Chicago Cultural Alliance

Kino, Kaffee und Kuchen
2025-10-04 10:30, 2025-10-11 10:30, 2025-10-18 10:30, 2025-10-25 10:30, 2025-11-01 10:30, 2025-11-08 10:30, 2025-11-15 10:30, 2025-11-22 10:30 (America/Chicago) and 16 more dates | DANK Haus German American Cultural Center, 4740 N. Western Ave., Chicago, IL, 60625, United States
Date:
Start
Saturday, January 06, 2024
Time:
Location:
Location
DANK Haus Room 206, 2nd Floor

KINO, KAFFEE UND KUCHEN
Saturdays at the DANK Haus in Room 206
10:30 – 11:00 AM | Kaffee und Kuchen
11:00 – 12:00 PM | Vorfilm
12:00 PM | Feature Film Begins

Join us each Saturday at the DANK Haus in Fall, Winter, and Spring for Kaffee, Kuchen, und Kino. Each week guests will choose the film they want to watch
DANK Members: $5 | Non-Members: $7

Bridging Worlds
2025-10-07 18:30 - 19:30 | Ukrainian National Museum, 2249 W. Superior St., Chicago, IL, 60612, United States
Wednesday October 29
Description: Journey with us as the Ukrainian National Museum and Friends of the Gamelan weave together a rich tapestry of cultural storytelling. Vibrant music, graceful dance, and timeless traditions will bring Ukrainian and Indonesian heritage to life. While songs and dances are presented in their native languages, skilled storytellers will share their meaning in English, allowing every guest to experience the beauty, humor, and emotion behind each piece. This is an evening where two worlds meet in a shared celebration of art, history, and the connection of stories. Enjoy performances by Ukrainian and Indonesian musical groups.

When: Wednesday, October 29, 6:30pm – Doors Open 6:00pm

Where: Ukrainian National Museum Main Hall 2249 W. Superior St. Chicago, IL 60563

Echoes of Bollywood: Cinematic Strings and Stories
2025-10-11 19:30 - 21:00 | South Asia Institute, 1925 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL, 60616, United States
Chicago Sinfonietta and the South Asia Institute present a special program exploring the rich world of Bollywood film music. Featuring the Chicago Sinfonietta String Quartet and scholar Rochona Majumdar, the event combines live performance, film clips, and commentary to reveal the history, meaning, and cultural impact of these iconic scores.
Expect a sneak peak into Sinfonietta’s upcoming performances “Bollywood & Beyond”, a journey through both traditional and modern arrangements of beloved tunes, fusing Bollywood vocal art with a full orchestra, then expanding into a East-meets-West experience featuring music from China, Taiwan, India, France, and more.

Indonesian Gamelan Concert + Workshop
2025-11-08 16:00 - 18:00 | 844 Madison Street Oak Park, IL 60302, 844 Madison Street, Oak Park, 60302, United States
Friends of the Gamelan will perform traditional Central Javanese gamelan music. The performance will be followed by a hands-on workshop where audience members will learn how to play a short traditional piece.
All ages are welcome and encouraged to attend!
NOVEMBER 8, 2025 – 4:00PM Concert; 4:45PM Workshop
844 Madison Street
Oak Park, IL 60302
Concert + Workshop: $45
Concert only: $25
Workshop only: $25
Buy Tickets Here: www.oakparkmusic.com/recitals/gamelan
*This is not a drop-off event. All children (10&U) must be accompanied by an adult!

The Fire Inside: The Dharma of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde (ONLINE)
2026-01-29 18:00 - 19:00 | Virtual, Chicago, IL, United States
Join us online for a discussion with Dr. Rima Vesely-Flad about her new book The Fire Inside: The Dharma of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde. Black, queer, feminist, Buddhist: The Fire Inside casts a fresh new light on the radical literary legacies of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde.
This is an online-only program with the American Writers Museum.
This program is presented in conjunction with the AWM’s special exhibit American Prophets: Writers, Religion, and Culture, a powerful new exhibit that takes you on the ultimate exploration through spirituality and storytelling. American Prophets is supported by a grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. through its Religion and Cultural Institutions Initiative.

