Blending horror with the Bee Gees era will absolutely be intentional on October 21 and 22, when Ballet Quad Cities hosts its fall fundraising performances of Halloween Disco Party at the Club – two nights of groovy/spooky vignettes performed at Davenport's Outing Club by the talents of the Quad Cities' professional dance company.
One of history's most noted professors and priests – as well as a seminal figure in the Protestant Reformation who was the namesake of Lutheranism – will be the subject of a virtual October 24 program by the German American Heritage Center, with the Davenport venue hosting noted historian Russell Baldner as he delivers his acclaimed presentation I Am Baptized: Martin Luther & Birthplace Eisleben.
Described by the Washington Post as “the perfect balance of bizarreness, comedy, and horror,” director Tim Burton's Oscar-winning supernatural slapstick Beetlejuice is the focus of the latest trivia might at Bettendorf venue The Tangled Wood, the interactive October 26 event inviting attendees to share their knowledge of this unforgettable movie entertainment that went on to spawn video games, an animated TV series, and even a Tony-nominated Broadway musical.
The life of one of the most notorious – and frequently most vilified – figures in American history will be explored on October 26 when the Moline Public Library hosts the hour-long solo performance Lizzie Borden, a virtual presentation in which Leslie Goddard, Ph.D., portrays the Massachusetts native tried for, and acquitted of, the 1892 ax murders of her father and stepmother.
Appearing in an October 27 program presented by the Rock Island and Moline Public Libraries, bestselling author Chris Bohjalian will discuss his latest novel Hour of the Witch, this literary talent also the author of acclaimed works including Midwives, Skeletons of Eden, and The Flight Attendant, the latter of which was adapted last year into an Emmy Award-nominated HBO series starring The Big Bang Theory's Kaley Cuoco.
The bridge too far in the COVID narrative for medical and science professionals worldwide has finally arrived: denying natural immunity's important role as an integral part of herd immunity to bring this COVID-19 pandemic to heel.
Catholic priest and Chicago community activist Michael Pfleger has now twice called on Governor JB Pritzker to declare a “state of emergency” over his city’s notorious gun-violence problems.
The Illinois House Redistricting Committee held its first hearing last week on new congressional and judicial subcircuit district maps at the Michael Bilandic Building in Chicago. Another half-dozen hearings were scheduled for the following seven days to redraw the maps, which have to be reconfigured after each decennial census.
Denis Rancourt, in familiar intellectually disciplined form, unmasks the substantial defects in the latest study mainstream media is lauding as ending the “masks-don't-work debate.” For science geeks, this analysis is riveting. For data lovers, this analysis is evidence-based and powerful not just in showing the specific flaws relative to the study's stated achievements, but as a case study itself for how so many white papers and studies are propped up rather than keeping to scientific methodology that has prevailed until now, jeopardizing trusted journals and peer-review processes essential to scientific integrity.
On Tuesday, November 2, Scott County Iowa voters have the responsibility of electing the school board directors in the districts in which they live. In the Bettendorf, Davenport, North Scott, and Pleasant Valley districts there are challengers running against incumbents. And there are two write-in candidates declared in the Davenport district. Most candidates run on their electability driven by their professional experience and/or vested interest in the district's governance because they have school-age children inside the system. While these are important attributes for said leadership, a grasp of the monumental issues facing our public school institutions is also a measure of one's qualifications to serve.
If Halloween is approaching, it must be time for that annual theatrical command: “Let's do the 'Time Warp' again!” Consequently, the Circa '21 Speakeasy will stage its sixth-annual presentation of the cult-musical smash The Rocky Horror Show from October 22 through 31, treating audiences to live performances of classic songs in this nutty, interactive experience that has been delighting show regulars and virgins alike for close to 50 years.
Described by Chicago Theatre Review as “an inventive and beautiful work of art for these difficult times,” the cabaret-style musical Island Song opens Augustana College's 2021-22 season of student-directed works, the show's October 21 through 24 run sure to demonstrate why BritishTheatre.com's Julian Eaves raved, “I guarantee it will stay with you -marvelously – long after you make your way home.”
Some of the most beloved figures in children's-book history, and perhaps in all of literary history, will be brought to life October 16 through 24 when Davenport Junior Theatre hosts its new production of Winnie the Pooh, the theatrical opener to the company's 70th season and its official 2021-2022 declaration: “Shows Are Free for All to See.”
A masterpiece of world literature evocatively re-imagined for the stage, Riverside Theatre's one-act drama The Grand Inquisitor enjoys an October 21 through 31 run in the University of Iowa's intimate Main Library Gallery, the hypnotic monologue adapted by Marie-Hélène Estienne from the legendary text by Fyodor Dostoevsky.
