Each week Chicago Public Radio’s Matt Cunningham showcases three cultural events that any one of us might enjoy. But today he’s starting off with something near and dear to his own heart.

I’m embarrassed to admit it but I love musical variety shows.
Not professional ones, I’m all about amateurs. It’s not because of their talent, although I’m often surprised. It’s not because of the music, but they’re always songs I know. Each year, members of The Women’s Club of Evanston come together to perform. They choreograph dance numbers, create costumes and rewrite the lyrics to Broadway Show tunes, pop music and jazz standards.

Songs like one about Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears called “Paparazzi”, done to Abba’s “Mama Mia”. And one entitled “I won’t Text”. Anne Taubeneck and her husband wrote several of the songs in this years benefit.

TAUBENECK: Everyone has a lot of fun being in the cast and I think people in the audience pick up on that. It really gets energetic and fun. And if you make a mistake, its not terrible, you’re just having a good time.

The shows are Friday through Sunday nights, both this weekend and next.
And from one form of intimacy to another, stop Two of our Three to See takes us to the Lakeview neighborhood and the photography of David Teplica.

Teplica is a plastic surgeon in Chicago and has been showing his photographs around the world. His current series entitled Intimate Decade is his first show in Chicago, in 10 years.

The black and white images depict human contact. One shows the clasp of his brother and dying father’s hands. Another is of 5 nude heterosexual men in an embrace. Teplica says these works are about legitimizing all forms of human touch.

TEPLICA: It’s amazing to me that people want to look at the body, and we package that into different parcels and feel we should be looking at some things and not at other things. I think its fascinating because we’re all human and we have wonderful experiences. And if we can share that in some way to enrich things, that would be great.

The exhibition continues through May 3.

From a photographer’s conversation on human intimacy, to Conversations at the Edge, stop Three of our Three to See are three films by artist Gordon Matta-Clark. Matta-Clark cut through dilapidated structures, bringing light and perspective to these dark spaces.

Besides the short film Clockshower, which is also on view as part of the exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, two other films are being featured. City Slivers is a 9 ½ minute silent film that only lets you see a sliver of the cityscape through the lens. Office Baroque, is a documentary about Matta-Clarks dissection of a 5-story office building in Antwerp, Belgium. Amy Beste coordinates the film series.

BESTE: Office Barogue contains a number of really really beautiful, interesting and beautiful revealing interviews with Matta-Clark. But also some really gorgeous images of the actually cutting really gives a sense of the way it moves through the building. This particular cutting was so large that you couldn’t take it all in, in one go.

As part of the conversation, his widow, Jane Crawford will be there to share personal perspectives on his work. Conversations at the Edge, films by Gordon Matta-Clark is next Thursday night at 8PM at the Gene Siskel Film Center, at State and Randolph.

For Three To See, I’m Matt Cunningham, Chicago Public Radio.