Presented in conjunction with scientists at the global bio-pharmaceutical company AbbVie, the interactive children's exhibit Science + You enjoys a stay at Bettendorf's Family Museum through April 19, demonstrating the role that science plays in keeping the body healthy through fun and fascinating scientific experiments and a child-sized laboratory appropriate for young visitors.
This feature collects articles published online by Quad Cities-area media outlets and by CapitolFax.com and the state-politics sections of the Des Moines Register and the State Journal-Register.
Named “a true original” by the New York Times and “the first important dramatist of American public life since Arthur Miller” by Time magazine, Tony Award winner and three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist David Henry Hwang serves as the latest guest in Quad City Arts Visiting Artist Series, his February 12 presentation at Augustana College profiling an extraordinary career in stage drama, musicals, operas, film, television, and, as a theatre professor at Columbia University, even academia.
Over a legendary career that produced nine symphonies, 16 string quartets, and 32 piano sonatas, Ludwig van Beethoven completed only one opera, and the story of its creation – and the immense toll it took on its composer – will be told in the German American Heritage Center's“Return into Your Prison Now!” The Long Battle for Beethoven's 'Fidelio,' a January 26 presentation by noted Quad Cities composer and Augustana College associate professor Dr. Jacob Bancks.
With their works deemed “so imaginative, so playfully revisionist, so superbly realized” by the Chicago Sun-Times and “fresh and innovative” by the Chicago Tribune, the Windy City hoofers of Chicago Dance Crash serve as the latest guests in the Quad City Arts Visiting Artists Series, their local January 23 and 25 engagements sure to deliver, according to the Tribune, “a show that so floods the stage with energetic talent.”
All six Democratic candidates vying to replace former State Representative Sara Feigenholtz (D-Chicago) gathered for a candidates' forum last week moderated by Laura Washington of the Sun-Times. Feigenholtz was recently appointed to the Illinois Senate.
I've read and heard a lot of commentary about what Governor JB Pritzker didn't say in his State of the State address last month. Some folks are still quite angry that he didn't address their pet causes.
Corporate media distributed content disguised as news has devolved into (1) a perpetual call of winners and losers in the fabricated binary national selection of so-called US presidential options, and (2) tightly scripted propaganda across all platforms and channels masquerading as (no, not even fact-driven news anymore) misguided speculation based on contrived narratives specifically formulated to elicit conditioned responses from you, the viewer, listener, and reader.
"It's hard for me to swallow how [people] make so much off of you. Right? And I gotta do the work."
That's from the July 31, 2018 federal surveillance of now-former state Senator Martin Sandoval (D-Chicago) complaining, according to media reports, to one of the founders of the red-light camera company SafeSpeed. Sandoval was bemoaning how he was killing and passing bills on the company's behalf while watching other people make bank off the red-light-cam industry.
Give new Illinois Senate President Don Harmon (D-Oak Park) some credit. He's made a few very solid moves since January 18, when he was elected to his chamber's top job.
If you missed the perfectly timed Valentine’s Day opening of the Spotlight Theatre’s The Wedding Singer, don’t have a cow. There’s a second weekend of this righteous romantic-comedy musical if you’re in need of an extra opportunity to show your sweethearts how much you love them. The energetic cast, familiar storyline, and totally awesome music make for the perfect escape from reality back to the '80s for a few hours.
Nominated for a dozen 2015 Tony Awards and the winner of four including Best Choreography, a song-and-dance sensation high-steps into Davenport's Adler Theatre on February 20 with the arrival of An American in Paris – the celebration of iconic composers George and Ira Gershwin that, according to the New York Times, “weds music and movement, song and story with such exhilarating brio that you may find your … heart alight with a longing to be swept up in the dance.”
An iconic early project by a three-time Tony Award winner, composer Jason Robert Brown's cabaret-esque musical Songs for a New World enjoys a February 21 and 22 staging at Augustana College by eight student talents of the OperX ensemble, who will bring vocal life to this generational touchstone that led Theatre Mania to write, “Brown's score is filled with soul-stirring melodies, and his lyrics brim with emotion, hope, and soul.”
Touring the country with messages of equality, tolerance, and unity delivered with eye-popping theatrical flourish, the stage talents of Mexico Beyond Mariachi bring their presentation Trekking Mexico to St. Ambrose University on February 22, the final, family-themed engagement in the group's week-long residency as Quad City Arts Visiting Artists.
More than 50 young participants from nine different Quad Cities communities will be “off to see the Wizard” from February 15 through 23, with Davenport Junior Theatre presenting its all-student production of the timeless adventure The Wizard of Oz as the second presentation in the venerable company's 68th season.
