WBEZ | Alison Cuddy

Latin dance company Luna Negra closes

Wed, 15 May 2013 16:56:00 -0500

Chicago lost some of its Latin flavor this week.

After 14 years, Luna Negra is shutting down. The company, launched in 1999, specialized in cutting edge, contemporary Latin dance from around the world. In-house choreographers, like Mónica Cervantes, were considered “dancers to watch”.

But in March the music changed. Luna Negra had just performed Made in Spain at the Harris Theatre, receiving rave reviews.

Then days later, all the dancers were laid off.

Veronica Guadalupe was one of them. “It was a complete shock,” says Guadalupe, “I don’t think anybody, especially the dancers, were aware of the extent to which the company was in dire straits”

Guadalupe joined the company in 2002, first as a dancer then, after retiring last year, as the company’s associate artistic director.

She says under artistic director Gustavo Ramirez Sansano, the company’s reputation soared.

Sansano left the company abruptly in late April.

And based on Luna Negra’s last tax return, their finances were grounded.

The company’s deficit more than doubled in one year, from $48,475 in 2010 to $121,141 by the end of 2011.

Guadalupe thinks there are other factors at work in the company’s closure. She was surprised there wasn’t more support from Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who is a support of Chicago dance, especially after the layoffs in March.

But Guadalupe also thinks the community didn’t show up.

“You know for being a Latin company, for being the only Latin company here in Chicago, we don’t get any support from the Latin community.”

The company’s tax returns indicate gross receipts from admissions and other items (merchandise sold, services performed, facilities furnished) remained relatively flat, until falling off by about $100,000 between 2010 and 2011.

Luna Negra officials and board members did not respond to requests for comments.

Alison Cuddy is WBEZ’s Arts and Culture reporter. Follow her @wbezacuddy, on Facebook and on Instagram

Searching for sweat-free fashion in Chicago

Wed, 15 May 2013 08:56:00 -0500

The collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory complex in Bangladesh on April 24 continues to make headlines. One of the "worst industrial accidents in the world" is now known to have killed at least 1,127 people.

The event has roiled Bangladesh. There have been worker protests, a number of other factories have been closed at least temporarily, and the owner of Rana Plaza was arrested and faces murder charges.

Those poor labor conditions within Bangladesh’s enormous garment industry have had consequences around the globe. Rana Plaza workers helped supply major European and North American chains, and there’s increased pressure on these companies to help improve safety standards in the global garment industry. Unfortunately, not everyone is getting with the program.

And many consumers, including me, have started to take a hard look at those innocent-looking outfits hanging in our closets or stuffed in our drawers. What, exactly, are we buying into?

Now I’d like to be able to give myself a pat on the back when it comes to sustainable or ethical fashion. After all, I buy the majority of my clothes at thrift or secondhand stores. Yes, even shoes. But I can't say that concern over the clothing supply chain drove me to it. I started thrifting in high school because I wanted to look cool, like my older brother’s girlfriend at the time, Heidi.

Heidi was a madly savvy thrifter, but she was actually concerned about ethical consumerism. She dug up a copy of Diet for a Small Planet by the early eco-foodie Frances Moore Lappé, and stressed the reuse and reduce angles of the holy environmental trinity. She also worried that her Mennonite family had strayed from its social values in favor of conspicuous consumption. Heidi was smart and persuasive, so I kind of paid attention to her ideas. But mostly I made note that replicating Diane Keaton's preppy menswear style in Annie Hall was going to be dead cheap at a church rummage sale.

And so, driven more by the thrill of a good find than a set of good politics, I’ve kept going to the thrift store. But that's not to say I haven’t picked up a few insights along the way.

One way of weeding out the real retro clothing from the Old Navy clones is to take a look at the label. If it says "Made in America" then chances are I’m looking at a garment that dates back to at least the 1980s. Up until then, locally made clothing was easily available. And if the dead-stock price tags I've stumbled across are any indication, it was also affordable. And not just the polyester stuff. We’re talking quality clothes, made from cotton, linen or silk. I often wonder if that's because they were produced simply: I'm struck by how low-tech the actual assembly of many of these garments appears. More than once when I've taken an older dress to be altered, the seamstress has mistaken something factory-made for a hand-sewn garment.

In just a few short decades though, oh, how things have changed - at least if we’re to judge by the stuff current discount retailers such as Forever 21 or Target or "insert name here" are selling.

One of the reasons I stopped shopping at those places is I couldn’t take the increasingly poor quality of the clothes. I kept wondering not just where the clothes are made, but what they’re made from.

These days, new clothes smell so strange, like molded plastic products, made via a chemical-laden process better suited to car or weapons manufacturing. And if elastane and polyamide are just the new synthetic fabrics, why do they feel so flimsy and slip-slidy? Why don't they actually feel like clothing?

They're the garment world's equivalent of mystery meat. And despite my knee-jerk belief that the best clothes are those to be had on the cheap, I’m developing this mad compulsion: To dash into the fashion aisles yelling "Don't (wear) anything your Grandmother wouldn't recognize as (clothing)!”

