The Chicago Park District is pleased to present a new way to spend a Night Out—at Home. We’re bringing the show to you!
Join us as we shine a virtual spotlight on the 2020 Night Out in the Parks partners this summer, sharing the best of Chicago’s performing arts community in the comfort of your home.
“Your Night Out at Home” features select works from Night Out artists from across Chicago, providing a chance to travel and explore the incredible breadth of talent our city offers. You’ll find a diverse array of established companies and emerging artists across many disciplines, inviting you to experience something new and keeping you connected to the rhythm of the city.
Below, you’ll find a growing program of performances ranging from dance to jazz, theater to world music. Watch a few or watch them all, but check back as we’ll add videos weekly throughout the summer. If you’re thirsty for more, dive into the list of all 120 artist awardees for the 2020 season, with links to their websites and social media so you can get to know them.
Until we can safely gather for an evening of Night Out in the Parks performances, we’ll continue to create ways for us to sing, dance, engage, and celebrate our city’s vibrant culture, together.
Your Night Out at Home is Supported by:
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AMFM is a brand for artists and the people. We support emerging and established artists by offering a platform through our web content, our curated events and collaborations. AMFM hosts events combining the arts to cultivate community, diversity, inclusivity, intergenerational engagement and of course, good vibes. From art shows at galleries, concerts, and activations, we host and curate all kinds of events. Projects and events for AMFM have been featured at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Allied Media Conference in Detroit, with Red Bull and Pitchfork, on Chicago’s Fox 32, and published The Chicago Reader, The Chicago Tribune, The Chicago Sun Times, Southside Weekly, Afropunk, The Milwaukee Business Journal, Millennial Magazine, and more.
AMFM's Annual Feast Festival is coming right to your kitchen table this year! Join AMFM and guest chef musicians, Solo Sam and Via Rosa as they make meals using ingredients from our Imperfect Produce box giveaway at Dvorak Park. Feast is a festival that celebrates emerging artists, and brings awareness to food deserts in Chicago. #everybodyeats
Videographer/Video Editor: Brizzy Danks
Video Editor: Ciera McKissick
Music Title: Solo Sam "Breezin' & Coolin", DRAMA "Walk Away" and "Hopes Up'
Musicians: Via Rosa, Solo Sam
Film Location: Dvorak Park, Homes of Via Rosa and Solo Sam
Film Date:9/12/2020, 9/13/2020
Audio/Video Production Credits: Brizzy Danks
Eighth Blackbird moves music forward through innovative performance aesthetics, generating new work, and a legacy of mentoring emerging artists. Led by Lisa Kaplan and Matthew Duvall, Eighth Blackbird realizes its mission through four initiatives: Eighth Blackbird, the award-winning sextet; Blackbird IV, a piano/percussion duo featuring founding members Lisa Kaplan and Matthew Duvall; Blackbird Creative Lab, the organization's mentoring arm; and Blackbird Productions, a platform for wide-ranging creative projects.
Song for Low Tree features a composition of the same name by Matthew Burtner, who writes: "Song for Low Tree: A melody from human exhalation, transposed several octaves lower into the range of a bass tree, the rate of a drum, a log, pieces of wood; in counterpoint with patterns from a tree exhalation, transposed several factors up into the rate of a human song. Play it like that… as if you are communicating with the tree, reaching deep to hear it, playing to it.” Exploring this poetic pairing of symbiotic respiration, Eighth Blackbird embraces our codependence with the green world around us.
Music Title: Song for Low Tree
Composer: Matthew Burtner
Musicians: Matthew Duvall, Percussion
Filmed on location: The Nest at Eighth Blackbird
Film Date: September 11, 2020
Audio Production: Matthew McCabe
Video Production: Nick Zoulek
Acknowledgement: Created for Night Out in the Parks: Your Night Out At Home, and funded by The Chicago Park District and the City of Chicago, who have our sincere gratitude. Special thanks to Krista Bryski Richard and Dayna Calderón.
Son Monarcas is a Latin Folk Fusion ensemble based in Chicago and led by Mercedes Inez Martinez and Irekani Ferreyra. Like that of the Monarch Butterfly, they take you on a musical migration from the USA to Latin America by fusing indie soul with traditional son & cumbia.
In Son Monarcas' project "Yogiposa", a play on the words yoga and mariposa (butterfly), multi-instrumentalists Mercedes Inez and Irekani Ferreyra create a magical soundscape of ambient beats, healing frequencies, and rich harmonies to accompany a live all level bilingual yoga class. Son Monarcas combines bilingual compositions for voice, guitar, violin, requinto jarocho, kalimba, looping, and drums. "Yogiposa" ranges from ambient tribal meditation to downtempo world-infused grooves.
