Welcome to portoluz

Welcome to portoluz

We are so glad you found us and are stopping by for a visit.

Our Chicago-based non-profit organization is developing a new permanent center for arts and culture and in the interim presenting compelling programs throughout the region.

Won't you join us ?

News and Updates

TOP THING  to do this weekend !

TOM MORELLO:The NIGHTWATCHMAN HEADLINES THIS LAND IS OUR LAND our spring CONCERT CELEBRATING THE WOODY GUTHRIE CENTENNIAL 

Saturday May 19 at the Metro doors open at 7pm

Toshi Reagon. Holly Near. The Klezmatics. Jon Langford. Son del Viento. Kevin Coval and Harrison Bankhead. Bucky Halker. Big Shoulders Brass.

advanced tickets www.metrochicago.com

PLEASE NOTE: There is a Cubs v. WhiteSox ball game at Wrigley Field the same night as this concert. The head of NATO is scheduled to throw out the first pitch. Additional street closing and security perimeter enforcements make travel to Metro as well as parking nearby a challenge. We strongly urge you to plan your route ahead of time, leave additional travel time to arrive ontime and consider taking public transportation or biking to the Metro.

Additional: General Admission tickets are standing room only. All seats to this concert are sold out.

We will be selling a variety of artists merchandise at the event. CD's, T-shirts, etc. Sales will be in the Metro shop off the lobby.

Our site is always being updated with new program content. Please check back often to find new postings. Thank you

about WPA 2.0, a brand new deal: a year-long instigation produced by portoluz

Introduction, WPA 2.0, a Brand New Deal

The New Deal was a series of economic programs passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President of the United States, from 1933 to 1938. The programs were responses to the Great Depression of 1929. In 1935, President Roosevelt established the Works Progress Administration, as part of his New Deal program to put millions of unemployed Americans back to work.

In 2011, the ten-member program committee chose WPA 2.0, “A Brand New Deal” as an overarching theme for multi-disciplinary programs. As we recognized that the entire paradigm that was developed in the last century as a response to industrialization and the Great Depression was under varying degrees of attack- from arts education in public schools to collective bargaining, we thought it might be a good time to look at the conditions that gave rise to The New Deal reforms and explore what parallels might be relevant today.

portoluz developed this instigation as a kinetic and contemporary ‘take’ on a meme by utilizing a variety of cultural production to explore the Great Depression of 1929, the WPA and role of the “cultural worker”, and the current recession. By riffing on history, re-mixing archival ephemera, commissioning and curating a wide range of voices, portoluz seeks primarily to emphasize and inspire solutions that respond to today’s worldwide economic and social crisis.

In part one of this series (April through October 2011) portoluz presented over twenty-six events that explored the WPA 2.0 theme through a range of multi-disciplinary programs. Highlights of part one included: dancer Theo Jamison presenting the Katherine Dunham technique in a workshop at Holstein Park , Don Byron’s New Gospel Project playing the music of Thomas A. Dorsey at the Hyde Park Jazz festival and  pasiones, an original  musical program about the Spanish Civil War by Jamie O’Reilly and Micheal Smith. As part of the series, portoluz launched the  backyard roundtables featuring a host of community-based scholars and activists and produced a number of tours of WPA era murals  and a rare tour of the Edgar Miller Studios.  In the winter we took a break from presenting in order to develop Part Two of the series. Part Two of WPA 2.0, a brand new deal preponderantly explores film and the working class.

A FOCUS ON FILM

In the coming months, we'll look at great Hollywood films from the 1930's, documentary films sponsored by the Works Progress Administration, found footage and important non-fiction work of independent filmmakers from the 1960's to today. Many of the screenings will include discussions with participants of the struggles portrayed and the filmmakers themselves. With portoluz partners Chicago Filmmakers, Chicago Film Archive, The Northwest Chicago Film Society and Black World Cinema, we'll watch films about union organizing , contract negotiations, strikes, workplace take-overs, factory closings, organizing the unemployed and immigration.

Please visit our Facebook page WPA 2.0, a brand new deal, to see online content and post your favorite links to related materials. This series is curated by Peter Kuttner

To learn more about our partners:

Chicago Filmmakers  5243 N. Clark St. (773)-293-1447 or www.chicagofilmmakers.org
Northwest Chicago Film Society  (773) 850 0141  www.northwestchicagofilmsociety.org

Chicago Film Archives www.chicagofilmarchives.org

Black World Cinema: http://blackworldcinema.net/blog/