Last weekend, Ariel Zetina kicked off the Pitchfork Music Festival’s Sunday program. Instead of simply spinning a DJ set, Zetina worked with a Chicago-based team to put on a theatrical and “cunt” live performance focused on her 2022 album, Cyclorama. A week before the festival, I went behind the curtain to get an inside look […]
Author Archives: Joan Roach
Posted inMusic
Ariel Zetina brings an inspiring queer community to Pitchfork
In just over a week, Ariel Zetina debuts a live performance of her brazen 2022 album, Cyclorama, at the Pitchfork Music Festival. When it dropped, Zetina described the album as “an imagined theatrical production,” and this week that production takes its next step: onto the Green Stage in Union Park early next Sunday afternoon. Building […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Defying gravity
Suddenly the audience was enveloped in darkness. We awaited the commencement. Two screens turn on, showing poetic verses scrolling up. Then, the music started flowing through the space, conducted by Asante Owusu-Brafi, Angel Bat Dawid, and Ishmael Ali as they sat under a somber blue light. Ethereal sounds and light piano keys echoed. I see […]