Trollin' Adventures

Music lovers are feeling the loss of live music that, until very recently, filled so many of the city’s stages.  Musicians are taking to the web as well; performing live and broadcasting their performances via Facebook Live and on other virtual avenues.  Those who sign in to quench their thirst for a live music experience are urged to toss dollars into the tip jar, buy merchandise or recordings.   Chicago’s jazzy WDCB lists virtual concerts daily on:

https://wdcb.org/events/virtual

The University of Chicago has also jumped to the web now that its stellar Logan Center performances are on mandatory hiatus.  The university’s music series brings a variety of styles to music lovers and this Saturday, March 28^th at 7pm, it will be live streaming Third Coast Percussion.  The Grammy winning quartet’s performance will be made available through a partnership of NYC’s 92^nd St. Y and the Chamber Music Society of Detroit. 

Tune in here:  https://chicagopresents.uchicago.edu/live-stream-third-coast-percussion?utm_source=UChicago%20Presents&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=UCP_email_TCP%20Livestream%201

Dance excellence is something you can always expect with the Ailey company, or, to use its formal name, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.  But opening night of its four day stay at the Auditorium this month zoomed past even the highest of expectations as soon as the curtain rose.

As an arts medium that conveys messages, makes commentary and tells stories without the use of words, it’s often fascinating how choreographers as storytellers write their tales in movement.  Busk, a surreal allegory created by Canadian born New York based Aszure Barton tells its tale with such ferocious innovation it makes your heart race.  The first thing you notice is the lighting.  Spectacular in its simplicity, the way a softly sheathed shaft of light drops down on the dark stage making the whole scene drip with ominous mystery.   A solo guitar plays beautifully and contemplatively as the dance unfolds.  Nicole Pearce can take credit for the lighting and the stage design; creating an unforgettable template that’s sustained throughout the 30-minute work.

Busk has been described in many ways since it premiered in 2009.  Highly cerebral, inescapably captivating, it’s like a flower that opens and closes, and opens and closes again as it shifts from chapter to chapter, from virtuosic solos to exquisitely eerie ensemble segments that are at once ancient in their look and futuristic in their feel.  Music helps fuel the emotional engine driving the parables coursing through Busk.  Grand choral pieces like August Soderman’s 1868 Ett Bondbröllop fill the dance as much as the solitary instrumentation that usually accompanies its solo artists.   

Exemplifying dance perfection is another hallmark of the Ailey legacy and, after shedding their hooded anonymity, each of the soloists delighted the audience with craftsmanship as remarkable for its subtlety as for its feats of dance proficiency.   And when the ensemble danced as a collective, it was anything but conventional.  Instead, it moved as a mass of one, collapsing and rising with the dancers’ head and faces turning and staring; rotating their necks with the elasticity of owls, peering out like extra-terrestrials savants. 

Ode, conceived by Resident Choreographer and dancer Jamar Roberts and the night’s second piece, is universally appreciated for its beauty and poignancy.  Just created last year, the dance is a reaction to the world.  Disturbed by the toll of the nation’s gun violence, and particularly mindful of young black men who appear to have been targeted and killed because of their race, Mr. Roberts conceived Ode in remembrance of Trayvon Martin and those like him.  Because the choreographer wanted the work to be about love, it is not a vengeful piece.  It’s six dancers, all male, project harmony, empathy and solidarity.  As one falls, another picks him up.  If two fall, the resiliency remains intact and the support continues.  The tone is lyrical, even soft, but the message of indomitability still resonates. 

After the intermission and the notion of time gets shoved out the door because Revelations is about to begin, you realize why so many Ailey dancers rhapsodize so eloquently about how much they love the company’s signature dance.  It represents so many things.  It embodies Alvin Ailey’s genius. It represents his difficult exodus from Texas and all that he endured to rise to unparalleled success.  It signifies the continued struggle African Americans still contend with to realize social equity. It taps into the universal human challenge to rise above obstacles and barriers to achieve self-fulfillment; making it infinitely relatable.   

And, as I was so sternly reminded immediately after the show, Alvin Ailey was not just a genius.  That word isn’t big enough to recognize his gifts and contributions.  The stories he told through dance, Revelations in particular, changed history.  That’s probably why time stops when you hear the first strains of music launching the dance and the entire hall surrenders to its spell.  Since the impact of Revelations changes every time one sees it danced, you wait to see what the interpretation will feel like this time.  Always performed impeccably, certain dancers will inevitably impress the eye with the sublimity or the passion of their performance.   Just like Sarah Daley-Perdomo did in Fix Me, Jesus during her duet with Jamar Roberts and Clifton Brown’s peerless perfection did as he danced I Wanna Be Ready alone. 

Every year Revelations seems to whiz by faster and faster.  It likely only seems that way because no matter how much you know it, you never really want it to end.  And although it may be just dreaming impossible dreams to wish the company could find a way to expand it, making patience your friend would be a better tactic.  Next year you can bathe in the revitalizing  mystique of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater experience all over again.

