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MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

Yali Derman has been through a lot in her 17 years. As a young child, she overcame leukemia once, with chemotherapy, then had chemotherapy again, radiation and a bone-marrow transplant from her brother when the disease came back five years later. She has now been cancer-free for seven years.

Celebrating hope and her triumph over leukemia, Derman unveiled the "Yali Carry On Bag" Sunday that she helped create for Kate Spade handbags.

Two-time breast cancer survivor Maggie Daley attended the emotional launch party to show her support for cancer survivors of all ages. "It reminds everybody of the hopefulness..We're really not sure why these mysterious things happen in our lives, but it is our responsibility to do the best that we can," said the Daley, First Lady of Chicago.

Friends, family and well-wishers gathered at the Kate Spade store off Michigan Avenue to support the young cancer survivor and to purchase the purse she designed, thanks to the Make-A-Wish foundation, an organization that grants wishes to children with life-threatening medical conditions.

"Yali's Carry On symbolizes carrying on, even after survivorship.  It is not only about surviving, but about thriving," Derman said

"Yes, we carry our baggage on the outside and it can be black and dark sometimes. And that is on the outside.  But on the inside, if you carry positivity and vibrance within, then that will lead to healing of the soul, and that is what surviving is all about," said Derman.

The bag retails for $325, with half of the proceeds benefitting the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

For more information about the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Illinois or to find out how to refer a child, call (312)602-WISH or visit www.wishes.org.  For more information about the handbag, call Kate Spade (312)654-8853.

Rarely a day goes by when owner Bob Koester doesn't hear a foreign accent in his store. Located on Illinois Street between State and Wabash, the Jazz Record Mart "is pretty well-known throughout the world," he said. But even though the store's been a Chicago institution for 50 years, Koester said "a lot of people here don't know about it."

No city except New York has more historical importance to jazz than Chicago. Louis Armstrong forged his legend here, first with King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, then when he recorded his legendary records with The Hot Fives and The Hot Sevens. Jelly Roll Morton and Illinois native Miles Davis recorded some of their most celebrated works here. Even today, many acclaimed artists like Kurt Elling and Patricia Barber call the Windy City their home.

But the jazz scene has been changing for quite some time, and lately it's been especially volatile.

For the past decade, the entire recording industry has been reeling from falling sales. Koester's Chicago-based label, Delmark Records, has issued landmark albums like Roscoe Mitchell's "Sound" and Anthony Braxton's "For Alto." Despite being one of the oldest independent labels in business today, however, Delmark lost $28,000 in 2006.

"We had a little party to celebrate," Koester said, "because the year before we lost [$100,000]." He added that some major labels have deleted many albums in recent years in response to poor sales. "We happened to see the sales figures for 2005...An Ella Fitzgerald record sold 100 copies. I was astounded by poor sales of Lester Young product. I felt less down in the dumps by what we're doing."

Bobby Broom, guitarist with the Deep Blue Organ Trio, said, "When I was a kid, I'd listen to the radio…and that would inform me about what I was going to buy." Jazz is scarce on the airwaves these days, and just last year Chicago Public Radio abandoned its weekday jazz programming. Many in the business say the lack of radio support is contributing to declining record sales.

More troubling has been the loss of local performance venues. The Deep Blue Organ Trio plays regular gigs at The Green Mill, one of the country's most famous jazz lounges located in Uptown on Broadway near Lawrence. The trio's drummer, Greg Rockingham, said their group gets plenty of work nowadays, but he believes "the places to play are dwindling."

The legendary Jazz Showcase lost its lease and closed down a year ago. It's set to open soon in the South Loop at Dearborn Station but only after a long, hard search that left many supporters worried. Once a popular spot for avant-garde jazz, the HotHouse closed in July and is still searching for a new location. Buddy Guy's Legends lost its lease as well, but for now, it remains open in its South Loop space until a new home is found.

