There is an ivy colored brick building on 5638 S. Woodlawn Avenue in Hyde Park. Once a mansion in its glory days at the turn of the century, it has now been converted into a multi-purpose space for cultural and arts events. Inside, there are brightly colored walls and hardwood floors with a variety of resources, including a radio station, artist studios, and a community museum. Rechristened as the Southside Hub of Production (SHoP) and home to a collective of artists, educators, writers, film makers and beyond, the building recently held its grand opening at the beginning of October and has hosted a slew of events since. From film screenings to workshops, exhibitions of artwork to potluck dinners, SHoP caters to a variety of interests and to people of all ages.
Here’s a glimpse of upcoming events:
Today (Thursday), from 8:00 to 10:00 pm, Origins, an art exhibition sponsored by Beats & Pieces, a community service organization run by University of Chicago students, will feature works, poems, and performances from students and artists from Chicago at large.
David Drake, pottery maker and poet, will make his first visit to Chicago on Friday to discuss his art and his pieces, which are now found all over the country in museums and private collections.
For those with a soft spot for cartoon figures and eastern European history, stop by at 6:30 on Saturday for an hour and a half of animated films created in the 1960s when the Berlin Wall still stood. Entitled Grafiky Soumraku: Eastern European Animated Films, this screening includes segments from different countries and different years.
Behind the scenes, SHoP is still developing some of its facilities and working hard to continue to bring a slew of interesting programs and events to the South Side community. To that end, SHoP is seeking yearlong sponsors to support its efforts to be a cornerstone of the art community and has launched an online Kickstarter campaign, lasting for the next twelve days to raise money. Even if you can’t make it to an event, you can still be a patron of the arts by helping SHoP reach its goal of $8000. In any case, no matter what you choose to do, there is plenty to see and do almost every day for anybody who has even a remote interest in the arts or beyond.
For a complete list of events and information about supporting SHoP, visit: http://southsidehub.org/
On Friday, November 4th, Trinity United Church of Christ will be hosting a free screening of the documentary “Hip Hop Rev,” sponsored by the 20 Something Ministy and the Trinity Justice Watch Team.
“Hip Hop Rev” (official trailer below) focuses on Lennox Yearwood Jr., a Louisiana-born civil rights and environmental activist, the founder of the human rights organization Hip Hop Caucus, and a Christian minister. It follows the reverend to his birthplace, specifically to post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans, the birthplace of Hip Hop Caucus. The documentary shows a year in Yearwood’s life, during which he also embarked on a national Clean Energy Bus Tour under the Alliance for Climate Protection, the brainchild of former Vice President Al Gore. Yearwood has earned his respect among circles of both politicians and activists for his persistent determination and for choosing to work amongst the people instead of from within a church.
Video courtesy of HipHopCaucus on YouTube
The hour-long film was commissioned by Discovery Network’s Planet Green channel, a platform that focuses on the progress in the sustainability movement.
After the screening there will be a period of bible study and a social justice panel featuring the night’s sponsors. They plan to discuss the prison industrial complex and economic justice, among other issues.
Fellowship Hall, Trinity United Church of Christ, 400 W. 95th St. November 4. Friday, 7pm. (773)962-5650
For those interested in learning more about the United States’ presence in Afghanistan, the University of Chicago is hosting a screening of the documentary Human Terrain. The film follows the progress of the Human Terrain System, a new initiative from the United States’ military, beginning in 2004. The program itself has been considered a controversial topic, despite its objective being to end conflict between the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. The Human Terrain System is the military’s answer to its lack of success in spreading democracy in the Middle East. It integrates political scientists and anthropologists, among others, with soldiers in order to help establish counter-insurgency policies in Iraq and Afghanistan. The film covers the training for those involved in the program from Virginia and Kansas to the Mojave Desert.
The documentary was backed by the Watson Institute’s Global Media Project, and was directed and produced by James Der Derian and David & Michael Udris. It won the Audience Award at the 50th Festival dei Popoli in 2009. Following the screening of the film, there will be a discussion panel featuring members of the University’s Department of Anthropology, John Kelly, Simon May, and Kathleen Morrison.
The event is scheduled for Tuesday, October 18th, from 5:30 to 7:30pm at the Knapp Center for Biological Discovery in Lecture Hall1103. For more information, or to register to attend, visit their webpage.
The University of Chicago’s sizable Indian population has finally caught the eye of the supreme deity that is the Bollywood film industry.
Hitting theaters last month, “What’s Your Raashee?” stars Harman Baweja as Yogesh Patel, a Booth School student who studies by day and disc jockeys by night. Summoned home by his parents, where, like in almost all Bollywood movies, a marriage is forced upon him, Patel decides to meet exactly twelve girls—one from each sign of the zodiac. All are played by Priyanka Chopra in a deeply complicated undertaking of lengthy proportions.
While the film has received chilly reviews back in India, I, for one, am glad that some attention is finally being brought to the Booth School’s seedy underworld of wild DJs.
Check out this excerpt from the film of Patel break dancing in all his branded glory.
(Thanks to the University of Chicago Magazine, which tweeted this to our attention.)
This year’s Chicago Humanities Festival, which begins today, is devoted to a topic everyone can relate to: laughter. The kick-off begins appropriately on the South Side (where the roots of improv grow deep). Here’s the breakdown:
Tim and Tom: A Comedy in Black and White will take place from 2-3pm today at the DuSable Museum of African American History at 740 East 56th Place. Tim Reid was a Dupont Marketing Manager, and Tom Dressen was an insurance salesman when they met in 1968. They were at a Junior Chamber of Commerce meeting in Chicago and decided to form a comedy duo, Tim and Tom. Through the increasingly tumultuous ’60s, they were the first (and only) black and white comedy duo. Here, they’ll reflect on their time together through an exciting period in Chicago’s history.
From 4:30-5:30 PM at the International House at 1414 East 59th Street, An Incomplete History of Comedy in Hyde Park will feature Anne Libera, executive artistic director of The Second City Training Centers, and Sheldon Patinkin, founding member of The Second City and chair emeritus of the Columbia College Chicago Theater Department as they take the audience through the history of Hyde Park’s role in comedy.Chicago comedy might bring up associations with the impov group Second City, but Hyde Park was actually a pivotal place for the development of improvisational comedy. Second City itself came out of a comedy group at the University of Chicago in the 1950s. The evolution and development of Second City included the Compass Players, with Alan Arkin (Little Miss Sunshine, Wait Until Dark), Elaine May (Primary Colors, the Birdcage), and Mike Nichols (The Graduate, Charlie Wilson’s War), and has concluded with the current form of improv we see today.
From the People's Atlas of Chicago project; AREA Chicago
A panel discussion on arts and activism in the Chicago, St. Louis, and Detroit will be held simultaneously from all three cities, linked via the internet this Thursday. In Chicago, Little Black Pearl in Kenwood is hosting the event. The event is part of the “Arts and Activism in the Midwest” series, which is part of the Chicago Calling Arts Festival, which is itself part of Chicago Artists Month. In Chicago, the panel is Lindsay Obermeyer, Carol Ng-He, Jennifer Karmin, Dan Godston, and at least one other artist. That may seem like a big panel already, but keep in mind St. Louis and Detroit also have four to five panelists each. It should be interesting to see how a 15-panelist, three-location discussion can take place without collapsing into chaos, let alone be productive. Still, they must know what they’re doing.
October 1, 7-9pm
Little Black Pearl
1060 East 47th Street
