Category: events

Theatrical

Very briefly about my two cultural outings.

We saw Purpose At Steppenwolf with Igor a week ago. I didn’t like it that much. I was hoping I would like it a lot, but in the end, my impressions are inconclusive. The reason might sound ridiculous: I felt like “they talked too much.” But seriously, the play starts with a very long monologue of the main character, and there are multiple very long monologues closer to the end. And also, possibly because it was still a preview performance, many of them didn’t sound natural. All characters were perfectly recognizable, and I liked all the actors, but still, I didn’t get a feeling of play as one powerful piece, as I was hoping for.

Then, I went to see Peter Pan at Nederlander Theater on Thursday, and that was a pure joy! So well put together, the music, the set – everything, The flights are done so naturally, it’s so easy to believe :). Knowing a little bit about young actors and what it takes, I can only admire the work of the producers, especially having how big the roles are.

We went home with some magic dust 🙂

Penelopiad At Goodman

Yesterday, I went to see “Peelopiad,” a play by Margaret Atwood, at the Goodman Theater. I hadn’t been to any of Goodman’s plays for a while, and my experience with this theater during the previous two seasons was mixed. A couple of times, I felt like a total waste of time, and at some point, I regretted getting a “Whenever Goodman” subscription.

This time, however, was different. I liked each and every single thing about this play. Same as in “1776,” which I saw a couple of seasons ago on Broadway in Chicago, it’s all-female cast, and the same as with “1776,” after the first fifteen minutes of the show, you stop thinking about it. I copied all photos and videos that are available on the Goodman’s website, and I know they still do not give a full impression… All women playing male roles are incredible!

CSO and Forte

The only outing Boris and I had in Chicago this week was going to the CSO on Thursday (and going to dinner in Forte before that). It was really-really great (I mean the concert, but the dinner was also good :))

Jakub Hrusa really impressed me, and Gil Shaham was great as usual!

With a different conductor, but the same piece, the same orchestra, and the same Gil Shaham 🙂

When he was called for an anchor, he shared a story from the beginning of the pandemic, when composer Scott Wheeler wrote a piece about isolation, and sent it to him. Gil Shaham performed this piece for his anchor; it is called Isolation Rag :))

I captured this moment of Mr. Chen chatting with the youth during the intermission. He always gets engaged with the audience, and this time, I saw him signing the program for one of the teens, and later, I saw them passing us on the way to their seats showing the happiest smiles!

Titanic Exhibit

Last Sunday was a very special day for me – I had a reunion with my very special friend, with whom we hadn’t met in person since the start of the pandemic.

It was never easy for N. and I to meet even before that due to our insane work schedules and living far away from each other, but before the pandemic, we tried our best to meet once a month. Then, we had to isolate, and then life just took over.

I am infinitely happy and infinitely grateful to my friend for keeping our friendship alive through almost four years, and even more grateful that we had a chance to spend several hours together.

For our reunion, N. suggested we go to see the Titanic exhibit in Skokie, and I was happy to do that. The exhibit was totally worth it, presenting a wide range of historical facts, lots of artifacts, photographs presenting how life on Titanic looked like, and even a recreation of some ship’s cabins. I didn’t take that many photos, because I was absorbed in the experience, but I still ended up with a lot of them!

Continue reading “Titanic Exhibit” →

Chicago European Film Festival

This year’s festival is 1) hosted by Belgium 2) runs for a very short time 3) each movie is screened only once 4) I am in town for it, which usually I am in Europe at this time of the year!

I went to the opening night on Friday. I do not regret that I went, because the movie (Omen) was extraordinary, but I think it was a little bit too much on many levels. First, it is a very loaded movie, and very difficult to watch, and the trailer I embedded below does not include the darkest parts of it. Second, everything was way longer than I planned. The start of the screening was supposed to be at 7 PM but in reality, 7 PM was the time of the festival opening and the Belgium General Counsul speech. Also, the film director was present, and he talked a little bit before the movie, telling us what he wanted us to pay attention to. After the movie, there was a Q&A session, which was great, except for I didn’t plan to be there for so long, and after a very intensive week, I was almost collapsing on my way home.

I am still processing this movie. I think it represents the unresolvable conflict between those who left and those who stayed behind. And even though the film director urged us to see this story from four different perspectives (that’s how the movie is built, consisting of four separate parts), I do not see any way of all the characters coming together…

The Start of Women History Month

From February to March: on Wednesday, which was still February :), I went to the event which celebrated women who advocate for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, hosted by Wintrust. I had never been inside this building, one of those that make the Chicago Financial District and embody the Gloden Era of our city, when the buildings were designed to ensure the customers that their savings are secure :). I love LaSalle Street, it’s silhouette, and each of it’s buildings!

Wintrust’s Grand Banking Hall in it’s glory
Women of Wintrust bracelet
The panelists’ bios
The panel

There was wine, cocktails, and bites, and some desserts at the end, and there was a lot of people! Mostly women, and many, like me, didn’t know a single person in the room, but everybody was happy to start a conversation.

