Friday / January 27
Bogged down by Sosc reading? Invest an hour in the Academic Skills Assessment Program’s speed reading workshop, held in Social Sciences 122. In true U of C fashion, the workshop features information about “the theory of improving reading skills” alongside exercises to drive your words per minute rate higher. (2:30 p.m., free, 1126 East 59th Street)
His Name is Alive opens for Low Friday at the Logan Square Auditorium, with Death Vessel playing first. (8:30 p.m., $15, 2539 North Kedzie Avenue)
Off-Off Campus presents the first installment of “Where the Wild Things At?” tonight at University Church. After The Spooky Good Improv Hour, linger for a free afterglow show by Off-Off’s 20th generation. (9 p.m., $4, 5655 South University Avenue)
Court Theatre hosts a symposium following this evening’s performance of August Wilson’s Fences. “Fathers and Sons, Husbands and Wives” will be moderated by Waldo E. Johnson, Jr., associate professor at the SSA and director of the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture. Look for other symposia tomorrow and February 5. (11 p.m., free, 5355 South University Avenue)
Saturday / January 28
Join the UC CSSA at the I-House for a premature but fun-sounding Chinese spring festival celebration, including dinner with more than 12 dish options, performances, games with restaurant gift certificates as prizes, and disco dancing. (6:30 p.m., $10 at the door, 1414 East 59th Street)
The University Symphony Orchestra is honoring Mozart with a belated birthday concert––he turned 250 yesterday––in Mandel Hall. The program for “Happy Birthday, Mozart!” includes Concerto No. 10 in E-flat Major for Two Pianos, Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies Nos. 1 and 3, and Enesco’s Roumanian Rhapsody No. 1. (8 p.m., free, 5706 South University Avenue)
Latin Street Dancing Studios is celebrating its eighth anniversary tonight. Dance the salsa, merengue, bachata, cumbia, cha cha, and reggaeton in a smoke- and alcohol-free environment. (9 p.m., $5, 540 North La Salle Street, fifth floor)
Sunday / January 29
Head over to the Music Box to watch its Sunday matinee, Jean Renoir’s (not to be confused with Impressionist artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir) French Cancan. The 1950s musical comedy about a theater producer who founds the Moulin Rouge and a laundress-turned-dance-star is showing for just one day. (11:30 a.m., $7.25, 3733 North Southport Avenue)
Watch the Chinese New Year Parade wind its way through Chinatown. The festivities bringing in the Year of the Dog include marching bands, floats, lion dancing, and a 100-foot Chinese dragon. (12:30 p.m., free, Wentworth Avenue from 24th to 22nd Street)
Step into the Renaissance Society on the fourth floor of Cobb for the opening reception of Forecast: Snow, an exhibition by Yutaka Sone featuring drawings, paintings, sculptures, a video, and a live forest of 200 pine trees. You can chat with the artist and catch a performance by his band, Snowflake. (4–7 p.m., free, 5811 South Ellis Avenue)
The African and Caribbean Student Association’s second annual culture show, “Tales by the Moonlight,” takes the Mandel Hall stage tonight, preceded by an early-bird dinner at 4 p.m. In lieu of an after party, there was a free pre-party Saturday from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. on the third floor of Ida. (6 p.m., $10 in advance/$12 at the door, 5706 South University Avenue)
Monday / January 30
Have some words with U of C president Don Randel and vice president Steve Klass in the South Lounge at this afternoon’s presidential brown bag. Free lunch from Subway is included. (noon, free, 5706 South University Avenue)
Hey, you can’t argue with free. Alternative rock group Mr. Rudy Day headlines at the Empty Bottle, with opening acts Royce and Honda Pavorati. (9:30 p.m., free, 1035 North Western Avenue)
Tuesday / January 31
Multidisciplinary South African artist William Kentridge (among other things, he’s used charcoal drawings, stop-animation, and puppets in his work) talks about Seven Fragments for Georges Melies, a series of short films, at Doc. (4 p.m., free, 1212 East 59th Street)
Wednesday / February 1
You have two chances tonight to hear country outfit BR549 perform with Avett Brothers at Schubas. (7 and 10 p.m., $15, 3159 North Southport Avenue)
Thursday / February 2
“One/Many: Western American Survey Photographs by Bell and O’Sullivan,” a collection of landscape photos shot on government-sponsored geological survey expeditions in the 1860s and 1870s, opens at the Smart. Curator and U of C art history professor Joel Snyder gives a talk, “Photography and the Opening of the American West,” introducing the exhibit. (5–7 p.m., free, 5550 South Greenwood Avenue)
If you missed it last Tuesday at the Quad Club, here’s your chance to listen to “Jewish Cabaret in Exile: Songs of Modernity,” this time in Fulton Recital Hall. Music professor and Jewish studies chair Philip Bohlman MCs the performance by the New Budapest Orpheum Society. (8–10 p.m., free, 1010 East 59th Street)
As part of the Fences Symposium Series, U of C Professor David Bevington leads a discussion on the play and its status as a modern classic in the history of theater. (10:30 p.m., free, 5535 South Ellis Avenue)
