Looking for some cool issues to do and see in Chicago within the week forward?
We’ve bought these ideas to contemplate:
New music cycle
In current years, R&B hybrid Raphael Saadiq has been busy writing music for movies and tv, together with the rating for HBO’s “Insecure.” Now on his first album in eight years, “Jimmy Lee,” he’s written an intensely private music cycle that delves into tales of affection, troubled relationships and the deaths of three of his siblings. The New Yorker says Saadiq has created “a novelistic song cycle that seems at once intensely private, broadly political, and undeniably funky.” At 7:30 p.m. Feb. 21, Vic Theatre, 3145 N. Sheffield. Tickets: $35. Visit jamusa.com.
Cats on the large display 
Cat Video FestivalProvided
Free your thoughts from all of the noise on the market and enter the curious and humorous world of our feline mates. The annual Cat Video Fest is a compilation of the newest and finest feline movies culled from new and traditional clips into one 75-minute function. The family-friendly screenings increase funds for native cat charities and shelters. At midday Feb. 22-23 and seven p.m. Feb. 25 at Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport. Tickets: $8-$12. Visit musicboxtheatre.com.
Sister rock 
StonefieldNathan Stewart
The 4 Findlay sisters who make up the Australian psych-rock band Stonefield have been on one superb journey going from training of their household shed as teenagers to touring with the likes of Fleetwood Mac, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and King Gizzard. Their current album, “Bent,” is full of melodic rock that the Brooklyn Vegan says “seamlessly combines psych, prog, indie rock and heavy metal.” Lead singer and drummer Amy Findlay says the songs come from an “honest, raw energy that has been burning within us and waiting for its moment.” At 9 p.m. Feb. 25, Sleeping Village, 3734 W. Belmont. Tickets: $12, $14. Visit sleeping-village.com.
Inspired by winter 
“Blizzard” by FLIP FabriqueSebastien Durocher
Last seen in Chicago in 2014, the Quebec-based circus troupe FLIP Fabrique returns with a brand new present, “Blizzard,” which explores the eight-company member’s intimate relationship with winter. A singular imaginative and prescient of what 21st-century circus could be, it’s a dizzying show of aerial arts, acrobatics, trampoline routines and clowning plus extra astonishing feats of their very own invention. At 6 p.m. Feb. 21 and a pair of p.m. Feb. 22, Harris Theater, 205 E. Randolph. Tickets: $10-$15. Visit harristheaterchicago.org.
Teen poets compete 
Louder Than a BombMercedes Zapata
The youth poetry competition Louder Than a Bomb returns for 5 weeks of slam-style bouts that includes highschool and center faculty college students. Founded in 2001 by poets Kevin Coval and Anna West of the group Young Chicago Authors, it’s the biggest occasion of its form and encourages younger folks from all backgrounds to know the significance of their very own story and people of others and to hold on the wealthy oral traditions of nice Chicago authors comparable to Gwendolyn Brooks and Studs Terkel. From Feb. 26-March 21, at numerous places. Tickets: $2-$20. For an entire schedule of occasions, go to youngchicagoauthors.org.
Art from China 
Zhu Jinshi, “Wave of Materials” (2007) in “The Allure of Matter.” Gift of Zhu Jinshi and Pearl Lam Galleries in honor of Wu Hung, collectively acquired by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Smart Museum of Art on the University of Chicago. © Museum Associates/LACMA
Artists working in China have lengthy experimented with numerous supplies starting from the commonplace to the unconventional, the pure to the artificial…