Guild Complex 10th Anniversary Celebration
Guild Complex
In celebration of the Guild Complex?s Tenth Anniversary we offer Ten-Pak. Each Ten-Pak will present an artist or act that appeared at the Complex over the last decade, a voice or act that has never appeared at the Complex, and a taste of what we do, including poetry, prose, music, performance, multi-media, books, and visual art all on the same night.
In celebration of the Guild Complex?s Tenth Anniversary we offer Ten-Pak. Each Ten-Pak will present an artist or act that appeared at the Complex over the last decade, a voice or act that has never appeared at the Complex, and a taste of what we do, including poetry, prose, music, performance, multi-media, books, and visual art all on the same night.
Reginald Gibbons has published six books of poems, most recently Sparrow and Homage to Longshot O?Leary, and a novel, Sweetbitter. His other books include short fiction, translations of poetry, and criticism. He was the editor of TriQuarterly magazine from 1981 to 1997, and now teaches at Northwestern University. Toni ?Toni? Lewis is a 19 year-old poet, essayist and photographer studying journalism at Columbia College Chicago. She is an alumni and scholarship recipient of the high school creative writing program Young Chicago Authors. Lewis is currently coordinating a literary magaziine focusing on the creative writing of Black women. Tom Mladic is ?flattered to be included? in any Guild Complex project. He began writing and performing at the Green Mill Poetry slam in the late eighties. Since then he has often performed as a poet and actor. He?s now working on his first novel, Blood on the Bumper an auto-biographical horror comedy examining his ideology as a ?Berwynite?. Stone a.k.a. Winston Damon, has gained a reputation for blending musical styles, and simultaneously playing multiple instruments from cultures across the globe. Tonight he will also create spontaneos musical compositions to accompany poets. The Reader has described Stone as having ??perfect rhythm the way other musicians have perfect pitch.? He has played with the Drovers, Tiny Tim, Sugar Blue, and for a decade has performed with dance companies, poets, theatre and performance companies. His musical influences include Africa, Brazilian, Middle Eastern, East Indian and even Hawaiian music, filtered through blues, jazz and rock sensibilities in songs peppered with unothodox techniques. Instuments include strap-on electric cello, stand-up drum set, horns, percussion, fretless bass, kalimba, dumec, bendir, piano, flute, digeridoo, trombone and primal vocals. Stone also performs with the band Ulele. Mariko Ventura has curated and performed for the Complex in ?The Hiroshima Memorial, open mic for Peace? in 1995 and in ?The Beautiful Camera? in 1996. Other venues have been The Blue Rider, Links Hall, and The Peace Museum. ?Permission to Marry? is Part II of ?My Story Began Before I was Born?. Jim Banks began writing poetry in college in 1978 and performing it in Chicago in 1988. He was a 1989 Greenmill Poetry Slam champion and a member of Chicago?s 1992 National Slam Team which competed in Boston. He has been featured at many poetry venus in Chicago at the Neutral Turf and Around The Coyote Festivals, on National Public Radio and on CNN. He has performed his poems in San Francisco, New York, Paris, Berlin and at Lollapolooza ?94. He?s been published in the Stray Bullets Chicago Saloon Poets Anthology and in the magazines The Third World, Hyphen, Hammers, and Tomorrow.Performers
Jim Banks, Reginald Gibbions, Tonika ?Toni? Lewis,Tom Mladic and Mariko Ventura. Music by StoneVisual Art by Ivan Watkins