Vocalist Michelle Coltrane, daughter of Alice Coltrane, and harpist Brandee Younger come together for An Oral History of Alice Coltrane. Part conversation, part performance, the event features oral histories and biographical stories of Alice Coltrane interwoven with performances and demonstrations from Brandee Younger, bringing the stories to life.
Through creative works and masterful performances, Alice Coltrane’s pioneering practice has changed the music world. She grew up playing music in her Baptist church, and by the 1950s established herself as a proficient bebop pianist in the Detroit scene. She met John Coltrane in 1963 and was his primary musical collaborator until his death in 1967. Prolific in her creation, Alice’s innovative style incorporated both gospel and jazz, leading to iconic works like Journey in Satchidananda (one of Rolling Stone’s 500 greatest albums). Once a profound musician, beloved spiritual leader, and pragmatic businesswoman, Alice Coltrane is now remembered as deeply giving human, known for her emphasis on charity work, education, and spiritual guidance.
MCA Music Talks pair powerhouse musicians with artists, activists, writers, and thinkers to take on big ideas in art and culture. These intimate evenings of performance and conversation reveal art world anecdotes, shared ideas, and creative inspirations.
This program is organized by Laura Paige Kyber, Assistant Curator of Performance, in partnership with The John & Alice Coltrane Home.
English CART Captioning and ASL are provided.
https://visit.mcachicago.org/events/music-talk-an-oral-history-of-alice-coltrane/
This Mother’s Day weekend, celebrate the art of composers with disabilities from around the world! This program, presented in collaboration with the UIC Disability Cultural Center, is free and open to everyone. It includes the world premiere of “Consolation of Persephone,” created in collaboration with Momenta Dance Company, with choreography commissioned of Connor Cornelius, music commissioned of Karen Brown, and danced by Laddona Freidheim and her daughter Hana Javed! Hear also the world premiere of “In B-Flat” by Brazilian composer Andersen Viana, plus music by composers from Haiti, the UK, South Africa, and the US, including music from the amazing talents of Thomas “Blind Tom” Wiggins, arranged for Crossing Borders Music by AJ Isaacson-Zvidzwa!
Momenta Dance Company cultivates and presents repertory and contemporary dance works that strive to educate, innovate and amplify the artistry of students and professionals, inclusive of artists with disabilities. Momenta was founded by Stephanie Clemens, Larry Ippel and James Tenuta in 1983, and in 2003 expanded its repertory to include physically integrated works for dancers with and without disabilities. Learn more at momentadances.org
Ladonna Freidheim, founder of ReinventAbility, is passionate about inclusion, dance, science, and joy! An award winning leader in the arts, disability inclusion specialist, and formally trained dancer; Ladonna grew up a bun-headed baby ballerina dancing around Chicago. After a degenerative disability ended her ballerina life, she recovered from surgeries with future paralympic athletes who introduced her to disability culture. With the aid of braces and a cane or crutches she is able to navigate the world much of the time, but it is Ladonna’s wheelchair that has restored her dancers soul. She currently performs with the MOMENTA Dance Company. Ladonna is honored to have received a 2023 Leadership in Dance Award and the Rhythm Within Award and has been nominated for 3Arts Awards in dance and education. Ladonna has served on a number of Boards of Directors, currently for See Chicago Dance, and is on the Chicago ArtsEd Leadership Committee.
Hana Angelina Freidheim Javed is a formally trained singer, dancer, and writer who attends the University of Chicago Lab High School. At only 17 years of age, she has performed extensively at the Civic Opera House, Symphony Center, Harris Theater, Navy Pier, Ravinia and Millennium Park music festivals with the Lyric Opera, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, MOMENTA Dance Company, and the Chicago Opera Theater. Hana is the much beloved only child of Ladonna Freidheim, an Irish-Catholic Chicago born arts professional (bio above), and Adil Javed, a Pakistani-Muslim born into abject poverty who immigrated to the US at ten years old, going on to earn both an MD and PhD. Hana’s background and status as a person with a disability (a degenerative condition) inform and enrich her arts practice.
Covid safety: Masking is encouraged, and we will have extra masks available. More masking means more safety for immunocompromised members of our community.
Access information:
This season of Crossing Borders Music performances is made possible through the support of the Paul M Angell Family Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New Music USA Organizational Development Fund, the John R Halligan Fund, and CliffDwellers Foundation. Crossing Borders Music acknowledges the support of the Illinois Arts Council. Generous support provided by the UIC Disability Cultural Center through Cripping the Arts, a University of Illinois Presidential Initiative for Expanding the Impact of the Arts and the Humanities.
Pictured: Momenta Dance Company’s Facebook profile picture of two women wearing flowing white dresses, both in wheelchairs, facing one another with arms gracefully lifted.
In partnership with former Technical Director Glenn B. Rust’s Graduate Thesis Project, Keep it Going presents an afternoon of new works that you can watch in the theatre or from the comfort of your own home!
Beginning the afternoon we will have Interrobang by Resident Playwright Arlene Malinowski followed by the final performance of Access Fellow Deb Stein’s HAND, Foot, HAND. Following the performances there will be a thirty-minute talkback and an afterparty!
Keep it Going is designed to highlight technologies and practices that allow for more accessible theatre.
-You can join us at the Russ Tutterow Theatre to see the performances in person or virtually at https://www.youtube.com/@chicagodramatists6747
-Live captions will be provided for both in-person and virtual audiences.
-Additional seating will be available both in the house and on the stage including wheelchair accessible seating.
-The event will be a relaxed performance. House lights will remain at half. Audience members are welcome to exit and reenter the space at any point for any reason. We will asked phones be silenced, but texting is allowed. Audience reaction is also encouraged. If something stirs a response out of you, or if you need to ask a question of the folks you’ve come with, feel free!
