onto three bright yellow school buses. Teachers have shepherded latecomers into classes, and now there is nothing but belated quiet in Mollison, nothing to disturb Principal Henderson as she speaks.

“There was a thunderstorm earlier, and I hope you all got into school safely.”

It’s the end of the school’s spirit week, five days dedicated to celebrating their collective pride in Mollison Elementary. “But as we all know, after the rain comes the rainbow.” ¬

MAY 21, 2014 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 9

FILM

Corner Communities A Palestinian filmmaker reveals the complex relationship between an Arab-American shopowner and his Englewood customers

BY RACHEL LAZAR

T

he organizers of the Chicago Palestine Film Festival prefaced their screening of Amina Waheed’s Corner Stores with a warning: “We are committed to showing films which start conversations, even if they generate controversy.” Waheed’s film is a portrait of Palestinian refugee Falah Farhoudeh, who owns a corner store in Englewood and is known to his customers and friends as Abu Muhammad.

Farhoudeh is one of many Arab shop owners in the predominantly black area—besides Palestinians, there are also populations of Jordanians and Egyptians—but his store stands apart as a community hub. Tensions between the Arab-American shop owners and the black South Side communities they serve attracted attention from outside the neighborhood with the 2010 release of Mikkey Halsted’s wrathful single “Liquor Store.”

But it was the screening’s second film, Under the Same Sun—a cartoonish portrayal of an Israeli-Palestinian business partnership that manages to inspire a peaceful two-state solution—that drew controversy and criticism. The films were likely paired together because, in the broadest sense, they deal with similar themes: the way economic interaction presents both risks and opportunities for connection across cultural and political divisions. Under the Same Sun served as a reminder that there are real stakes to the representations of these divisions, even when they are fictional.

Viewing the two films in sequence brought the achievements of Waheed’s into relief: Corner Stores is hopeful, but (unlike in the second film’s politically questionable fantasy) its hope is embodied in the way Farhoudeh and his customers act and speak, while nonetheless acknowledging the relative bleakness of 10 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

¬ MAY 21, 2014

their circumstances. Without commentary, we are shown empty storefronts, wilting vegetables, and shots of the Chicago skyline from afar. “It’s about not forgetting you’re in Chicago,” Waheed said in an interview. “Also to show that we’re not too far from these epic city centers where all the big money goes.”

In Halsted’s song, corner stores are depicted as oases of junk in a food desert (“For breakfast they serve us flaming hot Cheetos and honey buns / No wonder why we die so young”) staffed by hypocrites (“If he follow the Qur’an, why the fuck he sell bacon?”) and exploiters (“You a leech on the black neck”). This negative portrayal generated some positive press: the song was mentioned in a report from National Public Radio on the Inner City

Muslim Action Network (IMAN) and their “Muslim Run” campaign, an initiative that seeks to address racial and ethnic tensions as well as unhealthy food options at these South Side stores.

Ongoing since 2007, the campaign was selected last month as a delegate agency and partner of the City of Chicago in their citywide Healthy Corner Store pilot project.

Waheed is knowledgeable about the political and economic context of the specific story she’s telling—she was introduced to Farhoudeh by Shamar Hemphill, IMAN’s Youth and Organizing Director, whom she worked with in Englewood after graduating from college. It was while working on the South Side that Waheed became interested in

journalism. “I was hearing incredible stories in Englewood, stories of perseverance. I was really inspired,” she says.

She began producing “audio portraits” in Chicago before traveling to the West Bank for several months. There, she encountered many documentarians, and her work “started to become more of a reality.”

Once in graduate school for journalism at University of California, Berkeley, Waheed began thinking about a project that would investigate the “intersections of communities,” focusing on Yemeni-owned corner stores in Oakland as examples of the “nodes where [communities] meet.” In a follow-up Q&A at the Chicago Palestine Film Festival, she said Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing inspired

BEER

her to provoke a “raw conversation about race.” But her research in Chicago led her to make a different kind of film.

“Before it came to be about Abu Muhammad, it was also in large part about how the immigrant communities came to take over some ninety percent of the businesses,” says Waheed. “They used to call it the Black Wall Street, with predominantly African-American business owners in these black neighborhoods. I was digging and looking into it, but I thought this was more interesting.”

Waheed’s experience working with the community enabled her to observe the subtleties of the present-day atmosphere created by these historical trends.

“So often as journalists we parachute in on stories. And there’s a balance: sto-

Waheed introduces us to Farhoudeh’s neighbors. Peaches, a local rapper, talks about a store that’s far different from Mikkey Halsted’s. The owner of a local barbershop recites the Arabic swear words Farhoudeh has taught him.

Charles, an employee of Farhoudeh’s, describes how his boss generously helped him clear his record. Near the end of the film, Farhoudeh locks up the store and goes to pick up his daughter. “You’re constantly negotiating people’s boundaries, and a lot of that comes from building trust,” Waheed says. “Eventually I said, ‘This is an important part of your life.

Let’s meet your family.’”

When his wife is introduced, it’s a bit of a reveal: “It’s really special when [the audience is] not expecting it. This

“You’re constantly negotiating people’s boundaries, and a lot of that comes from building trust” ries need to be told somehow. Sometimes you parachute in, but it always is a lot better when you keep up with stuff. It means more to the community when you do that,” she says. “Remaining objective, but embedding yourself.”

The history and politics are mostly present as undertones in Waheed’s final work. The majority of the film consists of footage from Farhoudeh’s life at the store—he watches the news in Arabic, jokes with his customers, allows them to keep tabs and pay him back later. Waheed’s camera moves around the small store, scanning the shelves or recording from behind the counter. “He just sort of went about his day,” Waheed says. “We were honest with each other. I could tell when he was tired of having me carrying my camera.”

Farhoudeh’s strong relationships with his customers also helped assure them that Waheed was not putting them in any danger. “People are always a little wary, because they associate the camera with law enforcement. Even when customers were scared of the camera, he would make a joke out of it,” Waheed says. “He would say, ‘Yeah, she’s with the police, better watch out for her!’ They would laugh, and I would explain who I was and keep filming.”

Arab corner store-owner has an African-American wife, married into the community. It actually happens more frequently than we’d think,” Waheed explains. The couple initially connected over their shared Muslim faith, and we see Farhoudeh praying and watching the latest news from Palestine. His wife explains that he is often glued to the TV, but that it does not bother her: Farhoudeh has no immediate family other than her and their children, and following the Palestinian story is a way for him to maintain a connection.

One audience member at the festival asked whether Waheed believed that Farhoudeh elicited respect and friendship from his customers because they knew he had a black wife. Waheed’s reply—“it matters and it doesn’t”—was a reminder that the real story is always more complicated. We can try to fit Farhoudeh’s narrative into one we already recognize, with an ending we understand. We cast him as the hero who makes the crucial gesture, healing a divided community.