Ailey Revealed

The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

March 4 – March 8, 2020

Auditorium Theatre

50 East Ida B. Wells Drive

Chicago, IL   60605

www.auditoriumtheatre.org

We don’t choose our passions.  In many ways, they choose us.  The call to dance may be considered enigmatic; but it’s certainly powerful.  As one writer noted, once a person’s been introduced to dance, the likelihood that they’ll go all in is virtually guaranteed.

Some are brought to dance early and quickly become infatuated.  Some get a chance glimpse of a great artist and the spark is lit.  Some have dance thrust upon them, like Cuban born Carlos Acosta, whose father forced him into ballet to keep him off corrosive streets.  For Acosta, antipathy morphed into love and ended in a brilliant dance career. 

Once the flame takes hold, it never really dies.  Dance companies understand the pull of dance’s siren call.  A few of the great ones encourage and nurture it by exporting the experience of dance to as many people as possible through workshops and classes in locations other than their home cities.

Since 2016, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT) has been offering Chicagoans an immersive taste of a dancer’s life.  Through Ailey Extension, a body within the dance company that develops and offers workshops and classes for the public, everyday members of the community are given the chance to do what dancers do; to “be what you see on stage”. Considering the stature of the 62-year-old dance company, those are thrilling prospects for many people.  One of the charges of a component of Ailey Extension, Ailey Experience, is to extend the workshops beyond the company’s NYC home and make them available in select touring cities like Chicago. Often, they are conducted as preludes to AAADT’s annual tour performances.

In early February, a month prior to AAADT’s annual performance at the Auditorium, City Pleasures was granted the opportunity to sit to down and talk to the people who direct and teach the classes and later observe two of workshops.  

Perhaps it’s dance itself that engenders such a high level of intellectual and emotional connectedness to craft.  Lisa Johnson-Willingham oversees and directs the Ailey Extension nationally.  Her primary capacity on the day we met was that of teacher.  She was joined by Martell Ruffin, a native Chicagoan, graduate of the Chicago High School for the Arts and recipient of dance scholarships to the Ailey Company, Joffrey Ballet’s intensives and the Dance Theatre of Harlem. They are both Ailey dance veterans.

In Ms. Johnson-Willingham’s eyes, the purpose of the weekend workshops is multi-pronged and extend well beyond the benefits to the body.  She spoke of how dance can be a balm; something that can help a person navigate the transitional parts of one’s life. How it can be a refuge from difficulties.   She also told of how the workshops not only take dance to the community, they expand the legacy of Alvin Ailey and the company he created a lifetime ago.  As much as AAADT’s current dancers might like to be their own ambassadors and lead the charge in communities themselves, their first obligation is to prepare for performances when on tour.  Workshops fill the gap in performing that role. 

Martell Ruffin was around 13 when he first saw a video recording of Alvin Ailey dancing.  “I saw a masculine black man doing what I knew I wanted to do”.  It was something few around him could understand.   “I lost some friends along the way”, he confided. And befuddled family members wanted to make sure everything was “all right”.  As he elaborated, it became more and more apparent that Mr. Ruffin couldn’t be more satisfied with the choice to commit himself to dance.  It was during his audition at Chi Arts that Ms. Johnson-Willingham, who has spent twelve highly distinguished years of her career here in Chicago, saw his talent and that tell-tale spark of someone with something special.  “Lisa gave me chance…  took me out of Englewood.”  Rather than following through with thoughts of joining the Air Force during a difficult episode in his life, he saw opportunities materialize because of his involvement with AAADT.  “I was able to train, be a part of Ailey II, travel, teach and do what I love”. 

That dedication to fan the spark in others was clear as soon as the workshops began.  There were four that Sunday afternoon.  Two made up of pre-teens 8-12 and two exclusively made up of a broad spectrum of adults.  From youngsters with previous dance training to middle aged and older attendees who had never taken a dance class of any kind, the knowledge disparity between the participants proved completely immaterial.

AAADT charges $50 a session for all students.  The emphasis may not be on training in the strictest meaning of the term, but from an outsider’s perspective the classes are intense because both Ms. Johnson-Willingham and Mr. Ruffin approach them seriously; and always with a desire to address the gratification component.  “We want people to leave feeling the same way they feel when they leave one of our performances”.  

For younger students now engaged in dance classes and adults with past or current backgrounds in dance, the workshops are an opportunity receive the expertise of top flight instructors who bring an elite perspective to the sessions. In that sense alone, they could be considered invaluable.   For those who have never taken a dance class in their life, whether it be an 11-year-old boy joining in on one of his Mom’s dreams, a teenage girl who agreed to participate in a workshop if and only if her grandmother took the class with her, or a 40-year-old guy who thought, mistakenly, the class would teach him to dance one of the routines from The Wiz, the workshops became passports to an exhilarating encounter. 

As Ms. Johnson-Willingham repeatedly stated, the classes are a way to give back to the community as well as uncover and nurture talent that may be in its most embryonic stage.  It was thrilling to see it first hand and watch a nine-year-old mentally process and physically interpret his translation of a movement.  His gestures, timing and execution; the way he filled his space, all reflected the motions of someone with a gift.  Whether he would develop the passion required to become a great dancer is anyone’s guess.  But it’s in environments like these workshops that the drive needed to excel is encouraged.

