Photo courtesy of DJ RomaSoul

“Ride across town to overseas:
Experience Balkans, Brazil, Germany, France”
By Benjamin Ortiz, Special to the Chicago Tribune
“On the Town” cover feature
February 17, 2012

An infectiously off-kilter marching-band beat summons you to the Balkans for a wedding of cultures, a debutante ball for an intoxicating blend of ethnic traditions that all meet up and mix together right here in Chicago.

Andalusian flamenco arches your eyebrows with a sharp strum of guitar chords like a call to arms, as percussive footwork echoes in your eardrums and twists you into a taut gyration of passionate bodily expression, fingers conjuring folk customs from across continents.

Blink your eyes, and you’re in Rio, where whistles and bells and batucada drum rhythms pull you into a never-ending enfilade of flesh, feathers and diamond-studded Speedos.

And you haven’t even left Chicago, haven’t had to sit on the tarmac for hours to fly away and escape cabin fever. Because these worlds are already here for you, your passport a CTA card, with global delights in every direction and a DJ treating you to a soundtrack for your journeys across Berlin to Barcelona and beyond.

The Balkan Invasion

Walk into Subterranean on the third Friday of the month, and DJ RomaSoul dances on tabletops, feeding fellow voyagers Slivovitz, plum brandy for the people, as an aperitif to the big-old bass-drum sound of the Black Bear Combo. A capacity crowd of revelers edges you in, so that you’re face-to-face with an accordion while frenzied foot-stomping battles contrapuntal crashes of beer bottles and wine glasses thrown to the ground with gusto, just because it feels good to add some joyful noise.

But the party has gotten too big for the lounge, so it bursts out onto North Avenue — the clarinetist kneeling at the curb, Balkans jumping on cars and dodging buses at the big, busy intersection in Wicker Park, while the bass-drum skin takes a pounding and mirrors the moon’s rugged face.

DJ RomaSoul, aka Maja Bijedic, likens the Balkan Invasion event to “a crazy ethnic wedding,” and the proceedings do spill out onto the street when weather allows. “My notion to put together an event like this was driven by my nostalgia for the Balkan culture and music I grew up with in former Yugoslavia,” she explains, noting that they moved around until settling at Subterranean in June 2010.

Teaming up with the brass-reed-punk-jazz-avant-gypsy-infused Black Bear Combo, she adds her own turntable spice of Serbian folk, Eastern European Romani samples and Chicago house music. “Something about brass is very primal,” she says. “It is the human breath magnified and distorted to make beautiful and joyous sounds … and when contrasted with some heavy bass makes for an incredible dance-making experience.”

Featuring mostly Midwesterners of European descent, but also an Iranian accordionist and Macedonian clarinet player, the Combo formed after saxophonist Doug Abram “heard some Roma bands while traveling in central Europe at the end of ’99,” he says. Since then, this “raucous mutt,” as the band describes itself, has played basements, backyards, funerals and street corners.

Tuba player Rob Pleshar mentions the all-ages punk show influence of playing unofficial venues, like someone’s house or patio, and how they still love that energy of bursting the barrier between the band and the dance party. Abram adds, “We’ve stood ankle-deep in broken bottles, had ceiling tiles pulled down in chunks around us, had money stuffed into the bells of our horns, had drifts of burning paper from fireworks land on us.”

And still, the multinational party marches forward, as Bijedic points out that Balkan nights happen in major cities all over the world, while Bosnian, Bulgarian, Latino and Ukrainian crowds jostle elbows and kneecaps at Subterranean.

Dueling Cabarets

Where to next? Wisps of cigarette smoke lure us through cobblestone streets toward bawdy guffaws and vaudevillian piano patter, where yesteryear’s Lady Gaga is the master of ceremonies, cutting a striking figure in black lingerie, boldly strutting across a small club stage with a risque swagger.

This could be Berlin or Paris, and you have the chance to visit both on a time trip to early 20th-century Europe, through the DANK Haus German Cultural Center in Lincoln Square, and downtown, at the Alliance Francaise of Chicago.

Both institutions offer language and gastronomy classes, as well as the open-house opportunity to brush up on your second and third tongues, plus cinema, kids programs and the chance to experience another homeland aside expats and enthusiasts.