Okay, who am I kidding? I’m not the Michael Pollan of clothing. I haven’t entirely given up shopping at places like T.J. Maxx or Marshalls. For many of us, especially people with kids, cheap or disposable clothes feel like not just a bargain but a necessity. After all, how many of our salaries have risen alongside the price of Mary Janes or Garanimals?

Still, I'm not alone in wondering how it’s possible to make a T-shirt so cheaply you can sell it for $5. A majority of Americans say they are willing to pay more for clothes made here. Apparently pride in the idea of a homegrown clothing industry trumps even our pocketbooks (wherever they come from).

Unfortunately, even if we want to buy clothes locally, we’d be hard pressed to find them. As my highly unscientific survey of thrift stores confirms, we’ve "offshored" the bulk of American clothing manufacturing, some 98 percent of it, according to many reports.

In doing so, we seem to have traded quality for quantity. But the bigger trade-off is transparency: We can’t see where our clothes come from, who makes them and under what conditions. That’s the hard lesson of the Bangladesh factory collapse. And in an effort to take it seriously, I’ve decided to cut out the disposable clothes and start looking for clothes designed and manufactured right here in Chicago.

If you think that’s easy as pie in the "best country in the world" think again. There are deplorable labor conditions to contend with much closer to home. Recently, both WBEZ and the Chicago Reader have explored questionable labor practices behind some of our most everyday objects. According to the Reader report, if you want to know who made your Beanie Baby and how much they’re paid to do so, you don’t have to go to Bangladesh or Guatemala or Eastern Europe. Just take a trip to Bolingbrook, Ill.

Still, according to some of the people I spoke with, small-scale and ethically sound manufacturing is on the rise in our area. We also have a government that appears to be willing to help grow it. So to the extent we too can support our local factories, that's likely to make for good economics and good politics.

With a city this big and creative, I can only scratch the surface of consciously made clothing options. So I've decided to focus on independent "high" fashion made on a small scale. Most of these designers and producers reflect a relatively new but growing interest in sustainable, hand-crafted goods, including clothing.

The Designer: Shelby Steiner. I was immediately intrigued by Steiner when I found out the source of one of her collections was inspired by “The Cove,” the devastating eco-documentary about dolphin slaughter. Steiner makes her own custom prints, and she’s used that talent to design collections that reflect on rhinoceros poaching or conflict diamonds.

Steiner says finding truly environmentally friendly fabric can be difficult: The high temperature process involved in its making can be difficult to get around. But she sources as much of her materials from the States as she can, and uses materials like vegan leather or fabric that is free of that nasty plastic, polyvinyl chloride.

Steiner is currently in residence at the Chicago Fashion Incubator, a 2005 collaboration between the city of Chicago and Macy’s to help young designers launch their careers. Steiner says all six of the current residents are trying to create fashion made solely in Chicago or the U.S. Their next big runway show is in October; right now the designers are getting their lookbooks ready and approaching boutiques with their designs.

The Retailer: Dovetail. Over the past 10 months, Julie Ghatan has been quietly but steadily turning her vintage clothing boutique into a showcase for locally made designs (including those by Shelby Steiner). Ghatan had her epiphany about the clothing supply chain while shopping for a "splurge" in a high-end boutique.

"The price point was above $100, but all the labels said 'Made in China,'" Ghatan said. “So what am I paying for?"

Ghatan thinks people are getting "bamboozled" by shelling out for designer labels "when the source materials are the same as Forever 21."

Ghatan started with menswear and all the lines she carries, including Vagrant Nobility and Glass House Shirtmakers, are made locally (see below). More recently she's branched into women's wear. Currently, Sadie Monroe and Claire Henry of Co.lab are showing their first ready-to-wear line there, a summer collection inspired by nomadic voyages.

Ghatan says that though she's in West Town ("not exactly a shopping hub") people are making the trip to see and buy local clothes. She tries to convert people by explaining the labor process behind the higher prices and by hitting them on a "selfish level" — both she and the designers pair their quality clothing offerings with a level of enthusiastic and attentive service that's largely absent from corporate or discount retail.

The Manufacturer: Stock Manufacturing Company. For Tim Tierney, one of the designers behind local menswear line Vagrant Nobility, making clothes locally was actually a selfish option – or at least a cost-saving one. "Early on we were not given a choice,” Tierney said. "We didn’t have the volume or funds to afford manufacturing overseas."

Tierney and his partner found a local option at A. I. Industries, a uniform manufacturing company run by Areill Ives and his family since the 1960s. Tierney, who used to work in the pit at the Chicago Board of Trade, says they quickly realized that instead of just manufacturing their own line, they could also be a resource for other small designers, who were also looking to make stuff locally at a decent price. So they brought in Ives and two other partners to form Stock.

Teirney attributes Stock’s efficiency and economy to its "vertical process" whereby everything it takes to make a garment is done in-house (except manufacturing the fabric itself, which Tierney sources only from developed countries, including a trusted Japanese textile maker). Their operators are paid by the piece, and Tierney says nobody makes less than $10 an hour (but closer to $16 or $17 depending on how fast they work).

But it also has to do with a more radical gambit.

At Stock they combine a largely unchanged process of making clothes on old school machinery (and by hand) with the very modern power of social media. Partnering with local people (designers, bloggers, tastemakers), Stock puts designs up on its website and ask people whether or not they’re interested. If enough people buy in, the object (shirts, ties, you name it) gets made and sold at a price without a retail markup.

