SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE QUARTERLY Vol. 1, No. 1 • Spring 2012
MIKE PHAM
On the Boards, June 9–10. See page 27.
NINE
MOMENTS IN
FEMINIST
THE A&P
AND
THIS. REBECCA
ART HISTORY.
BY JEN GRAVES PAGE 11
BROWN ON
S SEX TOURISTS E AND MADAME
BUTTERFLY
PAGE 14
CENTERFOLD! LITERARY MAP OF THE OLYMPIC PENINSULA PAGE 20
FICTION BY
SHERMAN ALEXIE PAGE 39
SPRING
CALENDAR ART P. 19 PERFORMANCE P. 27 CLASSICAL P. 32 JAZZ P. 33 READINGS P. 35 FILM P. 38
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A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE
GIACOMO PUCCINI
MADAMA BUTTERFLY
SPRING 2012
MCCAW HALL
seattleaandp.com
DANCE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 9 Interviews with a ballerina, a breakdancer, and the new director of Velocity.
JAZZ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 7 Charles Mudede picks up the telephone. Jazz legend McCoy Tyner answers.
OPERA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 14 Rebecca Brown on sex tourists, Puccini, and Madame Butterfly.
ARCHITECTURE . . . . . . . . p. 13 Very little coverage in this issue.
LITERATURE . . . . . . . . . . p. 20 Where Raymond Carver did coke, where Steven Jesse Bernstein killed himself, and eight other destinations with your tour guide Matthew Stadler. ART . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 11 Forty years after feminist classic The Dinner Party, Seattle artist Lynn Schirmer discovers something shocking. PAINTING . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 7 Jen Graves’s guided tour to a very old thing. THEATER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 5 Just in case actor Stephen Hando gets crushed by a falling piano. FICTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 39 “Fame,” by Sherman Alexie. POETRY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 13 “More Anecdotal Evidence,” by Dean Young. CLASSICAL MUSIC . . . . . . p. 16 Jen Graves goes in search of the saddest notes in Mozart’s morbid masterpiece.
Editorial EDITOR Christopher Frizzelle ART DIRECTOR Aaron Huffman SENIOR EDITORS Bethany Jean Clement (dining) Paul Constant (readings and lectures) Jen Graves (art, classical music) Brendan Kiley (performance) Cienna Madrid (walruses) Charles Mudede (jazz) David Schmader (film) OPERA EDITOR Rebecca Brown POETRY EDITOR Heather McHugh CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Sherman Alexie, Matthew Stadler STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Kelly O COPY EDITORS Gillian Anderson, Anna Minard WEB EDITOR Megan Seling SHIPMATES Dominic Holden, Grant Brissey, Dave Segal, Eli Sanders, David “Goldy” Goldstein PUBLISHER Tim Keck
Art & Production PRODUCTION MANAGER Erica Tarrant EDITORIAL DESIGNERS Mike Force, Mary Traverse SENIOR AD DESIGNER Mary Traverse AD DESIGNERS Mike Force, Shena Lee, Joel Schomberg
DINING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 17 Go to Le Gourmand while you still can. GENIUS AWARDS . . . . . . . . p. 39 Where are all those past winners now? SPRING CALENDAR Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Classical & Opera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Jazz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Readings & Lectures . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Film . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 To get an event listed in the summer A&P calendar, send it by May 16 to the corresponding address: art@seattleaandp.com performance@seattleaandp.com classical@seattleaandp.com opera@seattleaandp.com jazz@seattleaandp.com readings@seattleaandp.com film@seattleaandp.com For advertising information, please contact: adinfo@seattleaandp.com 206-323-7101
Advertising SALES ADMINISTRATOR / ONLINE ADVERTISING MANAGER Sarah Cortés SENIOR REGIONAL ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Ben Demar SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE/THEATER Juliette Brush Hoover CLUB ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Alli Steblina ENTERTAINMENT ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Cheree Best DISPLAY ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Andrea Gansz, Katie Phoenix
PA SSION , HONOR , AN D SAC R I FIC E Puccini’s timeless story of love, tradition, yearning, and heartbreak features some of his most appealing and masterful music. Don’t miss the very first McCaw Hall presentation of this popular favorite. With the Seattle Opera Chorus and members of Seattle Symphony Orchestra. PHONE G R O U P S SAVE 15% I N PERSON
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Foreground: Patricia Racette (Butterfly), © Marty Sohl, Metropolitan Opera, 2009. Background: © Gary Beechey, Canadian Opera Company, 2009
MAY 5-20, 2012
Seattle Art & Performance Quarterly
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Image: Three Tahitians (detail), Paul Gauguin, French, National Gallery of Scotland. An exhibition organized by the Art Centre Basel, Basel, in collaboration with the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen, and the Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington. Sponsors
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A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE
THE SEASON THAT WAS
In Case You’ve Been Living Under One of These
News for Artists Who Rarely Leave the House So You Can Pretend Like You’ve Been Keeping Up
• In February, Intiman Theatre made its $1 million fundraising goal, which means they’re open for business again—this summer at least. Their summer program is repertory style, with 12 actors performing in four productions at once: Shakespeare, Ibsen, an unnamed American classic, and something new by Dan Savage. • Art icon Carolee Schneemann visited the Henry Art Gallery over the winter, bringing along her influential vagina, photographs of her kissing her cat, a new video installation, and unexpected early paintings and assemblages. It was a big show. “I meant to see it,” a great many artists said, irritatingly. • This past winter, the confusingly named [storefront] Olson Kundig Architects hosted an event-based installation called Record Store, a temporary extension of Theaster Gates’s exhibition/playing of hundreds of rescued vinyl records from the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s at Seattle Art Museum (that exhibition is ongoing). Record Store was followed by
small batch, artisan-distilled in a copper alembic pot still Traditional old-world recipes All organic botanicals Available now in better bars and restaurants everywhere
“Young, poised, must be heard live!” – Sean MacLean, 98.1 Classical KING FM
“Bold…impressive…an ensemble to watch” – Gavin Borchert, Seattle Weekly
“Exceptionally talented” – Zach Carstensen, The Gathering Note
• For the last year and a half, empty storefronts throughout the city have been occupied by artists and temporary art installations. The program is called Storefronts Seattle,
Geoffrey Larson, Music Director
Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall at Benaroya Hall
MUSIC OF AMERICA MARCH 31, 2012, 8:00PM Adams s Barber s Copland
At Intiman this summer, 12 actors will perform in four productions at once. it’s curated by former Consolidated Works director Matthew Richter, and this spring there’s a whole new lineup of artists, including Jamey Braden, Eirik Johnson, Paul Pauper, Jennifer Towner, Eric Fredericksen, and Derek Erdman. For details, go to www.storefrontsseattle.wordpress.com.
A&P’s Morbid Way
G
NOW MADE LOCALLY
a storefront mushroom farm. In late April, [storefront] Olson Kundig Architects will open Hardware Store. As with Record Store, their Hardware Store will be a hardware store where nothing is for sale.
Now You Can Die Happy of Praising
World Class Spirits
Amazing Artists
od forbid! Please don’t let anything happen to Stephen Hando! But if it did—let’s just say it did, like one day he’s on his way to Gorditos in Greenwood and a piano falls on his head—at least you could say, “He went out on a high note. Did you see Torso? Holy shit.” Mr. Hando has been being brilliant since Rm 608’s early-’90s soap opera Shuddering Pines. He was brilliant again as the lead in Greek Active’s mid-’90s King John and Printer’s Devil Theater’s late-’90s Free Will and Wanton Lust, and he is known in the biz as a uniquely gifted comic actor. What wasn’t fully obvious before Torso is that he’s an actor of unbelievable subtlety and range. He makes characters you could stare at forever. Of the 16 characters in Torso, he played five, including a twitchy, paranoid, inarticulate stoner in Minnesota who’s lost his grip on his gardening business and is so consumed with furious envy that he kills his brother. Torso climaxed with Mr. Hando walking out soaked in blood and being stripped and hosed down by his sister and girlfriend while recounting how he did it. Some admirers in the audience were said to have regretted the nudity was not frontal, but no one regretted witnessing the brilliance. An actor most known for humorous roles twisted himself into a poor miserable fuck whose lonely implosion will forever haunt our imaginations. Meanwhile, happily—thankfully—Mr. Hando endures. As does Gorditos.
SEASON FINALE MAY 25, 2012, 8:00PM Mozart s Haydn s Bach Arr. Webern s Mahler Arr. Schoenberg $15 General Admission, $10 Student/Senior, tickets & more info: www.BenaroyaHall.org s 206.215.4747 s SeattleMetropolitanChamberOrchestra.com
Upcoming Exhibits at the Northwest African American Museum
THE TEST: The Tuskegee Project May 26, 2012 - September 30, 2012 This traveling exhibition tells the story of the first African American aviation units in the U.S. military to serve in combat. It examines the major campaigns and operations in which the Tuskegee Airmen of the 99th FS and the 332nd FG participated, the aircraft they used, and the prejudice and racism they faced during a time when many doubted African Americans were fit to serve as fighter pilots. NAAM is excited to announce that The Test will also honor members of the local Sam Bruce Chapter of the Tuskegee Airman, Inc.
Bearing Witness from Another Place: James Baldwin in Turkey Photographs by Sedat Pakay October 20, 2012 – September 29, 2013 This exhibition shares rarely seen photographs of James Baldwin in Turkey taken by his friend Sedat Pakay. Piercingly intimate and beautifully candid, these images capture the vibrant world of acquaintances, friends and collaborators Baldwin cultivated while living intermittingly in Turkey from 1961-1971.
Baldwin on Galata Bridge in Istanbul 1965
NORTHWEST AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUM 2300 S Massachusetts St • Seattle, WA 98144 www.naamnw.org • (206)518-6000 SPRING 2012
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A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE
POLL MANE
FORELOCK
CREST
Anatomy of a Painting by Jen Graves
WITHERS
Who painted it: Lucas Cranach the Elder made this spectacular little comedy in the 16th century. It’s titled The Judgment of Paris, and it’s one of a dozen versions he made of the scene.
THROATLATCH
Anatomy of a Horse
What it depicts: Paris, the Trojan asleep on the left, has been assigned by Zeus to judge the beauty of three goddesses. According to the myth, Aphrodite cheats, bribing him with Helen of Sparta and launching the Trojan War. Where you can see it: It’s in the permanent collection at Seattle Art Museum. You can visit it anytime.
DOCK HAUNCH
SAM got this picture in 1952. A loan show built around it—all the versions of the Judgment next to each other, maybe—has been a longtime dream. Cranach has been getting love in new exhibitions around the world in recent years. SAM could be next.
STIFLE ELBOW
GASKIN HOCK CANNON KNEE FETLOCK PASTERN CORONET
The horse is awkwardly squeezed in—there’s no middle ground. All the action is compressed in front. The weird composition is part of why the painting is dated early among Cranach’s dozen versions of the Judgment.
Saturday-morning-cartoon clouds! The whole painting— an erotic beauty contest judged by the viewer (since the judge is sleeping)—was an entertainment for royals, not the public.
High foreheads: style of the time. Hot, right?
What a hungover dandy. Sleeping/turned male faces emphasize what they’re wearing instead: Armor, jewelry, feathers, scales—it’s a fashion spread.
This neck inspired The Exorcist. JK! Cranach (and other mannerists) didn’t mimic anatomy. They drew from imagination, not models.
Cranach’s Judgments are high-fashion medieval German updates for his patron, Frederick the Wise. The Germans ruled contemporary armor. Obvs.
Gold chains and veils make us look even MORE naked.
You can spot a Cranach nude across a room: marble-smooth (the anti-Rubens), elongated, bitty heads, beady eyes, dainty/coy/knowing faces.
Cranach’s signature was a winged snake carrying a ruby ring in its mouth (!). It’s here (in the underdrawing), but a few scholars still have questioned the painting’s authorship (could it be by Cranach’s son, Lucas the Younger, instead?). SAM holds firm.
CHARLES MUDEDE
The rubbery, boneless nudes are all surface—down to slivers of light between ankles.
PICKS UP THE TELEPHONE
M
possible. Thankfully, I haven’t had any breaks or problems yet!
Let’s talk about your hands. Have they ever been broken? And if so, how did you cope with this catastrophe? I try to protect my hands whenever
Was your childhood happy? Yes, it was. My mother was great. She helped me and encouraged me quite a bit. She was a beautician, so my piano was in the beauty shop. It was the biggest room in the house. Sometimes she would have clients and she would be doing their hair while I was playing right there. You know Bud Powell [a major jazz pianist of the bebop era]? He lived around the block. He would walk by the beauty shop
cCoy Tyner, you are a famous jazz pianist. You were a member of John Coltrane’s classic quartet. How does it feel to be such an accomplished musician? I feel very blessed—very blessed. You know, you enjoy the time in the present and you think about the time in the past.
JAZZ PIANIST McCOY TYNER ANSWERS and see my mother doing hair and me and my band doing a jam session, and he would stop and watch us. You’re 73 now. What are you doing these days? Having a lot of fun and enjoying myself. Did John Coltrane have any odd habits, in the way Duke Ellington had the
odd habit of drinking hot water? I tell you, John and Elvin [Jones, the drummer of the classic quartet] smoked cigars. And I picked that up from them. I still buy cigars. In fact, I just smoked one a moment ago, just before you called. Q MyCoy Tyner performs April 12–15 at Jazz Alley. For more jazz, see the calendar, page 33.
SPRING 2012
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Starring El Vez and Christine Deaver in a whirlwind of circus, comedyy and and cabaret cabare et served with a five-course co ours rse feast. feast. Directed by Ricardo Salinas alina as of Culture Clash.
®
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A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE
DANCE
The Lineup Interviews by Brendan Kiley Portraits by Kelly O
Markeith Wiley will perform at Velocity in late May and early June.
Laura Gilbreath, Tonya Lockyer is the new director of Velocity Dance Center.
Your choreography has a really broad dance vocabulary—ballet, hiphop, modern. Where did you learn all of that? I grew up all over Southern California. When I got to Orange County, in fifth or sixth grade, a girl (who’d later become my girlfriend) said, “You should audition for this musical.” I was like, “What the fuck is a musical?” I got cast as a dancer in Annie Get Your Gun. At the same time, I started breakdancing—I was living this split life, hanging out with my friends, and every Tuesday and Thursday I’d have to leave to rehearse for the musical. They’d ask, “Where’d you go?” I lied. I didn’t want them to know. They might assume I was gay—there’s that naive homophobia that goes with dancing and musical theater. But you guys were dancing, too! Yeah, but they saw a difference between “Oh, you got served!” and “There’s no business like show business.” Once my friends found out, it was no sweat! And girls liked me because I was this strapping young black dude doing musical theater and breakdancing. How’d you get into modern dance? I saw this piece in high school. I’d probably hate it if I saw it now, but it pulled from multiple places—there’s a ballet move, there’s a breakdancing move, but he’s doing something funny with his feet, what’s that? I thought, “I’m done with acting, this looks real to me.” You eventually came here and graduated from Cornish. Do you think you’ll stay? Yes. I have no interest in going to New York—you don’t need to go out there. If you do good work, people will come to you. What should dancers do more of? There’s a lot of the same in Seattle because everyone’s training with the same people. But the new wave of people, we don’t necessarily say it, but we see in each other’s eyes that it’s time for a shift, a change. Fucking try something new! Don’t make a piece like your teacher’s! Make a piece like you would! Q
These interviews have been edited and condensed.
You chose to be a dancer at age 9. Did you ever think of doing something else? Like any relationship, you get tested along the way— teachers told me to be a writer. I was told I was “too smart” to be a dancer, which tells you something about the culture then. When I started working with Merce Cunningham and John Cage, there was this incredibly intelligent choreography. Famous choreographers have come from here (Cunningham, Mark Morris, Trisha Brown) but none seem to strongly claim the Northwest. No, no, Merce was always very clear about where he was from. He choreographed RainForest and Beach Birds… Of course, Merce didn’t talk very much about anything. I think the longest conversation I had with Merce was in an elevator, talking about the patterns of beach birds. For a while, young artists felt like they had to leave Seattle and go to New York. Now people are moving back. I went to PS122 in New York and heard people saying, “I left Seattle too soon… I’m coming back.” People go to New York to kneel at the feet of icons—people come to places like Seattle to cut their own path. How is dance doing? Right now is a super-exciting time in dance—all of this amazing research in improvisation and somatics since the 1960s is being embraced by choreographers like William Forsythe and Ohad Naharin, and you have people like Crystal Pite with a new level of kinetic intelligence. It’s the best of knowledge of ballet with the best of knowledge of somatics and improv—a dream come true for me. This new movement is separating dance from its ideology—getting away from this abstract-expressionist idea of the tortured artist—and bringing out incredible physical knowledge, pure movement. In some ways, it’s an extension of what Cunningham was questioning in 1952: This isn’t about self-expression, this is going to use chance operations, this is not an abstraction of anything. But the new movement looks more “lived.” Merce’s work was more cool, about space and time, saying no to emotion and spectacle. And dance is now so popular on YouTube—tapping into those folks reminds me of the ’70s, another big dance boom. Q
Pacific Northwest Ballet soloist, appears in Coppélia this June.
