Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Pilsen to Pilsen Festival



Researcher and art critic Lenka Dolanova organizes this festival which combines and analizes the history of Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood and Plzen city in Czechoslovakia.

Saturday, June 9, 2007

Program:

  • 10-11 A.M. Busker - "Pilsen to Pilsen" streaming performance + Mexican band
  • 11 A.M. Busker - "It's Fun to Be Bohemian" documentary stereo-premiere
  • 1-4 P.M. Czechoslovak Heritage Museum (Oakbrook) - Opening panel discussion, exhibition "Czechs in America"

  • 4:30 P.M. Busker - Presentation of the documentary about Pilsen by Amanda Gutierrez
  • 6 P.M. Polvo - Lecture by Dominic Pacyga (Chicago's Czech Past: A Look at Pilsen and Czech California)
  • 6:30 P.M. Polvo - Lecture by Kenneth Corrigan
  • 7 P.M. Polvo - Discussion with the members of local communities
  • 8:30 P.M. Polvo "There is No Place Like Home" video screening by Czech students and professors


Venues:

Busker
2159 W. 21st PL
Chicago, IL 60608
See
MAP

Polvo
1458 W. 18th St., 1R
Chicago, IL 60608
See
MAP

Czechoslovak Heritage Museum
122 W 22nd St
Oak Brook, IL 60523
(630) 472-0500
See
MAP


Pilsen, one of the most popular neighborhoods in Chicago, is located southwest of downtown. Czechs and Slovaks (who used to be known here as Bohemians) began to settle in this location in the 1870s while some sparse settlement existed there before (the first inhabitants were reputedly Irishmen in the 1850s). The neighborhood gained its name Pilsen (alias Plzen which is a city in the Czech Republic) after the pub called “At the city of Pilsen” which used to be here. Soon after its founding, Pilsen became the largest Czech settlement not only in Chicago but also in the USA. Today it is the center of the local (mostly) Mexican community.

Lenka Dolanova (1979) comes from the Czech Republic and is a Ph.D student in Art History at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague. During 2005-2006 she was a Visiting Student Researcher at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago

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