Ravinia 2025 Issue 1

PAVILION 7:00 PM SATURDAY, JUNE 7, 2025 GRACE JONES † and JANELLE MONÁE † Janelle Monáe –Intermission– Grace Jones Metro and smartbar’s QUEEN! featuring resident DJs DERRICK CARTER MICHAEL SERAFINI and resident hosts LUCY STOOLE NICO † Ravinia debut GRACE JONES Grace Jones as singer, actress, author, traveler, artist, and revolutionist has been a shape-shift- ing, trouble-making meta-presence in the entertainment universe since her emergence as a model in New York City and Paris in the early 1970s. Embracing late-1970s New York, her provocative shows in downtown lofts and nightclubs saw her crowned as Disco Queen with attitude and celebrated as an ultimate gay icon. Jones became one of the most unforget- table characters to emerge from the legendary Studio 54 nightclub in Manhattan, creating pi- oneering disco classics such as “I Need a Man” and the enduring “La vie en rose.” She was a piv- otal part of a community of iconoclastic artists that included Andy Warhol and Keith Haring. Her visual work as a subject, image, and collab- orator with conceptual artist/designer Jean-Paul Goude achieved mythic status. And no one wore the surreal clothes of Issey Miyake quite like Jones. In the 1980s, craving new territory, Jones began pursuing theatrical interests. Her music also broke free, with Island Records’ impresario Chris Blackwell using his newly built Compass Point studios in Nassau to put Jones at the center of new, eruptive soul music. This sound blended house, reggae, new wave, R&B, and electronica across three albums— Warm Leatherette (1980), Nightclubbing (1981), and Living My Life (1982). Songs by Iggy Pop, Roxy Music, Chrissie Hyn- de, Joy Division, The Normal, and Sting were interpreted as deviant modern standards, and highly charged original songs like “Pull Up to the Bumper” and “My Jamaican Guy” became instant classics. Further afield in the ’80s, pop producers Trevor Horn and Nile Rogers col- laborated with Jones on the anthems “Slave to the Rhythm” and “I’m Not Perfect.” She ended the 20th century as a Bond villain, screen vam- pire, all-seeing comedian, and transformative avant-garde pop star, and she carried the spirit into the 21st for her 2008 album Hurricane and 2014 memoir I’ll Never Write My Memoirs . In 2022, Jones curated the Meltdown Festival at London’s Southbank Centre and stood out on the all-star cross-genre Beyoncé album Renais- sance , proving her timeless nature on “Move.” Grace Jones is making her Ravinia debut. RAVINIA.ORG  • RAVINIAMAGAZINE 67 KRISTIANSIBAST