Tell me about pointe shoes—they’re so iconic but also seem a little mysterious. They could be used as a weapon, because of how hard they are! But they are so worth it. The pointe shoe is my favorite part of being a ballet dancer. I love the color, the way they smell, the line it gives a leg as you extend your foot—it’s all pretty magical. I remember right before I was put on pointe when I was younger, I could not contain my excitement for the shoes. I would steal my sister’s and practice turns on the kitchen hardwood floor. I do not advise anyone to do this, however! I wear the brand Freed and my maker is “anchor.” [Individual cobblers are known by symbols.] All of the shoes are handmade in London, and as dancers we pick out the maker that feels the best for our foot. Different makers make the shoes slightly differently, which is a great thing considering no two feet are alike. One ongoing conversation in the dance world is about decentralization—the feeling that New York isn’t the only place for dancers anymore. It’s true that other areas of the country are becoming stronger and more prominent in the dance world, but I have to say, in my opinion, New York still offers the best opportunities and the most exposure in the dance world. Pacific Northwest Ballet feels very far away from everything and disconnected from the dance world at times. Maybe if we toured to New York more or even internationally, we could feel a bit more connected to everything. If you could wave a magic wand and make one misconception about ballet disappear, what would it be? That we’re all anorexic, that ballet is just a hobby, and that we are not necessarily athletes. In our upcoming program, we are performing an incredible ballet by David Dawson called A Million Kisses to My Skin… It is one of the most physical things that any of us has ever danced. The stamina required is that of any other elite athlete. I think the difference between athletes in the traditional sense and dancers is that, for the most part, we are never supposed to show that anything is hard for us, thus maintaining the artistic element and giving the impression that ballet is a breeze. Q
SPRING 2012
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SUMMER AT
CORNISH JUNE 25 – AUGUST 10, 2012 ART + DESIGN / DANCE / MUSIC / THEATER STUDENTS AGE 15 –18 EXPERIENCE THE VISUAL & PERFORMING ARTS ADDITIONAL PROGRAMS FOR ADULTS & CHILDREN IN DANCE AND MUSIC WWW.CORNISH.EDU/SUMMER
COLORS OF THE OASIS CENTRAL ASIAN IKATS MARCH 15–AUGUST 5 | SEATTLE ASIAN ART MUSEUM | Volunteer Park SEATTL EA RT M USEUM .O RG This exhibition is on loan from The Textile Museum, Washington, D.C. Exhibition sponsor is MIR Corporation
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A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE
Robe/munisak (detail), late 19th century, Central Asia, Uzbekistan, Bukhara, silk warp, cotton weft, warp-faced plain weave, The Textile Museum, The Megalli Collection
ART
N IN E MOM ENTS IN FEM IN IST ART H ISTORY ILLUSTR ATED BY KRIS C HAU
In Her Pants
Forty years after the rise of feminist art, Seattle artist Lynn Schirmer discovers something shocking. This.
Sanja Ivekovic prompts a visit from the secret service after pretending to masturbate on a balcony in Zagreb during a presidential parade, 1979.
VALIE EXPORT wears a box on her naked chest and lets men put their hands into it while she looks them in the eye, 1968.
Anonymous women form Guerrilla Girls network to protest gender inequality in the art world, 1985.
Judy Chicago makes an installation of dinner plates decorated in vaginal forms, which Congress calls pornographic, 1974–1979.
Betye Saar gives Aunt Jemima a rifle, 1972.
Yoko Ono sits frozen-still on a stage while people cut off her clothes, 1964.
Carolee Schneemann pulls a scroll out of her vagina and reads from it, 1975.
Catherine Opie takes photographs of 13 women sporting facial hair, 1990.
Judith F. Baca redraws history with a Great Wall of murals in Los Angeles, 1973–83.
By Jen Graves
L
ook at this shape and guess what it is (hint—it’s not a penguin, it’s not a banana peel, and it’s not a flower):
Have you guessed yet? Seriously, guess. “I want to get that image out,” says Seattle artist Lynn Schirmer. She was sitting in her loft in the Tashiro Kaplan Building the other day, drinking tea. “I want everybody everywhere to know what that shape is.” That shape is a human clitoris. If what you see when you close your eyes and picture a clitoris is merely a nubby button, then (A) you are normal, and (B) you The After are wrong. The Dinner Party nubby button is May 3, Tashiro Kaplan connected to a Artist Lofts, www.after neck the size of dinnerparty.com the first joint of your thumb, and stretching from that neck are two arms that flare like a wishbone—arms that can be as long as three-and-a-half inches. The two bulbs that also extend from the center, which make the clitoris look like a penguin, were thought to belong to the vagina until recently. In the 1990s, Australian urologist Helen O’Connell “initiated the mainstream medical profession’s rediscovery” of the clitoris, Schirmer says, “and it took until just a few years ago to see it fully mapped via MRI and other noninvasive imaging technologies.” The result? The discovery that the clitoris has 10 times more erectile tissue than anatomy textbooks or the illustrations at the doctor’s office show. Amazing, huh? It’s not the size that matters, but the astonishing lateness of the discovery itself. And it’s important for a couple medical reasons. If there’s more erectile tissue than was previously thought, female genital mutilations may be at least partly reversible. And scientists are finally beginning to detail the nerves and blood vessels connected to the clitoris—information surgeons need to avoid unintentionally impairing sexual function. Why has it taken so long? Rebecca Chalker narrates the unsolved mystery of the disappearing clitoris in her 2000 book, The Clitoral Truth. She writes, “Claudius Galen, the most famous physician of antiquity, was very straightforward about it: ‘All the parts, then, that men have, women have too, the difference between them lying in only one thing, namely, that in women the
parts are within, whereas in men they are outside.’” Then in the 16th century, two Italian anatomists (Fallopius and Columbus) fought over competing claims to have “discovered” the clitoris; a Danish anatomist settled their dispute by pointing out that “the clitoris had been known to everyone since the second
Schirmer envisions clitoris-inspired art, but also performances and public rallies— with hats, buttons, flags, T-shirts, and thongs that Schirmer has had imprinted with the shape of the full clitoris. In addition to the story of how the true winged shape of the clitoris has been lost and found repeatedly since the time of the Greeks, there’s merch for sale on the website. (There’s a clitoral wall clock, folks.) Adding to the indoor art exhibition, she hopes to project the clitoris onto the side of a building on May 3, Batman-style. A few men have asked Schirmer why it matters. “What if you couldn’t see your penis?” she replies. “It’s not like it’s my appendix. Nobody goes out on a date with me so that they can eventually massage my appendix. My appendix doesn’t give me an orgasm!”
The clitoris has 10 times more erectile tissue than anatomy textbooks show. century,” writes Thomas Laqueur (in Making Sex). In 1844, German anatomist George Ludwig Kobelt published an exhaustive study of the whole clitoral system, including the arms and the bulbs. He noted a strange historical oddity—that descriptions of the entire clitoris had, by the Victorian era, “completely disappeared from Physiology.” His drawings were ignored. A hundred and fifty years later, in 1981, A New View of a Woman’s Body by the Federation of Feminist Women’s Health Centers “provided the first contemporary description of the internal clitoral organ. However, none of these works has had an impact on anatomy texts,” Schirmer writes on the website for The After Dinner Party, a social art project that includes a group exhibition on the subject of the clitoris at the Tashiro Kaplan Building during Seattle’s May 3 art walk.
H
er goal is simple: to expose what’s been hidden. I e-mailed a link to The After Dinner Party to Betty Tompkins, an artist who has been making huge, explicit paintings of sex acts and genitalia since 1969—who’s been looking the clitoris in the face for 43 years—and she replied, “I would not have been able to identify the illustration as the clitoris.” “As a project,” she continued, “it reminds me so much of the ’70s, the beginning of the feminist movement where someone would bring a speculum so everyone could see what
women look like on the inside. It was a big thing back in the day. It is as good an excuse to make art about as anything else. I don’t know that I have anything profound to say about this. As an artist, I am more interested in what we can see than what we can’t. And all the early feminist work I can think of is more vaginal in nature. Can’t think of a single clitoral piece.” Tompkins attached images to her e-mail. One was Gustave Courbet’s 1866 painting The Origin of the World, the most famous example of a male artist explicitly depicting female genitalia. It is a view straight up between a naked woman’s legs, her vulva and hairy pubis pressing toward the viewer’s face. But Tompkins pointed out something I’d never noticed before: “I don’t think they are anatomically correct. No outer labia. I was surprised. What do you think? I am guessing that for all the show and tell of the setup, Courbet didn’t actually look very closely at his model.” The After Dinner Party refers to the sparkling monument of feminist art that is The Dinner Party, which holds a place of honor at the Brooklyn Museum, the nation’s only center for feminist art. The Dinner Party was made in the late 1970s by Judy Chicago. As recently as 1990, members of Congress decried it as “pornographic” and “offensive.” They blocked it from becoming part of the collection at the University of the District of Columbia. All The Dinner Party does is present a chronology of vividly painted and sculpted SPRING 2012
11
FRIDAY APRIL 20
HENRY OPEN HOUSE Members preview: 5 – 7 pm General admission: 7 – 10 pm $12 General Public $8 Students and Seniors FREE for Members Join us at the Henry Art Gallery to celebrate the opening of The Brink: Andrew Dadson and enjoy an evening of art, music, food, and drinks! Featuring music and projections by Dumb Eyes and music by FBDC ~ɎȻȾɐ
Henry Art Gallery University of Washington, Seattle henryart.org The exhibitions on view were achieved with the generous support of the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation and ArtsFund. The Brink is made possible by the generous support of Henry Patrons John and Shari Behnke, founders of The Brink award.
Thank you to our Open House sponsors!
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A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE
vulvas. To find it offensive, you have to find labia offensive. It has 39 table settings. Each plate, bearing a vulvar form, sits on an embroidered runner that tells you which female historical figure is being represented. Susan B. Anthony’s plate is not really a plate but a fully three-dimensional flaring pink ceramic vulva with an angry red center. The suffragist died in 1906, 14 years before suffrage. The Dinner Party is a spectacle. Walk into the room with it, and voices fall to a hush. It is commandingly, beautifully made. It proudly takes up space. But it’s dry. It’s taxonomic. It’s literal. It’s one of the more humorless pieces of early feminist art. Compare it to Tee Corinne’s Cunt Coloring Book from the same time—ink drawings of real live vulvas, capturing the wild variations among supposedly standard equipment. She put them together in a book and published it widely—it’s still available. You’re invited not only to look but to touch and to decorate them yourself. The title is Corinne’s way of raising the taboo, pushing a slur up against the innocence of biology. If The Dinner Party is for polite company, Cunt Coloring Book is what you might put away when your relatives visit. There are many examples of more confrontational showings of female sexual parts over the years. In 1968, the artist VALIE EXPORT—an Austrian who changed her name and demanded it be printed in all caps; her name is forever shouted—is said to have entered an independent movie house wearing a pair of pants with the genital area cut out. She roamed the aisles, situating her vulva with the faces of the moviegoers, challenging them to deal with a “real woman” rather than actresses on the screen. She called the piece Action Pants: Genital Panic. Later it was re-created (though there’s some question whether it ever happened) in photographs with the artist sitting spread-legged, holding a machine gun on her lap. Action Pants made for a great story and some unforgettable photographs, but EXPORT’s Tap and Touch Cinema in 1968 was even gutsier. The artist stood outside a film festival wearing a boxlike contraption around her naked breasts, with a curtain in front, so that men could put their hands inside and feel her up while having to look her in the eye— with a crowd around them. Both parties found themselves extremely vulnerable. They also found themselves publicly symbolizing the disturbing links between secrecy, sex, and entertainment. And yet it was somehow funny, too. “I’m a big believer in humor as a way to make people understand things,” says Seattle artist and graphic novelist Ellen Forney, who had her first comic published in Ms. magazine in 1992. In 2007, she showed her big drawings of hands performing sex acts at Liberty. I sent her a link to The After Dinner Party, too. She knew about the wishbone arms but not the penguiny bulbs. She e-mailed back an image from The Atlas of Human Anatomy, “still respected and the latest copyright is 1997,” she wrote. “It just shows the glans.” (The glans is the nubby button.) Rampant clitoral incorrectness! The emphasis on the shape of the clitoris in The After Dinner Party—clitoris-emblazoned hats, etc.—“could be kind of seen as elementary,” Forney says. “In a lot of ways, it seems not nuanced enough for modern sensibilities. That said, I think about the fact that so many young women not only don’t consider themselves feminists but really kind of eschew the whole philosophy—a lot of women just enjoy the fruits of our mothers’ fights, and I feel really pretty strongly about that. My mother subscribed to Ms. at its birth. She ran for city council and was referred to as Mrs. Leroy Forney. “But even now, I was in a women’s comics
anthology and I had a really long talk with the editor, Megan Kelso, about whether it makes sense for us to marginalize ourselves anymore, so there’s this weird balance. You kind of go back and forth between ‘We are a special group and we want to have our particular way of looking at things recognized,’ but at the same time, we also want to be a part of the canon, of the collections of comics, just non-gendered comics, so it’s difficult to figure out where to land on that. I would love to say that it’s irrelevant now, but I don’t think that it is. I think you could have a batik of a woman saying, ‘I love my clitoris,’ and it’s all dorky and it doesn’t really speak to anyone other than, like, the stereotypical hippie. And on the other hand, it could be a very thoughtful statement about how these are struggles that we are still grappling with.” Forney paused. “I hope that there is at least something of a sense of humor. It could be amazing, or it could be—oh, god.”
Maybe some clitoral graffiti is in order?
I
n 1983, Barbara Kruger—an artist who’d begun her career in the 1960s by making crafty wall hangings with feathers and ribbons—created a work of art called We Won’t Play Nature to Your Culture. She superimposed those authoritative words over an advertising photograph she found of a sunbathing woman’s face, a leaf over each eye. We Won’t Play Nature to Your Culture made an announcement: Gender roles prescribe a false duality, a lie that’s become the foundation of our society. Feminism won’t just mean reclaiming and celebrating the realms considered essentially feminine—crafts, cooking, sewing, vulvas, à la The Dinner Party. True feminism, this next wave claimed, will have to call bullshit on prescriptions for both sexes. We’ll have to queer the whole system. Recent feminist artists have picked up both strands of feminist belief: what might be called the “essentialism” of the 1960s and early ’70s, and the “structuralism” that followed, which argued that social structures dictated gendered behaviors rather than any internal “essence” of femininity or masculinity. A video of Seattle artist Wynne Greenwood and K8 Hardy delivering a news broadcast while cameras are directed at their exposed nipple and vulva, rather than their faces, is a perfect example. It’s a sophisticated, collaborative, multimedia approach that synthesizes the inherently, absurdly sexist conditions of contemporary life, on one hand, and the influence of generations of feminist art and femaledriven thinking, on the other. The focus on body parts echoes essentialism; the use of the TV-news format evokes structuralism. And it’s funny. You can’t forget it. You can’t watch the TV news the same way again. Likewise, Hardy is doing a runway show with real models in this spring’s Whitney Biennial— sure to tweak the framework of fashion while directly involving women’s bodies. A month before Schirmer’s The After Dinner Party opened, it was still unclear whether any unforgettable new works of feminist art will emerge from it. But if the only result of it is that the shape of the clitoris is implanted in the minds of the masses—maybe some clitoral graffiti is in order?—that would still be something. Can you believe that in one of the most advanced countries in the world, leading feminist artists—and doctors!—still don’t know what the clitoris looks like? To say nothing of most people. In an age where the American presidential election is hinging in part on the “controversy” of a woman’s access to birth control, rape remains a tool of war, and certain cultures still embrace the genital mutilation of girls, a little goddamn cliteracy is a powerful idea. Q
POETRY
More Anecdotal Evidence by Dean Young I keep bumping into stuff with the giant question mark floating over my head. What do birds think of other birds’ songs? Is it too late for planet earth? You’d better not go outside, says my wife, you could get snagged by a passing truck’s rearview mirror and drug to your death. Huh. My closest experience with death, other than looking at my father turning into water who probably couldn’t see me either without his glasses, was not remembering my life-saving operation. In fact, I don’t remember two days up to it so that’s five days gone counting post-op, five days consumed by darkness. No firm handshake from an admired also dead writer, no certificate or gateway of consoling light. One of the occupational hazards of writing poems is thinking about death too much like you can’t get the red or yellow to stand out without a thick black outline. The first thing I do remember is the breathing tube yanked and my wife patting my hand, her lower lip stuck out the way it does when she cries. I felt like a newborn giraffe that plummets six feet to the ground from the birth canal.
