FEBRUARY
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“Much of the contemporary dance presenting that’s going on right now in the U.S. is dominated by work from New York and abroad,” says Phil Reynolds, executive director of the Dance Center of Columbia College. “But there is in fact a wealth of very interesting new work coming out of the west coast, and San Francisco is the hub of that.” The Dance Center’s new “Into the West” series features three cutting-edge Bay Area companies, including Robert Moses’s Kin (which makes its Chicago debut on March 6) and the Joe Goode Performance Group (March 20). The series kicked off last night with Sara Shelton Mann–whom Reynolds calls “a seminal force in the Bay Area scene”–and her company Contraband performing the evening-length Feast of Souls–part two of her multimedia trilogy, Monk at the Met. Additional performances are tonight and tomorrow, February 22, at 8 at the Dance Center, 1306 S. Michigan, Chicago. Tickets range from $20 to $24; for more information call 312-344-8300 or see the Critic’s Choice in Dance.
22 SATURDAY
24 MONDAY
“We think of baseball as essentially an American game that embodies American values,” says Northwestern University lecturer and baseball expert Bill Savage. “But American values always come down to who gets to be an American.” He points out that Jackie Robinson, who in 1947 became the first black player to sign to the majors, wrote in his autobiography that upon hearing the national anthem at the beginning of the 1947 World Series he thought, “This time…it is being played for me as much as for anyone else. This is organized major league baseball and I am standing here with all the others; and everything that takes place includes me.” Savage will examine how identity and transformation play out in baseball narratives at tonight’s lecture, Defining American Identity in Baseball Fiction and Film. It’s held in conjunction with the exhibit “Baseball as America” at the Field Museum, 1400 S. Lake Shore Dr., Chicago (312-665-7400). It starts at 6; admission is $12, $10 for students, seniors, and educators.
