“Brilliant Corners of Popular Amusements” launched its ambitious inaugural event Sept. 16-18 in Eckhart Park in Chicago’s West Town. Conjured by Pitchfork Music Festival co-owner Mike Reed, Brilliant Corners presented an unusual vaudevillian cultural extravaganza that was part music festival and part urban circus, with carnival rides, a farmers’ market and Renegade Craft Fair.
The new Circus Movement was well represented by Bindlestiff Family Cirkus, a New York underground troupe of drag queens, burlesque performers and political pranksters. Chicago’s own El Circo Cheapo thrilled with daring aerialists, hipster acrobatics, and vaudevillian comedy, led by ringmistress and lesbian Chicago comic Cameron Esposito.
The music stage, situated under a high top circus tent, offered a dozen critically acclaimed indie rockers, including Bill Callahan; Dark Dark Dark; Fools Gold; and a transcendent set by electro-cumbia sensation Bomba Estereo. Smallish crowds that braved the rain were rewarded by an ingenious and captivating mix of delights. Text by Brenda Schumacher