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DEAN YOUNG is the author of 12 books of poetry, including 2005’s Elegy on Toy Piano, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His most recent, Fall Higher, was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2011.
Architecture | The Arctic Building by Cienna Madrid
F
act: The 27 walrus heads that ring the third story of the Arctic Building, located at Third Avenue and Cherry Street downtown, are more famous than the mayor, the city council, or any other political figure in nearby City Hall. The Arctic Building is now a luxury hotel, but back in the day—the day being 1916—it was built as a swank clubhouse for Yukon miners who’d struck it rich in the Alaska gold rush and yearned for a central place to tongue their gold and compare dick sizes. The walruses were crafted from terra cotta. It’s rumored that their tusks were originally made of ivory—or, better yet, that they were harvested from real walruses and plugged right into the tusk-holes all around the building. Naturally, the ivory rumor has it that the tusks were then stolen over the years. But these are all lies. The truth is much more mundane: The tusks were also terra cotta. They were heavy. Many crumbled over the years, creating a public nuisance of falling sky tusks. The walruses had their teeth pulled. They remained toothless until 1982, when the City of Seattle briefly took over management of the building and contracted to have the missing tusks replaced. Unfortunately, this was done with cheap plastic, which was bolted to the terra cotta heads via stainless steel rods. In 1996, a plastic tusk fell out, and as a result, all the tusks were once again replaced with terra cotta ones. So feel free to admire the walrus heads, but watch your own. Q
www.townhallseattle.org SPRING 2012
13
OPERA
April 20 – May 20
by Lee Hall Inspired by a book by William Feaver Directed by Kurt Beattie
Mining was their way of life. Painting transformed how they saw it.
Huge Hit in London and on Broadway The Twilight Zone: Live! April 6 – 28 Three episodes from Rod Serling’s iconic television series brought to life by Theater Schmeater. In color!
Short Stories Live at Town Hall April 22 Short stories brought to life with local actors. April’s theme is Parents and Children, curated by Anita Montogomery.
Construction Zone April 30 This month features When January Feels Like Summer, a new play by Cori Thomas.
Frank Ferrante in An Evening with Groucho May 3 – 20 An award-winning Ferrante delivers in a fast-paced 90 minutes of hilarity.
eSe Teatro Celebrate eSe! May 5 A special Cinco de Mayo reading followed by a party in celebration of eSe Teatro’s two-year anniversary.
Seattle Confidential May 14 Seattle actors give voice to Seattle’s stories. This month’s theme is My 15 Minutes of Fame.
See it all with an ACTPass! acttheatre.org | 206.292.7676 700 Union Street, Downtown Seattle
14
A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE
White Man’s Early Light The History of Puccini’s Madame Butterfly Is the History of Sex Tourists Being Scumwads By Rebecca Brown
T
here’s a great, sad, beautiful place near the end of the first movement of Smile where Brian Wilson sings “You Are My Sunshine.” The song is usually interpreted as a smiley-face kind of tune, but Wilson sings it mournfully. The rhythm slows and the strings muddy down to a dirge. There’s a similar musical quotation in Madame Butterfly. As Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, lieutenant, US Navy, is about to launch into a solo about how, as a Yankee rover, he enjoys conquering not only foreign lands but foreign women, Giacomo Puccini repeats a few bars of “The Star Spangled Banner.” Here “the dawn’s early light” illuminates not a proudly “hailed” banner but a cad. Whatever his professional obligations are in Nagasaki (the opera is set there at the turn of the last century, decades before we A-bombed the smithereens out of the place), Pinkerton is happiest about being there as a sex tourist. In his first solo, he addresses the PUCC I N I He fell for the spectacle the way a sex tourist falls for a pretty thing with whom broker who has procured for him a house and he can’t exchange a word. a teenage girl to go in it. Pinkerton—same name as the profoundly unloved agency of have sex with him if he paid them. (See Felice way a sex tourist falls for a pretty thing with detectives, snoops, and private dicks formed Beato’s photographs.) Loti’s writings fit per- whom he can’t exchange a word. Some people stay with people who aren’t half a century prior—sort of “play pretend” fectly into “Orientalism,” the late-l9th-century marries the girl; he knows that as a foreigner fad by which Europeans and Americans fe- good for them for the money. In earlier verhe can slip out of any local contract easily. Cio- tishized the East as—take your pick—exotic, sions of the story, the Cio-Cio-San character Cio-San (“Butterfly” in English) falls for him. mysterious, spiritual, inscrutable, elegant, and her poor family are glad when she lands feminine, backward, and a wealthy foreigner. Puccini’s librettists, howAfter she converts to Pinkercheap. You might be an aver- ever, needed to make the story fit the composton’s nominal Christianity Madame Butterfly age loser in the West, but if er’s lush romanticism, so they played down and abandons her Buddhist May 5–20, Seattle Opera, you knew how to play it, you the centrality of commerce to the story. practice, her offended family www.seattleopera.org, could be a rich bigwig in the abandons her. Soon enough, But maybe Cio-Cio-San wanted to stay $25–$200 East. Orientalism has never with Pinkerton for another reason. From the she gets pregnant. Before really gone away. White mid-17th to the mid-l9th centuries, the Tokuthe baby is born, Pinkerton returns to the United States. Cio-Cio-San guys can still get weird about Asian women. gawa shogunate enforced a policy whereby no awaits his return. When he does come back, (See the Vapors’ “Turning Japanese,” David foreigner could enter Japan and no Japanese it’s with his white American wife and a plan Bowie’s “China Girl,” Julian Cope’s “China could leave. Japanese society was strictly to take away the child the Japanese girl has Doll.” Thank god for Shonen Knife and their stratified, and women had almost no freedom lively, hilarious Japan-translates-the-West at all. In the 1850s, when the United States borne. No wonder she kills herself. The story of Madame Butterfly* can be pop songs like “The Luck of the Irish” and sent Commodore Matthew Perry to “open” infuriating. Partly you just hate what a scum- “Blue Oyster Cult.”) Japan, he brought along not only the latest in wad Pinkerton is, and partly you Western technology, but also Western want to grab Cio-Cio-San by her social customs, including the public viskimono and scream, “Get over ibility of women. When American offihim!” Infuriating as these characcers brought their wives to official state ters may be, though, we know too functions in Japan and allowed them well the real world is full of poor to speak openly with other males and miserable fuckers who can’t get females—as if females might actually over assholes they hope will “love” have valuable things to say—Japanese them again and assholes who not men were shocked. When theater impresario David Belasco only don’t care if they break poor miserable Were Japanese women, secretly, thrilled? fuckers’ hearts but even like to brag about do- came across the story of the geisha and the Did Cio-Cio-San, secretly, hope that by maring so. Why do people stay with people who white guy, he decided to adapt it for the stage. rying an American she could have a more Belasco was more showman than wordsmith, active, engaged, and public life than if she are so awful to them? In the earliest iteration of this story, Pierre more Barnum and Bailey than Beckett, and had been taken into the home of a traditional Loti’s 1887 novel Madame Chrysanthème, his stagecraft wowed audiences. His innova- Japanese man? Was part of why she couldn’t the girl is seen counting her loot as soon as tive lighting in Madame Butterfly made the get over Pinkerton because she didn’t want the guy leaves the house. Loti, like many un- stage appear to fade from daylight to sun- to lose whatever misguided hope she might happy Western men (such as his near contem- set to moonlight and the Asianish costumes have had for a bit of Western-style women’s porary Paul Gauguin), looked to the East to shine. Puccini saw Belasco’s show in London liberation? She doesn’t get that, of course. find himself. What Loti found in Japan were a in 1900, and though the Italian didn’t under- She doesn’t get to keep her man or the child lot of poor people, including females willing to stand the words, he fell for the spectacle the she bore. The thing she gets is some great, sad, beautiful, amazing music to express her *If you are kind of afraid of opera and want to check it out on video first, get Frederic Mitterrand’s grief. No wonder, after she sings her last song, movie Madame Butterfly, presented by Martin Scorsese. Amazing settings in Japan, great sense of she sticks a knife into her guts. Q human scale and Japanese culture of the late 19th century.
The opera is set in Nagasaki at the turn of the last century, decades before we A-bombed the smithereens out of the place.
JUNE 28 & 29
THE MATRIX LIVE: FILM IN CONCERT Don Davis, conductor / Seattle Symphony
Take the red pill and let the Seattle Symphony transport you into The Matrix. Watch this groundbreaking film on the big screen while the Orchestra plays the soundtrack live. Costumes encouraged. Suitable only for 15 years or older.
JULY 12 & 14
THE PLANETS — AN HD ODYSSEY Ludovic Morlot, conductor Women of the Seattle Symphony Chorale / Seattle Symphony LIGETI: Atmosphères R. STRAUSS: Also Sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30 HOLST: The Planets This performance features state-of-the-art, high-definition images from NASA’s exploration of the solar system projected on the big screen above the Orchestra. Originally created by the Houston Symphony.
Tickets going fast! 206.215.4747 | SEATTLESYMPHONY.ORG SPRING 2012
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CLASSICAL
Requiem Verdi’s
The Seattle Youth Symphony presents
MIKE FO
RCE
May 20, 2012 - 3:00pm at Benaroya Hall
What Killed Mozart The Search for the Saddest Notes in the Requiem, Western Music’s Morbid Masterpiece
Photo by Chris Dunphy
The Seattle Youth Symphony concludes its 2011-2012 season with an epic performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s Messa da Requiem, featuring the Tacoma Symphony Chorus under the leadership of Chorus Director, Geoffrey Paul Boers.
Stephen R. Radcliffe, SYSO Music Director
Reserve your tickets today! Geoffrey Paul Boers, Chorus Director
www.syso.org 206.362.2300
Tickets: $15-$40
Student and Day-Of discounts are availble.
Come in today to see how easy it is to have a piano in your home
Showroom:
7020 Greenwood Ave. N. S e a t t l e , WA 98103 206.783.7055
Piano Moving/Storage: g g 7000 Greenwood Ave. N. S e a t t l e , WA 98103 206.782.4592
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A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE
By Jen Graves
N
obody really knows what killed Mo- measures: the last five measures of the Rex zart, but he died while he was writ- tremendae. It is as if the heavens softly open ing his Requiem. He’d been fever- and angels appear to sing these few measures ish for weeks, and he even declared that the and then as seamlessly evaporate into the Requiem would be his own—and then it was. ether, leaving us completely humbled, blessed, Did he die from the sadness of his own music? and changed! It kills me every time!” In the lab: Subject barely kept it together He was buried in a common grave, according to Viennese custom, on December 7, 1791. in the first three agonized cries (“Rex! Rex! The day of the funeral was “calm and mild,” Rex!”). By final five measures, tightly furaccording to the big book of music, the Grove rowed eyebrows gave way to light sobbing. Sadness level: Dictionary. The Requiem was unfinished. ½ Scientists use pieces of Mozart’s Requiem to evoke sad moods when they want to test Jill Becker, musician and symphony the psychology of sorrow—seriously. That’s spokeswoman how sad it is. But the Requiem is more than Proposed saddest part: The Recordare 40 minutes long. Which part is the saddest? “The harmonic interplay between each The most heart-wrenching? The part that solo voice as it enters always puts a lump in STOPPED MOZART’S OWN HEART? In my throat,” Becker says. “Mozart achieves search of Mozart’s killer, I this by using suspensions, a asked musicians playing the relatively simple harmonic Seattle Symphony: Requiem with Seattle Symtension/release device that Mozart’s Requiem phony this spring which never fails to provoke an May 18–19, Benaroya Hall, part of it—which actual emotional reaction for me! www.seattlesymphony.org, notes—they found the sadThe Recordare is also a $17–$110 dest. Then I locked myself movement where the soloin a soundproof room for ists’ voices are extremely hours listening to their suggestions over and exposed—it feels to me to be the most human over, trying not to weep. and vulnerable section. (Now, if you’re looking for the most heart-pounding section, it’s Benjamin Butterfield, tenor the opening Confutatis, hands down! Love Proposed saddest part: The first eight the fire and brimstone of the low voices and the orchestra.)” bars plus Lux aeterna soprano solo In the lab: Subject experienced very little “In the opening of the Requiem, it’s the sadness and simplicity of the writing, the sorrow for the first few measures. Harmonic sparse instrumentation, and the sad little resolution repeatedly stalled oncoming blubnon-vibrato clarinets that soar over it all,” bering. However, the stabbingly panicked Butterfield says, “only to then be obliterated line “ne perenni cremer igne” (and rescue me by the full orchestra with the brass and choir from eternal fire) brought on a brief howl of inciting ‘Requiem.’ The way that line is then mourning. Sadness level: made even simpler in the last movement by just cutting straight to the soprano solo (who is talking about everlasting light shining on Me, Jen Graves, person writing this the dead—the Lux aeterna) is more than I Proposed saddest part: The Lacrimosa can take sometimes.” Hate to disagree with everyone else—but In the lab: Soft moans escaped test sub- what about the Lacrimosa? When Mozart ject at the early moment of clarinet oblitera- died, only the first eight bars of the Lacrition. Formation of lonely tears ensued. Later mosa were written: Surely these are the ones soprano solo did not reactivate tear forma- that immediately preceded, even precipitattion but did invoke faint memory of it, caus- ed, his death from heartbreak. The steady, ing heaviness in the chest. rhythmic, funereal rise of the chorus through Sadness level (1–10): segments of harmonic tension and resolution to a staggering plateau are overtly sorrowClayton Brainerd, bass-baritone ful, but saddest of all because they are also so Proposed saddest part: Last five mea- terribly beautiful and so terribly final. In the lab: Bawling began early and consures of the Rex tremendae “There are a few measures in the Requi- tinued throughout. Through tears, subject em that simply transcend all earthly realms,” then begged to hear Lacrimosa again. This says Brainerd. “This musical idea comes brought on louder, desperate wailing. Sadness level: from out of the blue and only lasts a very few
DINING
Old World Inspiration for the Modern Palate.
