
What to do in Chicago: Sueños in Grant Park, lakefront fireworks and the Memorial Day Parade
Sueños Music Festival: Shakira, Peso Pluma, Don Omar and Grupo Frontera headline Sueños, which returns to Grant Park this weekend. Expect more than 100,000 people, as the Latin music festival expands to include a second stage, a larger footprint and a dance zone for even more fun. Fingers crossed, the weather will be better than last year.
AC/DC: They're back in black, again, after nearly a decade. Still rocking a schoolboy uniform at age 70, Angus Young continues to lead the band on their 'Power Up' world tour. The tour rolls into Soldier Field this weekend.
Matt Berninger: Best known as The National's frontman — you know that voice — Berninger brings his introspective solo work to Thalia Hall. Synth-heavy indie pop artist Ronboy, aka Julia Laws, also performs. Seems an ideal pairing.
Vince Gill: The country music star takes a break from performing with the Eagles at the Sphere to play his own songs this weekend at the Chicago Theatre. The tour celebrates Vince Gill's 50th year as a professional musician. The Eagles resume their Las Vegas stand in September.
Belmont-Sheffield Music Fest: Hop on the 'L' to Belmont for Lakeview's 40th anniversary Belmont-Sheffield Music Fest. It's a classic Chicago festival: tribute bands, artisan vendors, a community stage and, of course, food and drink.
Rockin' in the Park: Rosemont's free summer concert series returns this weekend with alt-rock's Pino Farina Band and post-show fireworks. Throughout the summer, the series features pop and rock tribute bands spanning decades.
Randolph Street Market Festival: Browse some 200 vendors as Randolph Street Market kicks off the summer season with a garden party. Live music and DJs will offer a soundtrack for your antique and vintage shopping.
'Marvel's Spider-Man — Beyond Amazing': Look out, here comes Spider-Man, in a Museum of Science and Industry exhibit. Perhaps more industry — as in, the MCU industrial complex — than science, the interactive exhibit promises rare comic books, costumes, props, statues of characters and drawing opportunities.
Navy Pier Fireworks: No need to wait 'til Independence Day; summer fireworks are back. Starting this weekend, Navy Pier launches its twice-weekly lakefront display.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Los Angeles Times
33 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
This hidden rural oasis makes for a splendid day trip — and it's just an hour from L.A.
Ask a random Angeleno to find Piru, Fillmore or Santa Paula on a California map and odds are they'll shrug and give up. Blame it on location, location, location. Collectively known as the Heritage Valley, these small towns hidden on the stretch of Highway 126 are often ignored and bypassed by L.A. travelers bound for Ojai or Ventura. But if you take the time to stop in this rural oasis, you'll find miles of citrus groves, heaps of history and truly tasty Mexican food. Yes, there are more tractors than Tesla Superchargers in this region — that's part of the draw. This, you realize, is what Southern California looked like before suburbia moved in. Heritage Valley was previously known as Santa Clara River Valley, which is what the locals still call it. In 1998, a committee was assembled to help bring in tourists, and the new, jazzier label was coined. It was an improvement over an earlier, clunkier nickname, Santa Clara River Valley Heritage Trail, which sounded more like a hiking path. It wasn't the only title created for the sake of marketing. The town of Santa Paula has always proclaimed itself 'the citrus capital of the world' for its abundance of lemons and oranges. Fillmore, not to be outdone, picked a gem: 'The last, best small town,' which inspired a play of the same name that's set there. Piru was already born with a compelling handle when its devoutly religious founder proclaimed it as 'The Second Garden of Eden' in 1887. Today, it's better known for its popular outdoor recreational area, Lake Piru. (After 'Glee' actress Naya Rivera drowned in the lake in 2020, swimming was temporarily banned. It's now allowed, but only in designated areas between Memorial Day and Labor Day.) If you go back hundreds of years before Lake Piru was created by the construction of the Santa Felicia Dam, you'd see Chumash villages dotting the valley. Then came the Spanish expeditions in the late 18th century, followed by ranchos that used the land for sheep and cattle. Soon the railroads arrived, and then an oil boom. The valley's eventual transformation into an agricultural mecca was hastened by a Mediterranean climate that proved ideal for crops — first citrus, then avocados. But along with the bounty there were disasters, both natural and man-made, including the 1994 Northridge Earthquake and the catastrophic flood from the 1928 St. Francis Dam collapse. Numerous fires also have made the valley live up to a Times article that called it 'among the most dangerous wind and fire corridors in Southern California.' Yet through it all, the population has steadily grown and more travelers are discovering the area for its lively gatherings (the Santa Paula Citrus Music Festival took place last week), new attractions (check out the 17-mile Sunburst Railbike experience) and stunning hikes. Here's where to go on a road trip along Highway 126.


