Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel on the arts: Dance, gritty theater and a shift towards neighborhoods
Chicago Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel at an press conference Feb. 23. Emanuel recently spoke with the Tribune's Chris Jones about his arts vision for Chicago. See also "Rahm Emanuel on the arts," published Feb. 17 from the campaign trail. (Tribune photo by Nancy Stone)
In a wide-ranging interview about cultural matters with the Tribune last week, Rahm Emanuel, Chicago's mayor-elect, signaled his intent to “raise up” the arts in Chicago, especially in the neighborhoods, and previewed a major generational and cultural shift at a City Hall about to be run by a confident leader who listens to the alternative rock band Wilco, likes the darker plays at Steppenwolf Theatre and American Theater Company and is not about to stop hanging out at rock venues like Schubas or the Riviera Theatre.
Self-evidently, this is not to be your father's mayoralty. For unlike the man he is replacing, Emanuel clearly enjoys expressing his views on rock music, slam poetry and edgy plays — in radio studios and other public forums. Indeed, he has been eager to do so.
“What was I going to do with this liberal arts education?” Emanuel asked rhetorically. “Put it to waste?”
Conducted in the Loop transition offices and instigated by Emanuel himself, our roughly 45-minute conversation was framed around his general intents and desires in the cultural arena, rather than the budgetary and managerial specifics that will come when he takes office in May. He did not make promises of additional resources, and when it was suggested that perennially strapped neighborhood arts groups likely will be looking to him for more resources, his reply was telling: “I will be looking right back at them.”
“The challenge we are going to have here,” he said, “is that this period of time has a financial reality. How do you think grand and not be constrained by that?”
But Emanuel also noted that minutiae can consume as much time, intellectual capital and resources as huge ideas in the Olympian Chicago tradition of such things. And he spoke with passion and directness of such matters as branding a new “music district” in the Uptown neighborhood — complementing the successful Loop theater district and perhaps providing a commercialized base to nudge the stalled renovation of the Uptown Theatre — and ensuring that there is “no cultural divide” between major downtown arts organizations and the grass-roots groups that “feed” and “renew” them.
“We have great theater in this town,” he said, perhaps suggesting a change from the mostly downtown emphasis of the previous administration, “because we have great neighborhood theater.”
And he put particular focus on his desire to make Chicago “an international destination for dance.”
“I have a personal interest,” Emanuel said of Chicago's dance scene, dryly referencing the part of his leotarded youth spent in the pursuit of the ballet.
Despite that neighborhood focus, he also argued that major institutions like the Lyric Opera have a track record of attracting business to Chicago: “Phil Condit liked our opera,” Emanuel said of the former Boeing chairman and CEO. “That was a big part of the reason Boeing moved its headquarters here.” He said that the Old Town School of Folk Music, located on Chicago's North Side in Emanuel's former congressional district, had become an economic anchor proving “one neighborhood cultural entity can be powerful enough to flip a whole neighborhood.”
And, after blowing a jovial raspberry at the limitations of the arts scene in Washington, D.C., he spoke at length of how the music and arts scenes in Chicago are, in his view, the best way of attracting highly skilled young workers to Chicago “because they make the quality of life here the best in the country.”
He also spoke of his newly formed arts task force, coordinated by his longtime friend Marj Halperin, the former executive director of the League of Chicago Theatres and now a management and communications consultant, on whom Emanuel said he has relied a great deal when it comes to cultural matters.
But Emanuel, expressing surprise at the national attention given to his attendance last weekend at the Route 66 Theatre Company production of “A Twist of Water,” said that his interests include theater, art and music. His family, he said, has always gone to neighborhood theaters, and his children are enthusiastic participants in the arts. Although he said he had been in a “cultural desert for the last five months” during the campaign, he said he had caught “To Kill a Mockingbird” at the Steppenwolf Theatre and that he'd tried to attend the Steppenwolf production of “Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” but that, on the night he finally had free, it was sold out. “I tried to say it was Rahm Emanuel,” he said, grinning and thumping the table in mock indignation, “but there were no tickets.”
That might be the last time he'll ever face a “house full” sign, but by no means the last time he plans to go to a show.
“We are going to embrace the arts and culture,” Emanuel said of his family, choosing his words carefully, “in a way that is true to who we are.”