So far Tierney says most of the designs have attracted enough buyers to be made. As for the future, he says if things take off, they have plenty of room to grow. Between uniforms and designs (which are still a tiny part of their output), the factor generates about $1 million in revenue annually. But Tierney thinks they have the capacity to expand to about $10 million annually in their current space

The bigger question may be whether Tierney and his partners can sustain their own energy. "Running a factory, managing its production, is brutal," Tierney said, adding that it isn’t all that easy for newcomers like him. "[To do it well] you have to do have done so for a long time, back in the heyday of Chicago production."

So, clearly a shift in our clothes consumption isn’t going to be easy - for anyone involved. And I'm not saying buying a locally made, button-down shirt can make up for all the deaths at the Rana Plaza complex in Bangladesh. What could, short of criminal proceedings, alongside a wholesale overhaul of our global clothing economy?

Plus, buying local or handmade clothing may not even be the best solution. Some think moving to a fully automated manufacturing process might be the way to bring back an affordable, safe and sustainable garment economy in the United States.

But what do you think? How - and where - do you shop for clothes? Do you care about sustainable or organic fashion? Would you give your businesses that make clothes locally, even if the prices are higher? And if you don't, what would make you change your mind?

Alison Cuddy is WBEZ’s Arts and Culture reporter. Follow her @wbezacuddy, on Facebook and on Instagram.

Chicago Bulls get no respect

Mon, 13 May 2013 16:35:00 -0500

When it comes to the Chicago Bulls, I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore. I’m not talking about Derrick Rose on the sidelines. Or whether or not Nazr Mohammed should have shoved LeBron James (he shouldn’t have; but nor should James have pulled that Al Pacino-worthy bit of overacting on his way down to the boards). I’m not even referring to what the Bulls need to do to stay alive in their series with the Heat.

I’m talking about the absolute lack of respect that the Bulls get from the national media covering the NBA playoffs.

At first it was amusing, watching The New York Times scramble to give props to the team and to players like Nate Robinson, as the Bulls won their first playoff series against the Brooklyn Nets. Or, to hear some commentators, even as the Bulls trounced the Nets, refer to them as having "outlasted" their Brooklyn rivals.

Then, the Bulls’ started their second series against the Heat. And I really started to really get my rage on.

Late in the fourth quarter, the Bulls trailed Miami by seven. The announcers stopped paying attention, and started a discussion of the Golden State Warriors. Bit by bit though, the Bulls pulled even with the Heat. Then Robinson sank his 20-footer, which put the Bulls ahead by three. But the announcer, thinking nothing had changed since he checked out of the game, updated the old rather than the new score. He quickly corrected himself but it was too late: the game had indeed changed, and the Bulls went on to beat the Heat.

Of course the game has changed quite a bit since then. The Bull’s second match with the Heat was disastrous and the third disappointing. Push has come to shove.

Some commentators get that the Bulls win wasn’t a fluke but a result of their hard work learning how to beat a player like LeBron James and a team like the Heat. But by and large, indifference to their play has been replaced by an insistence, at least on the part of some commentators, to talk about the Bulls in terms of the team’s "passion" and "grit".

And that has me seeing red.

Don’t get me wrong. The Bulls do play with a lot of passion. And sure, with all their injuries, it must be painful duty in the paint right now.

But these are professional players and this is playoff ball. That the Bulls have gotten this far is because they’ve trained to get here, and not just because they care or have passion. That’s like saying a nurse is great at his job because he’s just a genuinely caring person. That might well be the case, or it might not. Either way, it’s entirely beside the point.

Similarly, the Bulls are a good team because in addition to whatever passion lies beneath their red jerseys, they’re also incredibly talented. They have discipline. They work hard. They didn’t get to the playoffs because they’re gritty. They’re got there because they have a phenomenal coach and because they’ve learned how to play as a team.

I don’t know what will happen tonight at the United Center. I know the Bulls have the skills to win. And if anyone still doubts that, today Joakim Noah was named to the 2012-2013 NBA All Defensive First Team, the first bull to make it since the 1997-98 season, during the so-called Jordan years. Chicago has waited a long time for another basketball dynasty, for what some of us think, even if he’s been sidelined all season, are the beginning of the “Rose years”.

I just wonder when – if ever – the rest of basketball nation is going to catch up.

Alison Cuddy is WBEZ’s Arts and Culture reporter. Follow her @wbezacuddy, on Facebook and on Instagram.

Robert Sickinger dies, brought grassroots theater to Chicago

Thu, 09 May 2013 15:58:00 -0500

When Robert Sickinger came to Chicago in the early 1960s, Chicago had great theater. But most of it - think The Goodman Theater - was largely confined to the Loop.

Sickinger, who died Thursday at the age of 86, was hired to be the director of the Hull House Theater, on Chicago’s North side. When he arrived in 1963, the theater was still at the corner of Broadway Street and Belmont Avenue - the building’s an athletic club now.

Donna Marie Schwan was Sickinger’s assistant, and, eventually, his friend.

She said Sickinger, along with Paul Jans, the new executive director of Hull House, were looking to the past to do something new in theater.