Le Good-Bye If You Possibly Can, You Should Go to Le Gourmand Before It Closes Forever
Award Winning Washington Wines
by Bethany Jean Clement
E
ven if you have money falling out of your pockets, it’s more and more difďŹ cult to spend it on ďŹ ne dining in Seattle. Lampreia became Bisato, which is still lovely and absolutely delicious, but less ceremonious and less expensive. Mistral moved, and it now has “Kitchenâ€? appended to it and is divided into sections, some of which permit the dropping of a proper stack of cash while others accommodate the hoi polloi (with a relatively downmarket menu). Campagne turned into, lamentably, just another French bistro. Now, furthering this ďŹ rst-world problem, Le Gourmand KEAT TEOH is closing forever on June 2. Bruce Naftaly came to Seattle in 1976 to be techniques for the sauce, just something he an opera singer and ended up the head chef of thought up—the depth of knowledge and Rosellini’s Other Place. At that time, he says, insight that Michelin gives stars to, in cities the city’s fanciest cuisine came out of cans; it it bothers to visit. The boeuf a la ďŹ celle— was standard practice to have the restaurant organic tenderloin poached in stock, almost supply company truck pull up and “disgorge butter-textured and as delicate as meat can stuff, then put it together and call it continen- be—made seared beef seem commonplace tal.â€? He had to hunt down good ingredients and coarse. It came with a quivering cylinder (“You couldn’t even get a leek in the grocery of bone marrow, housemade mustard good enough to eat all alone, store,â€? he says), befriendand a sauce of cabernet ing local farmers and deLe Gourmand pressings that was deep veloping nearby sources 425 NW Market St, 784-3463 Seven-course tasting menu: $80, and sweet and savory and for wild game and organiwine pairings: $50 sour all at once. When cally grown beef. When he you put this food in your opened Le Gourmand on a nowhere Ballard corner in 1985, he grew mouth, everything makes sense, even the vegetables in the back; in August, the Corn $40-plus entrĂŠe prices. The sommelier at Le Gourmand, David Festival involved him stepping outside to harvest ears to order. He and his wife, Sara, lived Butler, regales the curious with thrilling (rein the little attached apartment that’s since ally) details about soil in France, tells sly little jokes, whispers descriptions like poetry—his become Sambar. Twenty-seven years later, when you give expertise might fairly be described as hypnoyour date a bite of your food at Le Gour- tizing. For added entertainment, you can watch mand, they’re liable to get a look on their him assess other tables, watch him see how his face as if something almost terrifying is hap- overtures go, watch him leave the boring peopening, then laugh incredulously. That was ple to each boring other. When Le Gourmand the case the other night with my roasted local closes, he intends to open a wine bar, which will wild steelhead with sorrel and black trumpet be approximately the best wine bar ever. Distasteful people on a distasteful review mushroom sauce—the palest peach-colored ďŹ sh imbued with the faintest smokiness of site complain that dinner at Le Gourmand the oven, the sauce rich with crème fraĂŽche takes too long. Love takes time, and Bruce and a little tart from it, too, or from the sor- Naftaly is in the back, in a kitchen like a subrel, or maybe from the champagne reduction. marine’s, making your dinner with love. Sara Naftaly put together two separate French is doing the same with the stellar desserts. Between courses, there’s wine to drink and anticipation to build and your cushioned Five Times Cheaper: Veraci Pizza chair to sink back into. The Le Gourmand Recommends It! room is elegant, intimate, unstuffy—every bit as lovely eraci Pizza is kitty-corner from Le Gourmand, as the sweet brick exterior and the latter gets its staff dinner from the forof the building makes you mer pretty much every Saturday. “They’re very hope it will be. There are also nice,â€? says Le Gourmand’s chef/co-owner Bruce Naftaly. three arguably ugly puppets “I think they only deliver to one place, and that’s us.â€? on one wall—there, possibly, You can actually get Veraci to come to you, too—they to demonstrate the Japanese started out as a traveling operation, making their excelprinciple of wabi-sabi: the lent Neapolitan-style pies in portable apple-wood-ďŹ red one wrong thing that makes kilns, and they’ll still cater your party. But for single the rest even more right. pies, you must ďŹ nd them at a farmers market or go to The menu says to allow three their Ballard pizzeria. They hand-mix their secret dough hours for the seven-course recipe, use local ingredients, and blister the pizzas for 90 tasting menu, and you might seconds at around 1,000 degrees. Naftaly likes the pies as well. You only live once, with lots of meat on them; he gets pretty hungry on Satand you’ll never be able to go urday afternoons. (500 NW Market St, 525-1813) to Le Gourmand again. Q
V
A Sweet Idea Blossoms with the Newest Tasting Room at the South End of the Woodinville Wine Districts. 14270 Woodinville-Redmond Rd. Redmond WA www.skyriverbrewing.com
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Find Lost River Winery’s tasting room next to Pike Place Market at 2003 Western Ave., Ste. 100. We are open Tuesday through Sunday from 11-7 and offer wines by the glass and small plates to accompany your wine tasting experience! We specialize in dry, refreshing white wines and smooth, medium-bodied red blends made from Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Malbec. 206•448•2124 - info@lostriverwinery.com CHEERS!!! SPRING 2012
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SEATTLE OPERA YOUNG ARTISTS PROGRAM
K A R I N K O U G H I L L U S T R AT I O N
PRESENTS
DON I ZETTI’S
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MARCH 31, APRIL 1M, 6, & 7, 2012 UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON MEANY HALL WITH ENGLISH CAPTIONS
EVENINGS 7:30 P.M., SUNDAY MATINEE 2:00 P.M.
Laugh your way into spring with Seattle Opera at Meany Hall. When scheming Dr. Malatesta arranges for his friend Norina to marry the very rich (and very ancient) Don Pasquale, you can be sure that wedded bliss is not in store for the sorry old codger. Donizetti’s last masterpiece unfolds with gorgeous melodies as we laugh at the declining fortunes of Pasquale and cheer for the inevitable triumph of the young lovers. Seattle Opera’s Young Artists perform
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Prints & Paintings by NW Artists
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SEATTLE REPERTORY THEATRE Comedy! Romance! Espionage!
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SPRING CALENDAR
ART
by Jen Graves
Large Museums SEATTLE ART MUSEUM (1300 First Ave, 654-3100, www.seattleart museum.org, open Tues–Sun)
DELICIOUS FOOD WITHIN WALKING DISTANCE OF SEATTLE ART MUSEUM Japonessa Sushi Cocina Japonessa has super-fresh sushi and a happy hour that’s a screaming deal (and runs almost all day/ night long). (1400 First Ave, 971-7979) Le Pichet The $5 salad verte alone will change your life. If you hate salad, get the eggs broiled with ham and Gruyère. (1933 First Ave, 256-1499) Lecosho The name is Chinook for “pig,” and along with house-made sausage and porchetta, there’s grilled octopus, rabbit cavatelli, and more. (89 University St, 623-2101)
Gauguin & Polynesia: An Elusive Paradise (through April 29) may be a polite exhibition, but it is not a dodge. This is the first time the art and culture of the Polynesian islands is given equal treatment to Gauguin’s paintings. It’s as if, for decades, we’ve heard only one side of art’s version of a founding myth of modern global history, and now we’re finally getting contradicting testimony. It still needs saying that while paradise was busy eluding Paul Gauguin—as suggested by the title of the exhibition—a generation of brown-skinned girls was failing to elude his germy grasp. One of the direct effects of the century of French colonization that preceded Gauguin’s arrival, effects he loudly decried both in his writings and in his paintings, was the decimation of the population from causes including diseases like the syphilis he brought into the bedroom of his final girlfriend. Alongside Gauguin’s vibrant, lush (sometimes exploitative, gross) paintings, there are volcanic stone figures, tikis, ornately carved war clubs with hidden little faces, Maori boxes, emaciated/intense figurines, and… nasal flutes! The curators have pulled off a major trick: It’s a Gauguin show that’s not The Gauguin Show. Ancestral Modern: Australian Aboriginal Art from the Kaplan & Levi Collection (May 31–Sept 2), the headlining show after Gauguin, has the potential to be a sleeper hit. Aboriginal Australian art, experiencing a renaissance since the 1970s, is stupendously popular with an American public weaned on abstract expressionism and the pattern and decoration movement of the 1970s and early ’80s. These patterned abstractions are livelier than the modernism they resemble, and ripe for adoration. The exhibition will include more than 100 works made from 1970 to 2009, including works by indigenous artists Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Rover Thomas, and John Mawurndjul. The Listening Room by Theaster Gates (through June 1) transforms SAM’s Gwendolyn Knight and Jacob Lawrence Gallery into an installation where the lights are low and there’s music playing. It includes an archive of black music (a collection of more than a thousand soul, blues, R&B, and disco records, mostly from the 1970s, which Gates rescued from a Chicago store that was closing) and a DJ station. On first Thursdays and Sundays, a DJ spins; when there’s no DJ, you are invited to play records yourself. The station is a sculpture, an altar where DJ becomes minister. After the Martini Shot by Mika Tajima (through July 17) includes valuable paintings borrowed from SAM’s permanent collection and stashed into storage racks like so much surplus inventory. The show, called After the Martini Shot—referring to that time after filming is complete—was inspired by two bookended events: the invention of the cubicle and the collapse of Washington Mutual, the bank that once lived right upstairs from SAM, sharing the same skyscraping tower. Now, New Yorker Tajima comes back to SAM for a performance/collaboration with designer Mary Ping involving a photo shoot, sculptural clothing, and a production crew (April 26, 1–8 pm). The permanent collection. SAM compensates for thin collections with provocative juxtapositions. For instance, the African art, including full tableaux with costumes and masks as well as videos that demonstrate the living culture, bumps right up against the European section, full o’ rich old white stuff, biblical narratives rendered in oil paint, the opulence and bounty of mannerist, high renaissance, and baroque art. And the Porcelain Room is one of the best locations
RO NALD HALL His first solo show in Seattle in five years is up at Gallery 110 from April 5–28. See page 23. in Seattle, period: Its illuminated walls are packed with glimmering European dishware, from the subtly beautiful to the crustaceanencrusted. Little known fact: Except for the blockbusters (i.e., Gauguin & Polynesia and Ancestral Modern), entry to the rest of the museum is pay-what-you-can.
HENRY ART GALLERY (4100 15th Ave NE, 543-2280, www.henryart. org, open Wed–Sun) Gary Hill: glossodelic attractors (March 31–Sept 16) is the broadest survey of Hill’s work in more than a decade. Hill has been proving he was crazy since age 14—when he began keeping his own psych file to eventually avoid becoming drafted into the Vietnam War—but he’s also a world-famous artist, a Stranger Genius, and a MacArthur Genius. He makes films that are sculptures. This exhibition includes two large-scale installations and the premiere of a piece called Cutting Corners Creates More Sides. The Brink Award (April 21–July 22), given out biennially by the Henry, identifies emerging Northwest artists. This round’s winner is Andrew Dadson of Vancouver, BC, the maker of blacked-out paintings and lawns, and videos of running across roofs. From Public to Private: The Evolution of Portrait Photography in Everyday American Life, 1850–1900 (through June 10) sheds light on the marketing strategies of early portrait studios. No smiling! But bring the family dog. Ever wondered why the Henry’s always got a photo show up? It’s because two retired UW professors have put together (and continue to amass) a damn near comprehensive collection of the history of photography—the big, bad Joseph and Elaine Monsen Collection—from which the Henry gets to pick and choose. This is the latest product from the Monsen Collection and UW’s Special Collections. Winslow Homer and Wolfgang Laib (through May 6) make for an unusual juxtaposition you don’t want to miss—a twowork-only exhibition (drawn from the Henry’s permanent collection) of a gleaming landscape painting by Homer and a rectangle of pollen spread out on the floor by contemporary artist Laib. The pollen is so bright, your eyes get reborn. Considering the distant resonances between the pieces is a fun exercise while your senses are busy with gratitude. James Turrell’s “skyspace” Light Reign is the only thing that’s really on always-and-
forever display at the Henry. It’s an outdoor room that lives like a barnacle on the side of the museum, with an opening in the ceiling so that you can sit and watch the sky go by. The experience is mind bogglingly more fascinating than you’d think, which is why Turrell has “skyspaces” all over the world. The Henry’s is furniturey, ringed with wooden bench seating. Around the Bend and Over the Edge: Seattle Ceramics 1964–1977 (through May 6)… Morning Serial: Webcomics Come to the Table (through June 30)… UW MFA Thesis Exhibition (May 26–June 17) is a group show of graduating students’ works.
FRYE ART MUSEUM (704 Terry Ave, 622-9250, www.fryemuseum. org, open Tues–Sun) Susie J. Lee’s Rain Shower (through April 16) is the first time the Frye has hosted an immersive digital installation. An entire gallery is left dark and empty, except for an ambient emulation of a rainstorm. Whispered words, a tinkling bell, raindrops freckling the floor. It’s a meditative experience, coupled brilliantly with one of the Stranger Genius Award–winner’s Still Lives videos in the neighboring room. The video is a half hour long, capturing in real time the life of an old woman napping. The heavy darkness above her and the steady light brings her gentle breathing that much more into focus. Li Chen’s Eternity and the Commoner (through April 16) finds the Taiwanese sculptor seriously preoccupied with immortality. As the title indicates, his show has two halves. On one side, there are single sculpted figures caught in action. The clay figures, packed onto rustic wood armatures, are cracking deeply, flaunting extreme vulnerability, and the figures made of tied rope would surely unravel if given a good tug. In the next room, you’re hit with a dramatic idolatrous processional. The permanent collection. After the heavy symbolism of Li Chen, it’s a relief to enter the permanent collections galleries, where a bunch of old German paintings have been given personal labels written by Frieda Sondland, a 90-year-old neighbor of the museum who’s been visiting every day for a decade. “This painting is sentimental, particularly for people who yearn for love and affection,” Sondland wrote in the label for a moonlight landscape, breaking one million hearts with her words. But take note: For most of this spring—from April 17 until July 14—the Frye will be closed for refurbishments.
OLYMPIC SCULPTURE PARK (2901 Western Ave, 654-3100, www.seattleart museum.org, park open daily, pavilion open Tues–Sun) Sandra Cinto’s Encontro das Águas (Encounter with Waters) is on view beginning April 14 inside the pavilion at the top of the park. The Brazilian artist’s installation is a panoramic stormy whirlpool provoking ideas of respite and renewal with its churning waterscape. Never turn your back on the ocean. Meanwhile, outside the pavilion, April and May are predicted to be “cooler and drier than normal,” according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac. (Then: “Summer will be much warmer and slightly drier than normal.” Thank you, Old Farmer.) If Old Farmer is correct, this will be a great spring to be comforted by old friends at the park, including Richard Serra’s rusty waves, Alexander Calder’s Eagle, and Puget Sound itself.
Midsize Museums BELLEVUE ARTS MUSEUM (510 Bellevue Way NE, Bellevue, 425-519-0770, www.bellevuearts.org, open Tues–Sun) Making Mends (through May 27) is a moving show on art’s ability to help and heal people. It includes Seattle artists Debra Baxter and Catherine Grisez, Brazilian superstar Vik Muniz, and a group that helps veterans make paper out of their uniforms. Dirk Staschke: Falling Feels a Lot Like Flying (through May 27)… Mary Lee Hu: Knitted, Knotted, Twisted & Twined (through May 27)… Push Play: The 2012 NCECA Invitational (through June 17).
BURKE MUSEUM (17th Ave NE and NE 45th St, UW Campus, 543-5590, www.burkemuseum.org, open Mon–Sun) Hungry Planet: What the World Eats (through June 10)… International Conservation Photography Awards (June 30–Nov 25) is a group show.
MUSEUM OF GLASS (1801 Dock St, Tacoma, 253-284-4718, www. museumofglass.org, open Wed–Sun) M i l d re d H o w a rd : P a re n t h e t i c a l l y Speaking: It’s Only a Figure of Speech (through April 29)… Paul Stankard: Beauty SPRING 2012
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Poet STEVEN JESSE BERNSTEIN slit his throat in Neah Bay and died.
For the true story of Forks, read L E ROY SMITH’s Pioneers of the Olympic Peninsula. From 1915 to 1977, Smith lived as a hand logger and gadabout in the undeveloped West End, where his daughter, Forks native Dorothy Burr, grew up. In the 1970s she transcribed LeRoy’s spoken recollections in a first-person voice as distinctive as Huck Finn’s, then organized it all into a story. And what a story. A land of disastrous weather and massive trees dominated by men carrying iron stoves filled with flour up flooded creeks into the rain forest. This is the peninsula, in all its crude, broken strangeness.
Best known for his Seattle and Montana poems, RICHARD HUGO also wrote superbly about the peninsula. Some of the finest poems are collected in a 1975 chapbook called Rain Five Days and I Love It. They’re bleak, vivid, and funny, as you’d expect, applying Hugo’s mordant humor and grim optimism to the towns, beaches, and rivers of the peninsula.
The grime and violence of Aberdeen during the boom years of WWII form the backdrop of MURRAY MORGAN’s 1949 novel, The Viewless Winds. Morgan’s alter ego here is Gale Seward, a newspaper editor investigating the brutal murder of a union boss’s wife. In life, Morgan was managing editor of the nearby Gray’s Harbor Washingtonian in the late 1930s. In rich, sometimes purple prose, Morgan dwells on the area’s resolute people and ravaged landscapes.
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A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE
Painting by Aaron Bagley
In 1937, a waitress at remote Lake Crescent Lodge was murdered and her weighted body tossed into the 600-foot-deep lake. It floated up years later, turned to soap by the pressure and the alkalinity. The soap corpse is now at the Mütter Museum of Medical Oddities in Philadelphia; the full story is told in Port Angeleno MAVIS AMUNDSON’s admirable true-crime book The Lady of the Lake.
In Port Townsend, RAYMOND CARVER and Montana writer JIM CRUMLEY shared “a huge mound of cocaine” in a cabin at the 1980 Centrum Writers’ Conference. “We had a very cordial and easy cocaine relationship,” Crumley recalled. “Whereas dope and drinking made Ray depressed, cocaine made him happy.”
In 1963, THEODORE ROETHKE died drunk in a rich friend’s swimming pool on Bainbridge Island. The pool has since been filled with smooth white stones. The grounds are now a public tree museum called the Bloedel Reserve. Visit and pay your respects to the dead, drunk poet.
Seattle writer BETTY M AC DONALD’s 1945 hit, The Egg and I, was the best-selling Northwest novel ever—a million copies in its first year alone. A domestic comedy about post-WWII backto-the-landers raising chickens on a dank farm near Port Townsend, it gave us Ma and Pa Kettle, and a hit movie starring Fred MacMurray. You can visit the former site of the MacDonalds’ chicken farm by driving up Egg and I Road, into the woods south of Chimacum.
A gay San Francisco poet published by City Lights and Ugly Duckling Presse, CEDAR SIGO might seem remote from our flinty subject. But he was born and raised on the Suquamish reservation, near Port Madison, and often writes about the throwaway landscapes of his logged-out home. Sigo’s peninsula is a postindustrial, postromantic land of afterthoughts. Stranger in Town, his newest collection, opens vivid windows onto the contemporary reality of this cultural and economic ground zero.
Soul Catcher (1972) is Dune-author FRANK HERBERT’s only non-sci fi novel. It tracks a crazy/activist Native American and the 13-yearold white boy he kidnaps on a trek into the rugged interior of the Olympic Mountains. Katsuk, the radical, plans to kill the kid as a redress for historical atrocities—basically, a gripping white liberal fantasy. I read it when I was 14 and loved the drama, the haunting landscapes, and the awkward sex scene.
