Friday, October 25, 2024 / 4 PM / Free
SOME SERIOUS BUSINESS and THE SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF OF CHICAGO
Present Readings, Video, Discussion, and Performances celebrating
“We Started a Nightclub”: The Birth of the Pyramid Cocktail Lounge as Told by Those Who Lived It by Brian Butterick, Susan Martin and Kestutis Nakas.
This is a rare and inspiring oral history… It characterizes the development of club performance aesthetics that are now fully commodified but are used as stand-ins for the original social rebellion that created them. It shows how sex and drugs literally freed artists, from a wide range of class and geographic backgrounds, to break rules and create new expressions, communities, and mores. —Sarah Schulman (writer, AIDS historian, and Ralla Klepak Professor of English at Northwestern University)
Windy City audiences are invited to take a deep dive into the birth of New York’s iconic Pyramid Cocktail Lounge—a place that shaped an underground revolution. Discover the wild, rebellious energy that defined the East Village in the ’80s with first-hand accounts by those that lived it or wished they did!
Special appearances by Sarah Schulman, Roberto Sifuentes, Kristi Rose (with Fats Kaplin), and John Tucker. Readings, rare video footage by beloved early Pyramid alum Tom Rubnitz, and a discussion of the impact of the club’s signature “anti-drag” theatricals, as well as the toll of AIDS on creativity and the culture in the East Village, are highlights of this collaborative evening. A chance to relive the legendary nights of art, performance, and punk energy. Books will be available for sale at the discounted price of $50.
School of the Art Institute, 280 S. Columbus, Chicago.
Space is limited. FREE but REGISTRATION REQUIRED.
“We Started a Nightclub”: The Birth of the Pyramid Cocktail Lounge as Told by Those Who Lived It is published by Damiani Books in association with Some Serious Business. Books are available here and in Europe through Damiani Books.