Sonia De Los Santos Sings A Celebration of Latin America
You may recognize salsa music, but can you identify huapango, cumbia, or festejo?
Well, now is your chance. On Friday morning, October 25, pack up your little ones for Latin music at the Midwest Trust Center that will put a smile on your face. This concert may be the perfect antidote to all the negative campaign ads we suffer through before the election.
And who better to snap us out of the political funk than Latin Grammy-nominated Sonia De Los Santos.
Says one critic, “Sonia De Los Santos has a story to tell. Or better put, a story to sing. She brings messages of hope and joy to children with her songs.”
She shares some of her favorite things—migrating birds, friendship, chocolate, and anecdotes about growing up in Mexico and realizing her childhood dream of moving to New York.
De Los Santos has earned special recognition with her band performing at renowned venues and festivals, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Austin City Limits, Lollapalooza, the Getty Museum, the National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, and many more.
Click here for more information and tickets.
A Railroad Runs Through It: The Life and Lessons of Walt Disney at Union Station
At Union Station on Saturday, October 12 at 10 a.m., historian and author Michael Campbell will take us through the years as a young fellow named Walt Disney fell in love with trains near his home in Marceline, Missouri.
Through rare images, artifacts, and first-hand accounts, you’ll see how a passion for railroading—coupled with lessons in hard work and determination—helped young Walt realize his dream. Taking Saturday classes at the Kansas City Art Institute and a correspondence course in cartooning, Disney could imagine the possibilities of animation when others could not. In 1923, Disney departed from Union Station for California with a cardboard suitcase, two pairs of pants, $40, and a vision for his future.
And the rest is history.
For more information and tickets, click here.
The OG of Horror Movies at the Kauffman Center
If you ever get a chance to visit the coastal town of Whitby in northeastern England, you’ll understand the creepy imagery in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, published in 1897. Stoker visited Whitby in 1890 and learned of a Russian shipwreck that ran aground there, carrying a cargo of silver sand (full of quartz particles, used in landscaping). It wasn’t much of a stretch to have Dracula on board the ghost ship, with a cargo of silver sand and boxes of earth. And oh, so much more.
But it was a stretch for a German filmmaker to adapt Stoker’s tale into a film without permission or compensation for Stoker’s family. The 1922 silent film Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror starred Max Schreck as the Transylvanian vampire who preys on the wife of his estate agent, bringing a plague to the town.
After the German filmmaker lost the legal battle, all copies of the film, including negatives, were to be destroyed. But all were not. Thankfully, critics say, as Nosferatu set the style and tone for horror movies to come.
So, put on your creepiest costume and come to the screening on October 23 at the Kauffman Center. Organist Dorothy Papadakos will send musical chills down your spine.
For more information and tickets, click here.
The Influence of Hokusai at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
You have most likely seen the most famous woodblock print of Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai. The Great Wave off Kanagawa depicts a rogue wave seemingly dwarfing Mount Fuji.
First, you might notice the stylized drama of the composition, then the enigmatic Prussian blue ink that suggests timelessness. But what you can’t see is the tidal wave of unintended consequences. When Admiral Perry and the United States Navy put an end to Japan’s isolationist status and the ports were opened in the 1850s, some of these prints were used as wrapping paper for commercial goods. By 1867, the Japanese pavilion at the Exposition Universelle in Paris made these prints even better known. Soon, Monet had 23 of Hokusai’s prints at his home in Giverny. Degas was a fan. Some art critics allege that Impressionism wouldn’t have happened without the work of Hokusai, who depicted the same subjects many different times, as Monet would go on to do.
A new exhibit at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art from the Boston Museum of Art celebrates the far-reaching influence of this Japanese master’s work. The exhibit runs until early December.
For more information, click here.