SPRING 2012
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Beyond Nature (through June 24)… John Miller and Friends: Gathering, through June 24.
NORTHWEST AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUM (2300 S Massachusetts St, 518-6000, www.naamnw .org, open Wed–Sun) Xenobia Bailey: The Aesthetics of Funk (through May 6) is the proud homecoming parade for Bailey, who grew up in Seattle but left 37 years ago to make her way as an artist in New York, which she most definitely did, ending up at the Studio Museum in Harlem among other places. Her art is the meeting of African American home decor, imperial Chinese robes, royal African headwear, the funk of the 1970s, science fiction, Eastern healing, European needlework, and Native American philosophy. Her radiant, crocheted mandalas in every thinkable color are hanging—still, but throbbing—on sunny yellow walls.
“
AM EX T TE h A ND e Sea ZI ED ttle T NG TO imes .” AP RI L1 5
Artful Reproductions (ongoing) features modular works from China.
TACOMA ART MUSEUM (1701 Pacific Ave, Tacoma, 253-272-4258, www.tacoma artmuseum.org, open Wed–Sun) Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture (through June 10) is the Northwest exhibition with the highest stakes this season. The loan show was organized and then censored by the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in 2010, and this past fall it traveled (uncensored) to the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Tacoma Art Museum is the show’s only other tour stop. It subtly reveals the gayness already embedded in the American canon, with works dating back more than a hundred years and recent pieces, too. The 10th Northwest Biennial (through May 20)… Chihuly: Gifts from the Artist (ongoing).
WING LUKE MUSEUM (719 S King St, 623-5124, www.wingluke.org, open Tues–Sun) Asian American Arcade (through June 17) is a great little exhibition about video gaming and identity. In Calvin and Hellen’s Bogus Journey—one of the playable video games in the show—you fight an onslaught of naked Mohawked guys in a world that looks like a cross between Sesame Street, the surrealism of Max Ernst, and Henry Darger’s Realms of the Unreal. In another game, the Cat and the Coup, you play the cat belonging to the democratically elected prime minister of Iran whom the CIA helped oust in 1953. There also are two-dimensional artworks, original panels from graphic novels, and a documentary film called Gold Farmers, about a mind-boggling shadow industry in which Americans pay Chinese workers for video-game characters that have already been played at the lower levels and now come stocked with privileges and extra lives, wealth, weapons, and power. From Fields to Family: Asian Pacific Americans and Food (through July 15)… Meet Me at Higo: An Enduring Story of a Japanese American Family (through May 27).
Galleries ART/NOT TERMINAL GALLERY
LI CHEN Eternity and Commoner
(2045 Westlake Ave, 233-0680, www.antgallery.com, open Mon–Sun) Inside/Out: 23rd Annual Functional Art Show & Competition (April 6–30) is a group show… Carlton Canary: Conditions of Solitude (April 6–30)… Sammy Nasholm: Convergence (April 6–30)… Cynthia Linnet: The Heart of the Matter (May 4–30)… 23rd Annual Photography Show & Competition (June 3–July 5) is a group show… Larry Corbett: Dimensions (June 3–July 5).
ART ON THE RIDGE (8005 Greenwood Ave N, 510-3421, www.artontheridge. com/art-ridge-gallery.shtml, open Mon–Thurs and Sat)
FRYE ART MUSEUM 22
Always Free
A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE
fryemuseum.org
BROOKE WESTLUND STUDIO (Pike Place Market, Space #328 Downunder, 425-6816037, www.brookewestlund.com, open by appt) Paintings by Brooke Westlund.
(Seattle Center, www.chihulygardenandglass.com) The tentative opening date for the big new Dale Chihuly showcase on the former Funhouse site at Seattle Center is May 21.
Colors of the Oasis: Central Asian Ikats (through Aug 12) is a cross between the Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty exhibition that swept the Metropolitan Museum last year and the Indian painting show that mesmerized thousands at SAAM in 2009. Ikats are vivid dyed and woven fabrics from Central Asia. The 19th-century robes in this exhibition are a riot of mixed influences from India, China, Russia, the Arabic world, and Europe.
Made possible locally by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Calamus Foundation, Propel Insurance, The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, and the Wyman Foundation.
(8537 Greenwood Ave N #1, 234-8348, www.bherd studios.com, open Wed–Fri) Look Up Here (through April 27) features 33 artists… Vignettes (May 11–June 1) features Kellie Talbot, John Osgood, Siolo Thomson, and CASH… Few and Far (June 8–July 6) is a female graffiti collective show.
CHIHULY GARDEN AND GLASS
(1400 E Prospect St, Volunteer Park, 654-3100, www. seattleartmuseum.org, open Wed–Sun)
Berenice Abbott, Janet Flanner (detail), 1927. Gelatin silver print, 9 1/ 2 × 7 3/ 8 inches. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. ©Berenice Abbott/Commerce Graphics, New York.
BHERD STUDIOS
(3014 NW 67th St, 789-5707, www.nordicmuseum. org, open Tues–Sun)
SEATTLE ASIAN ART MUSEUM
HIDE/SEEK: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture was originally organized by the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, and has been reorganized by the Brooklyn Museum and the Tacoma Art Museum.
(512 First Ave S, 839-0377, www.artxchange.org, open Tues–Sat) Where We Meet: Artists Encountering Nature (April 5–28) is a group show… Embodiment (May 3–June 16) is new work by Deborah Kapoor.
NORDIC HERITAGE MUSEUM
Here and There: Contemporary Nordic-American Ceramics (through May 6)… Celebrating 75 Years of the Seattle Weavers’ Guild (through May 6).
On View Through June 10, 2012 Only West Coast Stop www.TacomaArtMuseum.org/HideSeek 253.272.4258
ARTXCHANGE
Paintings, charcoal, and sculpture by Nik Ford (April 1–30)… Landscapes by Jolyn Wells-Moran (May 1–31)… Boats (June 1–30).
CORE GALLERY (117 Prefontaine Place S, 467-4444, www.coregallery. org, open Wed–Sat) Aaliyah Gupta (May 2–26): These days, when Seattle artist Aaliyah Gupta layers sheets of painted Duralar on top of each other to create a composite image composed of parts that still seem to float independently, she’s thinking of “the dispersion of ash, smoke, clouds, wind, and water” from recent natural disasters, and the transition of geographies, economies, and communities that once seemed so fixed. Ben Misenar: Villainous! (April 4–28)… John Smither: In Coyote’s Temple, (April 4–28)… Scott Mansfield: Triggered Out (May 2–26)… William Rugen: New Botanicals (May 30–June 30)… Harry Caldwell IV: Tokens (May 30–June 30).
CORNISH (1000 Lenora St, 726-5011, www.cornish.edu/ exhibitions, open Mon–Fri) Art & Design BFA Show (May 11–26) is graduating students’ work… See also The Neddy Awards (June 6–July 18) under Other Exhibitions & Events.
COLUMBIA CITY GALLERY (4864 Rainier Ave S, 760-9843, www.columbiacity gallery.com, open Wed–Fri) Mark Ditzler and Drew Forsell: Photosynthesis (through April 30)… Uganda Undercover (through April 30) is a group show… Connections (May 2–July 17)… Represent 98118 (May 2–July 17)… Crossing the Line (June 20–Aug 5).
CULLOM GALLERY (603 S Main St, 919-8278, www.cullomgallery.com, open Tues–Thurs, Sat) Refable (April 5–28): Seattle artist Robert Hardgrave makes paintings that crawl with information, that feel both modern and ancient. In his show Refable, he pares it back to a simple concept: 12 black-and-white updates, made by various notable Northwest artists, of Jacob Lawrence’s classic renditions of Aesop’s Fables. Brian Lane: Texture of Being (May 3–June 2)… Eva Pietzcker: Washington Project, Part 1 (June 7–July 14)
DAVIDSON GALLERIES (313 Occidental Ave S, 624-7684, www.davidson galleries.com, open Tues–Sat) Coastal Redux: Experience & Memory (April 6–28): New mixed-media paintings by Dan Gualdoni, with new mixed-media prints by Amanda Knowles, and 19th- and 20th-century print portraits of everyday people… Douglas Cooper’s drawings of Seattle bridges (May 3–June 2) with new prints by gallery artists and architectural etchings by Giovanni Battista Piranesi… Alexander Petrov’s new surrealist paintings (June 7–30) with recent prints by Seiko Tachibana.
FETHERSTON GALLERY (818 E Pike St, 322-9440, www.fetherstongallery.com, open Mon–Sun) The Talking Cure is an interactive installation by Melissa Stern (through April 14)…Clay sculptures by Dorothy Rissman and Jan Hoy (through April 14)… Paintings by Melinda Hannigan and Dixie Peaslee (April 20–June 2).
FICTILIS (210 S Washington St, 522-0210, www.fictilis.com, open Tues–Fri) Interlife Crisis (April 5–26): Your favorite new artistrun gallery is a good-idea factory. Let’s do an exhibition where every artist goes through some elaborate process, and all the processes are different—but they all end up making a cat face. Yeah. That actually happened last season, and it was a great show, ranging from grandma folk art to conceptual sculpture to a Twitter performance. This April’s show, Interlife Crisis,
FORM/SPACE ATELIER (2407 First Ave, 349-2509, www.formspaceatelier.com, open Wed–Sat) a’void: site-specific installation by Anna Koosmann and Aaron Asis (April 1–May 5)… Paintings by Yuriko Miyamoto (May 11–June 2)… Installation by Jennifer Emily Dwyer, June 8–Aug 4.
FOSTER WHITE GALLERY (220 Third Ave S, 622-2833, www.fosterwhite.com, open Tues–Sat) New work from Rachel Denny and Casey McGlynn (April 5–28)… New work from John de Wit and Evan Blackwell (May 3–26)… New work from James Waterman and Mark Rediske (June 7–23).
FRANCINE SEDERS GALLERY (6701 Greenwood Ave N, 782-0355, www.sedersgallery. com, open Tues–Sun) Denzil Hurley and Robert Storr (April 6–May 6): Denzil Hurley is the maker of exquisite, and exquisitely unyielding, abstract paintings, usually in blacks, grays, and whites. He teaches at the University of Washington and has been showing in the region for years. Robert Storr is the Robert Storr—the dean of the (top-ranked) Yale School of Art, the 2007 Venice Biennale curator, the fancy-pants who is consulted and quoted and considered in all corners of the art universe. You’ve heard what he thinks, now see what he makes: He’s showing five abstract paintings at the quiet Phinney Ridge gallery. It’s his first time there. Laura Thorne and Ed Musante (May 11–June 3) show new work… Mar Goman and Marita Dingus (June 8–July 8) show new work.
GAGE ACADEMY OF ART (1501 10th Ave E, 323-4243, www.gageacademy.org) Duane Hanson is the late artist who sculpted such hyperreal figures that they’re constantly being confused with actual people in galleries where they’re shown. He also created a real-life son, and then he created a life-size sculpture of that son, whose name is Craig. Fascinatingly, on May 10, from 12:30–1:30 pm, Craig talks about the process of working with his father on his own effigy, then seeing himself doubled. Craig’s talk is days before a survey of figurative sculpture in Seattle over the past 60 years, which runs May 18–June 8 at Gage. The Realm of the Feminine: Interior Edge is a group show (through April 14)… Spitting Image: Self Portrait Competition is a group show (through April 13)… Aron Hart: Skin Deep (through April 13).
GALLERY 110 (110 Third Ave S, 624-9336, www.gallery110.com, open Wed–Sat) Ronald Hall (April 5–28) is Seattle’s answer to Kerry James Marshall, the leading painter of African American life and history, whose candy-colored, streaky portraits of public housing projects punctuated by jet-black faces creased with bright white lines both critique and memorialize. Hall’s recent work, titled Structure and Re-Structure, is a swirling, surreal survey of the dark inner life of the classic architecture of the antebellum South—especially plantation homes, with their winding staircases and columns. Hall, who is originally from Pittsburgh, hasn’t had a solo in Seattle for five years. Pastels by Li Turner (April 5–28)… Paintings by Veronique Le Merre and Paula Maratea Fuld (May 3–26)… Paintings by Susan Walker and Jim Pirie (June 7–30).
GALLERY4CULTURE (101 Prefontaine Pl S, 296-7580, galleries.4culture. org, open Mon–Fri) Glenn Tramantano (June 7–29) makes bright, sometimes glittery drawings, and this series, Surrender Dorothy, is about a little-known episode in gay history. A band of clueless Naval Investigative Service agents in the 1980s believed that the term referring to gay men as “friends of Dorothy” meant that the agents needed to find an actual woman named Dorothy, who could be used to root out gay soldiers. (Instead, “friends of Dorothy” was code for “gay” back when homosexual acts were still illegal—it is thought to originate with The Wizard of Oz. Furthermore, the death of Judy Garland is partly responsible for prompting the 1969 gay-rights uprising at the Stonewall Inn in New York City.) For this show, Tramantano “reimagines... Oz through the lens of that historical moment of confusion.” Britta Johnson: The Hover (April 5–27)… New works from Jacob Foran (May 3–June 1).
THE OK HOTEL GALLERY (212 Alaskan Way S, www.theokhotel.blogspot.com, open Mon–Fri, Sat–Sun by appt) Paintings by Chris Sheridan (April 6–28)… Paintings by Tracy Boyd (May 3–26)… Paintings and drawings
by Juliette Aristides and her Gage Academy students (June 7–30).
2012 2013
GALLERY IMA (123 S Jackson St, 625-0055, www.galleryima.com, open Tues–Sat) New paintings by Dale Witherow (April 5–28)… Drawings by Paul Lorenz and sculpture by Pascal (May 3–June 2)… Embroideries and ceramics by Koren Christofides (June 7–30).
theater
season
GHOST GALLERY (504 E Denny Way, 832-6063, www.ghost-gallery.com, open Mon and Wed–Sat) Giclee prints on canvas by Cait Willis (April 12–May 7)… Paintings by Tyson Anthony Roberts (May 10–June 11)… Multimedia work by Amanda Manitach and Jonas Bjerre (June 14–July 9).
GLASSHOUSE STUDIO (311 Occidental Ave S, 682-9939, www.glasshouse studio.com, open Mon–Sun) Glass art.
GREG KUCERA GALLERY (212 Third Ave S, 624-0770, www.gregkucera.com, open Tues–Sat) Brion Nuda Rosch (April 5–May 12): “Take an object. Do something to it. Do something else to it.” So wrote the early pop artist Jasper Johns in one of his sketchbooks, arguing for an art that would remain mysterious while revealing its sources (regular old flags and targets, say). The collages and sculptures of San Francisco’s Brion Nuda Rosch share in this ethos of strangeness despite surface-level simplicity. Paintings and boxes by Joseph Goldberg (April 5–May 12)… Quilts by Loretta Bennett and prints by Helen Frankenthaler (May 17–June 30).
GROVER/THURSTON GALLERY (319 Third Ave S, 223-0816, www.groverthurston.com, open Tues–Sat) Guidance (April 5–May 12) features new mixed media on panel works by Anne Siems. New works by John Randall Nelson (May 17–June 30).
IDEA ODYSSEY (666 S Jackson St, 462-1359, www.ideaodysseygallery. com, open Thurs–Sat) IDEA Odyssey was born in 2011 to focus on minority artists as well as majority artists doing work that relates to minority cultures—”primarily those of Asian, African, Latino, Native American, and Pacific Islander heritage.” For its first outside-curated group show, ID X ID: New Identities (May 3–June 30), the collective chose sharp-minded artist/performer/writer and former Seattle Art Museum educator C. Davida Ingram to be juror. Look for juicy awesomeness. SuJ’n Chon: Dreams of Fire and Ice (through April 28)… Members show (through April 28).
NORTHWEST PREMIERE
features “work that addresses the divide, if one can be said to exist, between internet and life… that brings the online offline or offline online in interesting ways.” While I was asleep (June 2–30): Multimedia diorama/ spectacle by Rani Ban.
SEPT 19 - OCT 20, 2012
BLOODY BLOODY
JAMES HARRIS GALLERY
Andrew Jackson
(312 Second Ave S, 903-6220, www.jamesharrisgallery. com, open Thurs–Sat) Alwyn O’Brien’s Essays in Objects (through April 28): O’Brien’s ceramic sculptures were a highlight of the 2010 UW MFA show, both sensual and cerebral. Her current show, Essays in Objects, features more of her intricate, painted-on ceramic tangles and blobs that work like quicksand—you can easily lose yourself in one. Adam Sorensen: Honey from the Sky, Yogurt from the Mountaintop (May 3–June 2)… Squeak Carnwath shows new work (June 7–July 7).