I was delighted to catch Friday’s opening-night performance of the new musical comedy Disenchanted! at the Circa ’21 Dinner Playhouse. Directed by Corinne Johnson, with musical direction by Ron May, this show is about the other sides – more disgruntled sides – of the lives of fairytale characters made famous through the wonderful world of Walt Disney, with Snow White and her gang of dissatisfied co-princesses venting their frustrations as storybook/movie characters.
With singing sensation Keila Martinez headlining and a sextet of gifted musicians backing her vocals, the tribute artists of Los Chicos del 512: The Selena Experience play the Rhythm City Casino Resort Event Center on October 22, their show a dynamic touring celebration of the legacy and dance-tastic hits of the late, great pop and Tejano chanteuse Selena.
Making his Quad Cities debut in support of his debut EP, Nashville-based country singer/songwriter Timbo plays Davenport's Redstone Room on October, the nascent artist's first six-song collection lauded by American Highways' Mason Winfree as a work that “weaves a thread through the emotions of loneliness, longing, and dependency and leaves the listener yearning for more.”
Touring in support of the band's acclaimed 2020 album Perdita, the Grammy-winning, chart-topping rockers of Stone Temple Pilots play East Moline venue The Rust Belt on October 23, with the musicians' most recent recording described by Deadpress as “a beautiful collection of gentle, sincere, and delicately crafted country/folk ballads,” and a work that Paste magazine says “may be the most sonically rich experience that Stone Temple Pilots have offered their fans to date.”
Darsombra's swirling sheets of guitar and synth are accompanied by Everton's intense and detailed visual projections. These run the gamut from trippy patterns and Eastern-derived imagery to nightmarish depictions of Earth reminiscent of the 1982 film Koyaanisqatsi (“world out of balance”). It's a lot to take in, which is the point. Their stated goal is to create a “a symbiotic audio-visual-energetic experience that creates a temporary reality, woven by sight, sound, and movement.”
A singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose music, according to Pop Matters, is “so unique, abstract, and weirdly logical that it defies all industry-standard pigeonholing,” Minnesota native Dosh headlines an October 26 concert set at Davenport's Raccoon Motel, the artist's album Worlds & Wishes praised by NPR as “a series of richly orchestrated, mostly instrumental electronica tracks with a cinematic grandeur.”
While Ridley Scott's latest is ultimately engrossing, if for deeply complicated and largely upsetting reasons, I couldn't help but find my thoughts also drifting away from its #MeToo angle and toward a familiar fairy tale, as one third of the film is too hot, another third is too cold, and the final third is … . Well, it's not just right, but it certainly believes it's right.
No Time to Die is more of the same – and at 163 minutes, a lot more of the same – but with heightened yet human-scale threat, as well as an emotional urgency that makes the old feel close to new.
They're both follow-ups to hits that also enjoyed October openings – one in 2018, and the other in 2019. They're both blessedly short, running 97 and 93 minutes, respectively. And if you're wondering what else Venom: Let There Be Carnage and The Addams Family 2 might have in common, they're both considerably better than the works they hailed from, although in only one case does the improvement result in something resembling a good movie.
Now playing at area theaters.
Music, dance, food, and a community parade will all be on the celebratory agenda on October 24 when the Figge Art Museum hosts its Day of the Dead In-Person Family Day, a tribute to the memories of lost loved ones being held in conjunction with the Día de los Muertos holiday and the Davenport venue's current Day of the Dead exhibition.
Expressive, multi-hued works by an esteemed professor of Art and Art History at the University of Iowa will be on display in St. Ambrose University's Catich Gallery, with the venue, from October 25 through December 17. showcasing paintings by Susan Chrysler White, whose artistic creations, as the artist says, are “subjects that I am grappling with as my work moves into more poignantly personal terrain.”
Held in conjunction with the Davenport venue's current exhibition Robert Blackburn & Modern American Printmaking, the Figge Art Museum's virtual curator talk on October 28 will feature fascinating insight provided by learned Blackburn expert Dr. Deborah Cullen-Morales, who will deliver a talk about the innovative and highly influential artist who famously challenged the idea of lithography as a high-craft process.
Outdoor views of the Quad Cities will be admired and enjoyed in a Bettendorf venue when the Beréskin Gallery & Art Academy, through October 30, houses its exhibition Paint the River: Fifth-Annual Plein Air Paint Out – a collection of works by local artists all created outside, and all executed on subject matter along the Mississippi from the I-80 Bridge to the Centennial Bridge on both sides of the river.
New works by a trio of Midwestern talents employing a trio of wildly different artistic mediums are currently on display in the Quad City Arts International Airport Gallery, with the Moline airport, through November 1, showcasing eye-catching photography by Mark Dierker of Dubuque, Iowa, works on paper by Jamie Foster of Naperville, Illinois, and ceramic wildlife sculpture by Deana Bada Maloney of Downers Grove, Illinois.
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