As we approach the end of 2023, the critics and columnists of A+E reflect on the year to highlight some people who have made a difference in the city’s arts.
Chicagoans of the Year in Books: Javier and Kristin Ramirez of Exile in Bookville are getting good energy back in volumes
What Javier and Kristin Ramirez have built on Michigan Avenue feels like a cool secret. And that, in fact, was the idea. They built a small business, which, now three years later, is an influential one, its tendrils entwined with both the Chicago book community and the indie music ecosystem. They opened their shop three years ago, and to reflect their unwillingness to just be about books or just be about music, they named the place Exile in Bookville, a nod to Liz Phair’s 1993 Chicago-made debut album, “Exile in Guyville.”
Chicagoan of the Year in Classical Music: Composer Shawn Okpebholo’s music always means something
Shawn Okpebholo’s music sings of Chicago. Its waterways (“Fractured Water,” recently orchestrated for the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra). Its architecture (“City Beautiful,” for the Lincoln Trio). Its ugly history (“Redlin[ing],” for Picosa Ensemble).
Chicagoan of the Year in Dance: Vershawn Sanders-Ward is still here, doing the thing
The company’s home base is in Woodlawn, a gleaming dance center steps from the Green Line that opened in 2021 after a long stretch in shared Chicago Park District space in Fuller Park. The South Side is teeming with possibility for dance, but there aren’t currently more than a handful of physical spaces to rehearse and perform. Red Clay has found one performance home at the Logan Center for the Arts, and transformed others, like the DuSable Roundhouse, into viable ones. The Red Clay Dance Center houses two studios, office space and costume storage. They host rehearsals and classes plus a creative rental program called “In the Making,” fashioned somewhat like a gym membership for practicing artists seeking affordable space. It’s right-sized, for now, but if I know anything about Sanders-Ward, she’s already thinking beyond their 63rd Street storefront.
“I think a lot about lineage, legacy, continuity — what’s next,” she said. “This space was always more than just a home for Red Clay. But I’m thinking more about how it can serve. What else can we do?”
Chicagoan of the Year in Film: Keith Kupferer, headliner at last, thanks to ‘Ghostlight’
The acting life of Keith Kupferer spans two unlikely leading roles. The first was Stanley Kowalski in “A Streetcar Named Desire” in high school. He was barely old enough to drive. “I didn’t understand a lot of it,” Kupferer says now. “To say the least.”
Forty years later, he got cast in the Chicago-based film “Ghostlight,” which made its world premiere in January at the Sundance Film Festival. For his performance, Kupferer scored both Gotham Award and Independent Spirit Award nominations in the leading role category, alongside Colman Domingo. (Domingo recently won the Gotham prize.)
Chicagoan of the Year in Jazz: Saxophonist Isaiah Collier has found his shape
Some projects are misnomers. “The Story of 400 Years,” on the other hand, is exactly what its title promises.
Saxophonist and composer Isaiah Collier created what can only be described as a choreo-musical epic on the African-American experience in the United States. From chattel slavery to the so-called War on Drugs and beyond, the evening-length suite progresses through decades and musical styles, referencing everything from Dixieland to disco. After its premiere at the 2019 Hyde Park Jazz Festival, “The Story of 400 Years” had another outing on Dec. 4 at the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center.
Chicagoans of the Year in Museums: Liesl Olson, Ross Jordan and Matthew Randle-Bent of Jane Addams Hull-House
Fate — if there is such a thing — really wanted Liesl Olson, Ross Jordan and Matthew Randle-Bent to end up at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum.
Chicagoans of the Year for Pop Music: From hit album to a Lollapalooza set, this is Friko’s year
There are breakthrough years, and then there is Friko’s 2024. From the release of their latest album, “Where we’ve been, Where we go from here,” to performances at Lollapalooza to end-of-the-year accolades from outlets such as Pitchfork and Rolling Stone, the Chicago indie band Friko is having a moment.
Chicagoan of the Year in Theater: Tim Rater leads Paramount Theatre in transforming Aurora’s downtown
On a recent weekend, the Paramount was packed to the gills with a sold-out crowd watching the theater’s production of Disney’s “Frozen,” a critical and popular hit and the latest self-produced Paramount show in Aurora to employ mostly Chicago-area talent, in huge numbers. That’s a consequence of one of Tim Rater’s best ideas, early in his tenure: to replace the often sad-sack non-Equity tours the theater had been booking with the Paramount’s own Broadway Series under the artistic direction of Jim Corti. From “Billy Elliot” to “Rock of Ages” and “Kinky Boots” to “Cats,” the family-friendly hits with full-sized orchestras have kept coming for more than a decade. Even cynics have been won over.