DANK Haus is headquartered in a stately, six-story building crested by a skyline lounge and a Viennese ballroom, perched over Western Avenue vistas. Executive Director Nicholle Dombrowski calls the Stammtisch (every third Friday) their “signature event,” where anyone can start to learn or practice German, and even pick up some dance moves from senior German-Americans who love to share their stories and heritage.

Most events are free, but the “Blue Angel Kabaret” fundraiser Feb. 24 will help complete DANK Haus’ first-floor construction, and take visitors for a walk down the “1920s Weimar Friedrichstrasse” in old Berlin. It will include a crooner and jazz guitarist.

Meanwhile, the Alliance Francaise hopes to transport you to a Paris bistro, then well beyond Western boundaries, with events that give a taste of the 200 million French speakers across 50 countries, as part of the venue’s multievent March Festival de la Francophonie.

The big kickoff comes March 9, with the Soiree Commune, featuring a travel motif — for pilgrimage to multiple French-speaking lands, and an entree to their gustatory pleasures. The Alliance cabaret will feature a Belgian singer-comedian as emcee, with French jazz trio Flon Flon et Musette. But anyone in the audience can flex the Francais, in an open karaoke session offering prizes for the bold and brave.

Director of programs Aimee Laberge says this is a chance to “let your inner Celine Dion out.” Transforming the classrooms into virtual Francophone countries, with coffee and croissants at the ready, the Alliance will stamp your “passport for le monde right here,” says Alliance communications manager Sabrina Tyus, stressing that you don’t have to know any French, because the language itself will embrace you.

Carnival, Karneval, Carnaval

There’s a “yearly madhouse” you might have missed says David Chavez, director of Sound Culture, his own world-music creation that collaborates with locals Swing Brasileiro to bring a bit of Rio to Chicago on Saturday, at Mayne Stage in Rogers Park, through its version of “Brazilian Carnaval 2012.”

Chavez is a DJ, curator and Colombian cumbia fanatic who also contributes to the 2012 Chicago Cultural Plan. He describes the event as “an overloading of the senses,” with dancers throughout the night, percussion troupes and a 22-foot screen that will show a streaming projection of the actual celebration happening in real-time Rio de Janeiro.

He adds that caipirinha cocktail specials will help loosen things up, to facilitate mucho butt shaking. As far as the music, Chavez explains that “we do a lot of special arrangements of material that is really only played during Carnaval … if you want authentic Brazilian Carnaval music, it will be there.”

Cut a rug, flamenco-style

Blame it on the samba, but if you’re a bit too shy for the dance floor, let professional flamenco dancers and musicians show you the way to an Iberian land bridge uniting Illinois, Spain and Asia, through the ongoing Instituto Cervantes’ 10th Annual Flamenco Festival.

Like the Alliance and DANK Haus, the Instituto offers many events, classes and workshops, some free and all open to the public. Its modest, intimate auditorium will host the debut of tracks for a release from Spanish brothers Diego and Raimundo Amador on Saturday and Sunday, with more events throughout the month.

Cultural activities coordinator Teresa Hernando says “flamenco has been created from a mix of many different cultures,” so the performers represent that blend, reaching from Romania to India with cinema, lectures and, of course, sizzling performances across the panorama of Hispano-Latino traditions.

But our ambling adventures don’t have to end here, because the experiences are all around Chicago for the taking, and no plane ticket is necessary.

Alliance Francaise Festival de la Francophonie
When: 6:30-9 p.m. March 9
Where: 810 N. Dearborn St.
Tickets: $15 adults, kids $5; 312-337-1070 or af-chicago.org

The Balkan Invasion
When: 10 p.m. Friday (every third Friday)
Where: Subterranean Lounge, 2011 W. North Ave.
Tickets: $5 (21+); 773-278-6600 or subt.net

Brazilian Carnaval 2012
When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday
Where: Mayne Stage, 1328 W. Morse Ave.
Tickets: $15; 773.381.4554 or soundculturechicago.com

DANK Haus German Cultural Center
When: Times and events vary
Where: 4740 N. Western Ave.
Tickets: 773-561-9181 or visit dankhaus.com

Instituto Cervantes 10th Anniversary Chicago Flamenco Festival 2012
When: 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday
Where: Instituto Cervantes, 31 W. Ohio St.
Tickets: $15-$20; 312-335-1996 or brownpapertickets.com

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