Emanuel also said that he plans to focus on the role of the arts in after-school programs, saying that he firmly believed the arts would best help him reach “the souls of those children who seem to be left out of our civic and cultural life.”
Joking that he would take up arts criticism “if he failed at this other thing,” Emanuel was also eager to finally deliver his very favorable review of “A Twist of Water,” a new play about both the history and the modern life of Chicago. The play, written by Caitlin Montanye Parrish, makes much of the city's ties to river and lake. Emanuel said he admired the work greatly.
“What is water?” Emanuel asked, leaning back in his chair. “It is about rebirth and new beginning. … Chicago grabs its industry from being by the lake. The river twists through the city. It always reinvents itself. That's why Chicago is the ultimate American city.”
From there, Emanuel segued to 333 W. Wacker Drive, which he said is his favorite building in Chicago. “One side looks to the river and carries a reflection of all the promise,” Emanuel said of the building, which was designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates. “The other side is very modern, with all that complexity.”
This article makes me even more confident in the choice the city has made. I look forward to a new era-- Chicago's renaissance.
Posted by: L.M. Lim | March 05, 2011 at 09:19 AM
Seems to me there were similar articles during the reign of Hizzoner II, even one where Daley summoned up a tear for the entrepreneurial spirit of storefront theaters. Recalled, for me anyhow, tears shed by John Travolta in Mike Nichols' superb PRIMARY COLORS. Demand a politician stand and deliver, with emphasis on DELIVER. Promises made are one thing -- promises kept quite another.
Posted by: Joe Carlson | March 05, 2011 at 10:59 AM
On behalf the newly formed Saints Arts Advocacy Group, I am so pleased to read that our mayor-elect is an enthusiast of neighborhood theater. The Saints is an organization of 2000 plus volunteers for the performing arts, and it is our committee’s intent to support Chicago’s community theaters financially and otherwise. It is wonderful that Mr. Emanuel is aware that the arts are essential to the vigor and strength of Chicago. We look forward to working with the mayor in this important endeavor and encourage all theater lovers to join our venture. For more information please visit www.saintschicago.org.
Posted by: Carol Southard | March 05, 2011 at 05:34 PM
Based on what I've read here, I hope Rahm runs for President one day.
Posted by: G-man | March 06, 2011 at 07:09 AM
How about Emanuel focuses on putting the arts back in the schools instead of just afterschool programs? Then I would be willing to call him a true supporter of the arts.
Posted by: Music Education Proponent | March 06, 2011 at 11:49 AM
Since Rahm likes Steppenwolf so much, maybe HE can convince Joan Allen to return to the stage there for the first time in over 20 years.
Posted by: GentleSoul | March 06, 2011 at 02:01 PM
For the first time in 15 years, I'm so excited about the direction of our city. For so long our city has been bitterly angry and sorely lacking morale and vigor. After so many years of being unfairly treated by our past Mayor and constantly having our rights violated... I, like hundreds of thousand of other Chicagoans, fell out of love with my home.
However, since the change of guard, I feel a new spirit throughout the city and it makes me happy to see people so excited again. The Arts are so important in offering people a qulaity of life. I think our city will return to the Grandeur of the past! It will be amazing to walk around the city and talk to others who are SINCERELY happy to be Chicagoans. And truly mean it.
I am no longer thinking of relocating outside of the State (although I've already registered my business elsewhere), because I beleive Mayor Emanuel "will be a Mayor for the people". I'm very glad to remain in Chicago under new leadership.
Posted by: moe | March 06, 2011 at 07:35 PM
This is very exciting news for everyone in Chicago. We hope that the new mayor will also look towards the south along Chicago's Culture Coast where arts and culture and arts education programs are thriving. He will find a dynamic and diverse arts community heading south through Bronzville and on to the Hyde Park/Kenwood/Woodlawn neighborhoods. The mayor elect should visit the Hyde Park Alliance for Arts&Culture or HyPa. We love the focus on neighborhood arts communities!
Posted by: Deborah Halpern | March 07, 2011 at 11:09 AM
Can you believe it, a balletomane as mayor of Chicago!!
Posted by: Dr Mark | March 07, 2011 at 11:49 AM