Friday 11/14 – Thursday 11/20
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To get the most out of a Merce Cunningham Dance Company performance, audience members should check their expectations at the door, says Bonnie Brooks, chair of the Dance Center of Columbia College. “The best thing is to go in with an open mind and bring your own life to it, and it can be wondrous.” Brooks will elaborate tonight and tomorrow, November 15, in a lecture called “How to Watch a Cunningham Concert.” It’s part of this weekend’s Conversations on Cunningham symposium, which will examine the 84-year-old choreographer’s impact on contemporary dance over the past 50 years. It’s being held in conjunction with the Cunningham company’s engagement this weekend at the brand-new Joan W. and Irving B. Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 E. Randolph. The conference began Thursday, November 13, and runs through tomorrow at the Harris Theater and at the Dance Center, 1306 S. Michigan. It’s $50 per person to attend the entire conference, $10 for a single event, and half price for students. Brooks’s talks start at 7 Friday and Saturday (performances are at 8) and are free to concert ticket holders. For more information call 312-344-8300 or see www.dancecenter.org. For more on the Cunningham company’s performances see the Dance Critic’s Choice in Section Two.
15 SATURDAY In 1951, Wobbly and former hobo Slim Brundage used a $6,000 workers’ comp settlement to open the original College of Complexes in an Old Town tavern, where he wrote on the ceiling in two-foot-high letters: “No television, no jukebox, no 26 game–just beer, booze and bull-oney.” He dubbed himself the bar’s janitor and brought in nightly speakers and guests ranging from Olympic gold medalist Jesse Owens and United Nations delegate Archibald Carey to Ziegfeld Follies star Frances Stuart Kenyon. In between Brundage, who died in 1990, wrote at least five novels plus many short stories and plays. Today from 1 to 3 a group of speakers including former alderman Leon Despres, current C. of C. organizer Charles Paidock, poet and historian Franklin Rosemont, and artist Carlos Cortez will celebrate Brundage’s 100th birthday at a free event that doubles as a College of Complexes reunion and a launch party for Rosemont’s new book, The Rise & Fall of the Dil Pickle: Jazz-Age Chicago’s Wildest & Most Outrageously Creative Hobohemian Nightspot. Featuring music by Ella Jenkins and Allen Schwartz, the party takes place at the Conrad Sulzer Regional Library, 4455 N. Lincoln. Call 312-744-7616.
18 TUESDAY Three things you never want to see are water coming out of your electrical sockets, flames shooting out of your sock drawer, and a press release that begins, “The Bush Administration today announced revised standards for…,” says lefty populist Jim Hightower in his new book, Thieves in High Places: They’ve Stolen Our Country and It’s Time to Take It Back. “When you see that eight-word lead you just know it’s going to be yet another piece of awful news, yet another revision of the rules that’ll let yet another industry or specific corporation have a free hand to clobber us regular folks.” Hightower will speak and sign books tonight at 7 at a benefit for Sustainable Chicago at HotHouse, 31 E. Balbo. Tickets for the event, which includes a panel discussion on environmentally friendly companies, are $25 ($30 after November 15), or $10 for students. A $100 donation also covers admission to a VIP reception at 6 featuring organic food from Frontera Grill, Thyme, and Trotter’s to Go. Call 630-836-1864 or e-mail info@organicfoodnetwork.net for reservations.
