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Check out festivals, films, art exhibits, and shows in Chicago this week as August comes to an end. 8/23-8/27: The tenth annual Chicago Dancing Festival showcases local and national companies over five days of public performances at Millennium Park, Navy Pier, and the Museum of Contemporary Art. 6 PM Wed 8/24: The Great Love Debate tour ends its Chicago run at the Apollo Theater (2540 N. Lincoln) tonight, bringing together local personalities for a battle of the sexes in an attempt to answer the question: “Why is everyone still single?...

Update: This story has been corrected to say that S.H. Bell no longer stores manganese in open piles on site and that very high levels of manganese were detected in tests taken at three nearby homes, not four. Dangerously high levels of manganese, a heavy metal that can cause brain damage, were found at southeast-side homes near an industrial storage facility, results of soil testing released last week week by the Chicago Department of Public Health revealed....

Chicago rapper Semiratruth impressed me with her 2019 EP I Don’t Wanna Have to Yell for You to Listen, where her sly lines springboard off rickety underground-style instrumentals and her expressive joy makes the grimiest beat shine like a diamond. On this month’s EP Yes! (Layaway), she’s found a great foil in Tre Johnson, whose languorous flow belies his surprisingly vigorous playful streak. On the dilapidated, modern-funk-infused “Face,” the two rappers absorb each other’s energies: they leave so little daylight between their turns on the mike that it sounds like they’re deliberately giving each other the chance to show off by casually picking up the thread without missing a stitch....

Drew Daniel, a member of the electronica duo Matmos, a gay man, and a favorite contemporary philosopher of mine, posits in his essay “All Sound Is Queer” that sound itself is a connection we have to the multiverse, where our beings themselves exist to cocreate our identities and worlds—but because sound can live both above and below the limits of human frequency, sound lives both with us and in realms we cannot know....

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times Media Chuy Garcia fielded questions about his son in the final debate. Journalists sometimes regret the questions they ask, but not very much. It’s the questions they don’t ask—or ask clumsily—that can bug them for years. Phil Ponce didn’t apologize for the series of questions he asked Chuy Garcia about his wayward son during Tuesday’s mayoral debate, though upon further reflection he told John Kass that one question “was off the mark....

If the delicious cream puff of baroque is your musical dish of choice, I can heartily recommend that you get yourself to the Studebaker Theater tonight to catch the final performance of Haymarket Opera Company’s production of Antonio Cesti’s L’Orontea. The music is sublime, as are the performances, especially by the distaff side of the cast: mezzo-soprano Emily Fons (as the title character, an Egyptian queen), and sopranos Nathalie Colas (as her primary romantic rival), along with Kimberly Jones and Addie Hamilton, both handling double gender-bending roles admirably....

Trumpeter Jacob Wick grew up in the Chicago area and now lives in Mexico City. Like his contemporaries Birgit Ulher, Peter Evans, Axel Dörner, and Nate Wooley, he employs extended techniques that enable him to produce sounds very different from conventional brass playing. His vocabulary encompasses coarse-grained ribbons of frayed wind, rhythmic puffs that resemble a steam engine in action, fluttering snatches of nascent melody, and the occasional brazen trad-jazz lick; with his command of circular breathing, he can keep a steady stream of sound going for upwards of 20 minutes....

From January 30 through February 3, John Mulaney returns to his hometown to take over the Chicago Theatre for a string of shows featuring material from his forthcoming special, Kid Gorgeous. The self-proclaimed “tall child” and former Saturday Night Live writer has released three albums of upbeat observational comedy (The Top Part, New in Town, and The Comeback Kid). He starred in the short-lived 2014 sitcom Mulaney, which was vaguely reminiscent of Seinfeld but ultimately felt to critics and fans alike as an inadequate platform for Mulaney’s humor....

Jon Moritsugu’s grungy biker flick Mod Fuck Explosion (1994) must have been the epitome of cool two decades ago, when it debuted in town at the Chicago Underground Film Festival. Screening this weekend at Music Box in a pair of midnight shows, the movie has crossed over from cool to cute, but like the teenage heroes, it goes its own way. A retro plot about warring gangs of mods and rockers collides with Moritsugu’s more timely exasperation with Asian stereotypes in U....

Fans at Lollapalooza 2018 were greeted by a towering digital sign that displayed, in between set times and beer ads, the message “You make Lolla great! Look out for each other!” It was a public service announcement from Our Music My Body, a local sexual violence prevention campaign launched in April 2016. It encouraged ticket holders to “let our staff know if you feel harassed or threatened in any way.”...

