Friday 9/3 – Thursday 9/9
Since they got together in 1995, the Havana-based group Bamboleo has set the tone for style, dance, and language in Cuba. The 13-member ensemble specializes in timba, a kind of funkified son, and features complex arrangements fronted by four vocalists. They play tonight at midnight at HotHouse, 31 E. Balbo (312-362-9707). Tickets are $15. See the Critic’s Choice in Section Three for more.
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One of the instruments that almost didn’t make it into the Field Museum’s new Sounds From the Vaults exhibit was a small thing called a friction block. “It was shaped like a bean with little cutouts and you rubbed your hands across the top,” says Poi Dog Pondering percussionist Leddie Garcia. “I rubbed it until my hands were blistered and I was just about to give up when all of a sudden the room filled with this amazing ‘ooh lu lu luh’ sound.” Garcia had been invited to play some of the 50 artifacts from the museum’s collection for digital sampling, which allows visitors to use a touch pad to hear what the instruments sound like. The exhibit opens today at 9 at the Field Museum, Roosevelt at Lake Shore Drive (312-922-9410); the museum closes at 5. Admission is $7, $5 for kids, students, and seniors. You can also play virtual instruments by visiting the museum’s Web site at www.fmnh.org.
7 TUESDAY For centuries people have sewn clothing out of felt, which can be made from fleece with a washboard. Today felt maker Lynda Lowe will give a slide lecture about the craft’s history and her own work. The North Suburban Needle Arts Guild event starts at 9:30 AM at the Village Presbyterian Church, 1300 Shermer in Northbrook. Admission is $3; call 847-255-6793.
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood found its ideal woman in Jane Burden Morris, described in Timothy Hilton’s book The Pre-Raphaelites as “splendidly pallid and worshipable …[with an] unrivaled conjunction of the fleshy and the poetic”. Tonight art historian Debra Mancoff will present a slide lecture, Strange Beauty: Jane Morris and the 19th Century Female Aesthetic, at the Glessner House Museum, 1800 S. Prairie. Afterward Dance COLEctive will perform its new piece Essence, which was inspired by Pre-Raphaelite paintings. The whole event runs from 6:30 to 8, and admission is $8. To reserve a spot call 312-326-1480. Down the street at 1900 S. Prairie, Woman Made Gallery previews “Reflections,” a new exhibit of mixed-media works examining female beauty throughout history. Admission to the 9.9.99 celebration, which includes food, fortune-tellers, and performance art, is $9.99. It’s from 7 to 10. Call 312-328-0038.
