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Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre, founded by composer Joe Cerqua, choreographer Wilfredo Rivera, and the late visual artist Matt Lamb, celebrates its 20th anniversary with two programs of new works devoted to American identity, including works by choreographers Shannon Alvis and Monique Haley that explore Native American and African American heritage, as well as the premiere of Rivera’s evening-length work devoted to the immigrant experience, American Catracho. Drawing from his own story and those of his loved ones, Rivera says, “I wanted to share the traumatic components of migrating from another country and the story of working men and women who are looking for a new hope, a new land, a new opportunity....

Youlena Zaia fled Iraq for Syria with her children in 2005. Three years later, they fled again to the United States. It was her daughter’s idea to bring the photo album—it mostly contained pictures from the 1980s, when Zaia was working as an engineer on the Haditha Dam. Now they’re the only tangible evidence that remains of Zaia’s old life in a world that no longer exists, when an Iraqi Christian woman could wear pants and work on a major construction project and go fishing in the Euphrates River after hours....

It’s been two years since writer-chef Hugh Amano and illustrator Sarah Becan’s Let’s Make Ramen! comic cookbook was published. Halfway through that period I can imagine what a gift it was to a certain sort of obsessive who didn’t pick up sourdough starters or cake making during the pandemic. What was the volume in terms of dumplings made and consumed during the process of researching and writing? I never considered tamales to be dumplings until now....

Pandemic-related venue shutdowns and tour cancellations have affected nearly everyone whose job revolves around music and nightlife, including the artists who create gig posters. When I talked to Screwball Press founder Steve Walters in January, he echoed a sentiment I’ve heard from many artists: 2020 was a nightmare. “I thought at first we’d be down for a few months and just weather it out,” Walters said, “but yeah, it’s going to be a while still....

On a chilly Sunday morning in mid-May, packs of leather-clad bikers descend on a field at the outskirts of the municipal airport in Baldwin, Michigan. From the hum of distant engines becoming a thunderous roar to the skull-print face masks and black balaclavas the motorcyclists wear to block the unseasonable cold—all of it evokes some portentous scene from Mad Max: Fury Road. But instead of a future desert wasteland, the setting is a drab midwestern winterscape....

It’d be a mistake to call Christine Fellows’s two previous albums “concept albums,” but each has a singular point of inspiration: Femmes de Chez Nous (2011) was born out of the Canadian singer-songwriter and poet’s research into the history of women in Winnipeg (conducted during her residency at Le Musée de Saint-Boniface, a Franco-Manitoban culture museum housed in a former Winnipeg nunnery). Burning Daylight (2014) is a collection of odes to the Canadian north, partly inspired by Jack London stories....

The collapse of Al Jazeera America is going to put about 700 journalists out of work, and as you think about this high number keep in mind that when the Qatar-owned news channel was setting up three years ago, it got about 12,000 job applications. Any decent job in journalism is a precious commodity. Then there was the fact that Al Jazeera already offered the international channel Al Jazeera English, an excellent service launched in 2006 that was available in the U....

Stretched out on her bunk at night, arms all akimbo, Sharonda Miller likes to close her eyes and imagine freedom is a train ride home. After 19 years away from her only child, the 41-year-old mother, known for her big jokes and watchful eye, has built countless friendships inside the gates of Logan Correctional Center, Illinois’s largest women’s prison. The lack of cameras in her temporary unit made her mind tick and creep into dark parts of her past....

Q: I’m a 22-year-old straight male dating a 23-year-old woman. This is by far the most sexual relationship I’ve been in, which is great, except one part is freaking me out: I recently “caught” my girlfriend masturbating with her roommate’s panties. (She knew I was coming over and wanted me to catch her.) It turns out she has a habit of sneaking her roommate’s worn underwear, masturbating while smelling them (or putting them in her mouth), and then sneaking them back into her roommate’s laundry basket....

Michael Gebert Jake Bickelhaupt (left) in his apartment kitchen for a Sous Rising dinner. I don’t take any national list too seriously, but if there’s one I tend to give some credence to, it’s Food & Wine‘s best new chefs list, which is genuinely national (not six New York chefs and four from the rest of America) and intelligently reflective of who’s won respect from diners, reviewers, and peers in a relatively short time....

Lillstreet Art Center is a Chicago institution situated in a 40,000-square-foot gear factory in Ravenswood. The building is a considerable step up from its former home in a renovated horse barn. The goal of Lillstreet is to make art as accessible as possible to as many people as possible. First-time classes are always available, and new classes are based on student and teacher suggestions. New offerings include a class on pottery as a political object, and visiting artist workshops for feltmaking....