SG Ali’s new video for “Drank on the Block” opens with wistful, wordless melodic vocals over stills of what Chicago’s Cabrini-Green Homes once looked like—old photos of the high-rises, the last of which was torn down in 2011, and of the row homes that remain. The video for “Drank on the Block,” directed by A Savage Film Ali’s story is deeply intertwined with that of Cabrini-Green. Born Aujahnee Wright, the 22-year-old grew up in the complex’s William Green Homes, referred to as the “whites” due to their pale concrete exteriors....

On the cover of her 2008 self-titled debut album, Santigold vomits glitter. The image—a black-and-white portrait of the artist with gold sparkles spilling from her mouth—is part photo booth and part DIY craft project, and it immediately demands attention. Now, Santigold is on the road celebrating the album’s tenth anniversary with her 10 Years Golder tour. The album made an immediate impact: Santi gives off a vibe that echoes other artsy weirdos of the era, such as M....

For the record, I’ve never cheered for a team on which LeBron James has played, on account of the fact that I’m a die-hard Chicago Bulls fan and he’s broken my heart far too many times for me to count. No, by and large, LeBron James joins a long list of superstars—from Wilt Chamberlain to Larry Bird to Isiah Thomas—who have used their mind-blowing talents to beat my beloved Bulls....

Chicago has plenty of rappers with distinctive styles, but none is quite like Valee. As he became a national phenomenon last year, several marquee names tried to replicate his nimble, staccato flow, including Nicki Minaj, Smokepurpp, and Tyler, the Creator. But mere imitation can’t capture Valee’s charm and skill—or his alchemical combination of nonchalance and boastfulness. Valee Fri 7/19, 3:20-4:10 PM, Red Stage “Two 16’s” Verse: Hope you don’t run up, bitch, I’ll toe-tag you / Shoot you five times, Christian Louboutin sneaks / Five racks, lean was gone, refill that / Flow mad sticky, spill that Louis Vuitton print wallet, hanging / From my garment bag, Cuban link...

I’ve lived in Chicago for almost ten years, have been active within queer communities, and have been identifying as a lesbian, but I had very little exposure to the history and the impact Black lesbians have had on Chicago’s south-side communities and beyond. Kiersten “Kee” Parks + Dominique “Dumoo” Johnson “I’m just proud to be who I am. I love who I am. And I also love Black women! Black women are everything....

Based on Daniel Wallace’s 1998 novel and Tim Burton’s 2003 screen adaptation (screenplay by John August), Big Fish is a beguiling if paradoxical musical (book by August, songs by Andrew Lippa), at once larger than life and smaller, the kind of show that features a protagonist who loves to talk big, embellishing his autobiography with tales of giants and witches and werewolves, but still finds time to move us with quieter drama of everyday life....

Much like Birds Watching, Jenny Kendler’s permanent sculpture on the 606 depicting one hundred eyes of birds threatened by extinction, the interdisciplinary artist keeps her eyes wide open to the impact people have on the environment. Her work focuses on the relationship between human beings and the natural world—especially concerning biodiversity loss and climate change. When it comes to the fashion industry, she doesn’t turn a blind eye either. “The garment industry is responsible for 8 percent of warming emissions, making it a bigger contributor to the climate crisis than the aviation industry,” she says....

On his new album, Molecular, Brooklyn saxophonist James Brandon Lewis showcases a vision that’s both microscopic and immense. In the liner notes he describes a compositional model that draws inspiration from the structural components of DNA, comparing the shape of the music to a double helix: “Within a single melodic line emerges a counter line of varied rhythms, pitches, and harmony,” he writes. That image also references the way Lewis’s compositions weave together a world of disparate sources....

Last winter singer-songwriter Andrew Smith posted flyers around Chicago to promote the oh-so-sweet solo recordings he’d made as Jungle Green, and he’s since completely transformed his bedroom project into a six-piece band. The lineup is fleshed out with friends Smith made as a student at Columbia College, including Mattie McCall, Adam Miller, Adam Obermeier, Alex Heaney, and Emma Collins—each of whom plays an assortment of instruments. Smith released Jungle Green’s full-band debut, Space Cadet, via his Atlantic City Melodies imprint in October....

Blue/Orange The adventurous Runcible Theatre Company, which specializes in offbeat English fare rarely tackled by larger troupes here, delivers a crisp and compelling rendition of Joe Penhall’s chilling yet hilarious dark comedy, a 2000 hit for the National Theatre of Great Britain. It concerns a power struggle between two white doctors in the hidebound National Health Service over the fate of a black psychiatric patient, Christopher (Nathaniel Andrew), who claims to be the son of Idi Amin Dada, the brutal dictator of 1970s Uganda....