Sunday, April 29 | 5:00 PM-6:30 PM
Comfort Station | 2579 N Milwaukee Ave
Motto
In the dark times, will there also be singing?
Yes, there will be singing.
About the dark times.
~~Bertolt Brecht
In December, 2017 we held the first meeting of a new public discussion group designed to open a space for serious and challenging conversation in these troubling days: Singing in Dark Times.
Singing in Dark Times has met several times at the legendary Seminary Coop/57th Street Bookstores in Hyde Park, Chicago, an important destination bookstore and an expanding public space. Participants have included Eve Ewing, Rachel DeWoskin, Kevin Coval, Lisa Lee, David Stovall, Monica Trinidad, Ethan Viets-VanLear, and Bill Ayers.Scores of people have joined us in dialogue, trying to make sense and make meaning of our lives and our work—to shine a bright beacon of hope and possibility into the gloom.
We invite you to join our first “On the Road Edition” of Singing in Dark Times on April 29th at the Comfort Station. Conversation-starters will be Tara Raghuveer, Christian Diaz, Bill Ayers, and few other local activists, artists, organizers and neighbors. Help us expand the emerging public space; become part of an intentional community-in-the-making; come and pursue an urgent question that drives so many of us today: What is to be done?
As the public is being steadily eroded and eclipsed, and as neoliberalism persists and fascism lurks close by, the goal of those of us who believe in freedom is to take full responsibility to reimagine, revitalize, and create anew a public square, a public presence, and a wide range of participatory public spaces.
An impressive array of wildly diverse artists and grass-roots activists are on the move and on the rise—resistance is breaking out all over, and a revitalized public square is in-the-making. In Chicago, a cinema guild is running a series of films on authoritarianism followed by wide ranging teach-ins on the political environment we find ourselves in; the Co-op hosted a series of conversation led by U Chicago professors investigating contemporary issues under the banner “Free University of Chicago;” and Women and Children First’s “The Conversation” brings writers, artists, and politicians together to talk about an issue of political, social, or cultural importance. Elsewhere, a chain of restaurants in Detroit calling themselves “Sanctuary Cafes” is offering weekly facilitated conversations (as well as bail to neighbors caught up in the system); a collection of renowned playwrights has joined forces to dramatize the Bill of Rights; block clubs around the country are hosting monthly pot-luck dinners to allow folks to face one another authentically and think through what the known demands of us now.
Be part of the resistance! Lets rise up together! Lets Build an Inclusive Community.
Bill Ayers 