With an interest in learning and an openness to exploring one’s physical capabilities as its sole pre-requisites, the adult session proved just as absorbing. All body types were welcome and the only limitations on age were those one placed on one’s self.    That receptivity resulted in an array of enlistees with an expansive range of ages and sizes.  The look in their eyes was the single thing they all had in common.  There was a seriousness, hopefulness and controlled excitement evident in the gaze of all forty of them as Ms. Johnson-Willingham skillfully wore the dual hat of demanding but benevolent general and Socratic dance muse.           

Judging from the same faces following the workshop, radiating with satisfied exhilaration, the afternoon’s enrollees got as much as they gave from the experience and bore an uncanny resemblance to those of audiences leaving an Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater show.

Ailey Revealed, the company’s 2020 performance at the Auditorium Theater runs March 4 -8.

Freedom is one of non-representational art’s most captivating attributes.  Free of geographical borders, free of national divides and often not dependent on the specifics of an individual’s origins, it doesn’t depict a place, a person or a thing.  As expressions generated purely of the mind, it can represent an idea or a memory.  It can be a reaction to an event or a response to a regret.

Material Art fits perfectly in this type of creative universe and a joint exhibit between the Smart Museum of Art on the University of Chicago’s Hyde Park campus and Lincoln Park’s superlative Wrightwood 659 showcase both the verdant imagination and grand dimensions this art form can take.

The exhibit, The Allure of Matter: Material Art from China, shows how 32 artists use different materials, substances and objects to make a lasting visual declaration.  Each decides his or her own medium.  There are few if any overlaps and their choice of materials can be considered essentially unrestricted:  melted plastic, gunpowder, human hair, polyvinyl chloride, paper pulp, incense ash, Coca Cola.  Nor are they faced with the limitations of a canvas; freeing their art to be expansive, engulfing, sweeping and imposing to the point of awe.

It’s this propensity for scale that drove the Smart Museum to find a partner and the additional floor space needed to display less than 50 pieces of art.  Several of the works qualify as monumental; supporting the artists’ intent that people not only look at but interact with their creations.  Not via an electronic touch screen, but by going inside a piece of art and being enveloped by it, like you would with gu wenda’s fanciful and transfixing united nations: american code made of human hair. A trip to the UN in New York prompted him to have a “what if” moment and create a house that represented the idealized global unity embodied in the UN’s mission.  And to do so by symbolically using an organic human material to construct it.   The true beauty of the piece is both better seen and felt when standing inside this consequence of his imagination.

Other works seem to represent a new level of growth in an artist who’s used the same material in the past but is still pushing the limits of what that compound can do or where it can go.  Similar to what Shi Hui has done with Float, a spectacular piece that stirs pure wonder.   As organizers point out, placement can be key in helping to absorb and appreciate a work of art.  Great care was taken to insure each piece of art in the Allure of Matter show receive thoughtful consideration on how and where it would be placed.    That care was evident in many of the works but few equal the breathtaking impact of Float.  Hui has used xuan or rice paper pulp in many of her previous efforts, but for Float she spreads it over wire mesh to give it it’s organic shape and places lighting inside the column sized horizontal pillars to give them translucence.  Suspended from high above in the tranquility of Wrightwood 659’s atrium, they look like a flotilla of slender asteroids flying in silent formation.  Stunning in their seeming weightlessness and ethereal beauty.  “Floating” beside the museum’s staircase, they’re visible from every floor.  Whether you view them from above, from below or at eye level; they retain the same majesty and sense of peace.

Connecting process and provocation to the completed works of art drives much of the amazement that fills this show. Understanding their genesis and how they were created add another level of beauty to virtually all of them.  How does the memory of the smell of tobacco, ingrained in one’s youth, lead to Xu Bing’s, 1^st Class, a lavishly sprawling array of a half million cigarettes arranged to look like a massive and opulent tiger pelt decorating a floor?  In this exhibition, tying concept to execution can effectively leave one speechless and eager to see what other revelations and treasures lie around the next corner.

Some pieces are made solely by the individual artist; others, like He Xiangyu’s A Barrel of Dregs of Coca-Cola, a commentary on the entry and impact of the soft drink on China and its link to loneliness, enlist the resources of a small army. 

All of the works were created by Chinese artists after the 1980’s. Few of the works are visually anchored in place and offer visual reflections of traditional Chinese culture.  But those that do are immensely powerful.  When viewed in its entirety, The Allure of Matter reaffirms the depth and global reach of contemporary art and allows arts enthusiasts in this country to see, and revel in, how closely it’s all related.

Conducted primarily in Hyde Park, extensive programming supporting the exhibit will run through April.  Details can be found in the calendar at theallureofmatter.org.

