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.

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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 […]

The post Balikbayan Worldwide takes Filipino dance music global appeared first on Chicago Reader.

By Faisal Mohyuddin

The post Ceasefire Haiku appeared first on Chicago Reader.

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, […]

The post Izzi Vasquez, music-adjacent multimedia artist appeared first on Chicago Reader.

“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 […]

The post Loona Dae opens up a new world of psychedelic R&B appeared first on Chicago Reader.

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 […]

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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 […]

The post The <i>Reader</i>’s 2023 Holiday Gift Guide appeared first on Chicago Reader.

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 […]

The post The inimitable but intermittent <i>Roctober</i> roars back with a hefty double issue appeared first on Chicago Reader.

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, […]

The post Lights, music, Scrooge, and Shostakovich appeared first on Chicago Reader.

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 […]

The post Cadinho Bakery explores the dazzling world of Portuguese pastry appeared first on Chicago Reader.

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 […]

The post Visit Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art this holiday season and beyond appeared first on Chicago Reader.

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 […]

The post Chicago area AFS-USA host families and students make the world more just and peaceful through intercultural exchange appeared first on Chicago Reader.

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 […]

The post How Print & Object makes art collecting more accessible appeared first on Chicago Reader.

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 […]

The post Desire lines appeared first on Chicago Reader.

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 […]

The post <i>Manual Cinema’s Christmas Carol</i> returns to Writers Theatre appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Princess. Musician. Writer. Spy. The short description of all of Noor Inayat Khan’s identities during her brief lifetime reads like the title of a John le Carré novel. Yet despite the fact that her work as an undercover radio operator and liaison between the French resistance and British intelligence during World War II was an […]

The post <i>Noor Inayat Khan: The Forgotten Spy</i> brings a footnote of World War II center stage appeared first on Chicago Reader.

When the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) first announced its Meeting the Moment action plan last year, workforce and service delivery issues were at the forefront. Officials pointed to the “Great Resignation” as creating an unusually competitive job market, leading to high attrition rates among bus and rail operators. Mass resignations during the pandemic, along with […]

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In 2020, Toronto-based Palestinian-Jordanian composer Shireen Abu Khader founded Dozan World—an offshoot of Dozan wa Awtar Music Establishment, the celebrated choir she established in 2002—as a hub for Levantine composers to share their music. Local chamber-music nonprofit Crossing Borders Music, which specializes in Western classical works by non-Western composers, most recently visited the Dozan catalog […]

The post Reflection, resilience, and now remembrance in Crossing Borders Music’s focus on Arab string quartets appeared first on Chicago Reader.

London trio Bar Italia formed in 2019, and though the world of live music screeched to a halt the following year, they powered through by writing and recording at full steam. They released their studio debut, Quarrel, in September 2020, showcasing an understated sound that joined lo-fi postpunk with indie-pop experimentation redolent of the 80s […]

The post Bar Italia create a stir with low-key minimalist indie pop appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Mavis Staples is more rock ’n’ roll than any of us. Who else declined a marriage proposal from Bob Dylan in the early 60s because she felt she was too young to be tied down? Who else got divorced less than a year after getting hitched in 1964 because she refused to quit singing at […]

The post Hometown hero Mavis Staples provides inspiration at Cahn Auditorium appeared first on Chicago Reader.

For nearly as long as free improvisation has been a musical practice, improvising artists have engaged in collective action to build outlets for their creative expression. Catalytic Sound was formed in 2012 by 30 musicians from Europe and the United States who recognized the necessity to have a shared platform for disseminating information and selling […]

The post Improvised music co-op Catalytic Sound holds its fourth annual festival in five cities, including Chicago appeared first on Chicago Reader.

The art-rock of Mandy, Indiana conjures the spirit of May 1968, when French students and workers spent seven weeks in an orgiastic, decentralized uprising against capitalism and state violence. That’s partly because vocalist Valentine Caulfield uses French lyrics to deliver brutal indictments of patriarchy, imperialism, and white supremacy. But it also comes from the unmistakable […]

The post Mandy, Indiana conjure the punk-rock city we’d be thrilled to live in appeared first on Chicago Reader.

When Eartheater sings, her voice carries like pollen and decaying floral tendrils adrift in a rush of hot wind. The New York-based multidisciplinary artist debuted in 2015 with two releases (Metalepsis and RIP Chrysalis) on local avant-garde electronic label Hausu Mountain. She’s gone on to become one of the biggest names in art-pop, and in […]

The post Multidisciplinary artist Eartheater explores rebirth and transformation on <i>Powders</i> appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Chicago rapper Doso caught my attention four years ago by tinkering confidently and smoothly with a variety of instrumental styles, and he plays up that skill on October’s Safe Travels (A Rugged Interest, Inc.). He raps over minimal nu-funk (“Holding on Loosely”), sleek and frictionless pop punk (“Upside Down”), and a sentimental ballad built atop […]

The post OutPastMidnight and Doso show Chicago hip-hop’s newest dimensions at Gman appeared first on Chicago Reader.

Chicago rapper Jay Wood has gained a foothold in the local scene with his work on the mike, but his production prowess is what distinguishes his new self-released EP, Nowhere, Fast. His svelte, sturdy instrumentals contain his voice as snugly as an opulent picture frame, ornamented to amplify the character of his performances. On “Homesick,” […]

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Chicago has no shortage of great bands who could’ve found more commercial success and built entirely different legacies were it not for poor timing, a particularly unlucky tour, or any of the other variables that make pursuing art under capitalism so exhausting and difficult. I don’t begrudge the members of Cafe Racer for calling it […]

The post Chicago indie rockers Cafe Racer say farewell with help from local punks Edging appeared first on Chicago Reader.

With the world’s sixth-largest freshwater lake at our fingertips, Chicago’s cup runneth over with bragging rights. Climate migration is predicted for the Second City, with hordes of people from out west tapping into our water privilege: our Great, and fragile, Lake. But currently, in Middle America, there’s a city running out of water.  No, it’s […]

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