Boston Globe
2 days ago
- Boston Globe
Sekou McMiller's ‘Urban Love Suite' celebrates social dance with Jacob's Pillow world premiere
With the support of NAACP Berkshires, McMiller — a Chicago-born and New York-based African Diasporic dance and music scholar/educator — immersed himself in the Berkshires' robust Afro-Latin community. He led workshops at a local elementary school and dance club. During a 'cultural exchange,' McMiller combined his own choreography with the celebratory traditions that local workshop participants offered him. McMiller incorporated some of the movement generated in this Pittsfield engagement into the new work, and it will live on in the choreography after it leaves the Berkshires. 'It's a love letter to the Black and brown communities,' McMiller said in a phone interview this week, 'the beautiful music and dance that has been created from hip-hop to samba to New York Mambo.' Advertisement So, despite the formal venue, you can expect this Jacob's Pillow performance to feel like a party. Advertisement 'Urban Love Suite' celebrates the relationships between different African diasporic communities through their dance and music traditions, 'their nuanced differences, their similarities and their shared roots from the continent of Africa,' McMiller said. To develop the work, with the support of the NAACP Berkshires, Sekou McMiller immersed himself in the Berkshires' robust Afro-Latin community. Pictured, Sekou McMiller and Friends' Sekou McMiller and Marielys Molina. Elyse Mertz The work also celebrates how a dense city can bring many cultures into close proximity, he said, creating opportunities for exchange that are unique to the urban experience. It can, as he put it, yield 'amazing fruits of music and dance.' 'Like New York City Mambo, which was done in New York, Harlem, where you had that cross pollination of Lindy Hop and jazz and tap dancers, with the Latin dancers coming directly from Cuba, but then [they] create a new way of doing the dance that only could have been done in an urban city like New York.' McMiller's point is that proximity can be challenging yet generative. You might not always be in the mood to listen to your neighbor's playlist, but after the fourth or fifth time through, you might find your hips moving to the beat, reluctantly familiar with the rhythms your neighbors prefer. McMiller, a classically trained flutist and jazz musician, is also the curator at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem. He reveres the intimate entanglement of music, movement, and social gatherings, and collaborated with music director Sebastian Natal on a score grounded in Afro-Latin jazz to be performed live alongside the dancers. 'Love Suite' draws parallels between parading traditions like Uruguayan candombe and New Orleans' second line, and layers party dances from Cuba, Puerto Rico, Chicago, and New York. It also highlights the roots of these movement forms in cultural traditions from Nigeria, Senegal, and Burkina Faso — the region the colonialist machine favored for the capture, export, and exploitation of human beings as a resource, who became the ancestors of Afro Caribbean, Afro Latin, and African American communities. Advertisement 'They're social dance in nature,' McMiller said, 'so they're not born of a studio. They're born from culture. They're born from parties. They're born from celebrations. They're born from traditions and rituals.' After noticing a lack of social dance in the Jacob's Pillow archive, artistic and executive director Pamela Tatge has made efforts to uplift dance artists working inside those traditions — with the help of her curatorial team. 'If we are charged with representing the breadth of dance in the world, to not center social dance would be a mistake,' said Tatge in a recent phone interview. It's complicated to bring these dances to the stage because social dance is a participatory art, and The Theater fosters an inherent separation between the audience and performer. McMiller is up for the challenge, and his solution: improvisation in both music and dance. 