Still, there's plenty of reason to remain optimistic. The Chicago Music Commission, a non-profit organization seeking to promote the city's music industry, presented a study last month that ranked Chicago fourth behind Las Vegas, Los Angeles and New York in the number of seats available at small, popular music venues. The number in Chicago is 28,467. Chicago has a total capacity of 408,420 seats at music venues of all sizes, second only to Los Angeles, which has 860,511.

Having said that, the report offered a brief but worrisome assessment of the local jazz scene. "When we look at consumption of recorded music…Chicago has a comparatively weak appetite for country music, jazz and gospel," the report stated. "That latter two findings are particularly surprising…more research would be needed to explain what lies behind unexpectedly low demand in these particular categories."

Commercially, jazz may be moving through an unstable phase in Chicago, but artistically, Broom compares it favorably with other cities.

"It's just burgeoning in terms of the energy," he said, citing the growing interest in jazz at local universities like DePaul, where he currently teaches. Last November, after a two-year search that accompanied the suspension of its jazz program, Northwestern University named Victor L. Goines the director of jazz studies. Goines had played extensively with the celebrated Wynton Marsalis Septet and is a member of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.

While some established venues are facing troubles, this week Drury Lane Theatre Water Tower Place introduced a Monday night cabaret series that will bring jazz performers back to its theater.

"The difference between Chicago and New York is there are very few clubs in New York," says Koester. This makes New York's scene "extremely competitive…[Here it's] more of a fraternal thing, and I think it'll probably remain that way for quite some time."

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Floating silver pillows gently bump into dancers. The dancers continue, seemingly undisturbed by the airborne intrusion. Meanwhile, audience members swat away the drifting metallic balloons.

This is not part of a dream, but an interactive exhibition now appearing at the Loyola University Museum of Art.

The museum has invited local dance ensembles to perform in Andy Warhol's installation "Silver Clouds."

Before the installation closes on April 27, five Chicago area ensembles will perform. The first group, The Seldoms, appeared on Tuesday night and will have another show on Saturday afternoon.

The installation, which opened last Saturday, consists of 40 helium-filled balloons made of Mylar that float around a room with weak air currents.

Originally installed in a New York gallery in 1966, "Silver Clouds" inspired choreographer Merce Cunningham to create a dance called "RainForest" in 1968.

In the work, the dancers' movements are determined by the I Ching, a method of finding order in chance events. 

"I think [Cunningham] thought it would be a very interesting set to use for a dance that involved a certain randomness or chance," said Pamela Ambrose, Loyola's director of cultural affairs. "The clouds aren't controllable, and so there is this chance element to the performance."

Ambrose said she jumped at the chance for the museum to showcase collaboration between visual art and dance, which she said has a notable history. She said the relationship between the two forms -- dance and visual art -- dates back to the 1910s and 1920s, when Serge Diaghilev, manager of Ballets Russes in Paris, enlisted a large group of artists as collaborators, including Pablo Picasso.

"I thought how terrific it would be, in the tradition of Merce Cunningham's 'RainForest,' to ask some of our more prominent dance ensembles in Chicago to come in and do the same thing, essentially to use the 'Silver Clouds' as a bridge between performance and practice," she said.

The museum is continuously projecting a film of "RainForest" on two 15-foot by 15-foot walls in the room next to "Silver Clouds."

Carrie Hanson, artistic director of The Seldoms, said the group was excited to perform in the installation because of its historic relationship with dance.

"There's something so rich about this experience," she said. "There's an aura around this installation because of Warhol."

The Seldoms' dance - like Cunningham's "RainForest" - relies upon chance.

To determine the specifics of The Seldoms' performance, Hanson asked audience members to roll a set of dice. The dice decided which of five actions the dancers take at what location in the room. There were seven chapters in the work, so each dancer performed seven actions, including sucking in helium from a balloon and then speaking.

Hanson said that because the performance relies on chance, Saturday's performance could be completely different from Tuesday evening's.

Molly Shanahan, who will perform in the installation on March 4 and March 8, said her solo dance will be in response to, rather than inspired by, the installation.

"My work really harnesses a relationship to gravity as a specific and necessary partner to all movement, whether I'm just surrendering to the flow of gravity or resisting it," she said. "And I love that the 'Silver Clouds' exhibit is about this very purposeful weightlessness."

