Friday 1/15 – Thursday 1/21
16 SATURDAY Many Soviet artists exhibited their work in alternative spaces not because they were cool but because they had no other choice. Between 1976 and 1983 Rafael Levchin and other underground poets and artists in Moscow would get together in each other’s kitchens and present their work. The so-called kitchen generation named themselves “metarealists” because their work dealt with an alternative reality. One of their multidisciplinary get-togethers will be re-created today at the Chicago Cultural Center; Levchin has dubbed it Glossolalia-2. He’ll be joined by poet and movement cofounder Ilya Kutik (now a poetry professor at Northwestern). The free presentation, which includes a slide lecture and readings of rarely heard works, will be followed by a discussion of Russian poetry. It’s at 2 at the center, 78 E. Washington (312-744-6630).
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21 THURSDAY After composer Patricia Morehead and her husband bought a summer place in Galena on a street called Black Hawk Trace, they did some research on the Sauk warrior. In 1832 Black Hawk decided to defy the U.S. government–which had pushed his tribe west of the Mississippi, where the land was less fertile–and led his people back to Illinois. Later that year army troops attacked 1,000 Indians, mostly women and children, while they were crossing the Wisconsin River. The slaughter was the inspiration for Morehead’s new piece (and part of a larger operatic work in progress), Black Hawk Speaks, which includes passages from his 1833 autobiography as well as a part for the MASS performance ensemble. It’ll be presented tonight (and tomorrow night) at Spirits and Shadows, which is part of the Field Museum’s “Origins” series of indigenous peoples’ music. The event also features Janice Misurell-Mitchell and Catherine Slade’s new work, The Gift of Tongues, as well as Steve Reich’s Clapping Music, Luiz Anunciacao’s Capoeira, and Iannis Xenakis’s Dmaathen. It’s at 7:30 in Columbia College’s newly renovated performance space, 1014 S. Michigan. Admission is $15, $8 for students and seniors. Call 312-554-1133 for more.