JACK STRAW NEW MEDIA GALLERY (4261 Roosevelt Way NE, 634-0919, www.jackstraw. org, open Mon–Fri) Ellen Sollod (June 22–August TBA): To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Jack Straw, Ellen Sollod will transform the gallery into a camera obscura that reflects the world outside—that turns it into a pale, upside-down moving picture offering itself for contemplation. Sollod is a wide-reaching force; for years, she’s made public art and private art, collaborative installations about corporate consolidation and little pinhole photographs of safaris featuring toy elephants and camels on cigarette boxes set in the landscapes. Here, she just gets out of the way. Cartasonic (April 6–June 1): Works by Perri Lynch, Lara Swimmer, and Robert Zimmer.
KIRKLAND ARTS CENTER (620 Market St, Kirkland, 425-822-7161, www.kirkland artscenter.org, open Mon–Sat) Portland-based artist Geraldine Ondrizek (May 26–27) makes art out of science, weaving in silk or drawing or painting or filming, say, the RNA of a pregnant woman, or metastasized cancer cells. She calls what she makes “architecture-scaled works that house medical and biological information.” This show is new pieces made from working with UW researchers. Clay? IV (through May 19) is a group show.
NOV 23 - DEC 30, 2012
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VARIATIONS
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seattle
GALLERIES See local art!
GLASSHOUSE STUDIO Mon.-Sat. 10:00am-5:00pm Sun. 11:00am-4:00pm 311 Occidental Ave. S. Seattle, WA 98104 Tel:206-682-9939 www.glasshouse-studio.com TO
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Afishionado Gallery
American Craft in glass, pottery, metal, fabric, and wood. Handcrafted jewelry, ďŹ ne art originals and prints with a Northwest aquatic focus
7 .ICKERSON s next to Chinook’s Restaurant at Fisherman’s Terminal
24
A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE
Alexander Kroll Untitled, 2011 Oil on linen 12� x 10�
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KRAB JAB STUDIO (5628 Airport Way S, Suite 246, 715-8593, www.krab jabstudio.com, open every second Saturday) A group of artists, including Julie Baroh and Milo Duke (ongoing).
LAWRIMORE PROJECT (117 S Main St, Suite 101, 501-1231, www.lawrimore project.com, open Tues–Sat) Wynne Greenwood (April 5–May 12): You never know what “an installation of new soft sculpture, clay, and music” by Seattle-based Wynne Greenwood will be like until it arrives. This category-defying Stranger Genius Award–winner’s past projects have included TV sets wearing painted-on strap-ons, performances where Greenwood interacted with her alter egos, music videos, ceramic baskets, and feminist news broadcasts. Can’t Get There From Here (May 17–June 30) is a group show featuring Hiroshi Sugimoto, Amanda Manitach, Richard Misrach, Serrah Russell, Isaac Layman, and Britta Johnson.
LINDA HODGES GALLERY (316 First Ave S, 624-3034, www.lindahodgesgallery. com, open Tues–Sat) Spring group show (April 5–28)… New paintings by Jennifer Beedon Snow (May 3–26)… New paintings by Robert McCauley (June 7–30).
LISA HARRIS GALLERY (1922 Pike Place, 443-3315, www.lisaharrisgallery.com, open Mon–Sun) Trust: Truth (April 5–29) is paintings and monotypes by Kim Osgood… Inside | Outside (May 3–June 12) is paintings by Terry Furchgott… Plein-air invitational (June 15–July 30).
Author and Subject: Contemporary Queer Photography (April 6–May 27) will feature 10 artists including Molly Landreth, Steven Miller, and Rafael Soldi of Seattle. It’s just in time to coincide with Hide/ Seek at Tacoma Art Museum (see listing p. 22) and the legalization of same-sex marriage in Olympia. And PCNW is located across the street from Seattle University, so think of this show as a good, up-close nose-thumbing to the bigoted priests who want to block gay marriage on their gay-student-filled Capitol Hill campus. Thesis Exhibition (June 1–July 15) is a group show… 24-Hour Photo Marathon (June 1–2).
PLATFORM GALLERY (114 Third Ave S, 323-2808, www.platformgallery.com, open Wed–Sat) William Powhida (May 3–June 16): The Brooklyn artist likes making enemies, friends, and drawings. Everyone else likes watching him do it. Lauren Grossman: Sphincter (through April 28)… Robert Yoder: DILF (May 3–June 16).
PRATT GALLERY AT TASHIRO KAPLAN STUDIOS (312 S Washington St, Studio A1, 328-2200, www .pratt.org, open Wed–Sat) Glass sculpture and site-specific installation by AnnaKarin Johansson and Armelle Bouchet O’Neill (April 5–28)… Lecture by visiting Irish glass artist Caroline Madden (April 13)… Eric Day Chamberlain’s still-lifes (May 3–June 2)… Bronze Age: group exhibition (June 7–30)… 30th annual art auction (May 4–5, Bell Harbor Conference Center, 2211 Alaskan Way, Pier 66).
PROGRAPHICA
(1117 Minor Ave, 726-9509, www.martin-zambito. com, open by appt) Overlooked historical regional artists (ongoing).
(3419 E Denny Way, 322-3851, www.prographica drawings.com, open Wed–Sat) The Back View (June 2–July 14): Prographica, tucked away on a residential hillside in Madrona, is a quiet place that focuses on delicate works on paper. It’s run by Norman Lundin, the retired University of Washington professor who makes realist paintings—especially tranquil, exacting studies of light-filled rooms. This show, The Back View, has a simple, perfect conceit: “work that looks at the world from the backside,” from photographs of people turned away to paintings revealing hidden structures. Landscape Part II: Urban and Rural (through April 14) is a group show… The Reductivist Show (April 21–May 26) is a group show.
M.I.A. GALLERY
PUNCH GALLERY
(1203A Second Ave, 467-4927, www.m-i-a-gallery.com, open Tues–Sat) Delphine Diallo’s The Great Vision (April 5–May 12): A cosmopolitan gust blew through Seattle’s contemporary art gallery scene this winter when Mariane Lenhardt, a young Somali Frenchwoman new to the city, opened M.I.A. Gallery, a shoebox-shaped gallery in central downtown. She kicked it off with dozens of the mighty, lovable, and rarely-seen-in-Seattle photographs of legendary Malian artist Malick Sidibé. Next up is the show The Great Vision from the young Delphine Diallo, whose work ranges from fashion-friendly but earnest collages (she was once designer and animator for bands like Coldplay and Smashing Pumpkins) to a nonironic self-portrait as a Na’vi character from Avatar to documentary photographs shot on the Crow Reservation in Montana. She was born in Paris to Senegalese and French parents, and lives in New York. Soly Cisse (May 17–June 30) shows new work.
(119 Prefontaine Pl S, 621-1945, www.punchgallery .org, open Thurs–Sat) Matt Johnson (April 5–28).
LTD. ART GALLERY (307 E Pike St, 457-2970, www.ltdartgallery.com, open Tues–Sun) MINTcondition (through May 1) is a comic-bookinspired art show… Geek Girl (May 5–June 5) is a female perspective on geek and pop culture… Rayguns and Robots (June 9–July 22) is a sciencefiction-inspired art show.
MARTIN-ZAMBITO GALLERY
MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND INDUSTRY (2700 24th Ave E, 324-1126, www.seattlehistory.org, open Mon–Sun) Now and Then: photography (April 9–June 7)… And Now for Something Completely Different: Unexpected Artifacts from the Museum’s Collection (ongoing).
PACIFIC GALLERIES (241 S Lander St, 441-9990, www.pacgal.com, open Mon–Sun) Art auctions (April 8, 9, 22; May 6, 7, 20; June 10, 11, 24).
PAPER HAMMER (1400 Second Ave, 682-3820, www.paper-hammer. com, open Tues–Sat) Prints from the new book Ink on Paper: The Mary Alice Cooley Print Collection (April 5–30)… Paintings by Johanna Nitzke Marquis (May 3–31).
PATRICIA CAMERON GALLERY (234 Dexter Ave N, 909-9096, www.patriciacameron gallery.com, open Mon–Fri) In the Middle, On the Edge (through April 27) features 13 ceramic sculptors from Hawaii… Gallery artists group show (May–June).
PHOTOGRAPHIC CENTER NORTHWEST (900 12th Ave, 720-7222, www.pcnw.org, open Mon– Sun)
ROQ LA RUE (2312 Second Ave, 374-8977, www.roqlarue.com, open Wed–Sat) Red Current (Sweet Fruit) (through April 7) is a group show curated by Sharon Arnold… Lindsey Carr and Handiedan show new work (April 13–May 5)… New work from Derek Nobbs (May 11–June 2)… Death and the Maiden (June 8–July 7) is a group show.
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SEASON (1222 NE Ravenna Blvd, 679-0706, seasoncz.com, open by appointment only) Squeeze Hard (Hold That Thought) (April 8–June 30): For more than a year, Seattle artist Robert Yoder has been hosting extremely civilized Sunday-afternoon art openings in his sleek modernist home on tree-lined Ravenna Boulevard. The bonus is that the art has not been genteel but hot: unclassifiable sculptures by Dawn Cerny, altered-state-of-consciousness-meetsDarth-Vader video by Mike Simi, jungles of paintings by Peter Scherrer. The next show, Squeeze Hard (Hold That Thought), features Allison Manch’s hand-embroidery and Sharon Butler’s loose paintings on raw canvas.
Helping buyers and sellers for over 40 years. Currently accepting auction consignments. Early 20th Century Regional Art: Paintings-Prints-Photography
SHIFT COLLABORATIVE STUDIO (306 S Washington St #105, www.shiftstudio.org, open Fri–Sat and First Thursdays) Macro/Micro (April 5–28): landscapes by Susan Gans and David Traylor… The Modern Landscape (May 3–June 2): encaustics by Jo Moniz… Kerstin Graudins and Ellen Hochberg show new work (June 7–30).
SOIL (112 Third Ave S, 264-8061, www.soilart.org, open Wed–Sat) Open for Construction (through April 14) is an interactive clay installation, plus new work by Timea Tihanyi… Text Editor (May 2–26) is a text-based group exhibition with 14 artists, curated by Sharon Arnold, plus new work by Jana Brevick… New members show (June 6–30).
Glen Alps (1914-1996) “Figures”, 1954 Serigraph
STEINBRUECK NATIVE GALLERY (2030 Western Ave, 441-3821, www.steinbruecknative gallery.com, open Mon–Sun) Arctic Birds: Prints from Cape Dorset (through April 15)… A Spirit W ithin: Rande Cook, Kwakwaka’wakw Artist (May 12–June 10).
Martin-Zambito Fine Art
1117 Minor Ave. Seattle, WA 98101 | 206 726-9509 | www.martin-zambito.com
Tuesday-Saturday 11:30 -6
SPRING 2012
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STONINGTON GALLERY
2
nd FRIDAY
(119 S Jackson St, 405-4040, www.stoningtongallery. com, open Mon–Sun) RED & BLACK: A Group Exhibition on the Power of Color (April 5–29): The fierce art associated with Pacific Northwest Native culture is dominated by the colors red and black. Get knocked out by a whole sea of it with artists from the Haida, Tlingit, Coast Salish, and other traditions. Hib Sabin & Peter Wright: Spirits in Wood & Glass (May 3–31)… Barry Herem: Beyond Beyond (June 7–30).
6-9pm
OF EACH MONTH
artupgreenwood-phinney.blogspot.com
SUYAMA SPACE (2324 Second Ave, 256-0809, www.suyamapeterson deguchi.com/art, open Mon–Fri) BLUE(oil) (May 21–August 10) is an installation from Avantika Bawa, a minimalist/reductive artist who’s also a curator and assistant art professor at Washington State University in Vancouver. Employing blueprints, wooden beams, and various automotive and construction detritus, Bawa creates an experience that’s both engaged with Suyama Space’s historic architecture (it was formerly an auto repair shop) and intended to engage the viewer. Rick Araluce and Steve Peters: UPRISING (through April 13).
TASTY
60 Classes & Workshops for Artists of All Levels this Spring
(7513 Greenwood Ave N, 706-3020, www.shoptastyart. com, open Tues–Sun) A Strange Life (through April 13) is a group show… Heroes, Vixens, and Villains (April 13–May 10) is a comic art group show with 15 artists… Flora and Fauna (May 11–June 7) is a group show featuring Jesse Link (and included in the Big One Art Walk on May 11 and 12)… Mad Women (June 8–July 12) features David VonDerLinn and Paula Tade.
TRAVER GALLERY (110 Union St #200, 587-6501, www.travergallery.com, open Tues–Sun) New work in glass by Preston Singletary and Marsha Blaker-DeSomma (April 5–May 13)… New paintings by Merrill Wagner (May 17–June 24). Margaret Davidson
Michael Grimaldi
VERMILLION
Michael Magrath
Classes Begin April 9! Register online @ www.GageAcademy.org
on Capitol Hill
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(1508 11th Ave, 709-9797, www.vermillionseattle.com, open Tues–Sun) Jeff “Weirdo” Jacobson (May 10–June 9) is one of the most prolific graffiti, aerosol, and canvas artists in Seattle. One way you can tell a Weirdo painting is by the spongy growths that protrude from his subjects, who may otherwise seem normal. These growths represent the protrusion of another dimension, and so does Weirdo himself. In The Ambiguous, Dutch still-life painting and ’80s graphics have Weirdo babies. Luke Haynes: The Hundredth Quilt (through April 7)… Myth & Murder, an installation by the New Mystics (April 12–May 5).
WESTERN BRIDGE (3412 Fourth Ave S, 838-7444, www.westernbridge.org, open Thurs–Sat) Devouring Time (through April 7): Time is running out at Western Bridge, the great contemporary art space. It will close sometime late this year, date still TBA, after an eight-year run. The new group show, Devouring Time, has a hushed deathiness to it—drawings related to embalming, a daily delivery of irises left out to dry and rot even as new ones arrive. A puddle scooped out of Puget Sound and poured onto the concrete gallery floor every day is just enough water to fill a pair of human lungs; it’s a piece called Drown by Emilie Halpern. Roy McMakin (April 28–June 30) shows new work.
217-2030 166 Roy St.
WRIGHT EXHIBITION SPACE
www. eyeballs.co
(407 Dexter Ave N, 264-8200, open Thurs and Sat or by appt) Collecting: Art Is a Slippery Slope (through April 14) is a spectacularly bric-a-bracky exhibition organized by the daughter of Seattle’s leading collectors of modern art, Merrill Wright. She invited 24 of her friends to share what they collect and each collector (including: art dealer James Harris and partner Carlos Garcia, and Dina Martina, among others) was given an eight-foot-long shelf in the airy galleries. The range of objects is mind-blowing, from hair wreaths to chain-saw carvings to magician’s stands to NASCAR memorabilia.
WINSTON WÄCHTER GALLERY (203 Dexter Ave N, 652-5855, www.winstonwachter. com, open Mon–Sat) Abstraction by Susan Dory and sculpture by George Stoll (through April 12)… Sculpture by Julie Speidel and painting by Chris Cox (April 17–May 30)… Painting by Stephen O’Donnell and glass group show (June 6–Aug 31).
April 28, 2012 10am to 5pm
Woodward Middle School Bainbridge Island, WA
Sale items and seconds Most items under $100
Other Exhibitions & Events
Juried Studio Tour Artists
APRIL 7 & 24, 1–4 PM
Seasonal work and discontinued styles
www.bistudiotou r.com/ma rk e t pla c e
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A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE
Charles Spitzack at the Project Room At the Project Room, founder Jess Van Nostrand poses a
single question—such as, presently, “Why do we make things?”—and artists from all disciplines offer takes on it. Currently in residence is Charles Spitzack, who’s creating woodblock prints in response. On April 7 and 24, you can stop by, watch him work, bring a drink. It’s not a typical gallery. (1315 E Pine St, 499-9641, www. projectroomseattle.org)
APRIL 12, 2–5 PM Seattle Art Museum/University of Washington Inside Out or Outside In: Who Is the Other? This symposium, in conjunction with the exhibition Gauguin & Polynesia: An Elusive Paradise, will be delightfully nerdy. It’ll tackle ideas of exploitation and observation in visual and material culture. Expect slides and spectacles. (Seattle Art Museum, 1300 First Ave, 654-3100, www. seattleartmuseum.org)
APRIL 19, 6 PM Seattle University Seattle Art Museum’s modern and contemporary curator, Catharina Manchanda, is giving a talk at Seattle U about an exhibition idea she’s had on her mind. (It’s not on the books yet, but she says she’d like it to be.) All Eyes on You will survey artworks made in the last 15 to 20 years that focus on the viewer rather than the artist, the receiver rather than the creator. It’s not a new concept, but it will be interesting to see how Manchanda’s brain works in finding an angle. (901 12th Ave, 296-6000, www.seattleu.edu)
APRIL 21 TO OCTOBER 21 Seattle Center Fifty years ago this spring, Seattle Center was host to the World’s Fair. For the next six months, “The Next 50” celebrations will include photo exhibitions, a crochet installation, film screenings, talks, and a fashion show, held all across Seattle Center and at the Central Library, too. (Check www.thenextfifty.org for details.)