The Allure of Matter

Material Art from China

February 7 – May 2, 2020

Smart Museum of Art

5500 S. Greenwood Ave

February 7 – May 3, 2020

Wrightwood 659

659. W. Wrightwood Ave.

theallurofmatter.org

Whether they paint, sculpt, dance, write, design or work in the musical sphere, artists are remembered either for their renown or for their impact.  The Elmhurst Art Museum’s exhibition simply titled Sandra Jorgensen movingly commemorates both. 

An accomplished modernist artist who also led a distinguished academic career, Jorgensen’s name is frequently associated with a Chicago art movement that formed, coalesced and eventually gained international notoriety in the 60’s and 70s.  Christened the Chicago Imagists and noted for their irreverent and often wry approach to how they perceived and created art, their influence is still evolving and growing; much in the way appreciation of Jorgensen’s work may likely continue to flower.  Theirs was a voice that countered the Pop art dictum emanating from the east coast fifty years ago.  Between the handful of core members there was a shared love of exploding colors and daring departures from the norm.  The Imagists, many of them recent graduates of the School of the Art Institute, added liberal injections of bombast and humor to their artistic brew.

Although Jorgensen would not be considered a member of the Imagist camp, her appreciation for their aesthetic stance and creative output led to a lifetime of advocacy and support for their artistic contributions.  With her unorthodox approach to color and shape, and the arresting visual presence of her paintings, Jorgensen shared a kinship with the movement she admired so much.  The differences between them are also noteworthy.  Imagist art is often rife with kinetic energy.  With Jorgensen, there is serene stillness.  Imagist art often spills over with satirical cultural commentary.  Jorgensen’s work is personal, autobiographical and feels psychically “from a distance”.  It’s sometimes more reminiscent of Edward Hopper, another artist Jorgensen admired.  

Because the museum went to great lengths to share an understanding of the person as well as mount a memorable retrospective, it was possible to get a sense of the individual in addition to gaining a deep appreciation of what she created.  In many ways, the Elmhurst show is very like the Warhol exhibit that just closed at the Art Institute; where Jorgensen’s work has also been shown.  

A blaze of purpose who loved shoes and thrilled at indulging a swarm of passions; including embarking on “quests” like visiting all the Woolworth’s in Indiana or traveling to eleven states in ten days.  Jorgensen spent much of her career as a “fearless” professor at Elmhurst College “who piqued your sensitivity to things visual” before becoming its Arts Chair and serving on the board of the entity that helped launch the Elmhurst Art Museum, the Elmhurst Fine Arts and Civic Center Foundation.

Her art is the interior Jorgensen. Or seems to be.   The vehicle that takes her from near frenetic enterprise to the contemplative and serene.  A world where symmetry rises to the spiritual and her still lifes can swoop you to an entrancing twilight zone. 

The City of Chicago commissioned a sprawling mural from Jorgensen for a library project in 1985.  The brilliantly rendered reproduction created for the current exhibition perfectly captures the concentrated power and velvet intensity of her art. 

The artist passed away in 1999 and her work, like that of many artists in the latter stages of life, shifted during her last years.  It became lighter, brighter.  Somehow quietly joyous.  Although the primary components of her technique and the textural feel of her work are still very much there, for the unprepared, the transition can still be jolting.  Indicative of the capacity for constant exploration and growth in the creative mind.

McCormick AfterParti, the companion exhibition running concurrently at the museum with Sandra Jorgensen through April 12^th and presented by Could Be Architecture, has its own ideas about the boundaries of art.  By taking an interactive approach, they’ve upended convention to show how adaptable context and space can be to new ideas.  Using a Miesian masterwork, the museum’s permanently installed McCormick House as their template; the design team of Joseph Altshuler and Zack Morrison invite you to get physical with the space.  With input from the museum, they’ve reconfigured the house’s rooms and developed programming that encourage you to touch, feel, enjoy and “live” in the space.  All with the objective of dispelling static notions of what architecture is by injecting it with life.

Sandra Jorgensen

McCormick AfterParti

January 24 – April 12, 2020

Elmhurst Art Museum

150 Cottage Hill Avenue

Elmhurst, IL   60126

elmhurstartmuseum.org

Spellbinding, thrilling, surprising and even incredible might all describe a first visit to Teatro Zinzanni.  Equal parts circus and cabaret, a TZ experience can easily be considered a sustained three-hour spectacle tied together with a full course meal.   With an ace comedic showman acting as master of ceremony, you’d think tossing a sterling diva of song into the brew might be overkill. In practice, it just adds another layer of extraordinary to the mix.

The last time we sat at a TZ table high on the 14^th floor of the Loop’s Cambria Hotel, early November winds were leaning ominously into frigid and the crowd that weekend night was big and simmering with expectation.   Despite a couple of nagging concerns, our review for that earlier version of Love, Chaos and Dinner glowed.  After seeing the same show last week, there are questions about the sustainability of the model. 

 Likely, that concern is premature.  Initially created in 1998 when organizers mounted a prototype for a two-month run in Seattle, they, as well as many observers, were caught off guard by the show’s reception. Sold out crowds kept it hot and in demand for well over a year.  Proving the formula had a market, it was moved to San Francisco in 2000 and later a permanent show was created for Seattle in 2002.  The show’s staying power on the West coast helped drive the decision to bring the extravaganza to Chicago late last year. 