The panelists were great, although I am starting to resent the idea that “women have to put their careers on pause to have children.” However, there was one thing which struck me most, because it echoed a conversation we had during the other panel two days earlier. Incredibly smart and gorgeous Tope Sadiku, who is of Nigerian origin but lived most of her life in the UK, mentioned how she rejected the offers to participate in any Black issues discussions, panels and committees, because she didn’t know the UK Black issues, and could not meaningfully contribute. The keyphrase was “I didn’t know I was Black until a came to the US.” At that moment, I recalled the question from one of the participants of our Black History Month panel at work. He asked our speaker whether, in his opinion, Black people or women are in more of a disadvantage at the workplace. I think that even if a workplace prejudgement might be close to equal, to hostility is proportionally on the side of race.

Russian Music And Navalny

There is no connection between these two subjects except for the timing. On Tuesday, my neighbor and I were at the Chicago Symphony concert for the all-Russian (except for one Finnish piece) concert. The conductor was Hannu Lintu, and I didn’t like him. I didn’t hear any of his personal interpretation of either of the pieces. Yes, all the pieces were very well-known, but when Riccardo Muti conducts Tchaikovsky, it’s always a discovery, a revelation. The piano soloist was from Uzbekistan, and although his technique was excellent, he also didn’t add anything of his own vision to Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto. Yes, this piece was so often performed in the Soviet Union that I remember almost every note of it, but once again – I heard more original performances! Also, for the anchor, the pianist played the “Neapolitan song” from Tchaikovsky’s Youth Album, and I was like – is it a joke?

The last piece was Shostakovich’s Ninth Symphony, and once again, I was wondering how one can make such a bold, unruly, almost hooligan-like piece so boring!

Usually, we do not talk much on our way home, or we talk about the show we just attended, but since we agreed on our disappointment, she asked me whether we could talk about Navalny. On February 16, she messaged me at 7 AM, expressing condolences, and I replied that although I was outraged with yet another political murder, Navalny’s views were not much better. She said that she wanted to hear more, and we agreed to talk about it.

By Tuesday, she watched that documentary, and said that she started to understand why I said what I said. We had a longer conversation, and I told her why I saw it as a problem that many people in and outside Russia would consider Navalny a good alternative to Putin, which, again, does not by any means justify this political murder. I gave her a short version of our conversation with Lena over the weekend and told her why I believe that “Navalny’s return” was staged. All I know about Putin supports this conclusion, as much as I hate conspiracy theories.

The Orchid Show

On Saturday, Lena and I, and my mom, and Lena’s friend – all four of us went to see the Orchid show at the Chicago Botanic Garden; a tradition we had kept, strangely, since February 2020 – that was the last event we were able to attend before the lockdown.

This year’s show was exceptional! The staff at the exhibit told us that they have a new artistic director )or however this is called), and yes, it was something!

I recorded several immersion videos, which obviously, won’t play as immersion here, but I also took a lot of pictures, and I am going to show just a fraction of them here. The theme of the show was “The show,” so there were some elements of circus, amusement park, and so on.

Continue reading “The Orchid Show” →

CSO Last Weekend

I was at CSO twice last weekend: one time with Nadia and one time with my mom.

On Saturday, we had a “Carnival of the Animals” concert, which was supposed to be for “bigger kids,” but many parents still brought very small children there. I don’t know why they are doing this, and more importantly, why they won’t leave when the child is evidently not enjoying the experience. The concert was very good, though, with just the right duration overall, the musical pieces of the right size, and a very good narration.

Once again, I had my CSO for Kids Ambassador perk: we were invited to meet one of the musicians after the concert. He was a cellist, and he started by asking the kids what they knew about the cello. After Nadia was the first to answer his questions three times in a row, he asked whether she was playing some musical instrument :).

Then, we had a whole hour of activities. Anna and Kira were able to join us, and both girls (and Anna) had fun making animal masks and trying different instruments at the musical instruments “zoo”:

The Sunday concert featured Estonian conductor Paavo Jarvi and an amazing young cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason. I tried to find some of his recordings online; there are not that many, but hopefully, you can see how awesome he is! The second act was Nielsen’s Symphony No. 5, another outstanding piece, and overall, it was one of the best concerts of the season.

That’s the concerto he performed at the Sunday concert.

Joffrey “Studies In Blue”

As I said, February is very culturally loaded. In addition to what was originally planned, since both my neighbor and I travel, we had to exchange several performances, and the exchanges ended up in February as well. “The Girl from the North Country ended up being a complete miss, and we left after the first act. I know that the show received many awards and a lot of praise from the critics, so I am ready to assume “that’s us ” or probably the mood we were both in.

Just to compensate for the disappointment, Joffrey’s “Studies in Blue” was flawless as usual! The program consisted of three one-act ballets: Yonder Blue (inspired by the book Plea for Eros), Hungry Ghosts (they didn’t say it, but the name is definitely derived from the Realm of Hungry Ghosts), and Hummingbird. I especially liked the set in Hummingbird (although I would love to know whether there was any specific meaning in it; it looked like the artists were floating out of some hidden realm :)). The Hungry Ghosts was a World Premiere, and I think that was the first time I had an opportunity to be present at such an occasion.