song and dance

After the summer festivals, fall seems to be the opening of the performance season in the city. Perhaps it feels like that to me since I'm writing from a university campus; all of the students have returned, their sports teams and a cappella groups have reconvened. But it's more than that in Chicago.

Here's a few entertainment options coming up in Chicago that could be of real interest to you if you're interested in culture from our region.

Georgian State Dance Company will be performing at the Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University on October 6, 2007 at 7:30pm. The costumes will be authentic, and the acrobatics will be explosive. In the CEERES office, we actually have $5-off discount vouchers, so if you're on campus, come by and see us and we'll pass this on to you.

October 13 is the Macy's Day of Music, with performances by a wide range of groups and artists, including a few performing music from our region, not to mention the Chicago Symphony Orchesta with Branford Marsalis, and the legendary Tortoise. The entire event is free and open to the public - yeah! A pdf of the day's schedule and locations is available here. Performers of our region include-

• University of Chicago's very own GOLOSA, a Russian folk choir.
• LIRA SINGERS will perform traditional music in authentic costumes from various regions of Poland
• CHICAGO KLEZMER ENSEMBLE, founded by clarinetist and music director Kurt Bjorling

Yuri Yukanov's Romani (Gypsy) Wedding Band will play at the Old Town School of Folk Music, October 26, 2007. One of my first blog entries was about gypsy culture and music- if you were interested in that, definitely put this on your calendar.

There's a World Music program at Symphony Center that is putting on "Spiritual Sounds of Central Asia", on Friday, November 9 at 8:00PM. This will feature music performers and ensembles from six countries of the region. Student tix are a reasonable $10, and the program will include some multi-media documentaries and text feeds to contextualize the performances.

For more music from our region, check out some of the programming happening at our local radio station down here in Hyde Park, WHPK 88.5 FM in Chicago. They have an expansive international music interest, whose centerpiece is Marta Nicholas' "Music Around the World" show on Thursdays at 4pm. Marta picks a rainbow of music and topics, and does some complementary interviews. Also, UC students Ksenia and Sasha have a hot little show on Tuesday's at 5pm that they are calling "Not Necessarily Russian". Poslushai!

Gypsy Wednesday

Gypsy Caravan

What really got me thinking about getting this CEERES Blog up and running is the incredible cultural entertainments and events happening in Chicago.

Last night, the Associate Director of CEERES, Meredith Clason, and myself (Jeremy Pinkham, Outreach Coordinator) took a field trip to the historic Chicago theater the Music Box to see the documentary film Gypsy Caravan.

Gypsy Caravan at the Music Box Theater

The documentary follows the Gypsy Caravan, a 2002 concert tour in the U.S. made up of 5 Romani musical groups from Macedonia, Spain, India, and Romania. I'd like to comment on some of the more interesting, eye-opening elements of the film. For one, the music, and variety of musical traditions, coming out of Rom culture is extremely rich and varied. I, for one, was not aware that flamenco music and dance, so associated with Spain, actually has its roots in the Spanish gypsy population. Nor was I aware that an old population of Rom still lives in India (in Rajastan, the supposed ancestral homeland of Rom peoples), though on second thinking it makes perfect sense. The film received favorable comparisons to Bueno Vista Social Club, and I only wish that we were shown more music throughout the course of the film.

There is much talk among the musicians in Gypsy Caravan about the commonalities still shared by these geographically isolated yet culturally linked populations, and about the common soul and rhythm of the gypsies. Something even more interesting to me are the elements that we are shown in passing that give context to the lives of the Romani in the places they live. We get the idea that the success of some of these musicians in the west provides the only income for some of the families and villages back home. One fascinating scene has an interview with a gypsy war refugee from Kosovo, who has found acceptance and assistance from Romanis in Macedonia.

Of note: one of the featured performers in Gypsy Caravan, Esma Redžepova of Macedonia, provided the single Čaje Šukarije for Borat.

I'd recommend this film for a number of reasons: experience great music; find out about a group of people scattered by time, diplacement, and prejudice, but nourished by their community and traditions; visit the wonderful Music Box theater.

[By the way, without meaning any insensitivity, I use the term gypsy, which is often regarded as derogative, interspersed with the more acceptable ethnic terms Rom, Roma, and Romani, because the use of the various terms show how identities are constructed, reinforced, and questioned over time.]

A little more on Gypsies

Watching the film also reminded me that there are other media resources about Rom music that I've been meaning to share. Influences of Balkan, Slavic, Gypsy, punk, jazz, and rock are fusing in lots of different bands in Europe and especially in the U.S. One of the more increasingly well-known bands is Gogol Bordello, based out of NYC, and who seem to be touring across the states all the time. The are fronted by Eugene Huts, a Ukrainian who grew up in the USSR and is a survivor of the Chernobyl disaster. Recently, I heard a couple great pieces of radio about the band and their music. These resources are available online and as podcasts:

• an interview on Fresh Air with Teri Gross with Eugene Huts of Gogol Bordello
  
• a live concert performance of Gogol Bordello on NPR's Live Concert Series
  

That's all for Gypsy Wednesday. I'm sure there's lots more news, events, and bands I could profile in this space, but this media came to my attention, and I hope it's a jumping-off point.