The second visit to Chicago’s Teatro installation on a Tuesday night in January had a different feel.  A smaller crowd. A slightly diminished energy.  The format of the production hasn’t changed yet.  Promoters state it’s scheduled for overhaul and revamp every three months. One of the hostesses confided that staff was told the next new show would be ready in March.  Love, Chaos and Dinner has been running since July of last year; six months.  It’s time for a shush.  Still, there were some big changes since we last entered the enchanted world of the mirrored tent. 

Rizzo, a huge personality in a size 2 with a voice that blazes with the intensity of the sun, was gone.  Former Prince protégé Liz Warfield replaces her in the role of diva supreme.  Slated to be with the show until February 3^rd, Warfleld’s got the voice and talent to go velvet smooth or fill a mega-stadium.  And even though there might not have been the same charged energy that typified a Rizzo show, Warfield’s stage presence oozes with self-assurance and control.  The rapport she strikes with the irrepressible MC, Doily (Kevin Kent), looks and feels mutually admiring; casting a comforting blanket of harmony over the extravaganza.

Other additions include Alseny Slylla, hailing from Guinea, and Adrian Poema.   Using leather straps to lift him skyward, Slylla performed elegant mid-air routines demanding fearsome upper body strength and meticulous balletic grace.  Poema, whose youth belies his experience and acrobatic accomplishments, has taken the place of one of the sensational body juggling team, the Anastasini Brothers.

Organizers would find benefit from stepping up their game on the dining front.  If you first eat with your eyes, meal presentation could stand polishing.  Colorless and stiff, the rigatoni was palatable and filling; but hardly noteworthy.  The short ribs appeared slightly gray and slightly dry.  And the salad, an unassuming and unremarkable tomato-less number, upset one of our party’s stomach; leaving it uneasy hours after the performance.   For the rest of the table, the salad was just unanimously disappointing.  Thanks to the waiter’s recommendation, the bone-in chicken was the only entrée that reasonably rose to the modest culinary challenge.

This was a far departure from the Fall visit when all of the meals were pleasing to the eye and admirably prepared; especially considering the constraints of the cooking staff.  Service during both our Fall and Winter shows can only be called superb.

Despite the slightly altered buoyancy in the tent, performances remained wonderfully captivating.  Kent, in his Doily role, managed to be even more scandalously sly and uproarious.  We were reminded again that his is the kind of wit that could be deadly if it ever turned ruthless.  Under the tent, it never goes in that direction and he always responds kindly (in a wickedly mischievous sort of way) to the distress of his victims.

The Robin to Doily’s Batman, the statuesque Manuela Horn, also has the professional mettle and creative talent to bring fresh sparkle to the two roles she inhabits during the show.  One as a mildly naughty Little Bo Peep.  The other, a towering dominatrix who only uses safe words that are in German and completely unpronounceable.

And it’s true, bald people seem to be a consistent target at the shows.  If your pate is smooth, be prepared to grin and bear it because there’s really nowhere to hide. They will find you for that quick sight gag.    

Still, the treats inside Teatro Zinzanni’s otherworldly tent of fascination retain their illusive allure.  The upcoming Spring show may help determine the depths of its resilience.

Teatro Zinzanni

Love, Chaos and Dinner

Through March 2020

Spiegeltent Zazou

Cambria Hotel

32 W. Randolph Street

Chicago, IL  606

312-488-0900

tzchicago-tickets.zinzanni.com/eventperformances

Looking back at someone’s lifetime achievements does much more than chronicle their mastery of craft.  If done with the hope of exposing a glimpse of the person as a human being as well as an artist, a retrospective can disclose how talent, savvy and knowledge of self can propel a person into lasting fame.  Andy Warhol – From A to B and Back Again, which began its existence at the Whitney Museum in New York last year and will be wrapping up its stay at the Art Institute here in Chicago on the 26^th of this month, does this sublimely.

As recognizable as his name is to much of the globe, most of us have only a thin understanding of Warhol’s contributions to how we see art and American culture. The sprawling exhibit filling the Art Institute’s rear galleries comprise 350 pieces.  Some precede his migration from Pittsburg to New York in the late 1940’s and continue through to the late 80’s just prior his death; revealing a range of artistic expression that’s as dazzling as it is broad. 

By breaking up the exhibition into fixed time frames, a picture unfolds of who Warhol was before he became “Warhol” and who he was as person behind the fame.  The youngest son of Slovakian immigrants who settled in Pennsylvania’s Steel City during the Depression, he retained two hallmarks of the immigrant experience:  a strong work ethic and a lasting religiosity.  The first helped generate a bounty of art. The second remained a thing of personal privacy.   Considered precocious, quiet and different as a child, his mother may have recognized an early interest in drawing; causing her to give him paper and paint during a long childhood illness.   The current retrospective could be viewed as a celebration of the extraordinary trail of glory he blazed from his introduction to those gifts. 