Shanahan explained that she doesn't like to consider her work improvisation but rather "spontaneous composition," which is "composed in the moment."

"[The installation] is an additional catalyst to that spontaneous response, and specifically I was intrigued by the clouds component because of what it suggests in terms of weight and reflectivity," she said.

So what is it like to dance while surrounded by balloons?

 "Scary. I wouldn't want to pop an expensive exhibit," said Seldoms dancer Christina Gonzalez-Gillett jokingly.

MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

The play used to raise shockwaves - and now raises money for the annual V-Day campaign to end violence against women and children.

Chicago has lined up a litany of "V-Day" performances to celebrate the 10th anniversary of women's rights activist Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues.

V-Day productions kick off on Valentine's Day at Metropolis Coffee, 1039 W. Granville Ave., Chicago, and include V-Day Chicago 2008 on March 6 and 7 in Wicker Park.

For the "V to the 10th" of what has become a global grassroots movement for women, Ensler included a new play, A Memory, a Monologue, a Rant and a Prayer and the 2004 documentary "Until the Violence Stops."

It's up to local production directors to include the optional additional material.

The V-Day Chicago 2008 performance won't include all those components, but performers are adding another interpretive monologue with music. Many Chicago venues are celebrating V-Day from Valentines Day until the end of March.

"[V-Day] is about celebrating women and what makes us the wonders that we are," said Hollis Rabin, who is directing and organizing V-Day Chicago 2008. "It's about standing up for ourselves and our sisters, and having our voices heard."

Each year, the thousands of V-Day performances in public auditoriums and on college campuses focus on a particular cause, which will benefit the Katrina Warriors Network this year. Ten percent of profits from each performance all over the world go to one spotlight fund.

Katrina Warriors Network is a coalition of organization that helps women in New Orleans and the Gulf. The rest of the profits from V-Day Chicago 2008 will go to the Chicago Abused Women's Coalition.

The spotlight V to the Tenth celebration in the New Orleans Superdome on April 12 will feature V-Day activists from Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Celebrity speakers include Chicago's Oprah Winfrey.

V-Day's official holiday is Valentine's Day, a day to express love to a special someone. V-Day reclaimed the holiday because women rarely "make a point" to love themselves, Rabin said.

"[The day is] to love what makes us women and stand up and work to end the violence," she said. "And we won't stop until we have claimed a victory over it."

------------------ RELATED LINKS ------------------ ------ Title: V to the 10th Web site URL: http://v10.vday.org/ ------ ------ Title: V-Day's Web site URL: http://www.vday.org/main.html ------ ------------------ Sidebar(s) ------------------ ------ Headline: V-Day Performances Body:

V-Day Chicago 2008 Performances of The Vagina Monologues:

Thursday, March 6 at 7 p.m., and Friday, March 7 at 7 p.m, at the Pulaski Park District Auditorium, 1419 W. Blackhawk St, Chicago.

Get Tickets: e-mail vdaychicago2008@gmail.com to reserve tickets. Cash only.

Other Chicago Community Performances:

Feb. 14, 6 p.m., Metropolis Coffee, 1039 W. Granville Ave., Chicago,

March 21 and 22, 8 p.m. - LaCosta Theater, 3931 N. Elston Ave. 2nd floor, Chicago

March 26, 7 p.m. - Center on Halsted, 3656 N Halsted St., Chicago
March 28 and 29, 7:30 p.m. - Hinsdale Community House-Kettering Hall, 415 W. Eighth St., Hinsdale
Scheduled College Performances:

Feb. 15, 7 p.m. and Feb. 16, 1:30 p.m. - McCormick Theological Seminary, Common Room, 5460 S. University Ave., Chicago

Feb. 15 and 16, 7 p.m. - Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Thorne Auditorium, 375 E. Chicago Ave., Chicago

Feb. 16 and 17, 8 p.m. - DePaul University, Student Center, 2250 N Sheffield Ave., MPR Room 120, Chicago