Staged Affairs
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WORD: Across Generations
WORD: Across Generations Sunday, January 17 2:00pm – 3:30pm Victory Gardens Biograph Theater 2433 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago Join The Public Square and Chicago Public Radio for WORD: Across Generations with poets Carloyn Rodgers, John Murillo, and Aja Monet. •Carolyn Rodgers (see poem below) emerged from the Black Arts Movement in Chicago in the 1960s…
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Ten Square: play that portrays ‘a different world’
In class recently, I played a piece of audio by Damali Ayo called “Living Flag” in which Ms. Ayo attempts to Panhandle for Reparations: collecting from whites, distributing her change to fellow Blacks. You can listen to the piece here. At the culmination of the piece, I tried to convince my teenage students that the idea…
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Tofu Chitlin Circuit presents the Mac and Cheese Edition
From the Tofu Chitlin Circuit: a Theater Conservatory based in Bronzeville: A Panel Discussion featuring you… Our October A La Carte features J. Nicole Brooks, playwright of “Fedra” at Lookingglass Theater and African-American Illusionist Walter King Jr. We’re talking about SPECTACLE. What is it? How does it work? Is it low-brow theater? Is it a…
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And now, a word from Chicago’s own Lady Terror
Lady Terror (aka Tricia Hersey-Patrick) says she’s a menace on a mission. Terrorizing for a cause. Be it staging a soapbox rant in front of Rothschild’s Liquors (clamouring for more grocery stores) or engaging in impromptu yoga at a Harold’s Chicken Shack (calling for inner city yoga centers for the sake of public health), her…
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Dancing Lesson: Jamaican Import circa 1964
thanks to Mr. Catano for the headsup on this video…. At the bottom of this post, Tony Verity breaks down ska dancing (quite anthropologically, I might add). Byron Lee and the Dragonaires play backup. Plays out a bit like the movie Hairspray, only with a Jamaican twist (the original, of course…John Waters kept it gritty, yet sufficiently…
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Mos Def Performs Billie Jean in Chicago
Recorded at the House of Blues here in Chicago a few days back. It’s Mos Def, and his homage to the gloved one: a fresh interpretation of “Billie Jean”. Somehow, it works. Invention isn’t dead, after all. Jive on!
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What Happens to Words in the Sun?
Quraysh Ali Lansana From Public Square, a project of Illinois Humanities Council, news of a Saturday Afternoon session at Englewood’s Perry Mansion Cultural Center. Mix poetry and conversation across generations, color, and neighborhood lines. Add sunshine and grow… “Join us for an afternoon of poetry, conversation, and sunshine as some of the most prolific and…
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Fame: Cult Movie of the Week
Fame (1980) is one of those movies that makes you wish you lived in a world so filled with youthful fervor that at anytime a group of kids might break into interpretive dance and jump on a cab. We don’t. But that didn’t keep us from cheering for the characters in the film (especially Coco…
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Brave New Voices 2009: Spoken Word Freshness
This weekend is the culmination of the Brave New Voices Youth Poetry Slam Festival. Mindblowing, bone-chilling work from youth that’ll renew your faith in “these kids today”. Check out the Finals tonight at the Chicago Theater, hosted by Chinaka Hodge, and emceed by Chicago Spoken Word legend Kevin Coval: 175 North State Chicago, IL 7pm-10pm general…
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Constant Surprises… Little Dragon in Chicago!
The Swedish electro-soul combo Little Dragon is here in Chicago (for the first time), performing at the famed Kinetic Playground. Yukimi Nagano, by way of Swell Session and Koop, provides bouyant, yet keen lead vocals in this group that worships glitch as fervently as groove. Above, the video for one of my favorite songs from their self-titled debut,…
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