-Scent & Allergen Free Space
-Masking Recommended
The in-person performance is Pay What You Will with all payments made going to support the Access Fellowship. The Chicago Dramatists Access Fellowship for Deaf & Disabled Artists is in honor of Charles and Dorothy Malinowski, who were revered storytellers in the Deaf Community. Fellows receive two free classes, one free Script Lab, and more!
The virtual performance is completely free!
Whether you’ll be joining us at the Russ Tutterow Theatre or logging in on our YouTube channel to join the talkback in the chat, we cannot wait to see you there!
Accessibility: All-Gender Restrooms, Captioning, Sensory Friendly, and Wheelchair Accessible.
https://chicagodramatists.app.neoncrm.com/np/clients/chicagodramatists/event.jsp?event=2064&
Set sail for an adventure like no other, full of twists and turns. Together we’ll meet indulgent Lotus Eaters and seductive Sirens who test our focus, and face terrifying monsters who test our wit and our courage. As we follow Odysseus on his Journey, the ensemble reflects on choice and agency and the hero in all of us…
A.B.L.E.—Artists Breaking Limits & Expectations—a Chicago-based nonprofit that creates theatre and film for, with, and by individuals with Down syndrome and other intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD), is thrilled to return to Chicago Shakespeare Theater this spring with a re-imagining of the epic classic The Odyssey.
A.B.L.E’s production weaves music, movement, shadow puppetry, and scenes devised by the group into a powerful and joyful celebration of the choices we make, and the challenges we face along our journey. The vibrant adaptation features a neurodiverse cast of 44 performers, including 24 actors with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The performance in the Courtyard Theater on May 11, 2024 at 2pm will mark the two companies’ 7th collaboration, most recently having co-produced A Midsummer Night’s Dream last spring.
Accessibility: Sensory Friendly, ASL, captions
A journey of self-discovery leads to salvation in this major revival of the Pulitzer Prize-winner’s masterwork.
On the heels of Gem of the Ocean (2022), expert August Wilson interpreter Chuck Smith revives the second work in the famed American Century Cycle—one of Wilson’s best-loved, most compelling plays. Herald Loomis searches the country with his young daughter to find his estranged wife. But first, he must regain a sense of his own heritage and identity in this story of spiritual and emotional resurrection.
Joe Turner’s Come and Gone is recommended for ages 14+
Accessibility: ASL, OC
https://www.goodmantheatre.org/show/joe-turners-come-and-gone/
About the Virtual Event
Join us for a conversation with artist Martine Syms, whose solo exhibition Martine Syms: She Mad Season One is on view at the MCA through February 12.
Syms is joined by exhibition curator Jadine Collingwood, assistant curator at the MCA, and Dr. Allyson Nadia Field, professor at the University of Chicago, whose research focuses on African American film from silent-era cinema to the present. The three discuss Syms’s practice, extending their dialogue to include the past—and the present—of Black cinema and media production.
MCA Talks highlight cutting-edge thinking and contemporary art practices across disciplines. This presentation is organized by Daniel Atkinson, Manager of Learning, Adult Interpretive Programs, and the MCA’s Visual Art and Learning teams. Special thanks to Dr. Michael Anthony Turcios, Mancoch Postdoctoral Fellow at Northwestern University, for development of this program.
This event takes place on Zoom. ASL interpretation and CART captioning provided
Cost: Free or Pay What You Can
The Notebook is a new musical based on the bestselling novel that inspired the iconic film. Allie and Noah, both from different worlds, share a lifetime of love despite the forces that threaten to pull them apart, in a deeply moving portrait of the enduring power of love.
Broadway directors Michael Greif (Dear Evan Hansen, Next to Normal, RENT) and Schele Williams (Aida, Motown the Musical) team up with multi-platinum singer-songwriter Ingrid Michaelson on music and lyrics, book by playwright Bekah Brunstetter (writer and producer on NBC’s This Is Us), and choreography by Katie Spelman.
Unfolding Disability Futures is a multi-organization, site-specific performance and installation by local disabled artists throughout The Plant, a former meatpacking facility. Over the past decade, this space has been revitalized to highlight the importance of sustainable agriculture and community collaboration. Unfolding Disability Futures embraces the importance of sustainability and community care in artistic practice and performance. Performances and installations unfold throughout the space, highlighting how The Plant has been redeveloped to make the building accessible in ways that are both functional and beautiful and proposing access not as a drain but a plentiful resource in and of itself.
Unfolding Disability Futures takes place over four events on June 4-5 & 11-12. Each performance cycle, audiences will be guided through The Plant in groups of ten, experiencing six original dance works set in various locations throughout the building, as well as the six visual artist spotlights. Performance cycles begin every half hour over the duration of all four events with a total of five performances per event. Each performance cycle runs about an hour. Thie set up is intended to build in the flexibility needed to respond to current COVID protocols to ensure the safety of audiences and dancers while simultaneously allowing audiences to fully experience the architecture, performances and visual art exhibits throughout The Plant.
Additionally, we will host a post-show artist talk after the final performance cycle concludes at 5pm on Sunday, June 12 and two community workshops in April 30 and on May 15 at 3:30pm.
Masks and vaccination/negative tests required for all events. See our website unfoldingdisabilityfutures.com for more information.
**ASL Interpreters will be available for all performance cycles on Sunday, June 5 and Saturday, June 11. If you require ASL interpreters, please register for any cycle on these dates.
This show contains some images containing partial nudity in the context of the performance of care tasks. Audiences will be notified before they encounter partial nudity and be given the option to forgo portion of the event.