Some seem bemused by Warhol’s rise from humble beginnings; as if in the 50’s, when he packed up at twenty and took his talent and aspirations to Gotham, the American Dream never existed.  Madison Avenue found out almost immediately what a “skilled an inventive” illustrator he was as he applied his unique artistic eye and capabilities to help it sale everything from shoes to record albums to books. Using line, color and shape; he masterfully stimulated desire for product and skillfully seduced the mind with curiosity; accumulating considerable commercial success and industry regard in the process. 

There was a private side to his art as well. And the exhibition not only acknowledges it, it treats works that disclose his sexuality with respect.  As members of a community of people who built their livelihoods in fields where creative interests and commerce intersected, gay men who worked in fashion, photography and in the theater constructed their own private social worlds.  Warhol’s drawings of those comfortable and welcoming universes could be playfully candid; showing men vamping in dangling earrings or similarly glamorous accessories. Other drawings might edge toward the vaguely erotic or suggestive.  Many believe much of Warhol’s imagery intended for the public consumption often also carried a subtle coded language that could be considered queer.

It was when he moved from commercial art to high art that the Warhol we know emerged and gained celebrity level notoriety.  An admirer of influential French artist, Marcel Duchamp, who was just one generation ahead of him; Warhol may have absorbed Duchamp’s earth shifting notions of what defines art.  Much like Warhol appropriated soup cans and Brillo boxes to extend artistic boundaries, Duchamp also used “everyday objects of ordinary use” to expand and redefine the limits of what constitutes fine art.  Add to that Warhol’s influence in embedding the cult of celebrity into the American consciousness, his impact on how we look at the world remains immeasurable. 

Nowhere is this more evident than in the way he revolutionized portraiture; turning it into colorful dramatic high art that bordered on theater. For almost twenty years, from the late 60s to 1987, commissions flooded in for portraits of artists, royalty, sports stars, movie stars, the politically lofty and from peers who enjoyed the same fame that filled his life. His income from this arm of his enterprises allowed him to finance other interests involving film, music and television.  Generous representations of each are also included in the exhibition.

Some commissions are less well known but still intriguing and indicative of Warhol’s expansive appeal.  In 1974, one came from Luciano Anselmino, an Italian art dealer who asked Warhol to complete a series of portraits of Black and Latin trans women and drag queens.  A few of those portraits are included in the retrospective. One is particularly striking.   For its Warhol exhibit opening in March, London’s Tate Museum will feature twenty-five of the portraits.  In another arena, acclaimed architect Phillip Johnson commissioned Warhol to paint a series of sunsets for a landmark Minneapolis hotel project. Featuring hundreds of color variations, the paintings manage to be simple and quiet while their colors give them energy, intensity and power.  They’re unexpected.  As is Dancing Children, a work completed between 1954 and 1957 that places a ring of ethereal ghost children dancing in the middle of a tribal context.  Mysterious, beautiful and strangely bold, it reveals yet another facet of Warhol’s artistic reach.

The last large scale Warhol retrospective was presented a few years after his death thirty years ago.  In case it’s another thirty years before the next opportunity for an immersive Warhol experience, catching Andy Warhol – From A to B and Back Again before it leaves the Art Institute on the 26^th would prove highly rewarding. 

Andy Warhol – From A to B and Back Again

The Art Institute of Chicago

Through January 26, 2020

111 S. Michigan Avenue

Chicago, IL   60603

312-443-3600

www.artic.edu

The first moments of Parallel Lives, a new Deeply Rooted Dance Company work performed over the weekend on the Logan Center stage, singe like an electric charge.  The music, composed by Evangelos Spanos, pushes and insists as does the solo dancer at the stage’s center.  She’s focused, graceful, exact, urgent and transfixing.  After helping to set the tone for this dance created by one of the company’s co-founders, Gary Abbott, she’s joined by several other female dancers who match her energy and intensity precisely. 

Something about their unity is surprising, it’s so palpable.  And there are aspects of it that seem oddly familiar.  It all becomes clear after reading a recent interview with Mr. Abbott where he talked about the work’s origins.  Growing up, he was the only male in a world of women; giving him an intimate view of a well-known phenomenon in the Black community.   One where the deep reliance of women on one another helped insure their own survival and that of their families. Parallel Lives begins as tribute to those bonds of iron and goes on to give it a period look.  Dressed in mid-century shirt waist dresses that flowed like fine gowns, the dancers’ costumes recalled a day when that co-dependence the piece celebrates could be seen as easily as it was felt. The dance then transitioned to a four-member mixed gender set where the theme of co-reliance is continued and presented with a more cerebral dance expression.

The message of cohesion dominated Deeply Rooted’s first two offerings Friday night.  Joshua L. Ishmon’s When Men…, following Parallel Lives, looked at the same kind of mutual reliance from a male perspective.  Highly narrative in its construction, the dance’s central message of resilience achieved through mutual support and trust was starkly clear from the language of the dance.  As was the understanding that the pressures subverting Black advancement and self-realization are still actively in play.