But Corner Stores confronts and resists these attempts to treat its subjects as symbols; a dynamic, it seems, Abu Mohammad and his customers also engage in with one another. ¬

For Whom the Beer Tolls Lagunitas brings West Coast beer to the South Side

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BY JOSH KOVENSKY

hat is the ideal curve of a beer belly? At what angle of flesh is it clear that fizz, hops, and good taste came together to form the abdomen that says, “I know good beer?”

Lagunitas Brewing Company knows the answer, and they have the guts to sell it to you. I visited their budding beer plant in Douglas Park last week, where they started production last month on their first batches of beer from east of the Rockies. Lagunitas has been brewing out of Petaluma, California for the past two decades, and decided to open a plant in Chicago to spearhead their Midwest and East Coast distribution. Full journalistic disclosure: I was given Lagunitas beer on my tour, and have purchased it outside before and since, so I cannot be said to be a removed observer.

Karen Hamilton, director of PR and sister of Lagunitas’s founder and beer poobah Tony Magee, was my guide. “Consistently good” is the phrase she uses, with a self-satisfied smile, to describe the Lagunitas product. She notes that the Douglas Park plant is automated by the same processes (and with the same German-made equipment) as its sister factory in California. That way, in true corporate overlord fashion, “Lagunitas can be the same everywhere you go.”

The factory itself is located in an old warehouse left behind by Ryerson Inc., a steel company. The thing is cavernous; it looks more like a facility for nuclear missile assembly than booze brewing. Funnel-shaped fermentation silos tower from floor to ceiling. Employees ping around the equipment, dodging welders (half of the factory is still under construction) and lumbering around the hallways.

But back to the beer bellies. There are two kinds of male employees at the Lagunitas factory: those with beer guts now, and those in the midst of earning them. The former tend to be scraggly and bearded, veterans of decades of beer consumption.

The latter are young, extremely goateed, and clearly imbued with enough missionary zeal for the product to be well on the

road to achieving that fleshy curved coast of gut that screams “taste.”

To that end, the factory’s atmosphere itself is probably boozy enough to blow away whatever dignity it has on a breathalyzer. A humid hops smell makes the air stuffy and swampy. The security guard said that he finishes a case of beer a week as a perk. The building’s lounge, whose vomit-colored walls and Wayne’s World posters have a certain dorm-room chic, offers a bottomless tap of the four Lagunitas flavors produced at the Chicago factory: India Pale Ale, Pils, Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’, and DogTown Pale.

This is not to say, however, that the workers don’t take their jobs seriously.

The operations center, located behind one welder whose torch, as Hamilton languidly pointed out, “might blind me,” features a computer-screen setup of the whole production process. The digital tubes and hoses tangled onscreen look more like the result of a sadistic intestinal doctor than a fine-tuned production chain, but, according to Hamilton, advanced engineering degrees are required to maintain the whole thing.

There, Hamilton and I conversed a bit more about Lagunitas and the new factory.

In addition to the tsunamis of beer that are being unleashed on the Midwest and the Eastern seaboard, the plant will also feature a drink house come this June. Lagunitas will offer factory tours to the public, and space will be available for rent to private parties at a nominal fee. The company’s beers, produced onsite, will flow straight from the fermentation vats through filtration to the tap.

And that beer is solid. It tastes good.

The employees know it and the owners know it, too. And, thanks to those highly self-satisfied and slightly tipsy employees and owners over in Douglas Park, maybe you will come to know it and profit from it over the years in the form of a ruddy face, a stunted intellect, and a well-rounded abdomen. ¬

MAY 21, 2014 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 11

THEATER

All the Stage’s a World Bellboys, Bears, and Baggage at Redmoon

BY JAKE BITTLE

W

hen I first arrived at Redmoon Theater’s enormous warehouse for a preview of their new show (or, as they call it, their new “spectacle”), director Blake Montgomery confessed he was “a little nervous” about my walking through the two-story, dozen-room set. This set, which viewers have the privilege of exploring at their leisure over the course of a night, is what makes Bellboys, Bears, and Baggage “like no other,” according to associate producer Will Bishop. When I arrived Bishop warned me that parts of the show’s world were in “various states of completion.” Nevertheless, he agreed to take me on a tour, with the lights on, through Redmoon’s “environmental exploration” of love, loss, and bitter Shakespearian regret.

The moment we entered the enormous central room, a record player turned on, apparently of its own volition, and started playing a haunting strain of music. As a technician came over and turned it off, Bishop explained to me the central premise of the show: the audience can drift from room to room in the warehouse, but will always follow a central story (derived from Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale) that concerns two masked characters and their troubled romance. Bishop cautioned, however, that there was no single way to witness this story.

“I don’t think there is such a thing as misunderstanding [the show],” said Bishop.

“We start our devising process from large thematic ideas, like abandonment, loss, and regret. And I think there’s going to be enough going on that you’ll get that… But beyond that, we don’t want to tell you what to feel about those ideas, or even what the story is.”

12 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

¬ MAY 21, 2014

courtesy of al zayed/redmoon

We made our way through the warehouse’s various rooms: a forest (more or less finished), a schoolroom (half-finished), and a chapel (utterly unfinished). In each of these rooms, explained Bishop, there was to be a scene that viewers could choose to watch or

not watch.

“The audience can follow characters and track the story, or just explore,” said Bishop.

“There are all sorts of interactive opportunities for people to come in and have an experience that isn’t story-based at all.” He showed

me a small alcove at the end of a long maze on the second floor where, if one were feeling bold or romantic, one could sit down with a fellow viewer and open up a bottle of wine.

As we wandered through the maze, Bishop pointed out a fridge that would soon hide ice

LABOR cream and drawers full of jellybeans which would lie in wait for curious audience members. These details, which Bishop claimed made Bellboys, Bears, and Baggage an immersive and open universe—ice cream hidden in refrigerators, notes hidden in drawers— were, as of my preview, nonexistent.

Bishop and Montgomery, however, seemed confident that the show would pull itself up by its bootstraps by the time I saw it a week and a half later. Excitedly, Bishop finished the tour by telling me about the rogue bears (inspired by The Winter’s Tale’s famous stage direction, “Exit, pursued by a

ing chairs, taxidermied moose bearing the names of famous Shakespeare characters, and random bottles of drinkable wine), it’s almost impossible to tell what is going on in the main story; had Bishop not informed of its existence, I would have been hard-pressed to admit that there even was a story.

However, as one spends more time in the show’s universe (and it is a universe, bizarre and full of surprises) its secrets and intricacies become more available. A machine with many, many moving parts, Bellboys often encourages and rewards attempts to break the fifth wall between actors and

William Shakespeare scattered flower petals from a tower in the center of the room; bellboys milled about picking up luggage and depositing it in the hands of unsuspecting audience members bear”) that were going to run around the set and wreak havoc on both actors and audience members.

“We just want to present to you an opportunity to reflect in the context of a larger experience that you create,” he explained. “[We tried to figure out] how to do an indoor show that challenges audiences to become empowered and make choices in the way our outdoor work does.”

