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Keep 818 Alive!
818 Press
818
818 Press
Time Out Chicago, August 2006
HIGH SPIRITS 818 revelers are feeling the groove.
Family Circus : A multi-culti crowd gets in the spirit at an all-ages, holistic happening.
By Web Behrens
You know you've hit the right party when the belly dancers show up. But when they arrive at 818, the fun's just getting started. The drum circle in the garden subsides, but two DJs spin ‹ one high-octane, the other chill ‹ in separate rooms. People twirl flags and poi (a traditional Maori dance prop from New Zealand); others give and receive massage or reiki; a tarot reader peers into her cards. In the vendors' area, people peruse handcrafted jewelry, cell-phone safety gadgets and information on therapist services. Oh‹and somewhere in the house, there's a prayer chaplain, too.
Also dubbed "Circus of the Spirit," this all-ages, alcohol- and smoke-free festival inhabits three floors of Unity in Chicago (1925 W Thome Avenue), a nondenominational Tudor mansion-turned-temple. A humble sign in front of Unity's home in West Ridge states simply: "a church of light, love and laughter."
"These people are my family," says Lalila, chilling on the Unity balcony after flagging on the dance floor. The fresh-faced Guatemalan native has become a regular at 818 since she first discovered the monthly gatherings in December. Now she chats with Eric, a Michigan man who found his way to Chicago more than two years ago after living in Hawaii and Japan. He greets everyone with a sunny "Aloha!" and encourages them to attend a full-moon meditation he's planning. Meanwhile, a suburban couple half a generation older invite people to their healing circles in Des Plaines and Libertyville.
The eclectic mix of folks make a pilgrimage here the first Friday of every month. It would be hard to feel left out: Kids and adults alike enjoy the fluorescent body paint under black lights. Couples sway together on the dance floor where singles also boogie. Guys on the perimeter watch the action and tap their toes. Fashion runs the gamut, from mundane work drag to club gear, goth black to tie-dye. And if that all feels too busy, you can lie down in the chill-out room, or browse the aisles in a Transitions Bookplace outlet. Lalila recalls her feelings about finding 818, some time after her mother returned to Guatemala: "It's the people you always wanted to meet. In a way, it changed my life." She pauses, considers, clarifies. "No, not 'in a way.' It changed my life," she smiles.
She's not the only one. The whole shebang is the brainchild of DJ Preston Klik, a well-known DJ in the global trance scene. He began the event in September 2003 after he'd been affiliated with Unity in Chicago for several years. "It was the first spiritual community, not religious, I'd come across, and I craved that," he says. The same was true for his future wife Emily, whom he met at 818 that October. By November, they were engaged; the couple celebrated their second wedding anniversary at the August 818.
Glittered, bindi'd and bewigged, the radiant Emily is clearly having a blast. But it's not hard to imagine her having this much fun every month, anniversary or no. The Kliks' friends have asked the couple to come to Burning Man in Nevada, but they always decline: They refuse to take a month off.
Describing the wide-ranging offerings, Emily speaks metaphorically: "It's an open-mike, essentially. If you have gifts you want to lovingly self-express, how do we help you do that?"
And it's affordable, too. The requested donation is $10, $8 for students, with kids under 12 free. In case you don't yet have a grasp on the Circus of the Spirit's playful philosophy, here's a Klik koan. We ask Emily: Why do you call this 818? "Because that's the time it starts," she says with a grin. "Now ask: Why does it start at 8:18?" She grins wider. "Because that's the name."
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Chicago Sun Times January 14, 2007
RELIGIOUS RAVE: That's The Spirit!
by CATHLEEN FALSANI
Sun Times Religion Reporter
Serpentine strands of colored lights festoon the front of the church sanctuary and dry-ice smoke pours from behind the DJ's booth where, on a different day, an altar and a pastor might be found. Thrumming beats of electronica music fill the dance floor and blend with tribal thumping from the drum circle going full blast in the "friendship room" downstairs. On the dance floor, men, women and children groove with limb-flailing abandon, a troupe of belly dancers wearing traditional garb swing their naked midriffs, and a circle of 19 people hold hands while contorting their bodies into a series of yoga postures.
Upstairs, a 'peace room' "It's a place where people can come and lovingly self express," says Emily Klik, who, with her husband, DJ Preston Klik, has produced the 8:18/Circus events at Unity since the summer of 2003. "It's alcohol-free, drug-free, smoke-free... It's where they can come if they want to hit a dance floor without going home smelling like smoke, or getting hit on." The event is called "8:18" because that's what time it begins, Emily Klik, who is a spiritual healer and craniosacral therapist, explains, adding that things usually get hopping between 9:30 and 10 p.m., when about 350 people regularly turn up to dance, meditate and mingle.
The Kliks, who do not reveal their ages ("We've found that so many people are ageist," Emily Klik says), met after Preston, an accomplished artist and musician who was a member of the popular Chicago bands My Scarlet Life and Big Hat in the 1990s, produced the first 8:18/Circus in September 2003. They were married a year later at Unity Church, where they are members. Most Friday night revelers don't attend Unity or any other church, Emily Klik says. "We've got . . . spirituality without religion," she says. "On that dance floor, that is the way they worship."
Tom Dials, director of congregational care at Chicago's Unity Church, calls the 8:18/Circus "a perfect example of spirit in action." "Unity is all-inclusive, and so therefore having the Circus here is absolutely in line with our belief structure," Dials says. Unity, a Christian denomination with more than 2 million members worldwide, grew out of the 19th-century New Thought movement. "We understand that there are many paths to God. We don't say you have to be Christian or Buddhist. We don''t tell you what to believe in," Dials says. "Human beings are creative and so however that manifests itself is part of our mission."
One recent Friday night, as dancers sway and twirl to the non-stop tunes Preston Klik describes as "life-positive, one-world, body-temple dance music," a small group in the upstairs "peace room" holds an Sufi zhikr ("zicker"), chanting one of the Arabic names of God in unison. Down the hall, a tarot card reader shuffles her deck at a table in one of the church's many alcoves, while teenagers lounge on their backs staring at projections of undersea life on the ceiling of the "chill-out" room.
Allen Walker, 30, a Tibetan Buddhist from Rogers Park, is an 8:18/Circus regular. "It's pretty much the only place, if you're into any sort of spirituality, where you can connect and converse with people . . . not in the context of any sort of intoxicant," Walker says. "With intoxicants, you get that facade oftentimes that really isn't the individual."
Taking a break from the dance floor to cool down with a bottle of water, 16-year-old Tiffany Bartocci of St. Charles explains what keeps her coming back to 8:18/Circus month after month. "It gives me a chance to be me," Bartocci says. "There's a variety of people and you can just act the way you want to act, and nobody questions it."
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