“They were basically trying to do something like what Jane Addams originally had in the community. So he went out in the community and had open auditions. I mean, sort of the original ‘Chicago’s Got Talent’.”

Those open auditions not only drew people who wouldn’t otherwise have the opportunity or venue in which to perform or sing, they were a pipeline to Chicago’s talented actors. Through them, Sickinger uncovered talents like actor Mike Nussbaum and Jim Jacobs, who eventually wrote Grease.

Those are some of the same people who went on to build Chicago’s network of neighborhood theaters, to create spaces like Steppenwolf. And that, said Schwan, is how Sickinger transformed the city’s theater scene.

Schwan said “He basically brought grassroots theater to Chicago.”

At Hull House, Sickinger developed a reputation for his fresh adaptations of classic plays.

But he was also known for the number of contemporary works he staged. Playwrights like Edward Albee, Eugene Ionesco, Harold Pinter and LeRoi Jones had Chicago premieres thanks to Sickinger.

Sickinger’s tenure in Chicago was brief. He left for New York in 1969, after things went awry at Hull House. At the time of his death, he and his family were living between New York and Florida.

But Schwan said Sickinger’s influence can still be seen in places like The Goodman Theater.

“Chicago was very formal culturally. And what he did is he said ‘let’s bring in these wonderful works, these new works that are being done by our contemporaries, and see what they look like when they do them.’ And that was a phenomenon.”

Still Schwan thinks his greatest gift was his ability to inspire everyone - theater owners, actors, and regular people like herself.

“What happens when you create that kind of inspiration, where people have that kind of opportunity, it’s an energy that is irreplaceable, you can’t get that kind of energy going. That’s why these tv shows about auditioning and talent are so popular, because people are discovering themselves and what they can do in a way they otherwise would never have had.”

Chicago Global Artist: Zimbabwean filmmaker and novelist Tsitsi Dangarembga

Mon, 06 May 2013 16:41:00 -0500

Chicago’s rich and lively arts and culture scene is due no doubt to our deep bench of homegrown talents.

However, our city has also been marked in significant ways by artists from around the world.

Many of their contributions have been grandly public. The Picasso sculpture in Daley Plaza and Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate are notable for their trajectory from daunting sculptural objects to beloved playground-style icons.

More ephemeral projects include Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s 1969 project to wrap the Museum of Contemporary Art, a move which made art history and elevated the reputation of both the artists and the MCA.

But we can’t always see the ways global artists work in Chicago. Some come for very brief spells. And as artists in residence at small cultural organizations or universities, their opportunities to meet with a broader public can be limited, or fly under the radar.

In an effort to give more visibility to their work and to provide opportunities for you to interact with these artists, we’re launching a new global arts initiative on WBEZ’s international affairs show Worldview. Every few weeks I’ll profile an artist who has made her way to Chicago, for a brief or longer spell.

First up: Tsitsi Dangarembga.

Dangarembga came to Chicago about four years ago, to give a talk at Northwestern University. Based on that appearance, along with raves from some of his graduate students (who said her novels changed their lives), Reginald Gibbons invited her back, as the 2013 Spring Writer in Residence at the Center for the Writing Arts.

Dangarembga’s career can be measured by a number of firsts. Her debut novel Nervous Conditions, published when she was only 25, was also the first novel written in English by a black Zimbabwean woman.

When she moved on to filmmaking she also broke ground. Neria (1992), based on her screenplay, became the highest grossing feature in Zimbabwean history. And when Dangarembga made her own film, Everybody’s Child in 1996, she became the first black Zimbabwean woman to direct a full length feature.

None of this came easy. Nobody in Zimbabwe would publish Dangarembga’s novel, apparently because her coming of age tale, about the treatment of women in a newly independent Zimbabwe, wasn’t deemed representative of African women.

And Dangarembga’s style is challenging. Take a look at the trailer for her film Kare Kare Zvako (Mother’s Day). The ‘folk tale musical’ is a fantastical tale with a lively soundtrack of an abusive man who attempts to satisfy his greedy soul by consuming his wife.

Still, Dangarembga continued to make art. Nervous Conditions, which is widely considered one of the greatest African novels, proved to be the opening salvo in what is now a trilogy. The second volume The Book of Not was published in 2006 and Dangarembga’s looking for a publisher for the final volume Chronicle of an Indomitable Daughter.

She’s also continued to develop an international presence. Dangarembga gave a Tedx talk in Harare, in which she used her cat’s behavior as an opportunity for an amusing take on the rather depressing state of Zimbabwe - and human nature more generally. And Kare Kare Zvako screened at Sundance in 2005.

But most importantly, she’s done a little institution building in Harare. After forming her own film company Nyerai, she merged it with Women Filmmaker of Zimbabwe to create a platform for women filmmakers. Since 2002, they’ve hosted the International Images Film Festival for Women.

That Dangarembga has been able to do that with the very limited means and opportunities available in Zimbabwe, is instructive as we ponder the role of artists in Chicago, and wonder if we’re creating the conditions which allow art to flourish.

By the way I’d love to hear your suggestions if you know of any global artists who are new to Chicago and working here on a temporary or permanent basis. Email me acuddy@wbez.org

Alison Cuddy is WBEZ’s Arts and Culture reporter. Follow her @wbezacuddy, on Facebook and on Instagram.