The freedom that Bellboys, Bears, and Baggage gives its audience was, ultimately, the element that managed to hold the whole thing together. When I entered the central atrium one week later for the opening night performance, I found it vastly changed. A dozen record players blasted tunes ranging from the symphonic to the cacophonous; giant screens displaying bear paws hung from the ceiling; William Shakespeare scattered flower petals from a tower in the center of the room; bellboys milled about picking up luggage and depositing it in the hands of unsuspecting audience members. The audience is thrown into this madhouse with hardly the slightest indication of where to go.

Even once one chooses from the dozen-odd rooms and tries to peer in on a scene, Bellboys proves hard to grasp. One is just as likely to stumble into an empty room as a room with a scene unfolding within it. There is no available chronology, and, except for one room (wherein an actress either recites Shakespeare soliloquies or sobs madly), the masked actors and actresses playing the main couple do not utter a single line. Even if one follows a particular pair of actors through the rooms (all of which had been adorned with exceptional decorations, like hang-

audience: bellboys will often impart secrets about a scene’s meaning if asked, and sometimes drawers and tables contain notes that flesh out the action of other rooms’ scenes.

If you knock on a door labeled “DO NOT DISTURB,” a bear opens the door and motions for you to go away. Inspecting labels on walls and baggage exposes one to keywords that color the otherwise opaque scenes with thematic meaning: “loss;” “to err is human;” “regret;” “time heals all wounds.”

Indeed, for Bellboys, time does heal all wounds, or at least makes some things clearer: if one hangs around and revisits particular rooms, the patterns of misfortune that the show’s lead couple face become visible. The minutiae encountered in one room compel one to revisit another. But when one does, one is met only with a corrupted version of a scene already played out: perhaps there are two male characters instead of just one, or perhaps a woman in a bed has been replaced by a polar bear. It’s possible for one to leave Redmoon feeling like one has no more idea what is going on than one did when one entered, but that’s part of the show’s cultivated chaos. That’s why there are bears running around chasing characters into rooms, and why there are pianos and jellybeans scattered throughout the space: in Bellboys, the audience does not receive the story—they create it. Redmoon Theater, 2120 S. Jefferson St. Through June 8. Thursday, 7pm-9pm; Friday-Saturday, 7pm-11pm; Sunday, 6pm-8pm.

Audiences enter every half hour. $15-$30.

(312)850-8440. redmoon.org

The Long March of Teamster Reform National Organizer Ken Paff tries to keep hope alive at URI-EICHEN Gallery

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BY ETHAN CURRIE

ewter clouds hang heavy on a chilly Saturday afternoon as disgruntled Teamsters and union sympathizers file into URI-EICHEN Gallery on 21st Street.

They’ve come to listen to National Organizer Ken Paff speak about the Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU), many of them roused by the growing cynicism invading the organized labor movement.

A new member starts off the meeting: “Working inside UPS, ya wonder if there’s a union at all,” he says. Many in the room nod in agreement. “We just can’t afford to be this apathetic.”

Benjamin Kline is a recent addition to the growing ranks of TDU, but he echoes the sentiment that pulls many traditional Teamsters into this reform movement.

TDU began in the late seventies as a response to the increase in organized crime within the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT)—the fourth largest union in the U.S. and the umbrella organization of TDU—and to a sense that union leadership was becoming increasingly apathetic to the interests of ordinary members. A self-described grassroots organization, their overarching mission is to reestablish Teamster power. And in recent decades, they have become among the most significant voices in intra-union politics, spearheading the landmark victory in the 1997 UPS contract disputes.

Such victories, though, have been few and fleeting.

“It’s no secret the labor movement is getting its ass kicked,” said Ken Paff, the guest of honor at the event, who spoke for about twenty minutes about TDU, the labor movement, and what’s in store for the future. “We got corrupt leadership in D.C., and the old guard protects its interests.”

Twenty or so people are crammed into

the small gallery space. As they pass a wicker basket with donations, Paff tries to fire up the party solidarity he considers key to any success in the labor movement.

“Victories, big and small, are always the result of the rank-and-file,” he says. His voice is loud and passionate but sounds rehearsed; it’s the kind of stump speech that draws its force from the reaction of the audience, who today seem ready to be inspired by anything.

TDU draws its members from the same sources as the larger IBT: the truck and delivery drivers, food distribution personnel, and construction and warehouse workers whose blue collar labor can’t be outsourced. And in recent years, especially since the recession, these folks have taken hits in everything from paychecks to benefits and hours.

The most recent contractual dispute, once again with UPS, was a hot topic at Saturday’s event, and the less-than-optimal outcome of those disputes fired up the natural rebelliousness of those present. Many took issue with the IBT itself, whose personnel were in charge of handling those negotiations.

Paff used the moment to push for political consciousness in upcoming union elections. “We are a political party within the union, and in 2016 we get an election,” he reminded the group. “We want to change this, replace the leadership with militant, progressive leadership, put new direction into America’s strongest union.”

Audience members seemed optimistic about the chances for reform in those elections, but, as Paff acknowledges, “It’s only victory—and that means better pay, better benefits, better hours—that brings people to our side. All the hardship, that underdog feeling, that fighting the good fight, all that is baloney if you don’t deliver the goods. And we gotta start delivering again.” MAY 21, 2014 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 13

TRAUMA CENTER

Understanding Power Veronica Morris-Moore on organizing and the continued fight for a trauma center

BY SARAH CLAYPOOLE

V

eronica Morris-Moore became involved in community organizing as a high school student, when she attended the U.S. Social Forum in Detroit with other South Side teenagers. She began working with Fearless Leading by the Youth (FLY), the youth offshoot of the Woodlawn-based Southside Together Organizing for Power (STOP) shortly afterwards. In 2010, FLY co-founder Damian Turner was hit by crossfire from a drive-by shooting near the University of Chicago Medical Center, but could not be treated there because the UCMC has no Level 1 adult trauma center. He was instead taken to Northwestern University Hospital, where he died. Four years later, Morris-Moore discussed the campaign—spurred by that loss—to bring a trauma center to the South Side. This week, FLY and the other organizations that compose the Trauma Center Coalition are staging a week of protests, rallies, and other events to advance the campaign and build awareness about the area’s need for a trauma center. On Monday, Morris-Moore, along with another FLY member and six UofC students, sat chained in protest to the UCMC’s construction site at 56th and Cottage Grove. They were forcibly removed by University Police a few hours later.

What’s the hardest part of this kind of political work for you? Do you ever get demotivated?

Of course. Very recently, actually, the University of Chicago held an event, “Maximizing Community Health Benefits,” and Sharon O’Keefe [President of the UCMC] was right there, two feet away from me. I approached her and tried to ask her for a meeting, which we’ve been asking for for four years now, and that’s the closest I’ve ever been to her. She tossed me to this guy, said that he was the person I could talk to. Times like that make me feel hopeless. At the same time, 14 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

¬ MAY 21, 2014

I also understand that my power isn’t in moving the University. My power is in moving young people and moving parents and moving educators in our community.