Famously described by Rolling Stone as “the greatest female country singer since Patsy Cline,” the legendary Wynonna Judd and her ensemble – collectively known as Wynonna & the Big Noise – make a special visit to East Moline venue the Rust Belt on February 21, its headliner having recently received this rave from NPR: “With her tight band right behind her after touring together for several years, she just sounds like she's home. … You can just feel the grin on her face.”
Chicago-based DJ, record-label impresario, and prolific podcaster Brenda continues Rozz-Tox’s ongoing Northern Parallels series, sharing the February 21 bill with the ever-reliable Mike Derer and Higgy.
A celebration of new and experimental works, Augustana College's Shockingly Modern Saxophone Festival, on February 21 and 22, will boast solo and chamber pieces that explore the sonic potential of the sax through improvisation, electronics, and multi-media, with festival founder and artistic director Dr. Randall Hall saying, “There are many saxophone festivals and many new music festivals, but as far as I know, this is the only event in the United States dedicated specifically to new music for saxophone.”
Longstanding Swedish stoner-rock shredders Truckfighters play RIBCO on February 22, offering up a rare chance to see their fuzz-drenched live set in the context of a relatively intimate venue.
Singer/songwriter and guitarist Christopher Paul Stelling brings his intimate live show to Rozz-Tox on February 23, as part of a tour following the release of his new album Best of Luck, which landed on February 7.
Friday, February 14, 10:30 a.m.-ish: As I deeply love movies, and have been known to occasionally fall in love with movies, it feels appropriate that I'd spend a large chunk of this year's Valentine's Day at my first quadruple feature in 10 months. Yet while previous four-fers have started better, I'm not sure any of them have started weirder than this one, given that it begins with a reboot of television's Fantasy Island, that deliciously cheesy Aaron Spelling soap that demanded “Smiles, everyone, smiles!” from the start and almost couldn't help but deliver them.
Wrapping up my pan of DC Films' Suicide Squad in the summer of 2016, I wrote, “The inevitable sequel to this franchise-starter can only be better. I say that all the time, and one of these days, damn it, I'm gonna be right.” Hey, whattaya know! I was finally right!
Well.
Well well well well well.
Lookie what the Oscars did.
It's estimated that the Brothers Grimm composed roughly 200 fairy tales and folk stories between 1812 and 1857. And I know it would be asking a lot, but based on their delectably macabre new fright film, I'd be happy to start a petition demanding that Gretel & Hansel director Oz Perkins and screenwriter Rob Hayes be given a crack at each and every one of them.
This past weekend, The Turning became only the 21st wide-release movie – though the second in three weeks (after The Grudge) – to ever receive an “F” grade from audiences as reported by CinemaScore, the market-research firm that has been polling crowd reactions for more than two decades. Why was the grade for this timeless haunted-house tale so abysmal? And why, despite the film's considerable strengths, was it kind of deserved?
Boasting sketches, proposals, and objects on loan from John Deere Archives, the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, the Albany Institute of History & Art, and the AT&T Archives and History Center, the Figge Art Museum's new exhibition Henry Dreyfuss: Designs for the Modern Age will, from February 22 through May 24, celebrate the legendary industrial designer whose firm styled the John Deere tractor, the Western Electric Model 500 telephone, and numerous other iconic products.
A celebration of the human body's most fascinating facets as viewed through abstract illustrations will grace the Beréskin Gallery & Art Academy from February 1 through 28, with the Bettendorf venue hosting colorful, captivating works by Bettendorf artist Kaitlin Walsh in her new exhibition Anatomy of the Senses.
With the new year comes a trio of new exhibitions at Moline's Quad City Arts International Airport Gallery, with three gifted Midwestern artists showcasing a variety of works from January 3 through March 3: landscape paintings by Emily Fitzpatrick, acrylic paintings by Kelly Schnell, and mixed-media fiber creations by Colleen Curry.
An artistic talent whose works are so voluminous they're currently on display in two separate galleries in St. Ambrose University's Galvin Fine Arts Center, former Quad Citian and SAU alumna Rosalind Wilcox showcases her Finding God in the Dark: A Retrospective Exhibition in the university's Catich and Morrissey Galleries through March 6, the works created by a legally blind artist who also enjoys careers as a singer, songwriter, percussionist, and guitarist.
While they may earn their livings creating art for the body, a group of regional tattoo artists will also be bringing their art to the walls of the Quad City Arts Center from January 30 through March 20, with the Rock Island venue showcasing the creative gifts of nearly a dozen talents in the new exhibition The Artist Behind the Tattoo.
You'll get a rundown of What's Happenin' along with your keys to the Quad Cities' culture.
