Friday 1/26 – Thursday 2/1
Native Americans have traditionally handed down their tribal history and culture through storytelling rituals held when birds and animals were migrating or hibernating and wouldn’t be disturbed. Tonight Potawatomi tribal coordinator John Warren will join leaders from other Northern Plains tribes for a storytelling festival called Winter: A Time of Telling. Other performers include Michigan’s White Thunder Drum and Chicago Urban Natives; there will also be traditional dances and crafts. It’ll be emceed by John Low of Native American Educational Services and it starts at 7 at the Newberry Library, 60 W. Walton. Admission is $15, $10 for students and seniors, free for children 12 and under. Call 312-255-3700.
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Giuseppe Verdi died 100 years ago in Milan, after four years of grief over the death of his second wife, singer Giuseppina Strepponi. Today at 3 the centennial will be marked with a speech by Bruno Bartoletti, artistic director emeritus of the Lyric Opera. It’ll be followed by a free performance of some of Verdi’s work for string quartet and his Songs for Piano and Voice. It’s at the Chicago Cultural Center’s Preston Bradley Hall, 78 E. Washington (312-744-8074).
1 THURSDAY The title of Ridge Theatre’s new multimedia production, Jennie Richee, comes from the name of Henry Darger’s mythical battlefield where the seven blonde Vivian girls face off against the evil Glandelinian enslavers. Darger’s fanciful 15,145-page illustrated work, The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What Is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion, which brought the Chicagoan posthumous fame as an “outsider artist,” gets its first theatrical treatment with this weekend’s production by the New York-based experimental group. The show’s tonight at 8 and runs through Sunday at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago. Tickets are $18. Saturday at 2 there will be a roundtable discussion with playwright Mac Wellman, director Bob McGrath, composer Julia Wolfe, and producer William Murray on the making of Jennie Richee. Sunday at 2 Darger biographer Michael Bone-steel will discuss the artist’s life. Both events are free. Call 312-397-4010 for more.