Reviewing ‘The Walk’: Student fashion from the School of the Art Institute

Fri, 03 May 2013 14:35:00 -0500

Never mind the weather, here’s how I know that spring has really arrived. It’s the moment when I find myself inside a temporary tent set up in Millennium Park, perched on the edge of a long, white runway, seated next to my colleague and fellow fashionista, Natalie Moore.

Pens and cameras in hand, outfits tight and sharp, we were more than ready to review “The Walk,” the School of the Art Institute’s annual student fashion show.

Now in its 79th year, the show features the work of sophomore, junior and senior students. As you might expect of an art school, some of the looks are highly conceptual and absolutely unwearable. They’re explorations of an idea or theme or moment in history which makes for drama on the runway, but won’t translate into a street look — at least not without major refinements.

Natalie and I both appreciate experimental or cutting edge art and fashion. But face it, like most of you, we’re also just looking for something to wear!

The sophomores in some way face the biggest challenge. They work with a very limited set of materials and color palette, and they only get to produce one look.

Press play, then "X " for full screen. "Show info" displays captions.

Still, they’re the base from which all the looks emerge, and we often can trace a transition across the different classes. What starts as an idea or concept among the sophomores will be radically transformed by juniors, only to bloom into the seniors’ fully-realized set of fashion looks.

Turns out, that wasn’t the case this year. In fact, I’d call 2013 the year of the upset!

For one, both Natalie and I were far more entranced by the juniors’ work than the seniors’.

Rosa Halpern’s work was particularly exciting. Working with a dark, dramatic palette, Halpern’s looks included an elaborately constructed puffy long coat, perfect for today’s fall-like weather (Natalie said it looked a bit like some of Junya Watanabe’s work), which included one of the most intriguing and prominent accessories of this year’s show: masks and other facial coverings.

Halpern said she was inspired by Algerian Muslim gypsies and female hip-hop artists, and wants to make clothes “that make women feel stronger and better and more awesome, and enjoy life more.”

Jelisa Brown’s outfits deployed some Chicago icons, including our city flag. Brown also referenced Michael Jordan on the back of a flowing red cape. Her looks reflected hometown pride but also took a playful or even critical stance toward those icons. The Jordan image, for example, looked a lot like that fabled gingerbread man, running away and yelling ‘catch me if you can!’

That the juniors stood out kind of makes sense. Junior year is the moment to experiment, since students have made it through the trial by fire of their first year, but they don’t yet feel that pressure seniors have to get out there and find a job!

But it was also because the senior work felt safer to us than in recent years, especially last year.

The color palette was very muted in many cases, and minimalist looks were rampant. That can be interesting fashion territory to explore. But too often it created looks that made me think of the fashion establishment: think Calvin Klein or Eileen Fisher. Both are great designers, but they’re hardly what you’d expect from student designers, who tend to be more experimental and adventurous in their work.

In a few cases, a minimalist approach did work well. Kirstie Breitfuss, whose theme was “The Art of Noise,” used an unusual palette of light browns, reds and greens to create a sophisticated, subtle texture.

Other standouts include Krystle Thomas, whose collection “The In-Between” reminded me of Chicago artist Hebru Brantley’s work, as if some of his characters had come to life on the runway.

Carlie Hougen said her looks are generally inspired by a historical period, in this case the 1950s anti-communist sentiment that culminated in the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), as well as films like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Hougen took those images of cultural anxieties and, inspired by a short film she found depicting the effects of LSD on a woman, explored “how a housewife on LSD might dress.” Our favorite look was an over-sized black and red check wool trench coat (think lumberjack) over a very soft and fragile pale pink- and yellow-patterned dress.

But the stand-out (and to my mind, the second major upset of this year’s show) was the menswear. I’ve often found the men’s clothes just don’t measure up to the designs for women. So I was pleased to see that the work of many designers, but especially the looks by Sam Salvo, raised the menswear bar very high.

Salvo’s looks incorporated ideas about the power structure of male sexuality, including bondage elements (a thigh harness and chains!). I was struck by the dramatic and elegant edge to his clothes.

I had worried going in that the fervor over Baz Luhrmann’s film The Great Gatsby might have produced a lot of 1920s looks (as it has in mainstream fashion). Salvo’s looks came closest, but put a fashion alchemy on a historical period (like Hougen) that made his clothes much more reflective of our moment.

Salvo says his fashion inspiration reflects what he wants, but also sometimes fears to wear.

And that’s exactly the impulse that made the best student designs so inspiring: the ability to turn personal or cultural or historical fears into fashion that is absolutely, one hundred percent fearless.

Alison Cuddy is WBEZ’s Arts and Culture reporter. Follow her @wbezacuddy, on Facebook and on Instagram.

C2E2 and Dark Lord Day let adults express inner adolescent

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:00:00 -0500

This weekend I went on an odyssey of sorts, through some of the strongholds of American popular culture.

Friday night I was at McCormick Place for C2E2 – the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo.

Then Saturday, along with my colleagues Tim Akimoff and Andrew Gill, I headed to Munster, Indiana to brave Dark Lord Day, the annual heavy metal and beer event hosted by Three Floyds Brewing Company.