APRIL 28–29 Bemis Building Now that 619 Western is gone, there just aren’t that many crawling artist colonies to explore. When’s the last time you were at Bemis in Sodo, which has 30 live/work lofts? Now’s the time: The curated, Annual Spring Art Show is in the hallways and all the studio doors are open. (Bemis Building, 55 S Atlantic St, www.bemisbuilding. com, Sat noon–8 pm, Sun noon–6 pm)
MAY 21, 10 AM–2 PM Gardens of Art Luncheon With tours of the collection of Bill and Ruth True, plus glassblowing and glass garden art settings by Bob Rice Glass, this event raises money for Seattle Art Museum. (The True residence, www.samsupporters.org)
JUNE 6–JULY 18 The Neddy Awards For seven years, the regional awards given in honor of Ned Behnke (1948–1989) were celebrated at Tacoma Art Museum. Each time, two winning artists were selected, but all eight nominees were included in a large exhibition. When those shows stopped, it was easy to wonder whether the Neddy Awards were gone—but they’re back, bigger, at Cornish, where the individual award amount has risen to $25,000 from $15,000, and one of the two awards will be open to an artist in any medium. The other award goes to a painter. Ned, who was born deaf and died of AIDS at the age of 40, was a painter. His works will be on display to mark the Neddy’s inaugural year at Cornish. (1000 Lenora St, 726-5011, www.cornish. edu/exhibitions, open Mon–Fri)
JUNE 16–24 Seattle Erotic Art Festival They say it will be the biggest ever. Size queens. The Seattle Erotic Art Festival is celebrating its 10th anniversary by expanding from a one-weekend show into a 10-day-long exhibition of art, performances, short films, spoken word, interactive installations, lectures, burlesque, after-parties, and many other, um, events. The first weekend, SEAF will be a central part of the Fremont Fair, which is when everyone already takes off their clothes and rides around on bikes, and the second weekend of SEAF coincides with Seattle Pride. DAMN! The 2012 visual art jurors are Dan Savage, Ellen Forney, Daniel McGlothlen, Jim Duvall, and Mistress Matisse. (155 N 35th St, www.seattleerotic.org, Fri–Sat noon–2 am, 18+ until 6 pm/21+ after; Sun 11 am–8 pm, 18+)
Monthly Art Walks Wallingford, first Wednesday, 6–9 pm; Pioneer Square, first Thursday, 5–8 pm; Fremont, first Friday, 6–9 pm; Capitol Hill, second Thursday, 5–8 pm; West Seattle, second Thursday, 6–9 pm; PhinneyWood, second Friday, 6–9 pm; Central District, second Saturday, 1–5 pm; Georgetown, second Saturday, 6–9 pm; Ballard, second Saturday, 6–9 pm; Belltown, third Thursday, 6–9 pm; Pike Hike, third Thursday, 5–8 pm (May–Oct); Columbia City, third Friday, 4–9 pm (May–Sept); U-District, third Friday, 6–9 pm; International District, third Saturday, 6:30–9:30 pm (May–Aug). Go to www.seattleartwalks. org for more info.
SPRING CALENDAR
star, and mainstream actor. Now she has a hefty sponsorship from Cointreau to tour her latest show. This is what neo-burlesque looks like when it’s got serious bucks behind it.
PERFORMANCE
PACIFIC NORTHWEST BALLET (McCaw Hall, 321 Mercer St, 441-2424, www .pnb.org) Apollo and Carmina (April 13–22): Performances of Apollo (music by Stravinsky, choreography by Balanchine) and Carmina Burana (music by Carl Orff, choreography by Kent Stowell).
Theater and Dance by Brendan Kiley Larger Theaters ACT THEATRE (700 Union St, 292-7676, www.acttheatre.org) First Date: A New Musical (Through May 20) April Fools Carnival (April 1) Caught in the ACT (April 2): Live readings of new screenplays. The Twilight Zone: LIVE! (April 6–28): Over the past 20 years (off and on), Theater Schmeater’s basement theater has become a popular late-night destination for its lowbudget, sometimes ironic and sometimes sweet re-creations of old Twilight Zone episodes. Between the well-stocked bar and the bizarre slapstick, The Twilight Zone: LIVE! often feels like a Cold War paranoia-themed party, wrapped around a really, really good talent show. Tim Moore directed the series and also plays Rod Serling, with appropriately thick eyebrows, a protective helmet of hair, and bizarre aplomb. Now the series moves to ACT’s Bullitt Cabaret, a slightly more elegant underground theater. The Pitmen Painters (April 20–May 20): A 2007 play by Lee Hall (screenwriter for Billy Elliot and War Horse) revisits the author’s favorite themes: art, class, and culture in England. The Pitmen Painters follows a group of mid-century miners who, quite by accident, stumble into an undiscovered love for painting and even have a brief moment of fame in the art world. The Guardian writes that the play “is enormously moving, not just because Hall intimately understands the community about which he is writing, but because the play celebrates the very notion of community, and a working class spirit—that now only flickers and splutters—which understood that it had as much right to education and culture as those born into the middle and upper classes.” Directed by Kurt Beattie and starring Charles Leggett, R. Hamilton Wright, Morgan Rowe, and other Seattle favorites.
INTIMAN THEATRE
roles, and hiphop stardom.
(201 Mercer Street, 269-1900, www.cdforum .org)
Julie Andrée T.: Rouge (May 3–6): A piece about the color red by “iconoclastic” performance artist Julie Andrée T. There will be feathers and paint.
Marc Bamuthi Joseph: red, black, and GREEN: a blues (May 31–June 3): A multimedia performance about climate change by solo performer Marc Bamuthi Joseph, who performed his piece the break/s at ACT Theatre in 2009. Designed by artist Theaster Gates and directed by Michael John Garcés, this work is presented in partnership with the Central District Forum and Seattle Art Museum.
MEANY HALL (University of Washington campus, 543-4880, www.uwworldseries.org) Don Pasquale (March 31–April 7): An opera by Gaetano Donizetti, performed by the Seattle Opera Young Artists Program. Chunky Move (April 12–14): This well-liked Australian dance company weaves choreography with technology, both digital and mechanical, to create dramatic stage pictures where the dancers and the design form intricate, intimate relationships. For Connected, the company has teamed up with artist Reuben Margolin, who builds kinetic sculptures from wood, string, recycled plastic, and other materials, which move and undulate “as waveforms in nature—a weightless kinetic flow,” according to choreographer Gideon Obarzanek. “This kind of mathematical influence resulted in choreography resembling states of synthesis and fragmentation, flow and turbulence—a geometry of nature.” Bailadores de Bronce’s 40th (April 21): Traditional Mexican folk dance. Introdans (May 10–12): An international modern-dance company that has performed works by Jiri Kylian, Nacho Duato, Gisela Rocha, and others. Dancing with the Dawgs (June 21): A fundraiser where six dancers from the UW campus pair with professionals from the Century Ballroom, Dancing with the Stars–style.
The Construction Zone (April 30, June 25): A monthly play-development series.
ON THE BOARDS
An Evening with Groucho (May 3–20): A solo show.
(100 W Roy St, 217-9888, www.ontheboards .org)
Seattle Confidential (May 14): Actor, writer, director, and impresario Ian Bell has been a force for good in Seattle theater over the past several years: the artistic director of sketch group Bald Faced Lie, the creator of the Brown Derby Reading Series, and the curator of Re-bar theater where he helped cultivate the early careers of music/theater acts like the French Project, “Awesome,” Mark Siano’s soft-rock spectaculars. Seattle Confidential is another of Bell’s good ideas, in which he proposes a quarterly theme (“My First Time” was one, “The Perfect Crime” was another) and spends a few months collecting anonymous stories to be read by actors. Bell also collects anonymous surveys and data—sometimes during the show itself, which the audience submits via text— and organizes it into charts and graphs. Part anthropology and part data-cabaret, Seattle Confidential is an entertaining core sample of Seattle’s collective psyche.
Kyle Abraham: Live! The Realest MC (April 19–22): A dance-theater piece by NYC performer Kyle Abraham about Pinocchio, gender
Coppélia (June 1–10): Originally created in 1870, revamped in 1974 for New York City Ballet by George Balanchine.
PARAMOUNT THEATRE
Trimpin: The Gurs Zyklus (May 17–20): The Gurs Zyklus, by composer and kinetic sculptor Trimpin, sounds insane. Trimpin invents instruments, pushing their boundaries: a gamelan whose iron bells are suspended in midair by magnets (which allows for extra-long tones), a contraption made of 96 wooden clogs that plays 20 different compositions, a long bass clarinet that can achieve microtonal scales, and much more. The Gurs Zyklus is an experimental opera based on letters from Gurs, a concentration camp where the Jewish community of Trimpin’s hometown was interred during WWII. For this piece, Trimpin will introduce a “fire organ” (like a pipe organ that uses thermodynamics and a Bunsen burner to make its sounds), castanets that tap out the Morse code signal to kill the poet Federico García Lorca (“give him coffee”), and a computer program that reads photos of tree bark taken near Gurs and transforms them into a score for four player pianos. Like I said: insane. Directed by Rinde Eckert.
(911 Pine St, www.stgpresents.org)
NW New Works Festival (June 8–17): Artists, both new and established, attend NW New Works to stretch themselves and try out new stuff; audiences attend to see the seeds of works they’ll be watching grow and mature on Seattle stages, and beyond, for the next few years. This year includes new theater, music, and dance by zoe | juniper, Corrie Befort (of Salt Horse), Mike Pham, Maureen Whiting, Waxie Moon, Hand2Mouth (from Portland), Richard Lefebvre, and many others.
Madama Butterfly (May 5–20): Puccini’s opera about a Japanese “lady” and an American naval officer.
MOORE THEATRE
A Fool’s Paradise (March 31–April 1): A new show by self-effacing monologuist Kevin Kling and musician Simone Perrin. In 2001, days before he was set to perform a new monologue at Seattle Rep called Baseball, Dogs, and Motorcycles, Kling was in a horrible motorcycle wreck that permanently changed his body, his approach to life and mortality, and his work. In A Fool’s Paradise, Kling recounts stories between his childhood and his wreck, starting with a piece called “Nutcracker” and ending with “If It’s Morphine, It Must Be August.”
(1932 Second Ave, www.stgpresents.org) Showtunes Theatre: Broadway Revue (May 5–6)
NEPTUNE THEATRE (1303 NE 45th St, www.stgpresents.org) Dita Von Teese (May 24–25): Dita Von Teese is probably the most financially successful burlesque artist of her generation, and maybe a few previous ones. She’s been (in chronological order) a lingerie saleswoman, a film stylist and costume historian, a fetish model and porn
CATS (April 17–22): Andrew Lloyd Webber’s prescient musical about the popularity of icanhascheezburger.com. Kristin Chenoweth (May 9): The star of stage and screen (Wicked, You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown, West Wing, Pushing Daisies). Million Dollar Quartet (May 15–20): A musical about four young guys—who happened to be Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins—recording together for a session at Sun Records in 1956. American Idiot (June 5–10): The rock ’n’ roll Broadway musical by Green Day. Aziz Ansari (June 29): The young comedy star you might know from Parks and Recreation and Tom Haverford.
SEATTLE OPERA (McCaw Hall, 321 Mercer St, 389-7676, www. seattleopera.org)
SEATTLE REPERTORY THEATRE (155 Mercer St, 443-2222, www.seattlerep. org) Or, (Through April 22): A farce about England’s first professional playwright and spy, Aphra Behn.
DELICIOUS FOOD WITHIN WALKING DISTANCE OF McCAW HALL AND SEATTLE REP Citizen Citizen is a charmer of a cafe with crepes, sandwiches, and a careful selection of absurdly low-priced wine. (706 Taylor Ave N, 284-1015; food until 9 pm) Crow There’s something pleasantly unexpected about how good everything on the bistro menu tastes in Crow’s artsy-industrial space. (823 Fifth Ave N, 283-8800) Shiki Japanese Restaurant Ken Yamamoto makes very pleasing sushi— including, in season, the potentially poisonous fugu, should you feel so inclined. (4 W Roy St, 281-1352)
Clybourne Park (April 20–May 13): The Pulitzer Prize–winning play by Bruce Norris—of
Women Playwrights Festival (May 21) We Are Golden Benefit Concert (June 1) One Slight Hitch (June 8–July 8): Comedian Lewis Black—of The Daily Show fame—has written a farce set in 1980s Cincinnati about a woman whose “perfect” wedding goes off the rails when her ex-boyfriend (who is hitchhiking around the country) shows up and inspires second thoughts about the marriage. Benjamin Franklin: The Original American (June 30): A solo show.
5TH AVENUE THEATRE (1308 Fifth Ave, 625-1900, www.5thavenue .org) Damn Yankees (April 21–May 20): The 1955 musical about baseball and Satan.
TIM SUMMERS
M AU R E E N W H ITI N G AT O N TH E BOAR DS At NW New Works Festival (June 8–17), artists stretch themselves and try out new stuff. SPRING 2012
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fringe
T H E AT E R S Support independent theater! Sound Theatre Company presents
Freely Adapted by Tony Kushner from Pierre Cornielle’s L’Illusion Comique
August 9 – 26, 2012 Seattle Center House Theatre www.soundtheatrecompany.org Presented by arrangement with Broadway Play Publishing, Inc.
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A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE
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Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company—about a black family that moves into a white neighborhood. Act 1 begins in 1959, at a moment of demographic “white flight� in American cities. Act 2 begins in 2009 at the same house, as gentrification creeps in and changes the neighborhood again. One ensemble of actors plays both sets of characters. Directed by Braden Abraham, starring Peter Crook, Marya Sea Kaminski, Darragh Kennan, Kim Staunton, and other great Seattle actors.
TEATRO ZINZANNI ( 2 2 2 M e r c e r S t , 8 0 2 - 0 0 1 5 , w w w. d r e a m s .zinzanni.org) Caliente! (Through June 10): “Unleash your inner jalapeĂąoâ€? with Christine Deaver and Robert Lopez/El Vez, directed by Ricardo Salinas of Culture Clash.
THE TRIPLE DOOR (216 Union St, 838-4333, www.thetripledoor.net) Showgirls! The Movie, Hosted by David Schmader (April 17): Stranger writer David Schmader performs his annotated screening of Showgirls, which grew from cult performance hit into MGM-sanctioned extra on the 2004 Showgirls DVD. Dana Gould: Death Defying Adventures in Comedy (June 2): Comedy from Dana Gould (The Simpsons, Seinfeld, Conan O’Brien, lots more) as well as Cathy Sorbo, David Crowe, and Lee Callahan. Sandra Bernhard: I Love Being Me, Don’t You? (June 21–23): The comedian and writer performs with a four-piece band.
VILLAGE THEATRE (Issaquah and Everett, www.villagetheatre.org) It Shoulda Been You (Through April 22 in Issaquah; April 27–May 20 in Everett): A new musical by Brian Hargrove and Barbara Anselmi about a Jewish-Catholic wedding. The Producers (May 9–July 1 in Issaquah; July 6–29 in Everett)
Smaller Theaters ANNEX THEATRE (1100 E Pike St, 728-0933, www.annextheatre.org) Weird and Awesome with Emmett Montgomery (April 1, May 6, June 3): The comedy-variety show that staggers between pleasantly absurdist and creepily earnest. Spin the Bottle (April 6, May 4, June 1): Annex’s long-standing variety show that culls from all kinds of weird crap: dance, comedy, theater, music, performance art, clowning, short film, animal acts, and literary pornography. Team of Heroes: Behind Closed Doors (April 20–May 19): Another comic-book play by the team who brought you Alecto, Issue #1 two years ago, which Paul Constant described as a “complex joyride.� In this edition, they “go back in time to learn how Madame Mayhem gains her superpowers and get a look at the conflicted and mysterious history of the Team of Heroes.� Written by Alex Harris, directed by Jaime Roberts.
BURLESQUE
New Burlesque Breaks the Routine by Jessica Price
S
eattle burlesque is beginning to mutate beyond its conventional routine—enter, strip, applause, exit, rinse, repeat. Last fall, Central Cinema launched interactive, big-screen stripping to old exploitation ďŹ lms like Reform School Girls and Frankenhooker with Seattle’s ďŹ rst Burlesque-Along series. Regular Burlesque-Along performer Madisun Avenue also coproduces nontraditional shows including Metalesque! The monthly revue pairs live metal with cabaret and burlesque. Dancing might begin with traditional striptease to a Black Sabbath cover, grind through a little go-go dancing, and end with circus acts. “I don’t necessarily think burlesque has to mean taking your clothes off,â€? Madisun explains. “It’s about the tease—so a bendy, scantily-clad contortionist doesn’t have to actually remove anything to evoke the same reaction
Sideshow (May 1–16): Created and choreographed by Jenna Bean Veatch.