In that, I’ll move the University. Part of my power is also getting the young people to understand that, because I think they get more hopeless than we do.

What methods, political and otherwise, do you use to effect change?

Something that is very important in FLY is giving people the opportunity to speak. When politicians make the decision to spend a hundred million dollars on convincing the President to put his library here, they don’t ask taxpayers if they want that. Even when decisions are made in our schools, there’s not a meeting or a survey of the student body. It’s just done. At FLY, we try to reverse that way of learning. We ask, “What is it that y’all want to do about this issue? What is it that we want to do to change this?” We also educate people on the politics that they don’t understand and train them on the tools they can use to change. We’re in the thick of things, actually moving, actually doing things in the community— not just discussions. We have a strong organizing presence because we want to actually create that change. We don’t want somebody else to do it for us.

What causes violence on the South Side?

There’s a very simple answer that a lot of people like to overlook because there’s so much politics involved, but it’s economics that causes violence, especially on the South Side of Chicago. With the housing crisis and then the job crisis, we began to see more kids being involved in gang activity. Their parents were being laid off and losing their homes, so their kids all of

emma labounty

a sudden had to find some type of income at fifteen, because they didn’t have parents to provide [for them] and they didn’t have places to go, like schools.

Even now, we’re seeing the deaths of youth increase along with the closing of schools, along with the closing of libraries, along with the cutbacks of programs inside our schools, the closing of mental health clinics. As all of these things continue to happen, we see violence continue to worsen, especially among our young people.

To me, that is because of the histo-

ry of black people in this country: we’ve adapted to the surroundings that we’ve been placed in. Young people are making income where there is no income,through alternatives like selling drugs or being paid snipers. That’s what young people have to resort to because there aren’t enough jobs or volunteer opportunities that lead to jobs. There’s also not enough access to mental health treatment. They’re just out here, and they’re making a lot of decisions that they’re being judged for, but nobody’s really trying to help them.

That turns into anger that you have

EDUCATION

to have all these responsibilities at this age and you’re being judged for them. So now you don’t care who you hurt or what you hurt—all you care about is making sure the people you care about are good, and making sure that you’re sustaining the lifestyle that you choose to live.

What have you learned from the trauma center campaign so far?

The most important thing I’ve learned is that you never, ever stop fighting. Even if you win, there’s always another fight because the issues that we face are big.

There isn’t a trauma center on the South Side because the University couldn’t afford it and they had to shut theirs down in 1988; that’s what they say in the paper.

But the real reason is that too many un-

seum. Why do they deserve the prestige and the honor of bearing that name and hosting that library? If anybody benefits from that Obama library, it should be an institution that cares about the voices of young black people and is devoted to the preservation of black life. That’s the goal for the next month, along with always raising awareness about the fact that there are no [Level 1] trauma centers on the South Side even as the South Side continues to see trauma daily. We are not being treated for that trauma, mentally or physically.

Over the next year, we would love to see a trauma center on the South Side or at least talks, planning, or a feasibility study from the Illinois Department of Public Health. We need to bring them to the table more often because they play

My power isn’t moving the University. My power is in moving young people and moving parents and moving educators in our community. insured people of color live on the South Side. Economically, it’s not smart in a capitalist society for an institution like the University to provide that type of care.

I’ve learned that in order to impact society and make a change, we have to always be causing hell on the political tip.

We have to always be educating ourselves on the different methods that are used to keep people poor. Once we educate ourselves, we have to educate our people.

Once we understand society, we can inspire people to change or help people find the things they want to change and help them develop their leadership to accomplish change.

What’s next for FLY? What are you hoping to do or change in the future?

In the next month, we want to weaken the University’s bid for the Obama library—not because we don’t want the library on the South Side, but because we feel like it’s immoral to give a racist institution the first black president’s mu-

a role in this, too. Also, we’d like to get our elected officials on the same page— to have them understand that we’re doing this because this is what the young people feel needs to be done. We need to be calling people out more because if we’re not doing that, we’re allowing the public to continue to be blind, and we’re not doing our job as far as educating the community.

Also, we’d like to be more involved in schools. Maybe in the next two years, we’ll have an after-school program which youth can come to even if they don’t want to come to the FLY program itself. Also, we’d like to create a political education curriculum for young people. A lot of young people encounter these institutions and these practices in society and they don’t know what it is or what to call it, so they don’t know how to navigate through it without coming out broken by it. That’s what happens. Young people living in the city go through things a kid living in the country probably wouldn’t have to go through. ¬

A Student Voice for CPS Newly formed Student Advisory Council aims to expand student input on district policies

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OLIVIA ADAMS

aynard Gillespie is a nineteen-yearold junior at Camelot Excel Academy of Englewood. He’s frustrated with the public perception of CPS, as well as of his neighborhood. “It’s a lot of kids that go to this school, that actually want to change their life, and people just come to Englewood and just think it’s supposed to be bad people, people that steal, shoot,” he says. “I just want to be a person—the spokesman of all the kids—and make a change, and be the voice of them.”

Raynard is a member of CPS’ Student Advisory Council (SAC), a seventeen-member council that the district hopes will expand opportunities for student input into CPS policies. District CEO Barbra Byrd-Bennett announced the council’s creation last November, and it has met officially on a monthly basis since February.

“What we want to accomplish is to have representation of student voice, student involvement at the table so that [the students] influence initiatives that we at the central office are designing,” says Myetie Hamilton, deputy chief of staff to Byrd-Bennett. “The CEO wants to use this as an opportunity to support, develop, and mentor our students as well.”

Students on the council are divided into small committee groups, which meet twice a month to develop plans on topics that include restorative justice, college and career readiness, and negative portrayal of schools in the media. Advised by senior employees at CPS, these committees research policies that can be implemented and tested at their own schools, and present their findings to Byrd-Bennett and the rest of the council at each month’s general meeting.

Raynard stresses that it’s the responsibility of the council’s student members

to develop solutions for problems facing the district. Byrd-Bennett’s leadership team “help[s] us by providing information, gathering information so that we can bring it back to the CEO, and so I can go to places and resolve issues that’s going on in CPS,” he says. “It’s our job to just find solutions and bring it back.”

Raynard’s committee group discusses community violence, and has worked on developing guided group interactions (GGI) and peace circles to foster student conversations about violence. Students at Excel have already started doing GGI, weekly thirty-minute sessions where they can express their anxieties, frustrations, and concerns about violence in the neighborhood. Lauren Huffman, a deputy press secretary for CPS, says that the program may be expanded to other schools, depending on its success at Excel.

“It helps us,” says Raynard. “Like, the mood changes. Some people might be mad, and it’s like, ‘Hey we’re going to GGI,’ and when they come out, they’re happy.”

Much of Raynard’s interest in the SAC revolves around his desire to serve as a role model for his neighborhood and family. He says his brothers are in gangs, but his younger sister follows his lead.