Pierre Clark, Ricky Davis and Nehemiah Spencer were not only called on to demonstrate demanding dance skills; they also needed to act.  Their ability to so adroitly accomplish both was yet another indicator of Deeply Rooted’s commitment to bring high quality dance to the stage with themes sensitive to and reflective of the Black community.

There was a time when it was impossible to go to a performance of any contemporary dance company where the music of Nina Simone wasn’t the musical underpinning of at least one work.  Now such occurrences are rare; making the appearance of Essence: A Portrait of Four Women an uncommon treat. Choreographed by Martial Roumain in 1972, it proudly wears and reflects the stylistic character of the period in which it was created.  Opening in a strikingly dramatic mood, four women perched like seductive provocateurs on widely spaced low slung pedestals.  Each captured in the glow of a softly colored spotlight in red, yellow, green or blue.  The opening chords of Simone’s seminal Four Women then filled the air to launch a series of solos that acted as dance etchings of the women profiled in the iconic song; Aunt Sarah, Sephonia, Sweet Thing and the unforgettable life force, Peaches.  Simone released the song in 1966 and it still retains an unshakeable connection to audiences over fifty years later.  In Essence, Simone’s anthem of pride acts as a bridge that perpetuates the notion that we share a common present even though we may have arrived from a different past.  As Nikki Giovanni recites her own brilliant poetry over a blazing rendition of Peace Be Still, Essence: A Portrait of Four Women also served as a reminder of how stridently vocal a call for unity can sound.

So much of Deeply Rooted’s Reaffirmed/Reimagined concert created regrets about not having seen more of what this talented and accomplished company does.  As well as entertain and stimulate, their dance stories rouse memories, encourage optimism and incite sentiments that have long lain dormant.  Closing the Friday night performance with Dedication, a stalwart in the Deeply Rooted canon since 1982 when it was created by Kevin Iega Jeff, it’s liberal use of symbolism and its unhurried journey through the spiritual and the ethereal let the beauty of dance shine. And makes following this distinguished company more closely a priority.

Reaffirmed/Reimagined

Deeply Rooted Dance Theater

December 11 – 15, 2019

Logan Center for the Arts

915 E. 60^th Street

Chicago, IL  60637

www.deeplyrooteddancetheater.org

Sometimes that rare occasion arises when “first tastes” takes you both to the old and the new in short order.  Late in November, we saw and tasted how three accomplished chefs at two restaurants harnessed their ambition, drive and skill to claim their places at the summit of Chicago’s restaurant hierarchy.  Sarah Gruenberg’s Monteverde has been around since 2015 and enjoying its seat among the elite since it opened.  The other is only months old.  But with its glittering pedigree and the outstanding dining experience it offers, Wherewithall has already captured the admiration and respect of both industry influencers and the public.  Neither restaurant is completely what you’d expect.

If you don’t know the system, getting into Monteverde can pose challenges.  It took a lot of trial and error on Resy to figure out you need to book one month ahead to get a table.  Surprising, since for many of the premier restaurants in town, it’s not that difficult reserving seats one to two weeks in advance.  So why is the lead time doubled?  One reason becomes clear once you get your bill.  Even when you splurge on a birthday outing, the final tab is going to be shockingly reasonable.  That affordability and the wonderful food may also explain why the restaurant felt a little like New Year’s Eve when we walked in at 7:30 that Sunday night. 

You should never presume how a place is going to look unless you like being wrong.  Monteverde provides few visual clues it’s an Italian restaurant.  There’s no need.  The focus is on two things, the service and the food.  All a restaurant needs to be is clean.  Even though the 95-seat eatery is very dark, which can also be viewed as romantic, it was clear hygiene was not an issue.  A trip to the beautiful Scandinavian clean bathroom sealed that assessment.

Wherewithall, the latest venture of a married pair of wunderkind, followed the aesthetic cues of its Michelin starred sister, Parachute, a few doors up the street.  Co-owners and co-chefs Beverly Kim and Johnny Clark have long wanted to broaden their cooking expressions and open a contemporary-American prix fixe restaurant in a neighborhood setting.  The creativity and excellence they unleashed with Parachute a couple of years ago never fully satisfied their culinary dreams.    

Spare, efficient and tasteful, the aim at Wherewithall is to please the eye, not dazzle.  A comfortable and welcoming bar greets diners when they open the door.  Around a wall on the left, tables run down the center of the main dining room with a short wall dividing them into two rows.  Beyond the bar, a courtyard and private dining area expand the restaurant’s utility.

A pet peeve lingers regarding many restaurant dining rooms these days. Their industrial seating schemes with tables lined up virtually shoulder-to-shoulder to maximize capacity can make private conversations taxing.  Gone are the days where you might find one or two two-tops tucked in corners or floating like not too distant islands in the middle of the room.  Somehow Wherewithall managed to make that problem go away while keeping diners in tight proximity to each other.  Even though the restaurant was teeming, conversation was refreshingly easy with virtually no spill over dialog filtering through from either side. 

Because Monteverde felt so much like a party, the close quarters weren’t as disturbing as they might have been.  But you were always conscious of the bordering tables and would have found a bigger bubble more comfortable.