More about The Fire Inside:
The Fire Inside explores the writings of Audre Lorde and James Baldwin through a Dharmic lens, revealing for the first time how two of America’s greatest literary voices reflect—and expand—Buddhism’s most timeless truths toward justice and liberation.
Dr. Rima Vesely-Flad dives deeply into a dharma of liberation as lived by Baldwin and Lorde, offering timely lessons to help us each meet this moment. She explores the writers’ enduring legacies to show that liberation depends not only on organizing and mass movements, but the generative power of inner well-being, authenticity, art, and embodiment. Each chapter shares how looking inward is the way forward, examining Baldwin and Lorde through key Buddhist principles.
This book offers space for emerging conversations within spiritual communities—ones that don’t shy away from difficult or uncomfortable truths; that center—and celebrate—Black, queer, radical thought; and that embrace the ways our inner lives, creative fire, sensuality, and expressions of love can ignite and sustain revolutionary liberation.
Praise for The Fire Inside:
“I have followed and admired Rima Vesely-Flad’s work for years. She is tapping resources that all of us can access for greater hope and change.” —MICHELLE ALEXANDER, author of The New Jim Crow
“This groundbreaking work is a gift of love reminding us of how Black liberation struggle, like the dharma itself, has always been about everyone getting free.” —LAMA ROD OWENS, author of Love and Rage and The New Saints
“This is a read not to miss… I find my own embers of wellness, justice, and harmony stoked with her joy of expression from the heart and mind on behalf of us all.” —LARRY WARD, Buddhist teacher, author, and cofounder of The Lotus Institute
“This book is a fire that both illuminates and refines, a call to engage with the truth of our times while drawing strength from ancestral wisdom.” —RUTH KING, author of Mindful of Race
About the author:
DR. RIMA VESELY-FLAD is the Visiting Professor of Buddhism and Black Studies at Union Theological Seminary. She is the author of Black Buddhists and the Black Radical Tradition: The Practice of Stillness in the Movement for Liberation (NYU Press, 2022) and Racial Purity and Dangerous Bodies: Moral Pollution, Black Lives, and the Struggle for Justice (Fortress Press, 2017).

Flamenco Guitar, Dani de Morón
2026-03-06 19:00 - 20:00 | Instituto Cervantes, 31 West Ohio Street, Chicago, IL, 60654, United States
One of the most acclaimed flamenco guitarists of recent decades.

Dani de Morón is one of the most acclaimed flamenco guitarists of recent decades. He began playing the guitar in the Sevillian village of Morón de la Frontera, where Diego del Gastor established a strong guitar tradition. Forged in the accompaniment to the dance in the academy of the trianera teacher Matilde Coral and to the singing together with the most important cantaores/as and bailaores/as of the current flamenco panorama has been habitual companion of artists of the stature of José Mercé, Antonio Canales, Manuela Carrasco, Joaquín Grilo, Arcángel, Concha Buika or Paco de Lucía himself – with whom he toured the album “Cositas Buenas” – when the maestro noticed the virtuous qualities of the young guitarist, which would catapult him definitively to the first international line of the contemporary guitar.
Dani de Morón es uno de los guitarristas de flamenco más reconocidos de las últimas décadas. Comenzó a tocar la guitarra en el sevillano pueblo de Morón de la Frontera, cuna de una sólida tradición guitarrística iniciada por Diego del Gastor. Forjado en el acompañamiento al baile en la academia de la maestra trianera Matilde Coral y en el cante junto a los más destacados cantaores y bailaores del panorama flamenco actual, Dani ha sido compañero habitual de artistas de la talla de José Mercé, Antonio Canales, Manuela Carrasco, Joaquín Grilo, Arcángel, Concha Buika o Paco de Lucía, con quien giró presentando el álbum Cositas Buenas. Fue el propio maestro quien reconoció las virtudes del joven guitarrista, catapultándolo definitivamente a la primera línea internacional de la guitarra contemporánea.
Photo Copywrite: Shei Maestro

Concert | The 3 B's: Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms
2026-03-08 15:00 - 17:00 | DANK Haus German American Cultural Center, 4740 N. Western Ave., Chicago, IL, 60625, United States
Andrew Schultze & Svetlana Belsky present the 3Bs Concert, featuring selections from J.S. Bach’s Peasant Cantata, Beethoven’s Adelaide, and songs from Brahms’ Opuses 48 & 49. This thoughtfully curated program highlights the expressive depth and musical evolution of three iconic composers, blending lyrical storytelling, romantic emotion, and timeless artistry in an intimate recital experience.
Following the concert a light reception of cake, tea and coffee will be offered and you will have the opportunity to purchase Mr. Schultze’s and Ms. Belsky’s CD.