“By her seeing me get up every morning at about five o’clock to go to school, and by me going far, she looks at me as a role model.”

Raynard also says that his experiences on the council have inspired his classmates to think more about their own connections with CPS. “They’re very happy. Every day when I come to school and I dress up, they’re like, ‘Where are you going? I wanna meet Ms. Bennett, I wanna be a part of it.’ ” MAY 21, 2014 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 15

VISUAL ART

Shotgunning a Beer in Panties “Lit Up” at Forever and Always

BY EMILY LIPSTEIN

I

t was like crashing an intimate party.

People would just reach into the fridge— covered in magnets and shopping lists and art—and pull out a can or two of Busch Light. There were boxes of the stuff stacked in the kitchen by the recycling bin and mostly-empty cans piled together inside an ornately carved fireplace.

Forever and Always Projects is an experimental community center/exhibition space/ unassuming townhouse on a quiet residential street off of Cermak in Pilsen, and is probably the last place you would expect to see empty cans playing neighbor to boxes of Cheerios and kitty litter. But mostly everything I saw at “Lit Up” was unexpected.

“Lit Up” is the newest exhibition put on

by GURL DON’T BE DUMB, the curatorial duo of Eileen Mueller and Jamie Steele.

GDBD brings together artists who break free from the accepted and stuffy art-world establishment and plunge freely into fun ideas and otherwise rejected spaces. As described on their website, “just picture a corn dog bathed in a pink neon glow: that’s [GURL DON’T BE DUMB].” The neon pink glow is greatly present throughout the exhibition space at Forever and Always. Pink fluorescent bulbs replace white incandescents in fixtures all over the room, bathing everything in a warm, but alienating rosy light.

The exhibition features photographs printed on vinyl that Mueller and Steele took while on a summer residency at ACRE (Artists’ Cooperative Residency and Exhibition) in rural Wisconsin. Most of the pieces are in black and white, but all are given a pink wash from the tinted light bulbs illuminating the rooms. Walking in, you’re greeted by a print of a topless woman, dripping in beads of sweat, throwing back a can of Busch Light. Opposite this, another print features the same person and the same action; this time she turns her back to the lens and wears a towel around her neck and lacy women’s underwear. These are “Mother and young son 16 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

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found drowned (No.1 & 2).”

Between the two prints is a small television showing a short film called “Beer Darts,” in which Mueller and Steele, outfitted in jeans, white t-shirts, and sunglasses, sit in lawn chairs facing each other in front of a forest. They throw darts at a can of, yes, Busch Light that sits at their opponent’s feet.

When they run out of darts, a man smoking a cigarette rushes between them to return the weapons to their masters. When one of their darts finally hits the other’s can, she shotguns it and stomps it flat.

“Lit Up” plants ideas in the viewer’s head without directly presenting them in the pieces. A large print of “1. The Bush, 2. The Light Beer” is mounted above the couch and covered in suggestions of human presence: a bike, a camera, and a pile of assorted clothing are discarded alongside the bank of a small pond in the middle of a green and blooming wood. It looks like the ultimate boyhood summer scene, but this is assumed from the objects alone. Where are the people? And how do we know that they are boys, or if the one person there is a boy? Is it the bicycle? Is it the discarded briefs? Or is it the outdoorsy, ruggedly natural scene?

The poses and activities shown in Mueller and Steele’s photographs are decidedly “bro” while the people and settings are not.

There is beer everywhere. There are powerful poses and aggressively male actions. A funnel with tubing attached (also known as a “beer bong”) hangs on the wall near the front of the house and is featured in a print called “The fountain”: a woman’s lips wrap around the end of the hose; she poses majestically in front of a field of wildflowers with one knee to the ground while holding the mouth of the funnel up to the sky. The piece next to it, entitled “Claire,” shows a feminine woman on a huge motorcycle. Her blonde hair, pale skin, and shining motorcycle create a bright contrast with the darkness of the woods behind her. Everything is still tinted by the pink

lighting. The composition of the art and the exhibition that houses it creates this binary contrast between soft, delicate femininity and assertive masculinity.

This phenomenon of suggesting without telling is described perfectly by Forever and Always on their website: “GDBD is Jamie and Eileen making contact with playful material, creating relationships of mischievous viewership and interaction, and inviting everyone along for the ride—shotgun.” GDBD

seems to weave this gender-binary and product placement-esque Busch Light narrative throughout Forever and Always, but they never say outright whether or not this is the correct narrative, or even the one you should be following: all you’re left with is an obsession over whether or not your constructed narrative is the right one, your panties in a bunch, and the taste of Busch Light on your tongue. ¬

SUMMER

From Farming to Fitness: Not Your Average Summer School Chicago City of Learning presents summer camp opportunities for kids on the South Side COURTESY OF CHICAGO CITY OF LEARNING, EDITED BY BESS COHEN

W

ith summer fast approaching, we’re all thinking about how we will while away the scorching days ahead. The South Side Weekly turned to Chicago City of Learning for opportunities available to kids this summer. CCoL is the collaboration of over one hundred organizations that have put together summer programs for kids throughout Chicago. These programs include everything from dance classes to computer coding, zoology to math help, and take place everywhere from museums to parks, churches to libraries. Here we highlight a few of the programs available on the South Side this summer. To learn more about these and other programs available, go to explorechi.org.

Tumbling into Fitness seeks to educate students regarding the health risks associated with obesity, the lack of regular fitness and exercise, and the lack of a proper diet.

Students will learn basic tumbling skills, conditioning and flexibility exercises, and strength training. The teens will also study nutrition and learn how to create meal plans for themselves and their families as they learn to further evaluate, compare and contrast their current daily menus with their new meal plans. Hands-on activities include a field trip to the Museum of Science and Industry and an on-site workshop with a registered dietitian. The program will culminate in a night of games and activities for families and health exhibits made by the students.

Registration Deadline: June 10 Tumbling into Fitness, Foster Park, 1440 W 84th St. June 26-July 31, Tuesday-Thursday 10am-2pm.

Teens in the Museum Docents of the Future program will learn about African American history by exploring the museum’s archives, exhibits, and programs.

Teens will learn public speaking, writing, public relations and marketing, and program planning. Some of the topics to be discussed include: African American Folk Art and Slavery; African American Art

After Emancipation; African American Art and the Chicago Renaissance; The Harlem Renaissance; African American Art and the Civil Rights Movement; African Women Artists; and Collecting African American Art. Registration Deadline: June 10 Museum Docents of the Future, DuSable Museum of African American History. 740 E. 56th Pl. June 26-July 31, Monday-Thursday, 9am-2pm, (773)947-0600.

The Chicago Botanic Garden program offers students the opportunity to learn all aspects of organic farming, from planting seeds to managing a hive of bees; from cooking with the food they grow to selling it at farm stands and markets. Students also participate in outreach and team building activities.

Chicago Botanic Garden Program, Washington Park, 5200 S. Hyde Park Blvd. June 26July 31, Monday-Thursday, 9am-2pm.

