Michelle Alexander, author of “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” was supposed to discuss her book last Wednesday evening in the large central room of the Experimental Station, but the heating went out. So instead, about a hundred of us packed tightly into a small, multi-purpose room next door, filling even the kitchen at the back of the space, piling our coats together on refrigerators and over each other’s seats. Read the rest of this entry »

When asked about being a professional storyteller, Judith Heineman consistently fields the same question: “Do you read stories to children?” As the activities of Heineman and the Chicago Storytelling Guild show, this question hardly brushes the surface of the art, a skill that appeals to the young and the old through a wide variety of media and many approaches. According to Heineman, who has been named an Illinois Humanities Council Road Scholar for her craft, being a storyteller is about relating to people, becoming one with your material, and finding your voice. Read the rest of this entry »

Alaskan puppet troupe Reckoning Motions’ performance of “The Great Ziggurat,” held last Tuesday at the Experimental Station, was challenging, elegantly evocative, and all-around enjoyable. The piece, based loosely on the biblical story of the Tower of Babel, explores the concepts of humanity’s penchant to build up and tear down, making use of tower allegories from history and popular culture. Led by Byrne Power, the performance adds new depth to the puppetry medium, challenging its relegation to the realm of children’s entertainment. Complementary storylines create a complex patchwork of images and ideas, leaving the audience wondering and contemplating long after Power and his team take their bows. According to Power, “In conventional theater, everything is predictable—it screams theater. We wanted to create an experience in which people wouldn’t know what they were screaming about.” Read the rest of this entry »

South of Hyde Park stretch two lakefront neighborhoods with very different histories. Woodlawn was once a prosperous neighborhood, helped along by the World’s Fair of 1893 and the El tracks that connected it to downtown. In the 1940s and ’50s, integration brought a sudden demographic shift, and after the 1968 riots that raged across the West Side, the remaining white-owned businesses decamped for the suburbs. The neighborhood’s further decline lead to a rash of insurance arsons in the ’70s and ’80s, and 63rd Street, once one of the city’s major retail corridors outside the Loop, became a patchwork of empty lots. Today it’s on an upwards trend, with new housing developments, University of Chicago campus buildings, and a new coffee lounge opening soon at 63rd and Woodlawn Avenue. Across 67th Street is South Shore, a middle-class neighborhood centered along 71st Street and blessed with two lakefront attractions, Rainbow Beach and the South Shore Cultural Center, a former country club bought by the Park District for public use. Read the rest of this entry »

Early last winter, Paul Baker realized a long-time dream of bringing a community theater company to Hyde Park. Inspired by his teenage daughter’s passion for theater and the neighborhood’s need for quality theater produced in a spirit of collaboration, Baker hit the streets of Hyde Park, posting yellow flyers emblazoned with an emphatic call-to-arts: “Hyde Park Needs a Community Theater. Do You Agree?” The first meeting for the Hyde Park Community Players drew a dozen Hyde Parkers in spite of what Baker calls the “stupid” choice of timing: January 20, 2009, was Inauguration Day, after all, and a moment of historic importance for many members of the community. Still, the group has retained enough members to put up its first show this week. “An Evening of One Acts,” featuring Irish playwright John M. Synge’s tragedy “Riders to the Sea” and Chekhov’s “The Bear” (a more farcical, if not equally tragic work), goes up at the Experimental Station this Friday. Read the rest of this entry »

The topic of the presentation was billed as “urban homesteading,” but speaker Erik Knutzen is dissatisfied with that label: “It’s a little too ‘Little House on the Prairie,’” he told the thirty or so listeners gathered at Woodlawn’s Experimental Station last Thursday evening. Though the book he recently co-wrote with his wife Kelly Coyne is titled “The Urban Homestead,” he’s not sure the term captures the diversity of what he described as “the growing movement” of sustainably-minded people who do things like ride bikes, grow vegetables, and keep animals in the city. Read the rest of this entry »

Strange contraptions greet revelers who come to try their hand at King Ludd’s Midway Arcade, housed at the Experimental Station on 61st Street and Blackstone Avenue. Don’t expect to see Pac-Man, and leave your quarters at home. This arcade is different. Here, gaming meets art, and basic mechanics trump the digital age. The Experimental Station calls the arcade a “wonderful interactive installation,” curated by Material Exchange (MX). “These games have another layer that allows them to become sculptural,” said Sara Black of MX. It is art you can play with; games that provoke thought. Read the rest of this entry »

In 1893, the World’s Columbian Exposition brought economic prosperity to Woodlawn. Unfortunately, it left economic hardship in its wake that would persist for much of the next century, especially as a sudden racial succession turned the neighborhood from 87% white in 1930 to 89% black in 1960. Racial issues and class tensions, particularly with its northern neighbor the University of Chicago, only exacerbated its economic problems, and admittedly they’re far from resolved, even today. With the school’s continued expansion south of the Midway Plaisance, these issues will only continue to influence the identity of the neighborhood. But whatever its future may hold, there’s much to appreciate in this historic area. Read the rest of this entry »