Both are fairly major cultural events. Over 50,000 folks made their way through C2E2 over the weekend. And in just a few years, attendance at Dark Lord Day has grown from a couple of hundred to 8,000, according to organizers.

Over the course of two days I got to talk with lots of great people: Local and international master brewers, musicians, comic book talent scouts, graphic artists, and novelists.

Many are enormously talented professionals, approaching or at the height of their game.

Still, in the midst of all this adult achievement, I couldn’t help feeling like I was among a pack of highly articulate adolescents.

Reading/talking about comics? Drinking huge amounts of beer? Headbanging and comparing tattoos?

The Gen Y and Millennial crew may be growing old, but their cultural choices haven’t aged at all.

This isn’t entirely new. Baby boomers were probably the first contemporary cohort to believe getting older didn’t mean putting away childish things, like their attachment to rock music. Instead they aged along with their cultural heroes, who in turn kept on playing and picked up new fans among the boomer offspring. Turns out it can be incredibly awkward when you and your Dad like the same band.

What does feel different now is that we’re not just remaining attached to our superheroes and suds, we’re giving them an upgrade.

Older music fans at Dark Lord talked about local band Bloodiest as “adult metal” (and were unabashed in their praise of concerts that allowed them to get their metal fix and ended at a reasonable hour).

And though keg stands are no longer the center of a party, that’s likely because the beer is way too good, too expensive, and too high in alcohol content to drink in volume.

Dark Lord, that pitch black, viscous, burnt sugar, sticky toffee and chocolate bomb of a Russian Imperial Stout, has an ABV of 15 percent and cost $15 for a 22 ounce bottle. Barrel variants sold for a whopping $50.

For a once-a-year beer, that price might be more reasonable than daunting. And clearly the Dark Lord crowd has the means to pay more. Outside the event, the ground was littered with rows of empty craft beer bottles, high end “dead soldiers” tailgaters had brought to drink or trade for other rare beer.

Back at C2E2, many attendees have similarly deep pockets, and are willing to shell out for elaborate cosplay costumes, rare back issues, or other comic related paraphernalia (a couple of guys from Los Angeles were hawking expensive wooden glasses frames imprinted with vintage comic book art).

All of this might provide further evidence of the cultural rise of “nerds”, the decidedly dude mentality at play in much of pop culture, or our general refusal (or inability?) to become adults.

And there’s merit to that line of thinking. After all, is it just a coincidence that the forthcoming (and highly anticipated) comic Peter Panzerfaust features that little boy who just wouldn’t grow up?

Still, like it or not, many of the tastes acquired in our adolescent years are pretty much driving adult or mainstream culture right now, often with fantastic results.

Take Chicago’s growing taste for fancy fast food.

Every week seems to bring another Irish pub, burger or rib joint, or taco stand run by a celebrity chef. Parson’s Chicken and Fish, a tonier take on shack food which opens any day now, will serve margaritas with a “Sour Patch Kids” flavored rim, and a Negroni “slushie” machine behind the bar. Novelty yes, but those frozen cocktails are delicious.

And even the most challenging cultural forms have been invaded. I ended my Saturday night at the opening program of Frequency, an ambitious new music series run by The Chicago Reader’s Peter Margasak.

Openers The Green Pasture Happiness, a trio of young electronics improvisers, make music with modular synthesizers, and as good as they sound, put on a show that looked less like a musical performance and more like a software hackathon.

Meanwhile, Dal Niente’s Mabel Kwan closed the evening with Stefan Prins Piano Hero #1, in which the piano and pianist, thanks to a midi keyboard, live electronics and video, are transformed into a glitchy, herky jerky variant on a Nintendo game.

Both offered further proof that adolescent pursuits, in the right hands, can in fact age well, into complex and yes, suitable-for-adults cultural fare.

The interview above offers another example: Marvel Comics talent scout C. B. Cebulski and comic artist Matthew Wade, who attended both C2E2 and Dark Lord Day, talk about how comic art inspired the mad delicious Three Floyds beer Zombie Dust.

Alison Cuddy is WBEZ’s Arts and Culture reporter. Follow her @wbezacuddy, on Facebook and on Instagram.

Ebertfest lost its founder, but not its direction

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 15:57:00 -0500

The 15th annual Roger Ebert Film Festival kicks off in Champaign, Illinois on Wednesday.

Roger Ebert won’t be there. The famed Chicago film critic died earlier this month, just after stepping down (he called it a “leave of presence”) as the Sun-Times film critic.

But Ebert’s ethos—his influence and taste and general good spirit—is all over the event.

Ebertfest doesn’t work like a typical film festival.

The movies aren’t submitted. They are hand selected by Ebert and his staff. They’re not “in contention,” or vying for prizes from select juries made up of celebrated members of the global film community. You also won’t see studio types hanging around Champaign, trying to make distribution deals.

But there will be some film stars on hand.

Actors Jack Black and Tilda Swinton will introduce and talk about their respective films Bernie and Julia. Haskell Wexler, the legendary Chicago cinematographer, who is an unbelievable 91 years old (a longevity he chalks up to being grouchy), will introduce the opening night film, Terrence Malick’s 1978 stunner Days of Heaven.