Restaurant service seems to be undergoing a renaissance.  It’s as if they’ve come up with a way to prepare, train, nurture and reward waitstaff in a way that makes them indisputably exemplary.  Radiant at both Monteverde and Wherewithall, the style of service at each reflected a level of quality one thought had been lost to the ages.  It was that personal at both.   Casual, attentive, exceptionally knowledgeable and willing to go beyond the expected to please made the service at each restaurant as memorable as the food.

When asked about what kind of vegetables could be had with any of the entrees made Allison, the woman handling our table at Monteverde, chuckle.  There were some roasted ones on the menu she responded, “but Monteverde is all about the pasta”.  Boasting a horde things that teased the imagination, the menu was just large enough to bewilder.  Allison helped navigate us through the choices and select several very pleasing options that included wild red snapper, the burrata e ham and wok fried arrabbiata.  It was all a little rustic, appreciably plentiful and consistently delicious.

Under the prix fixe banner at Wherewithall, you just sit back and wait for the magic.  Courses change virtually daily and the set price of $65 includes appetizers, a main course that’s served in stages, dessert and unexpected extras like a refreshing spiced peach sorbet palette cleanser.  An additional $45 nets a highly-recommended wine pairing.  Chef Clark curates the wine selection and has some real gems stashed away in his repertoire and matches them to dishes with just a hint of mischievous cunning and a lot of skill. The 2018 le raisin et l’ange, a blend of merlot, gamay and Grenache he chose to complement the steelhead trout, braised cabbage and huckleberries, displayed his adroitness at highlighting kindred flavors. 

Like Monteverde, Wherewithall was light on vegetables the night we visited.  It was of little consequence at either restaurant.  In their own way, each revealed how interesting pinnacle dining can be in Chicago as we close out another year and each proves you can get it at a genuine value.  Always a good discovery when you’re rolling the streets for a “first taste”.

Monteverde Restaurant & Pastificio

1020 W. Madison St.

Chicago, IL   60607

312-888-3041

reserve.com

monteverdechicago.com

Wherewithall

3472  N. Elston

Chicago, IL  60618

773-692-2192

opentable.com

And you thought you knew all there is to know about Christmas. Even if you do, you’ll still fall for Eleanor’s Very Merry Christmas Wish – the Musical.  Enjoying its hard-won debut at the Greenhouse Theatre on Lincoln Ave. near DePaul, Eleanor’s more than anyone could ask from a Christmas story.

A labor of love written with glinting wit and disarming purity by Denise McGowan Tracy, who also created the music and lyrics for the production with Kathleen Butler-Duplessis, Eleanor is also a million lovely life lessons wrapped in a small shiny story. 

The heroine is a rag doll.  And from all appearances, a very happy one living in the North Pole with Santa, Mrs. Claus, Santa’s executive assistant, Clara, and a slew of elves.   One of them, Sprinkle, is a little pistol prone to the cheeky. Scott Gryder, in the role opening night, knew exactly how to extract every ounce of goodness from his juicy character.   For everyone else, the privilege of helping make wishes come true and a diet rich in cookies has left them perpetually blissed out.  Samantha Bonzi as Eleanor was the perfect picture of earnest innocence.

But even in a perfect world like the North Pole, things don’t always add up.  Eleanor is a doll.  A toy.  So why isn’t she ever headed out with Santa on Christmas Eve destined to make someone’s Christmas wish real?  Is she a reject?  Flawed? Or is she too plain and boring? Questions both young and not so young children, from 4 to twice 40, grapple silently with all the time.

While reminding us of the importance of being magnanimous with ourselves as well as others and by putting it out there that “wishing is not a plan”, Eleanor’s Very Merry Christmas Wish – The Musical, goes a step further and shows how positive action can lead to rewarding outcomes.  You’d expect that in a good Christmas story.  But you might not expect to see and hear it told with such luminous freshness.  Casting, costumes, and direction were all pivotal in giving the show its peerless feel.  Glimmer (Cara Chumbley) and Shimmer (Clare Latourette), radiant in beautiful costumes created by Tatjana Radisic, masterfully warmed up the crowd before the show; making immediate and robust connections to the mature and chary as well as to the small and guileless.

If a good play is like a good recipe that relies on top quality ingredients to shine, Eleanor’s Very Merry Christmas Wish counts as fine holiday dining.  Sweet? Of course.  But with plenty of substance to make it satisfying and nourishing. 

Tracy’s impressive career in Chicago’s entertainment community avails her to a rich talent base as evidenced by the caliber of craft on the musical’s stage and behind the scenes.  From Noelle’s (Sydney Swanson’s) high angelic harmonies to Clara’s (Emily Rohm’s) lustrous resonance, the production’s singing was uniformly stellar.   Chicago’s constellation of Christmas classics just got a brighter with Eleanor’s Very Merry Christmas Wish – the Musical in its firmament.

Eleanor’s Very Merry Christmas Wish – The Musical

November 19 – December 29, 2019

The Greenhouse Theater Center

2257 N. Lincoln Avenue

Chicago, IL 

www.eleanorswish.com

773-40-GREEN