rakemag You might know them best as Paul Simon’s backing band on Graceland, the smash 1986 album that was many Americans’ first serious dip into the wide ocean of world music. But South Africa’s top choral group has too much musical grace to need to stand behind anybody. They’ve been championing the complex, lilting harmonies of … Read more
Despite a few lackluster albums during the nineties, we’re quite fond of Thompson’s studio releases—last year’s The Old Kit Bag stuck in our heads deeply enough that we wound up happily exploring further all the way back to his sixties work with Fairport Convention. But the deep-voiced king of British folk is really at his … Read more
It has been the better part of a decade since the nation’s premier African-American dance company pirouetted its way onto the local stage, so you’re duly warned not to miss this performance. DTH leader Arthur Mitchell is a living legend of the dance world, having broken through the color barrier some fifty years ago to … Read more
It’s a good bet that for most of us, our first exposure to surrealism was through the loopy imagination of Ted Geisel, better known to five generations of kids as the good Dr. Seuss. This touring exhibit features thirty-three panels of lithographs, serigraphs, and sculpture covering Seuss’s wide-ranging career, which included not just familiar favorites … Read more
Kline-Misol’s puppet-populated still lifes use rich reds and blues to create an inviting air of mystery. There are elements reminiscent of Salvador Dali, of Hopi kachina dolls and New Orleans voodoo, of Pinocchio and gypsy fortunetellers. It is like wandering through the maze of twisty passages in some especially atmospheric antique shop, where beyond every … Read more
The Jungle kicks off their new season with a trip north of the border and quite literally down memory lane. Michael Healey’s acclaimed play takes inspiration from the real-life 1970s people’s-theater project The Farm Show to tell the story of two isolated Ontario farmers whose quietude is disrupted by a nosy city-boy actor who wants … Read more
May we have this dance? Our favorite Franco-American experimental theater revives their 1992 production exploring American life in the 20th century through a series of vignettes set in a Midwestern dancehall. Given that this is a play that uses a physical space as its central metaphor, it ought to be interesting to see how the … Read more
Few things are worse than a British pub passing off grilled pita as naan. Uptown now offers yet another great refuge from this kind of fraud, and it’s a cheap date, too. Taj’s naan is exactly what it should be—barely leavened, slightly charred on top and a little glossy with a brush of ghee. At … Read more
You’ll remember Mark Mothersbaugh as the leader of Devo, the New Wave band with the red plastic ziggurat hats who stormed MTV with clever synth-pop songs like “Whip It” and “Girl U Want.” Though the band is semi-dormant, Mothersbaugh has continued to produce new work at a jealousy-inspiring pace. He and his bandmates stay busy … Read more
If you go to a movie at the Heights Theater and there’s a man in front blocking your view of the screen, check to see if he’s playing a pipe organ. If so, he might be Karl Eilers. He’s one of three organists who perform on weekends and during silent-film screenings on the Heights’ lovingly … Read more