Interesting directors abound, from as far away as Australia (Paul Cox, Vincent: The Life and Death of Vincent Van Gogh) and as close as Lake Bluff, Illinois (Randy Moore, who will introduce his intriguing Disney noir Escape from Tomorrow).

That effort to include homegrown talent, some with ties to the University of Illinois, is one of the things that makes Ebertfest a special event.

But it also just sounds like fun to sit and watch movies, some old and some new, with people who both love films and love to make a living from them.

The schedule makes it possible to savor rather than gulp down the experience. Only 12 features and a couple of short subjects will screen over the five-day fest. Obviously watching them all is the thing to do.

But here are a few recommendations.

Two of my favorites are from last year, Richard Linklater’s Bernie and Joachim Trier’s Oslo, August 31st are very different movies that nonetheless have a surprising amount in common.

Both directors are independents who’ve also formed ties with commercial enterprises (Hollywood and advertising respectively). Both have a deep interest in films about ‘generational drift,’ or the ways young people struggle to find and maintain a sense of identity and place within a larger community and set of values.

And both of these films are driven by the performances of their incredible leads. Jack Black practically reinvented himself as an actor in Bernie, and absolutely should have been nominated for a best actor Oscar last year. But if you haven’t yet watched Anders Danielsen Lie, who has now made two films with Trier, I think you’ll be moved by his turn in Oslo. His character veers between possibility and pathos on his way to a tragic end. And as Ebert suggested in his review, you almost want to reach out and steer him out of the film and destiny he’s trapped in, into another life, or maybe a different movie.

And because the pleasures of filmgoing can rise and fall on the company you keep, I wouldn’t miss the opportunity to watch Days of Heaven with the Ebertfest crowd. Now that Malick (another Illinois native) is practically churning out the films, it is hard to remember the days when he hadn’t made a movie for twenty years, when we only had Badlands and Days by which to assess his talents. Back then his films seemed like far cries from a distant country—what genius went into the wilds of the American landscape and emerged with these earthy and feverish tales? These days I’m less enamored of his films. But what a great crowd with whom to rehash his career.

Finally, Tilda Swinton in person? Wow.

The 15th Annual Roger Ebert Film Festival kicks off Wednesday and runs through Sunday at the Virginia Theatre in Champaign, Illinois. The event is sold out.

Alison Cuddy is WBEZ’s Arts and Culture reporter. Follow her @wbezacuddy, Facebook and Instagram.

Film industry and others honor Roger Ebert

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 22:24:00 -0500

Hollywood came to Chicago on Thursday as actors, directors, film critics and studio presidents honored late movie reviewer Roger Ebert in his hometown.

All of those who shared memories at the Chicago Theatre cheered Ebert as a champion of movies and a critic who used his influence to help filmmakers find audiences. He died last week at age 70 after a years-long battle with cancer.

"He was always supportive of artists. He always gave you a fair shake," said Chicago native John Cusack, who appeared with his sister and fellow actor, Joan Cusack.

Ebert worked at the Chicago Sun-Times for more than 40 years. The day before his April 4 death, he wrote in a post on his blog that he was taking a break from his schedule of almost-daily movie reviewing because the cancer had recurred.

"He was simply one of the finest men I ever met," Chaz Ebert said of her late husband during Thursday night's memorial.

Roger Ebert won national fame when he teamed with fellow film critic Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune in 1975 for a television show that had them each give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down rating to the latest releases.

John Cusack said he and his sister enjoyed watching Ebert and Siskel growing up. "Chicago's lost a great icon but he'll always be with us," he said of Ebert.

John remembered running into Ebert at the Carnegie Deli in New York while doing a press junket for his very first movie. Ebert, catching wind of Cusack’s nervousness about whether the pending review would pan or praise the film, leaned over and whispered “I liked your movie.”

Joan Cusack read a letter from President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama. The Obamas remembered Ebert as a "cultural leader."

Earlier, Todd McCarthy, a film critic who has written for publications such as Variety, said a key to Ebert's success was that he was "a populist without prejudice."

"He was neither high-brow nor low-brow," McCarthy said. "In the world of film criticism for 46 years there was Roger Ebert and then there was the rest of us."

Ebert continued the movie review TV show with Sun-Times colleague Richard Roeper after Siskel's death in 1999.

"I felt that as long as Roger was alive a little bit of Gene was, too," said Siskel's widow, Marlene Iglitzen Siskel, at the memorial. She said Ebert had an "unsurpassed body of work."

Independent filmmaker Ava Duvernay took the red eye from Los Angeles to share the four times she’d crossed paths with Ebert, who she credited with helping her first movie to succeed - a sentiment echoed by many others.

A choir opened the gathering by singing, "Roger Ebert, we will always love you."

The historic theater was a fitting place for the event. Ebert screened movies there for many years. And in 2005, the city unveiled a sidewalk medallion under the ornate marquee of the theater as a tribute to Ebert.

“He wasn’t one of the go along to get alongs," civil rights activist Dick Gregory said. "He broke all rules.”

Chaz who ended the night by invoking Ebert’s intelligence, heart, and great love.

