The arts have a way of remaining transcendent even when they indulge in the specific. The four artists currently on display in the Spertus Institute’s Ground Level Arts Lab are all captivating. That they share a common heritage may be instrumental in what and how they create, but what they produce is a gift to …
It’s surprising what can result from realized passions. For the past ten years, Melissa Mallinson and Nicole Gifford have pooled their creative energy to build and mount the Harvest Chicago Contemporary Dance Festival. Both have extensive backgrounds in dance and their annual event gives Chicago a chance to see trailblazing work being created both locally …
We often forget, especially when considering a single individual, that genius can have many dimensions. Although Chicago can boast of being home to some of famed Mies van der Rohe’s most important architectural contributions, there was another side to this modernist master. Known for the sleek majesty of masterpieces like 860/880 N. Lake Shore Drive …
Modernist Elegance Celebrated in McCormick House Read More »
Whether it’s on a wall or on a stage, altering expectations of what creative imagination can look like is what contemporary art is all about. Interested in celebrating how such transformations might manifest from the vantage point of black creativity, the Museum of Contemporary Art’s associate curator Tara Aisha Willis organized a dazzling trilogy of …
MCA Neeson Stage Overflows with Black Creativity Read More »
Since they mounted their first exhibit in 2016, movin’ in the right direction sums up the boldly ambitious goals of an arts collective known as the Floating Museum. The group sees the entire city as a museum and treats each neighborhood as a potential gallery. For the past three years they’ve collaborated with communities and …
Born out of crisis 28 years ago, Dance for Life has become a beloved and perhaps even indispensable Chicago institution. Created to raise funds that would help address the dire health needs of dance community members stricken with the AIDS virus, it’s evolved to provide invaluable assistance to dancers confronting a variety of other health …
One of the jewels of this year’s Chicago Tribune Food Bowl settled in Bronzeville Sunday afternoon. The Food Bowl is one of the city’s newest food extravaganzas with the stated mission of celebrating the entirety of Chicago’s dining scene, from the ever so humble to the ever so grand. The two-week festival features an impressive …
It’s hard to say whether the story of Blue Note Records is the most implausible of love stories or an incredible and fascinating odyssey. The brainchild of a young refugee who discovered and fell intractably in love with an American music form while a teenager in Germany, the Blue Note label has come to represent …
All’s forgiven if it slipped your mind that we have a National Picnic Month. It’s July of course, the most appropriate month of all when summer is at full flower. And perhaps the unlikeliest of suspects has created an ingenious way to celebrate al fresco dining at its purest. For the past few years, the …
Autobiography as performance art can be dangerous territory. Keeping an audience’s rapt attention while recounting the events of one’s life is not the habitat of the ordinary man or woman. But as we saw Friday night at Skokie’s North Shore Center of Performing Arts, Renée Taylor is far from ordinary. Resilient, talented and according to …
Renée Taylor Brings a Taste of Vintage Hollywood to the North Shore Read More »