In the Sewing at Calumet program, students will explore the wonderful world of sewing with simple, fun and easy projects that get you started – or, for advanced sewers, get tips from the instructor. No experience is needed. Just bring your enthusiasm and love of learning.

Registration Deadline: June 21 Sewing at Calumet, Calumet Sewing Room at Calumet Park, 9801 S. Avenue G. June 21-August 23, 9am-12pm, play@chicagoparkdistrict.com, (312)747-6039.

Dance Discovery is designed to help teens who are interested in the performing arts enhance their self-expression, public speaking, teamwork skills, and explore dance through different styles such as ballet, Jazz, African, Afro-Haitian, hip hop, and ballroom. Each session is planned to include activities such as dance making, dance literacy, interpretation and evaluation and making connections. The final product will be a dance performance where teens showcase the skills they have developed throughout the program.

Dance Discovery, Kenwood United Church, 4608 Greenwood Ave. June 26-August 1, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday, 12:30pm4:30pm, (773)373-2861.

The South Chicago Art Center’s Talking Chairs Sculptures Summer Studio Series will challenge students to learn visual art techniques in painting, drawing, sculpture and other mediums. This class focuses on wood sculpture and uses design elements of paint, marker, and yarn.

Talking Chairs Sculptures, South Chicago Art Center, 3217 E. 91st St. June 30-August 3, Monday- Thursday, 3pm-5pm. (773)7319287. info@happyartcenter.org.

The WITSummer Early Childhood Program helps ensure students enter kindergarten ready to succeed! Students will work with community volunteers individually and in small groups to explore folk tales through engaging activities intended to

inspire curiosity and wonder while boosting critical language and emerging literacy skills.

WITSummer Early Childhood Program, 2710 S. Dearborn St. June 26-July 31, Monday and Wednesday, 9:00-11:15, (312)4226202, christineD@witschicago.org.

Yollocalli Arts Reach’s Difusion Media Journalism Training will train youth in journalism with a focus on creating, producing and publishing through digital media formats: blogs, podcasts and videos.

Students will create original, culturally relevant media in a setting that encourages peer collaboration.

Registration Deadline: June 23 Difusion Media Journalism Training, Little Village Girls and Boys Club, 2801 S. Ridgeway Ave. Thursday, 2pm-5pm. (773)5211621, yollocalli@nmmart.org.

With AeroStars Aviation Exploration program, students will soar into a new awareness of the aerospace industry and how it impacts our everyday lives. Teens grasp hold of real world practical applications of science and take on projects to discover the rich history of aviation, and do hands-on experiments and activities, from building kites and model airplanes to flying Flight Simulators and designing their own airports. Participants will also meet industry professionals, as take field trips to places like local airports, aerospace businesses, aerospace museum exhibits and the Chicago Air and Water Show.

Registration Deadline: June 10 AeroStars Aviation Exploration Program, Kenwood Academy High School, 5015 South Blackstone Ave. Monday-Thursday, 9:00 am-1:00 pm, (773) 535-1350. MAY 21, 2014 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 17

ARTS CALENDAR VISUAL ARTS GRATIFICATION

Have you ever wondered why cherries are sexy and grapes are not? Food metaphors pepper our language, describing our relationships (peas in a pod; apple of your eye) and identities (smart cookie; cool cucumber). Sometimes food represents sexual desire (strawberries; whipped cream).

Other times it stands for racial and cultural stereotypes (crunchy granola; spicy; cracker; white bread). Artists Molly Hewitt, Annelies Kamen, Jedediah Johnson, Billy McGuiness, Leonard Suryajaya, and Hyounsang Yoo interrogate food and its place in our language and culture in this upcoming show. Mana Contemporary, 2233 S. Throop St. Rm. 410. Opening reception May 23, 6-9pm.

Friday and Saturday, 12-5pm.Weekdays by appointment.

Free. (312)850-8301. manacontemporary.com/chicago. (Kalil Smith-Nuevelle)

Special Gentlemen’s Time with Paul Hopkin

“Some might think bathroom salad tossing distasteful, but they will change their minds when they witness [Paul] Hopkin’s delectable vegetable arrangements!” Who could resist such an invitation? Slow, an exhibition space that exists somewhere in the realm between apartment gallery and commercial venue, has a new showroom. The aptly named “Loo” is located in Slow’s bathroom, and its inaugural exhibition will be “Special Gentlemen’s Time with Paul Hopkin.” The show will feature watercolors and ceramics by Paul Melvin Hopkin. Loo’s curator, Jeffrey Grauel, advises art connoisseurs to bring cash, because the pieces will be priced to sell, and sell fast. As a bonus, there will be a preview of artwork from Slow’s upcoming collaboration with Sideshow Theatre Company, don’t trust the floor. Go, enjoy the art, but maybe skip that salad.

Slow, 2153 W. 21st St. Chicago IL. June 6-end date TBD. Opening Reception, June 6, 6-9pm. Saturday, 12-5pm. Free.

(773)645-8803. paul-is-slow.info (Wednesday Quansah)

Ruthless Powers

The dead are rising at the antena project space in Pilsen.

Artists Liz Born and Victoria Martinez will use dead plants, trash, and roadkill to attempt to answer the question, “How does a body become a monument?” Their works address decayed bodies, both architectural and biological, and the footprints they leave behind in the world of the living: the exhibition will feature portrayals of abandoned buildings, artificially preserved corpses, and the like. Born makes chiefly woodcuts, while Martinez creates found object assemblages that are inherently narrative. Art creates life, death creates life, and life creates art and death creates art. antena, 1765 S. Laflin St. Through June 13. Saturdays, noon-5pm. Free. (773)3403516. antenapilsen.blogspot.com (Emma Collins)

Continuum

Prospectus, an art gallery in Pilsen that chiefly features Latin-American art, will be displaying a collection of works by artist Ginny Sykes, created from 1993 to 2013. Sykes’s approach to art is multifaceted: she makes collections of abstract paintings that are tied together

by common color schemes, public murals and mosaics, and even an outdoor sand installation called “Healing Grounds.” Prospectus will curate a selection of her work, in what is sure to be a vibrant and varied show.

Prospectus Art Gallery, 1210 W. 18th St. Through June 27. Wednesday-Sunday, noon-5pm; Monday-Tuesday by appointment. prospectusartgallery.wordpress.com (Emma Collins)

Shovel, Spoon, and Braid

What happens when a trio of artists relocates to a rural valley in central Wisconsin? An upcoming show at ACRE, “Shovel, Spoon, and Braid,” answers this question, and explores themes of sustainable living in intentional communities and coexistence with natural environments. Artists Adam Wolpa, Josh Hoeks, and Charlotte Wolf are collaborating for the show: Wolpa and Hoeks will be displaying visual evidence of their radical lifestyle change, including carved wooden spoons and diagrams for rural construction projects, and Wolf will be showcasing her photography, which documents the relationships of women to natural environments. ACRE Projects, 1913 W. 17th St. Through June 9. Sunday-Monday, noon-4pm. acreresidency.org (Emma Collins)

Model Pictures

Artist Ross Sawyers built and subsequently photographed scale replicas of unfinished model homes, (in)complete with holes in the walls and plastic in the windows. The photographs presented in “Model Pictures,” his first major Chicago solo show, highlight current housing and economic crises by way of images of these unfinished and empty new houses.

