Dancing Just the Same: Chic-a-Go-Go at 30

Press Release

Part Soul Train, part The Banana Splits, Chic-a-Go-Go was a raucous cable access television show that ran in Chicago from the late nineties to 2015 and occasionally since. The brainchild of Jake Austen and Jackie Stewart, the show was shot on a shoestring budget, with in-studio children-and-adult dance sequences, short films, live puppets, guest cameos, and lip-synced indie rock performances by bands including the Red Kraylola, the Scissor Girls, the Goblins, Bobby Conn, and the Dishes, to name a few. Dancing Just the Same: Chic-a-Go-Go at 30 celebrates the thirtieth anniversary of this one-of-a-kind program, of which over 1,000 episodes were produced.

A selection of top-shelf segments continuously loops in The Vault during gallery hours. And in The McPhee, CvsD is pleased to present a selection of precious Chic-a-Go-Go artifacts and ephemera, including original puppets and the Rat-Phone. Special thanks to Chicago's Media Burn for their loving restoration of the Chic-a-Go-Go oeuvre.

Save the date for a special live in-gallery dance party with Chic-a-Go-Go and Bobby Conn on Saturday, November 21st. More details to come!