Music recorded at Alebrije Studios
Music Album / Song Titles:
"Yogiposa" EP Album: "Yogiposa" - Music for Yoga by Son Monarcas |
Song Titles: Shanti, Kassa, Rise Above, Respira, Glass Dreams, Be Here Now
Composer: Mercedes Inez Martinez
Arranger: Mercedes Inez Martinez
Musicians: Mercedes Inez Martinez, Irekani Ferreyra
Instructor: Alexia Bauer
Film Location: Industrial Arts
ChicagoFilm Date: 9/5/2020
Audio/Video Production Credits:
Audio by Mercedes Inez Martinez & Irekani Ferreyra / Video by Alexia Bauer
"Once born, Black holes can grow by accepting matter that falls into them..." Once born we fall into one another. A generational accretion so powerful that we've embodied neighborhood stars. The choir sang into a gravitational pull "this little light of mine" until we've exceeded the speed of light. A Blackness so Black with three to dozens of time the Sun's mass.
Featuring in order of appearance: Mrs. Jaunita Mitchell, Ronald Mallett, Felecia Burnett, Chasitie Neal, Abdul R Timbo
Black Hole Sun covered by Jennah Bell
Congo Solo by Smoke
Deep Drum and Bass by Tribal Rhythm
Ice Wind For Sabina by AJ McClenon
The summer of 2020 challenged the Chicago Park District, Night Out in the Parks, and local arts partners to present our diverse cultural tapestry in a new way. In addition to creating the digital “Your Night Out At Home” series, the Park District partnered with WTTW to launch “The Stars In Your Backyard,” a 5 week series presented on Friday afternoons this past summer. The program is a collection of new and archived performances in public parks and spaces that celebrates Chicago’s finest artists and the spirit of public performance.
It gives us great pleasure to re-feature this series here for your enjoyment!
WEEK ONE
Featuring Las Bompleneras, Midnight Circus in the Parks, A Flor de Piel, and The Rosina Project
WEEK TWO
Featuring Chicago Philharmonic, Fifth House Ensemble, Xochitl-Quetzal Aztec Dance, and Najwa Dance Corps
WEEK THREE
Featuring Walkabout Theater, Tsukasa Taiko, Kalapriya Foundation, and The Rosina Project
WEEK FOUR
Featuring Nejla Yatkin, Africaribe, and Angel Bat Dawid
WEEK FIVE
Featuring Chicago Shakespeare in the Parks
Night Out in the Parks Video Archive
For even more virtual Night Out in the Parks content, check out these videos from previous weeks of Your Night Out at Home.
- About Face Theatre
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Power in Pride at Home: The Constitution of Queerdom
Power in Pride at Home: My Power Is
Power in Pride at Home: Whose History
- Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians
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Great Black Music Ensemble "In These Times"
- The Beat Bank/Brother El
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Sandbox Symphony IV Documentary
Sandbox Symphony V
- Black Empire Sound System
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The Black Internationale
- The Chicago Astronomer
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Urban Astronomy in the Parks
Understanding Telescopes
- Clinard Dance
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Everyday People Everyday Action
- Dance in the Parks
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This Dance is for the Parks
- Deeply Rooted Dance Theater
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Essence: A Portrait of Four Women
Heaven
- Environmental Encroachment
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Triple Line March
- Free Street Theater
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Friday Night Littering & Trash Orchestra
Who Cleans
- Full Moon Jam
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Digital Full Moon Jam
Full Moon Reserve Jam
- The Happiness Club
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The HC Slide
Shake that Stress Off
- Jabberwocky Marionettes
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Adventures of a Dart Frog Puppet Band
Bumble Bee Song
Tambourine Turtle Puppet
- Kalapriya Foundation
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Ahimsa: The Power of Non-Violence
Steps to Peace
- Little Village Solidarity Network
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Seeing You
- Live the Spirit Residency
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Dr. Reid
Not Sure Yet
- Lux Cantorum
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God of Many Faiths
- Mandala South Asian Performing Arts
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Beats & Bliss
- Marimacha Monarca Press
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Print Pollination
- Nejla Yatkin Dance
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Lady of the Pond
- PlayMakers Laboratory
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That's Queer, Grandma
- School of Rock
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- Surabhi With Juan Dies
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Un Respiro Libre
- Synapse Arts
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Weave Trees