Haunting and uncanny, the model model homes bridge the surreal and the (unfortunately) real. Unlike life-sized abandoned model homes, though, Sawyer’s models are swiftly destroyed after their insides are documented. Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 S. Cornell Ave. Through June 13.

Monday-Thursday, 9am-8pm; Friday-Saturday, 9am-5pm; Sunday, noon-5pm. (773)324-5520. hydeparkart.org (Katryce Lassle)

speculationscapes During May and June, Jekyll&Hyde in Hyde Park will host “speculationscapes,” a group show focused on critical inquiry about the world in which we live. The exhibition will explore landscape, seascape, and cityscape as the media for intellectual scrutiny by bringing together the architectural expertise and creative vision of a talented group of artists. “speculationscapes” inquires about the role of high-density human impact, relationships between machines and their makers, and light events such as the existence of widespread laser beams in landscapes.

Featured pieces will include dark spaces paired with food coloring and leafless flowering stems. “speculationscapes” promises to deliver a unique and speculative approach to the surroundings we inhabit. Jekyll&Hyde, 1227 E. 54th St. Through June 7. Gallery open by appointment. (773)691-9541. jekyllhydepark.tumblr.com (Arda Sener)

WHPK Rock Charts WHPK 88.5 FM is a nonprofit community radio station at the University of Chicago. Once a week the station’s music directors collect a book of playlist logs from their Rock-format DJs, tally up the plays of albums added within the last few months, and rank them according to popularity that week.

Compiled by Andrew Fialkowski and Dylan West Artist / Album / Record Label 1. Klauss Johann Grobe / Im Dinne Der Zeir / Trouble in Mind 2. Swans / To Be Kind / Young God/Mute 3. Frankie Cosmos / Affirms Glinting / s/r 4. Krill / Steve Hears Pie in Malden and Bursts into Tears / Exploding in Sound 5. The Spies / The Battle of Bosworth Terrace / Siltbreeze 6. Animal Lover / Guilt / Learning Curve 7. Oozing Wound / Retrash / Thrill Jockey 8. Habibi / Habibi / Burger 9. Ought / More Than Any Other Day / Constellation 10. Agalloch / The Serpent and the Sphere / Profound Love 11. Eyehategod / Eyehategod / Housecore 12. The Wet / The Wet / Tall Pat 13. Archspire / The Lucid Collective / Season of Mist 14. Eternal Summers / The Drop Beneath / Kanine 15. Careful / The World Doesn’t End / Circle Into Square

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STAGE & SCREEN Chicago Home Theater Festival

Home is where the theater is. The Chicago Home Theater Festival, now in its second year, has been kicking around the city all month. Now they’re closing out a month of theater-filled kitchens, rooftops, and dining room tables with a “3-Home Tour of Pilsen” and a party in the South Loop. On May 24, in Pilsen, artist and choreographer J’Sun Howard will host an evening of acts across the neighborhood, featuring performance artist Alexandria and multimedia video artist Alfredo Salazar-Caro as well as Isabelle Collazo, Katie Graves, Christopher Knowlton, and Cristina Tadeo. South Loop group David Hannibal & maxmotion will close out the festival the next day on May 25, hosting an improvised jam session promising a cross-discipline, cross-cultural celebration. A festival designed to bring together art, activism, scholarship, and their often underrepresented practitioners, Chicago Home Theater seems ready to go out with a bang. Locations vary. May 24-25. $10-$15.

See website for tickets and event details. chicagohtf.org (Meaghan Murphy)

Tatsu Aoki: Visions x Sounds

Film and music come together in Chicago artist Tatsu Aoki’s soundscape work. For over thirty years Aoki has blended the two mediums together in experimental and diaristic films, which seek to explore the world at its everyday level. As a composer and musician, Aoki has recorded over one-hundred albums in a range of styles, from traditional Asian styles to jazz and experimental.

He is joined by sound creator and composer Jonathan Chen and Jamie Kempers at the UofC’s Film Studies Center, where they will present and perform Aoki’s films Puzzle III and GATE. Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St. Friday, May 23, 7pm. (773)702-8596. filmstudiescenter.uchicago.edu (Meaghan Murphy)

Chicago Freedom Summer 2014

This summer marks the fiftieth anniversary of Freedom Summer, a momentous moment at the heart of the Civil Rights Movement. The Social Justice Initiative at UIC, in partnership with several Chicago organizations, is taking up the task of commemorating that watershed event. The three-day Chicago Freedom Summer 2014 conference will look both forwards and backwards, featuring a keynote speech by SNCC cofounder Julian Bond, conversations with participants in Freedom Summer, and sessions that address contemporary problems in social justice and organizing. The conference will also host the Chicago premier of the new PBS documentary Freedom Summer from filmmaker Stanley Nelson. UIC Student Center West, 828 S. Wolcott Ave. May 28-30.

Free, donations accepted. Registration and event schedule online. (312)355-5922. chicagofreedomsummer.org (Rachel Schastok)

Jacob

“And Jacob was left alone, in his luxurious high-rise in downtown Chicago.” Timothy Gregory, actor, director, playwright, founding artistic director of Provision Theater, and host of HGTV’s New Spaces, has wondered what every Chicagoan with a luxurious high rise wonders when looking from their sweeping windows at the bustling Loop below: what if I were to wrestle with an angel until the breaking of the day? From this, he brings to us Jacob, a new production at Provision Theater that brings Genesis’s tale of Jacob wrestling the angel to a modern Chicago.

Therefore, to this day, the people of Chicago do not eat the sinew of the thigh that is on the hip socket, even when piled beneath dripping peppers in Italian beef sandwiches. Provision Theater, 1001 W. Roosevelt Rd. Through June 15.

(312)455-0065. provisiontheater.org (Isabel Ochoa Gold)

M. Butterfly

David Henry Hwang’s Tony Award-winning play, M. Butterfly hits the Court Theatre to close out the season.

An arresting reimagining of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly through a post-colonial lens, Hwang’s play chronicles the affair between French diplomat Bernard Boursicot and the male Chinese opera singer Shi Pei Pu. Under the direction of Charles Newell at Court, M. Butterfly takes an aggressive look at sex, espionage, and imperialism. Hwang is a masterful and adventurous playwright, and he offers a deconstruction of his source material’s Orientalist angle that is both playfully imaginative and downright powerful.

Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis Ave. Through June 8. See website for show times. $15-$35. (773)702-7005. courttheatre.org (Shanice Casimiro and Meaghan Murphy)

MUSIC 100 Saxophones for Sun Ra

Sun Ra, famed jazz musician and bandleader, claimed he was a member of an angel race from the planet Saturn.