'It's call and response from beginning to end. I allow my choreography to be a call to the dancers to then respond … so at some point you won't be able to tell the difference between improv and choreography,' McMiller explained. 'So every night, it's same format, different show.' 'Love Suite' will also disrupt the performer-observer relationship by dancing among the audience and inviting attendees onto the stage. Performance is a call too, that asks the audience to respond. 'I hope this pushes people to get out there and come join us,' McMiller said, 'to not just spectate with us, but become an active participant in this life.' Advertisement URBAN LOVE SUITE At Jacob's Pillow's Ted Shawn Theatre, Becket, July 30 to Aug. 3. Tickets start at $65. 413-243-0745, Sarah Knight can be reached at sarahknightprojects@
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Yahoo
Rhea Seehorn and Vince Gilligan's Apple TV+ Series Reveals Title and Fall Premiere Date — Get a First Look
We've been waiting not so patiently for news about Rhea Seehorn's new Apple TV+ series with Vince Gilligan — and now we finally have a name to call it, at least. The upcoming sci-fi series, which reunites Seehorn with Better Call Saul co-creator Gilligan, is titled Pluribus, and it premieres Friday, Nov. 7 on the streamer with the first two episodes, TVLine has learned. Gilligan, who also created Saul's forerunner Breaking Bad, will serve as writer and showrunner. More from TVLine Outlander's Final Season: First Footage Hints at Jamie's Fate (and It's Not Great) - Watch New NCIS: Tony & Ziva Trailer Teases Rekindled Romance... and a Wedding?! - Plus, 30+ New Photos Percy Jackson and the Olympians Reveals Season 2 Release Date and Trailer, Casting for Nico/Bianca Pluribus is described as 'a genre-bending original in which the most miserable person on Earth must save the world from happiness.' Along with Seehorn, the cast includes Karolina Wydra (Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) and Carlos Manuel Vesga (The Hijacking of Flight 601), and guest stars Miriam Shor (Younger) and Samba Schutte (Our Flag Means Death). Apple TV+ has also released a (kinda gross) first-look teaser for the series, with a woman licking every donut in a box next to a sign saying, 'Help Yourself!' Watch it here: Much of Pluribus is still shrouded in mystery, but the title seems to come from the U.S. motto 'E pluribus unum,' or Latin for 'out of many, one.' (So the word 'many' is a key, somehow.) Plus, Apple TV+ released a teaser image for the series, featuring what looks like a petri dish with a smiley face drawn in some unknown substance, with the tagline: 'Happiness Is Contagious.' Does the story revolve around some sort of lab-grown virus, perhaps? Gilligan dropped some teases about Pluribus a while back: 'I wouldn't call this heavy science fiction, I would call it mild science fiction… There's no crime, and no methamphetamine. It's going to be fun and different.' He added that 'Rhea will be playing a very different character than she played on Saul' and 'the world changes very abruptly in the first episode, and then it is quite different… and the consequences that that reaps hopefully provide drama for many, many episodes after that.' The series was first announced in September 2022, with Apple TV+ handing it a two-season order. Seehorn recently wrapped up a six-season run as attorney Kim Wexler on Better Call Saul, earning two Emmy nominations for best supporting actress in a drama. Best of TVLine 'Missing' Shows, Found! Get the Latest on Ahsoka, Monarch, P-Valley, Sugar, Anansi Boys and 25+ Others Yellowjackets Mysteries: An Up-to-Date List of the Series' Biggest Questions (and Answers?) The Emmys' Most Memorable Moments: Laughter, Tears, Historical Wins, 'The Big One' and More