Movie theaters may not be an issue as detrimental as the inequalities that divide Chicago’s communities, but the waning of their presence mirrors larger issues of economic opportunity in the city, community investment, and access to recreation and culture throughout Chicago.
Tag: Vol. 53 No. 4
Issue of November 30, 2023
Holiday Gift Guide
Where did the movie theaters go?
Arts and culture reviews and previews
Photography by James Hosking
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Posted inMusic
Balikbayan Worldwide takes Filipino dance music global
On Saturday, October 21, more than a hundred people packed a white-walled warehouse in Hermosa to get sweaty to Filipino dance music. It was the launch party for the newest imprint of Feeltrip Records, Balikbayan Worldwide, which focuses on sounds from the southeast Asian diaspora. To many of the partiers, the event was just an […]
Posted inChicagoans of Note
Izzi Vasquez, music-adjacent multimedia artist
Izzi Vasquez is a multimedia artist who has helped some of Chicago’s most celebrated musicians with the visuals for their visions. Vasquez has created animations and designed album packaging for the likes of Kaina, Sen Morimoto, Nnamdï, and Kara Jackson. In their art, Vasquez gives new form to the lessons they learned from their grandmother, […]
Posted inCity of Win
Loona Dae opens up a new world of psychedelic R&B
“When I started skating, I was definitely in a creative rut, and I needed to push myself in a way,” says Chicago R&B singer Loona Dae. “It’s scary to fall, but I found a lot of refuge in skating because it’s just you and the skateboard. It taught me to trust myself more and rewired […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Public and private politics in Vietnamese art
Subtly evoked or explicitly referenced, reclaiming individual narrative is a major subject for the Vietnamese artists whose work is on view in dual exhibitions at the John David Mooney Foundation: “A Village Before Us” and the Albert I. Goodman Collection of Vietnamese Art. The Goodman collection is one of the most complete collections of Vietnamese […]
Posted inFeature
The Reader’s 2023 Holiday Gift Guide
1 Chicago stepping lessons from award-winning south sider Shaun Ballentine of Effortless Stepping. —Salem Collo-Julin Open group lessons Wednesdays at 7 PM, Effortless Stepping Studio, 1850 E. 79th. $20 per person, 21+ only. For private lesson rates or information about having Ballentine do a stepping class at your event, message through Instagram or Facebook. 2 […]
Posted inGossip Wolf
The inimitable but intermittent Roctober roars back with a hefty double issue
When Gossip Wolf checked in a few years back with Reader contributor, Chic-a-Go-Go cofounder, and Promontory talent buyer Jake Austen, he’d just rebooted his wide-ranging, infectiously enthusiastic, and absurdly thorough music and culture zine, Roctober, originally launched more than 30 years ago. Issue 52 arrived in fall 2020 after a seven-year hiatus, but the wait […]
Posted inOn Culture
Lights, music, Scrooge, and Shostakovich
A piercing wind from the north whipped down darkened Dearborn Street, turning noses and fingers to icy lumps and testing the resolve of pedestrians on the opening night of Goodman Theatre’s 46th annual production of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol last weekend. As if current events weren’t already enough to chill the holiday spirit! Dreadful, […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Cadinho Bakery explores the dazzling world of Portuguese pastry
Alejandra Rivera kept burning the pastéis de nata. The flaky Portuguese egg custard tartlets, known the world over, should have a bit of dark-brown caramelized stippling on top, but the numbers on the old oven in her little flat had worn off, so she kept scorching the iconic pastries. Rivera and her husband were reluctantly […]
Sponsored
Visit Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art this holiday season and beyond
Established in 1967, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago is one of the world’s premier institutions celebrating the work of leading contemporary artists. Located just off Michigan Avenue near the historic Chicago Water Tower and the John Hancock Building, the 220,000-square-foot venue was designed by Berlin architect Josef Paul Klienhues and features three stories of […]
Sponsored
Chicago area AFS-USA host families and students make the world more just and peaceful through intercultural exchange
It takes just one person to open your eyes to a new perspective and change your life forever. AFS-USA fosters those sorts of experiences by matching high school exchange students with host families around the world. It all started in 1915 with the founding of the American Ambulance Field Service, a volunteer ambulance corps that […]
Posted inCity Life
How Print & Object makes art collecting more accessible
A pair of denim jeans enhanced by acrylic paint, aerosol spray paint, permanent marker, and elbow grease. A lamp made out of tile, acrylic, and glass. A linen chore coat with flocked vinyl designs. Departing from the confines of traditional gallery settings, Anna Cerniglia and Kate Pollasch have united their decades-long curatorial and art programming […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Desire lines
One of the most enduring legacies of colonialism is found in architecture, often built on the basis of separation. Divide-and-rule policies inform social structures in former colonies like India, where the separation of communities on the basis of class, caste, and creed is linked to the separation of laborers from their points of origin. Forming […]
Posted inTheater Review
Manual Cinema’s Christmas Carol returns to Writers Theatre
Manual Cinema’s Christmas Carol (devised and directed by Drew Dir, Sarah Fornace, Ben Kauffman, Julia Miller, and Kyle Vegter) is a charming remix of an old classic, but with added layers for extra warmth this time of year. Imagine the timeless tale of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol with a modern upgrade, boasting a new […]