This Thursday, curious listeners can judge for themselves whether or not the music seems otherworldly. The event is a commemoration of Sun Ra’s one-hundredth birthday organized by jazz musician David Boykin, one of this year’s three artists-in-residence at the Arts Incubator.

One hundred saxophonists will gather to play “Happy Birthday” at the Washington Park Forum, where Sun Ra was a fixture in the fifties. More information on page 19.

100 Saxophones for Sun Ra, 5531 S. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. Thursday, May 22, noon-1pm. Free. (773)702-2787 arts.uchicago.edu (Wednesday Quansah)

Henderson Berlin Chambers

Scott Henderson, Jeff Berlin, and Dennis Chambers lend both their names and their talent to the fusion supergroup that is Henderson Berlin Chambers. The trio is considered one of the most phenomenal groups in jazz-fusion history, and each member adds their own unique flavor to the music. Henderson is a well-known guitarist in the jazz-fusion genre, while bassist Jeff Berlin is a celebrated solo artist and Chambers has flaunted his stylistic drumming in many famous ensembles. Their debut album, HBC - Henderson Berlin Chambers, hit record stores on October 2012 to much acclaim. The band’s combination of high energy and versatility, in addition to accompanying band The Zeppelin Jazz Project, makes their fusion masterpieces and live shows even more enjoyable. Reggies, 2105 S. State St. May 27-28. Doors open at 7pm. $25+. Ages 17 and older.

(312)949-0120. reggieslive.com (Shelby Gonzales)

Rembrandt Chamber Players

The eighteenth century meets the twentieth in the Rembrandt Chamber Players’s survey of cross cultural folk music. Made up of seven of Chicago’s premier musicians with guest appearances that include mezzo-soprano Julia Bentley and the Lyric Opera’s principal violist, Carol Cook, the group has a multi-themed approach to classical music. The show will feature folk themed or influenced pieces from across the spectrum of classical music, from baroque to modern. This varied program will include a duo for violin and viola by Mozart, Luciano Berio’s “Folk Song Suite,” and John Adams’ “Shaker Loops.” Don’t miss the septet’s final concert of their 24th season! Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St. Wednesday, May 21, 7:30pm.

General admission $35; ages 18-30 $25; students $10.

(773)702-2787. arts.uchicago.edu (Rachel Seebach)

Maggie Brown’s LEGACY

Maggie Brown, jazz singer, songwriter, and music educator, brings her one-woman show, LEGACY: Our Wealth of Music to the Chicago Theological Seminary for a look back through the storied past of African-American culture and music. The critically acclaimed show spans basically the whole extent of African-American musical experience, from African chant, to early ragtime, to jazz and modern blues. Brown, the daughter of entertainer and activist, Oscar Brown, Jr., has spent the last nineteen years touring. The aim of Maggie Brown’s work is to educate and inform as much as it is to entertain. Armed with a powerhouse voice and a mission to impart the vibrant, rich, and significant scope of a long musical tradition to a wider audience, Brown is a Chicago favorite, and not to be missed. Chicago Theological Seminary, 1407 E. 60th St. June 1. 3:30pm. $5 youth; $20 adults. (773)896-2400. ctschicago. edu. (Jack Nuelle)

Chicago Women in the Blues Festival

A boisterous blues revue is on its way to Reggies in the first weeks of summer. The show highlights some of the best female blues singers in the city and celebrates Chicago’s rich blues history. A rotating cast of performers keeps each show different and will also include various special guests. These women represent a group of powerful voices, instrumentalists and performers. Billed as a mini-festival staged in conjunction with the larger Chicago Blues Festival, this “bevy of blues-belting bombshells” will be sure to keep things proud, loud, and nostalgic in the South Loop. Reggies, 2109 S. State St. June 13, 7pm. $10-15.

17+. (312)949-0120. reggieslive.com/show/chicago-women-blues-festival. (Jack Nuelle) ¬

Sonic Memorial

MUSIC

David Boykin honors Sun Ra and looks ahead

D

avid Boykin, one of this year’s three artists-in-residence at the Arts Incubator in Washington Park, got a late start in the music world.

He only began playing music seriously when he picked up the clarinet at the age of twenty-one. The arrested development of the musician, however, only makes his current accomplishments more impressive: Boykin, who is now forty-four years old, has grown into a highly influential com-

BY WEDNESDAY QUANSAH poser, multi-instrumentalist, and leader of his own jazz collective known as Sonic Healing Ministries.

Boykin describes his collective as a “free jazz storefront church.” When asked if he sees himself as a pastor of sorts in his Ministries, Boykin’s answer is no. “The ritual formalities of church aren’t here. Our intent is about personal spiritual evolution.

We try to recreate the sound of the harmony of the universe. Everything in the

universe is vibrating, even though we can’t hear it. It’s through sound that things come into existence,” he says.

The “storefront” aspect refers to the difficulty of finding a sizable space, or any space at all, in which to perform. Boykin’s residency at the Incubator has now provided him with a studio space, but before this year he was no stranger to the struggle of the working musician. “There are only so many slots open in the music business and

there are more musicians than well-paid opportunities,” he says.

Despite the lack of paying gigs, Boykin has nonetheless emerged as one of the most prominent next-generation jazz musicians currently working on the South Side. This Thursday, Boykin will be playing tribute to Sun Ra, the avant-garde jazz musician and bandleader who famously claimed he was a member of an angel race from the planet Saturn. One hundred saxophonists will gather to celebrate Sun Ra’s 100th birthday with a group rendition of “Happy Birthday” at the Washington Park Forum, where Sun Ra was a fixture in the fifties. Sun Ra espoused what Boykin describes as “astro-black mythology,” which incorporated ancient Egyptian history and culture, occult sciences, and esoteric teachings. These teachings also seem to resonate with Boykin’s own life and work including an upcoming Summer Solstice concert Boykin will lead on the afternoon of June 21, featuring his five-movement composition “Solar Suite: Midnight, Sunrise, Midday, Sunset, and Enocturnal Sun.” The solstice is of key significance to Boykin. “Culturally, I identify my heritage as ancient Egyptian, and we are people of the sun. We see the sun as the life-giver to all on the planet and a source of energy,” he says.

Finally, Boykin will participate in the collective show “Testimony,” the culminating exhibition for this year’s resident artists at the Logan Center from July 9 through August 30. His piece will be a sound installation that comments on drone warfare by blending the testimonies of drone attack survivors into the sound of a drone. “It’s such an unbelievably inhumane, violent, blatantly murderous, and terrorist act being committed by the U.S. government abroad that seems to go unchallenged because it’s killing people other than white Americans,” he says.

Boykin’s outspoken challenge to systems of power shows that his ambitions go beyond pure sound. As he continues to craft his music and his art, Chicagoans should keep their ears open, and listen closely to what this emerging artist has to say. ¬

BY JULIE DRALLOS MAY 21, 2014 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 19

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