The world is littered with adaptations of the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, but the Greek myth is just a seed for the creator-directors of Rooming House, Julia Rhoads of Lucky Plush Productions and Leslie Buxbaum Danzig, a cofounder of 500 Clown. Over its brisk 75 minutes their light-footed, sometimes cheeky production grows into something expansive and challenging, exploring deeper aspects of storytelling and human behavior through Lucky Plush’s signature blend of insight and play....

A nascent political action committee, Illinoisans for Independent Work, is being bankrolled by rideshare giant Lyft, with one of the Bay Area-based company’s top executives at the helm— signaling a potential expansion of efforts to carve out independent contractor status for their drivers following a win at the ballot box in California. More precisely, the committee’s listed address is the office of California-based boutique law firm Politicom Law LLP, which specializes in political compliance law and was cofounded by the committee’s treasurer Darrin Lim....

The 22nd Chicago Underground Film Festival reflects a positively global mind-set, with selections from or about Argentina, Burma, Cyprus, and other far-flung countries. In fact “the underground” seems to get bigger all the time: Ben Russell, Ben Rivers, and collaborators Lev Kalman and Whitney Horn, all CUFF veterans whose work is included in this year’s edition, have recently gotten exposure at prominent European festivals. That’s not to say that CUFF has abandoned its local or transgressive roots; this year brings not only a program of amateur porn from the 90s, but also the world premiere of Night of the Blood Squatch, a locally produced short about a meeting between a “furry” and a Bigfoot conspiracy theorist....

The chief innovation Atlanta trio Migos have brought to rap music is using words as punctuation. (Period). Quavo, his cousin Offset, and his nephew Takeoff don’t merely rap or sing or rap-sing, they pepper their bars with stray words or onomatopoetic sounds that aren’t just stylistic quirks or sound effects (boom), but integral components of their vocals. (Critical). Sometimes the device works like the connective tissue of em dashes (continue), ellipses (dot dot dot), or rhetorical questions (what)....

Redlining is still alive and well, continuing to haunt communities that decades ago were denied access to home loan financing. A March report from the Neighborhood Community Reinvestment Coalition found that areas denied credit in the postwar period remain heavily disinvested in today. The Gartz family lived in the neighborhood in the midst of these chaotic changes, similarly confused about what was happening. But unlike most white families, who sold their homes and fled the neighborhood, Linda’s parents remained, rooted by the reluctance of her father, Fred, to leave the place where he grew up and Fred’s parents’ decision to give the family their house—a six-flat—after they fled, compelling them to become landlords for more than 40 years....

Sometimes even the best pinball wizards can’t summon their old tricks. “I can’t believe I’m losing at my own game,” Roger says. More broadly, if anyone can lay claim to an entire game or hobby, it’s Roger. A generation ago he was among the greatest players in the world and one of the architects of competitive pinball. He also wrote the first serious book on the subject and worked in the industry in some shape or form for more than a ....

In the Reader‘s 2015 Best of Chicago issue, Sasha Geffen declared glam-rock group the Gold Web the “best onstage psychedelic costume party.” In case you haven’t had the pleasure of seeing the band’s menagerie of outfits and props in person, this month they released a video for “The Emperor,” the glittery, swooning lead single from their brand-new third album, Acidchrist Superspice & the Candyboys. The riotously colorful clip is pretty hard to sum up—it’s not like there’s a narrative to follow—but you get to see women smearing cake on their faces, front man Max Perenchio (aka the Silver Wizard) chased across the screen by a string of time-delayed duplicates of himself as he tickles his guitar, and somebody in wings, an eyepatch, and a leopard-print bodysuit smashing a watermelon with a huge hammer....

Jeff Zoline In a lonely gravel lot on the 6200 block of North Pulaski Road, a billboard poses a question in plain black text to all who pass: “Who is John Galt?” It seems a rather cryptic query, unless of course you’re one of Ayn Rand’s devotees, a group whose membership has included everyone from the late Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey to the Catholic churchgoing congressman Paul Ryan....

On July 19, 2016, Mohammad Al Jarboai, his wife, and three children pushed a loaded luggage cart into the crowded waiting area of Terminal 5 at O’Hare International Airport. They had just landed after a 13-hour flight from Amman, Jordan. On the right, people were chatting at a cluster of tables next to a McDonald’s. Al Jarboai wondered what the people were saying, but the crowd pushed him onward. A man near the door caught sight of the family, walked over in no hurry, and extended a hand....