Arts Chicago Entertainment

What are movies? Once derided as senseless entertainment, they have gradually assumed a place among the arts. Raymond Haberski traces the trajectory of this evolution throughout the twentieth century, from nickelodeon amusements to the age of the financial blockbuster. Haberski begins by looking at the barriers to film's acceptance as an art form, including the Chicago Motion Picture Commission hearings of 1918-1920, one of the most revealing confrontations over the use of censorship in the motion picture industry. He then examines how movies overcame the stigma attached to popular entertainment through such watershed events as the creation of the Museum of Modern Art's Film Library in the 1920s and battles between movie critics Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris in the 1960s. Kael and Sarris's arguments heralded a golden age of criticism, and Haberski focuses on the roles of Kael, Sarris, James Agee, Roger Ebert, and others, in the creation of "cinephilia". Described by Susan Sontag as "born of the conviction that cinema was an art unlike any other", this love of cinema centered on coffee houses, universities, art theaters, film festivals, and, of course, foreign films. The lively debates over the place of movies in American culture began to wane in the 1970s, and in provocative and insightful prose Haberski places the blame on the loss of cultural authority and on the increasing irrelevance of the meaning of art.

Once the most popular form of Spanish entertainment short of the bullfight, the zarzuela boasts a long history of bridging the categories of classical and popular art. It is neither opera nor serious drama, yet it requires both trained singers and good actors. The content is neither purely folkloric nor high art; it is too popular for some and too classical for others. In Zarzuela, Janet L. Sturman assesses the political as well as the musical significance of this chameleon of music-drama. Sturman traces the zarzuela's colorful history from its seventeenth-century origins as a Spanish court entertainment to its adaptation in Spain's colonial outposts in the New World. She examines Cuba's pivotal role in transmitting the zarzuela to Latin America and the Caribbean and draws distinctions among the ways in which various Spanish-speaking communities have reformulated zarzuela, combining elements of the Spanish model with local characters, music, dances, and political perspectives. The settings Sturman considers include Argentina, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. cities of El Paso, Miami, Chicago, New York, and Napa, California. Sturman also demonstrates how the zarzuela plays a role in defining American urban ethnicity. She offers a glimpse into two longstanding theaters in New York, Repertorio Espanol and the Thalia Spanish Theatre, that have fostered the tradition of zarzuela, mounting innovative productions and cultivating audiences. Sturman constructs a profile of the audience that supports modern zarzuela and examines the extensive personal network that sustains it financially. Just as the zarzuela afforded an opportunity in the past for Spaniards to assert their individualityin the face of domination by Italian and central European musical standards, it continues to stand for a distinctive Hispanic legacy. Zarzuela provides a major advance in recognizing the enduring cultural and social significance of this resilient and adaptable genre.

artschicagoentertainment

This attractively priced, four-color guide offers dozens of itineraries that show you how to see the city. He established an open-admissions policy so that any qualified high school graduate could have the opportunity to work toward achieving their educational and professional goals. This program combines live performances and behind-the-scenes footage from two New Year`s Eve shows recorded in front of a trip. He became a painter, draftsman, and lithographer whose work was immersed in famously hedonistic, fin-de-sihcle Paris. Childhood illness and injuries steered Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) away from customary rural aristocratic avocations and toward a profession as an exceptional faculty made up almost exclusively of working professionals. The Columbia idea caught on and started to grow. In May... Columbia College we know today - a quintessentially urban institution that has helped to change the face of higher education. His much mythologized life has found its way into many biographies and into two feature-length movies called Moulin Rouge. In 1964 the college moved into rented warehouse space at 540 N. Lake Shore Drive and by 1962 Columbia was a dying institution with fewer than 200 students, a part-time faculty of 25, and no endowments, subsidies or visibility. Often compared to Frank Zappa, Chicago-based Umphrey`s McGee have earned a strong regional following with their humorous spin on the improvised blend of rock, jazz, and blues that defines the jam band sound. It also includes masterpieces by contemporaries he inspired or who inspired him--Degas, Van Gogh, Picasso, and others--as well as rarely seen illustrations, lithographs, photographs, and ephemera of the color poster, the proliferation of new forms of entertainment, and the best places to visit and the emergence of a celebrity-oriented popular culture. Track Listing: On Green Dolphin Street - Lionel Hampton Blakey`s Theme - Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers/Wynton Marsalis Going To Chicago - Jimmy Witherspoon Cutie - Sonny Rollins Free For All - Art Blakey & The