“When he thought he was disfigured, when I looked at him I saw beauty,” she said. “And when he looked at me, I saw the love that each one of us deserves to have. And I hope that all of you out there finds a love like that.”

Next week, Ebert will be honored at Ebertfest, his annual film festival in Champaign.

He earned respect for championing small independent movies that he scouted out at film festivals while at the same time taking Hollywood's biggest names to task when they missed the mark.

Ebert was the first journalist to win the Pulitzer Prize for movie criticism and was the first critic to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Alison Cuddy contributed to this report. Photos by Andrew Gill.

Constellation: A new venue for music and other performing arts

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 06:00:00 -0500

Wrigleyville has dedicated itself to nurturing the pursuits and expressions of "'bro culture" like no other neighborhood in Chicago.

Wandering along Clark Street between Belmont and Addison Avenues on a weekend (or during a Cubs home stand) is like entering their personal pleasure dome, a place where men sporting backwards baseball caps and pastel golf shirts stage elaborate performances: Alienated sports fan, existential beer chugger, street fighter.

So I've always found it pleasing that the neighborhood has proven a shelter for two very different communities: the practitioners of women's health, and performing artists.

No more though. After 35 years sharing the second story of the Link's-Hall Building at the corners of Sheffield, Clark and Newport, both the Women's Health Center and performance venue Links Hall are relocating.

Though it has been raising money and looking for a new space for some time, Women's Health Center hasn't yet made an announcement about new digs. But Links Hall has not only landed, in many ways it has found a new lease on life.

Their new home is the former Viaduct Theatre at Belmont and Western, now known as Constellation.

There Links Hall, under the direction of Roell Schmidt, will be both the primary tenant and partner in a "collaborative arts venue" with jazz musician and music presenter Mike Reed.

In fact tonight Links will kick Constellation into existence with its show Fraction: Dance in Progress.

Fraction, in keeping with Link's mission to present established and emerging performers, is kind of a dance "open house". The program features a series of works-in-progress by an array of performers, including 7th and 8th grade Near North Montessori School students, a couple of flamenco artists, and Philip Elson, a member of local dance troupe The Seldoms. There'll also be opportunity for audiences to talk with the artists and provide feedback on their work.

But Fraction also represents what's exciting about Constellation overall.

Though many of the venue's shows will reflect Reed's experiences in the world of improvised music (he performs in a seemingly endless number of ensembles and leads two jazz groups of his own), this is also a space for all kinds of performers, including dancers, filmmakers, and pop musicians.

Variety has truly been the hallmark of Reed's presenting style, whether at the Chicago Jazz Festival, the Pitchfork Music Festival or, for the past two years, the Brilliant Corners of Popular Amusement, a curious but satisfying mix of music performers, circus acts and stand-up comedians. That he's hired Michael Slaboch, former talent buyer at The Hideout, to program Constellation, signals a continuing commitment to eclecticism.

Already there is an emphasis on collaboration across performing arts. This coming Sunday, Links Hall dancers will improvise alongside Dutch experimental musician Hans Bennink and other members of ICP (Instant Composers Pool). On April 18th CIMM (the Chicago International Music and Movies Festival) will host an evening with works from both musician Van Dyke Parks and his son filmmaker Richard Parks.

Constellation is also forging into less familiar musical territory with a weekly series showcasing Chicago's burgeoning new or contemporary classical music scene.

Curated by Peter Margasak of The Chicago Reader (and a regular contributor to WBEZ's Friday night music show Radio M), the series will focus mainly on local ensembles. Already in the works are performances from members of Eighth Blackbird, International Contemporary Ensemble, and Ensemble Dal Niente.

Though it's possible to see contemporary classical music on a fairly regular basis in the city, until now, said Margasak, they "haven't had a center of action." He's also hoping the series will provide them with some much-needed "infrastructure".

"Normally these groups have to rent spaces and equipment to perform," said Margasak. "This basically gets rid of a lot of their overhead. Constellation has a real piano, a real sound system, a screen if they want to do multimedia stuff."

Long term, Margasak's ambition is to increase the profile of Chicago's new music performers and composers on their home turf. As with many local jazz artists, contemporary classical musicians have frequently found more acclaim the further they get from Chicago.

And though certain groups, like ICE, Fulcrum Point and Fifth House Ensemble have been music stalwarts in the city for some time now, performing in venues from the Adler Planetarium to small art galleries, Margasak thinks featuring them at Constellation, with its cross-section of performance genres and styles, will help "demystify" or make the music come across as "less hoity-toity".

Chicago's music venues have long learned to find space for other performing talents, from poets and writers to talk show hosts and spelling bee contestants. Still, Constellation seems like a different effort to present a whole array of cutting edge events, in a space and manner audiences will still find accessible.

You can judge for yourself when the venue opens its doors tonight. Meanwhile, Margasak will launch his new music series, known as "Frequency", with a free open house on April 27th. He's featuring groups that represent both the composed (Ensemble Dal Niente) and improvised (modular synth group The Green Pasture Happiness led by Brian Labycz) sides of the new music scene.

Constellation is located at 3111 N. Western Avenue.

Alison Cuddy is WBEZ's Arts and Culture reporter. You can follow her on twitter @wbezacuddy, Instagram and Facebook.