JT Newman, author at Chicago Reader

Shalaka Kulkarni, wearing an orange skirt and gold sleeveless top, is pictured kneeling on the stage floor. Her chin is resting on her right hand and her left hand is laying across her lap.

Nyra’s Dreams uses Indian dance to explore contemporary women’s experiences

by JT Newman October 24, 2023October 24, 2023

Traditional Indian dance is a form that is rooted in storytelling, folk literature, and sacred texts. Its forms are myriad and complex and are divided into three main categories: classical, folk/tribal, and Bollywood. Classical forms are highly stylized with prescribed movements that accompany sacred and traditional texts in the mode of dance and theater. Folk/tribal […]

A group of performers in lingerie stand center stage. The singer in the center has a rainbow heart on their chest.

Arts & Culture

Shaking your ass for the revolution

by JT Newman August 31, 2023August 31, 2023

It was a gorgeously sunny and breezy Sunday afternoon, and I was tucked into a corner at Fort Knox Studios on the far northwest side. As I settled into my plastic folding chair, the lighting crew —helmed by veteran Fly Honey lighting director Slick Jorgensen, recording the show onto their phone—assembled around me. As it […]

Dance

Dance for Life returns to the Auditorium

by JT Newman August 16, 2023August 16, 2023

In 1991, as the dance community lost friends, family members, and colleagues to the AIDS epidemic, Keith Elliott, a member of the Joseph Holmes Chicago Dance Theatre (JHCDT), thought it was time for the Chicago dance community to do something about the disease. “[Keith] wanted to benefit those who were living with HIV-AIDS, and help […]

In this black and white photo, a Black person has one hand on their hip and the other raised to their hand. They wear sunglasses and a one-shoulder top and have a wide smile.

Arts & Culture

Capturing the Argyle Night Market

by JT Newman June 29, 2023October 16, 2023

When photographer and documentary filmmaker Ronit Bezalel (Voices of Cabrini, 70 Acres in Chicago) first walked over to the Argyle Night Market last summer, camera in hand, she didn’t know what to expect. As a documentarian for more than two decades, her ability and confidence in approaching strangers and asking them to take their picture […]

Dance

Beauty in Superbloom

by JT Newman May 31, 2023May 31, 2023

Superblooms, nature’s greatest masterpiece, have captivated the attention of the public in recent months. These arresting botanical marvels are found in the arid landscapes of California and Arizona and grow when an extraordinary number of dormant wildflower seeds awaken and burst into a vibrant bloom simultaneously. Superblooms unveil their mesmerizing splendor all at once, immediately […]

Dance

Drag for life

by JT Newman May 17, 2023May 17, 2023

Drag, in all of its glorious forms, has been a locus of revolt throughout the decades. In 2023, we are in a time when the very concept of “dressing in the mode not of one’s essential sex’” is in the bull’s-eye of crypto-fascist Republican lawmakers in many states. That’s why it seems like winning when […]

Dance

Visceral Dance Chicago turns ten

by JT Newman April 19, 2023April 19, 2023

Entering Visceral Dance’s new venue, a visitor is struck by its size and the care taken to design a space that suits the company that built it. Tucked away on Rockwell Avenue and nestled up against the North Branch of the Chicago River, the performance space is painted a stark black, with soaring ceilings and […]

two men dancing onstage wearing flesh-tone briefs. The man on the left is Black and the man on the right is light-skinned.

Dance

From classic to kitsch

by JT Newman April 17, 2023April 19, 2023

In general, touring performances of dance companies strive to show the range of the company’s work. And the performance by American Ballet Theatre at the Auditorium Theatre Friday, April 14, fit that bill. With a quartet of works that showed the company’s technical expertise, it included a range of choreographic voices and seemed designed to […]

A male dancer is dressed in a costume suggestive of a 19th-century military uniform (gray tights with red stripes down the side of the legs, suspenders, black boots). He holds up a woman in a white blouse that looks like a corset and a thin white translucent skirt

Arts & Culture

A dance of contrasts

by JT Newman February 20, 2023February 20, 2023

Scene: A blustery, freezing February night in Chicago. As we approach the Civic Opera House, a cluster of protestors come into focus. They’re holding aloft bloodied ballerina soft sculptures, signs that sport slogans like “supporting ‘great Russian culture’ is supporting the war,” and large-scale images of Oleksandr Shapoval, a Ukrainian ballet dancer and teacher who […]

A group of performers stand onstage, mirrors behind them and metal lattices in front of them. Some of them are in lingerie. The performer on the right wears a dog nose.

Arts & Culture

Not your average camp

by JT Newman January 25, 2023February 22, 2023

It’s July 1990, and I am summoned to the corner of Newport and Sheffield over and over again by the lure of my friend Franz’s rooftop parties. But little do I know that just half a block away, Lower Links is beginning a summer of programming that solidifies that corner as a mini-epicenter of performance […]

Food & Drink

Say yes to Bendición Dry Bar

by JT Newman January 19, 2023January 19, 2023

Cristina Torres, the owner of Bendición Dry Bar, is forging a new path among the sober and sober curious.

Dance

Beyond The Nutcracker

by JT Newman December 9, 2022December 16, 2022

December is obviously the time when dance companies dust off the old chestnut that, according to a 2017 Dance/USA survey, accounts for around 48 percent of their annual revenues. If you’re interested in The Nutcracker, we’ve got a round-up here. But there’s also more afoot in Chicago dance this month than the beloved Tchaikovsky ballet […]

a doodle of a face taking a bite of a coconut ice pop on a stick

Food & Drink

The tastes of home

by JT Newman, Philip Montoro, Salem Collo-Julin, Kirk Williamson and Savannah Hugueley July 21, 2022July 21, 2022

It’s a common refrain in the city: Chicago summer is so worth the wait. Newbies and transplants can feel the buzz of opportunity in the air when the weather starts to turn. Visceral summer memories fuel locals through even the coldest, darkest months. And many of those memories involve food and drink—cookouts, summer cocktails, farmers’ […]