AROUET THEATER (Ballard Underground, 2220 NW Market St, 425-2983852, www.arouet.us) The House of Bernarda Alba (May 4–19): The Federico GarcĂa Lorca play about a widow who declares a traditional eight-year mourning period and proceeds to behave like a tyrant.
ARTSWEST (4711 California Ave SW, 938-0339, www.artswest. org) Exit, Pursued by a Bear (April 18–May 13): A worldpremier revenge comedy by Lauren Gunderson, directed by Keri Healey, about how a woman and two of her friends extract revenge (and redemption) from an abusive husband.
BALAGAN THEATRE (Erickson Theatre Off Broadway, 1524 Harvard Ave, www.balagantheatre.org) Death, Sex 3: Election Season! (April 5–14): In each Death, Sex, Balagan Theatre assembles a pack of short scripts—sometimes by local writers, sometimes not— that take a dark and comically perverse look at a given theme. This time around, it’s the election season with writers Wayne Rawley (Live! From the Last Night of My Life), Kelleen Conway Blanchard (Hearts Are Monsters), and nine others. The only real question: Can any of the plays possibly surpass the perverse xenophobia, sexism, booing of people who can’t afford medical insurance, and all-around sewer of aggressively vicious moronism that the Republican debates have unleashed on us so far? It’s going to be a challenge. Spring Awakening (April 20–29): Balagan remounts their popular January production of the musical about 19th-century German adolescents trying to figure things out. [title of show] (May 4–14): A musical about two guys who make a musical that blows up.
BOOK-IT REPERTORY THEATER (Center House Theater, Seattle Center, 216-0833, www. book-it.org) The Art of Racing in the Rain (April 17–May 13): Garth Stein’s novel about a race-car driver and his dog, told from the dog’s point of view.
CENTRAL DISTRICT FORUM (Venues vary, 323-4032, see www.cdforum.org for more info) CREATION Project Showcase (May 4–5): Presenting new work by Valerie Curtis-Newton and two “local and emerging black performing artists.� (Erickson Theatre Off Broadway, 1524 Harvard Ave, 323-4032) red, black, and GREEN: a blues (May 31–June 3): See Intiman.
GHOST LIGHT THEATRICALS (Ballard Underground, 2220 NW Market St, 395-5458, www.ghostlighttheatricals.org)
that someone else twirling tassels might.� Madisun and partner David Stern have a second spring project: Frank’s Wild Years, an homage to the Tom Waits album, which was originally written as a musical play. If there is a stocking removal, it will be because it suits the song—in the kingdom of Tom Waits, there is ample opportunity. Sinner Saint Burlesque, recently returned from London, is getting a directional nip/tuck from Diva le DÊviant (aka Sasha Summer Cousineau, from the Beebo Brinker Pulp Cabarets). Cousineau and Sinner Saint will write scripted shows with actual plots, beginning with a mockumentary titled Behind the Pasties. The idea is to move away from the increasingly redundant variety format into a narrative fusion of burlesque and cabaret. Let the innovation begin—getting naked is always more fun with someone who likes to try new things. Q
Metalesque!, Columbia City Theater, March 31 and April 20. A Burlesque Tribute to Tom Waits’s Frank’s Wild Years, Columbia City Theater, April 19 and 26. Behind the Pasties: A Burlesque Mockumentary, Noc Noc, March 22–May 10. SPRING 2012
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The Last Days of Judas Iscariot (April 6–22): A courtroom drama by Stephen Adly Guirgis about Christianity’s favorite scapegoat, with testimony by Mother Teresa, Satan, Sigmund Freud, and others.
MACHA MONKEY (Venues vary, 860-2970, see www.machamonkey.org for more info) Sweet Nothing: A Grim (Fairy) Tale (May 31–June 23): A new play by Stephanie Timm about a girl in a ravaged land who is offered a suspicious marriage to “a stranger across the sea.” (Annex Theatre, 1100 E Pike St, 728-0933)
MOISTURE FESTIVAL (Several venues, see www.moisturefestival.com for more info) (Through April 8): The annual comedy/varieté festival that grew out of the Oregon Country Fair and Seattle’s local cirque noir circles—aerialists, bands, comedy, juggling, clowning, all that good stuff.
NEW CENTURY THEATRE COMPANY (Venues vary, see www.wearenctc.org for more info) Pipeline (April 16, May 21, June 18): A monthly reading series by the folks at New Century Theatre Company. (Solo Bar, 200 Roy St, 213-0080, www.wearenctc.org)
NORTHWEST FILM FORUM (1515 12th Ave, 829-7863, www.nwfilmforum.org, 8 pm) Lauren Weedman: Single-Room Occupancy (May 17–19): The acclaimed writer and solo performer Lauren Weedman returns to Seattle with her latest work, another itchy comedic adventure, this one involving Weedman’s formative relationship with a horror-film-obsessed boyfriend.
OFFSHORE PROJECT AND CORIOLIS DANCE COLLECTIVE (Erickson Theatre Off Broadway, 1524 Harvard Ave, www.coriolisdance.com) Co-Lab 4: Coriolis Dance Collective and the Offshore Project (May 11–12): Rainbow Fletcher didn’t wait for the “official” dance world to notice her—the Cornish-trained dancer and choreographer launched her career by taking over the small stage at a cozy, red-lit club called the Can Can, tucked in a corner of Pike Place Market. She found a pack of well-trained, well-muscled dancers and made sexy, rigorous work that looks like modern dance wrapped in the thinnest layer of burlesque. She and the Can Can Castaways won an ardent nightlife following. In 2010, Fletcher took her show to NW New Works at On the Boards, brought in a few new folks and a new name (the Offshore Project), and won an entire new audience, this one made up of dance aficionados. This spring, the Offshore Project pairs with dance company Coriolis to try some more non-nightclub experiments. “The success and outcome of this show,” write Offshore artistic directors Fletcher and Ezra Dickinson, “will determine our next explorations as a group.” Given their explorations so far, this should be interesting.
RE-BAR (1114 Howell St, www.rebarseattle.com) Dina Martina: Ample Wattage! (Through April 22): Dina Martina, the psycho-drag/performance-art monster with delusions of celebrity, was incubated in Seattle before storming off to The Rest of the World™, where she won a pack of rabid followers, including Whoopi Goldberg and Margaret Cho. Dina always comes home for Christmas with her holiday special: psychedelic videos, painfully dangerous malapropisms, and fucked-up “gifts,” seemingly culled from truck stops in Oklahoma, that nobody would want unless they came from Dina. She’s a municipal treasure who belongs to the world now. But Ample Wattage! is a brand-new show with “new gifts! New video! New songs! New pretty!” Should be a gas.
RICHARD HUGO HOUSE (1634 11th Ave, 322-7030, www.hugohouse.org) A Short-Term Solution to a Long-Term Problem (Through April 14): The initial run, earlier this year, of A Short-Term Solution to a Long-Term Problem by solo performer David Schmader was so successful, Hugo House is bringing it back for another round. The monologue oscillates between two difficult poles: Schmader’s HIV diagnosis and the difficulties his partner’s Mormon family face as they try to square their religion with the fact that two of their children are gay. But Schmader, who also writes Last Days for The Stranger, is a master of finding the humane comedy in the midst of tragedy, and his Solution takes detours through David Lynch films, the world of child beauty pageants in the South, his childhood in Texas, his deep scholarship of the nuanced poetics of YouTube schadenfreude, and many other subjects. Riddled (June 1–23): A new solo show (with a backing band) by Stranger Genius Award–winner Marya Sea Kaminski, Riddled is about America’s fixation on guns and girls, as told through the story of a singer for the
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A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE
rock ’n’ roll band Bonnie Clyde. Directed by Braden Abraham, Riddled is a weave of fiction, historical research, and Kaminski’s real-life experiences growing up in a family that gave her her first gun as a childhood birthday present. Currently, Kaminski plans to bring one of her father’s M1 carbines for audience members who’ve never had the chance to hold a real gun.
SAINT GENET (Location to be decided, see www.saintgenet.org for more info) Sorrows: The Music of Saint Genet’s Transports of Delirium (June 20): Last autumn, Saint Genet—a performance company born from the ashes of Implied Violence along with new associates such as dancer/ choreographer Olivier Wevers and costume designer Anna Telcs—gave a series of “presentations” in the old concrete bunker formerly known as the Lawrimore Project. These ritualistic, sometimes shocking dancespectacles used gold leaf, leeches, blood, caul fat, pounds of flowers, honey, candles, BB guns, thousands of carefully placed stalks of dried grass, and more to explore themes inspired by the Jim Jones cult in Guyana. Saint Genet is planning a new spectacle—and partnering with Lawrimore Project and the Northwest Film Forum—on the release date of their Sorrows, a dual cassette of original music from the Transports.
SEATTLE CHILDREN’S THEATRE (201 Thomas St, 441-3322, www.sct.org) HELP (April 12–May 13): A play by Dutch company Theatergroep Max about the Beatles as boys. The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Other Eric Carle Favorites (May 3–June 14)
SEATTLE PUBLIC THEATER (Bathhouse Theater, 7312 W Green Lake Dr N, 5241300, www.seattlepublictheater.org) Back Back Back (March 30–April 22): A play by Itamar Moses about the turbulent private and professional lives of baseball players. Directed by Kelly Kitchens, starring Trick Dannecker, Ray Gonzalez, and Patrick Allcorn. This Wide Night (May 17–June 10): Chloe Moss’s play about two women ex-cons trying to make it on the outside. Directed by Sheila Daniels.
SEATTLE SHAKESPEARE COMPANY (Center House Theater, Seattle Center, 733-8222, www. seattleshakespeare.org) As You Like It (May 30–June 24): Directed by George Mount.
SPECTRUM DANCE THEATER (800 Lake Washington Blvd, 325-4161, www.spectrum dance.org. Performances happen in a variety of places; check the website for details) Notte di Mistero (April 7): A fundraiser at Town Hall to celebrate Spectrum’s 30th anniversary. Petruchska (April 13–22): Donald Byrd’s self-described “creep show” update of the old tragedy about a puppet in love, set to music by Stravinsky. Miraculous Mandarin (May 17–26): A Béla Bartók composition, reset as a story about drug gangsters and “their moll.” Love (June 21–30): A world premiere by Spectrum choreographer Donald Byrd about “the emotional exhilaration, damages, and the ecstasies of his life in regard to love,” set to Benjamin Britten’s cello suites.
STAGERIGHT (Freehold Theatre, 2222 Second Ave, 800-838-3006, www.seattlestageright.org) The Book of Liz (May 4–26): A sibling comedy by Amy and David Sedaris.
STONE SOUP THEATRE (DownStage Theatre, 4029 Stone Way N, 633-1883, www.stonesouptheatre.com) Double (XX) Fest (April 19–May 6): A three-week festival of short plays written and directed by women.
TAPROOT THEATRE (204 N 85th St, 781-9707, www.taproottheatre.org) Freud’s Last Session (Through April 21): Sigmund Freud invites a young C. S. Lewis over for tea and conversation.
THEATER SCHMEATER (1500 Summit Ave, 324-5801, www.schmeater.org) Entertaining Mr. Sloane (May 17–June 16): Joe Orton’s 1964 comedy about a smooth operator who rents a room in a boarding house and becomes an object of desire for a middle-aged sister and brother.
THEATRE OFF JACKSON (409 Seventh Ave S, 340-1049, www.theatreoffjackson .org) Not All Clowns Are Bozos IV: So You Think You Can Clown (April 5–8): A collection of clown performances.
SPF #6: Full Spectrum! (April 12–28): The sixth annual solo performance festival includes Purple Heart by Mike Mathieu (of the Stranger Genius Award–winning duo the Cody Rivers Show), Good Girl’s Guide: Dominatrix for Dummies by Eleanor O’Brien (about her attempt to become a pro domme in NYC), Miss Fanny’s Fun Box (written and directed by the deeply funny Kate Jaeger), and several others. Big Story Small (May 10–12): An evening of big, iconic plays that have been distilled into small, strong shots. The evening is produced by Pony World Theatre, which is building a good reputation for its intersections of classic and new work—the company’s last outing was an excellent office play called Suffering, Inc., built entirely of lines from Chekhov plays. The last Big Story Small, from 2010, included Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman by Brendan Healy, Ionesco’s The Chairs by Scot Augustson, Christopher Marlowe’s The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus by K. Brian Neel, The Collected Plays of August Strindberg, Henrik Ibsen, and Anton Chekhov as Presented in 90 Seconds by Brendan Healy, and several others.
VELOCITY DANCE CENTER (1621 12th Ave, 325-8773, www.velocitydancecenter. org)
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Marlo Martin and Dancers (April 27â&#x20AC;&#x201C;28) SCUBA: National Touring Network for Dance (May 4â&#x20AC;&#x201C;6): The SCUBA program fosters new dance work through a network of performance organizations, partnering dancers from different cities and providing tour support. This yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s SCUBA presentation will be Allie Hankins (Seattle), Alice Gosti (Seattle), and Gabrielle Revlock (Philadelphia). Revlock will perform her duet A Fork and Stick Thing, with original music, made entirely from words, by Jacob Mitas.
WASHINGTON ENSEMBLE THEATRE (608 19th Ave E, 325-5101, www.washington ensemble.org) Stuck (Through April 9): In 2008, a reclusive Kansas woman and her boyfriend stunned the world when police discovered she had been living (voluntarily) in her bathroom for the past two years and her body had fused to her toilet seat. Now, Washington Ensemble Theatre member Jessica Hatlo has written a worldpremier play inspired by the incident, about a couple who hides from the world (and their bills) and live only for each other, TV reruns, and bong hits. Bed Snake (May 11â&#x20AC;&#x201C;28): A concert-performance-play about the rise of rap duo Blood Kry$tal Wolf and all their strobe lights. Directed by Elise Hunt (who made her directing debut with Babs the Dodo, a forlorn comedy about lonely people who work at a TV-shopping network), Bed Snake stars WETâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s coâ&#x20AC;&#x201C; artistic directors Noah Benezra and Hannah Victoria Franklin, who recently gave a powerhouse performance as a self-destructive, stick-of-dynamite-of-acharacter in White Hot.
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(153 14th Ave, www.cafenordo.com) Cafe Nordoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Cabinet of Curiosities (May 4â&#x20AC;&#x201C;June 17): The Cafe Nordo seriesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;dinner with a side of theater that (mostly) avoids the clichĂŠs of â&#x20AC;&#x153;dinner theaterâ&#x20AC;?â&#x20AC;&#x201D;premiered back in 2009 with The Modern American Chicken. It was an impressionistic, multicourse meal about the life cycle of a farm chicken (during which you ate actual chickens at various stages of their lives), cooked up by fictional chef-madman Nordo Lefesczki. Since then, theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve served performance-arty dinners in chocolate factories and a large tree house at Smoke Farm. Their Cabinet of Curiosities will be a multiroom food installation at Washington Hall inspired by the bizarre, private Victorian museums known as â&#x20AC;&#x153;cabinets of wonder.â&#x20AC;?
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Cherdonna and Lou (April 13)
Point of Departure (May 11â&#x20AC;&#x201C;12): Talking about music is like dancing about architecture, they say. So what does that make dancing about architecture and particle science? Choreographer Karin Stevens and multimedia artist Craig van den Bosch have collaborated on a fulllength work about muqarnas-style domes in Islamic architecture and the Large Hadron Collider at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, buried beneath the border between France and Switzerland.
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WEST OF LENIN (203 N 36th St, www.sis-productions.org) Sex in Seattle, Part 20: Happily Ever After (April 27â&#x20AC;&#x201C;May 26): The final episode of the popular sex-serial with a focus on young Asian American women and their love lives. According to its press release, 78 actors have performed in the main-stage versions of Sex in Seattleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 20 episodes: 20 percent have been Filipino American, 11 percent Korean American, 10 percent Japanese American, 6 percent Chinese American, another 6 percent Vietnamese American, 4 percent Thai American, 1 percent East Indian American, 35 percent European American, 4 percent Latino, and 3 percent African American.
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SPRING 2012
31
SPRING CALENDAR
Seattle Flute Society: Flute Festival (April 15)
CLASSICAL MUSIC & OPERA by Jen Graves
SEATTLE SYMPHONY
The Matrix Live: Film in Concert (June 28–29)
(Benaroya Hall unless otherwise noted: 200 University St, 215-4700, www.seattlesymphony.org/benaroya)
Disney in Concert: Magical Music from the Movies (June 30)
Schwarz Conducts Mahler’s First Symphony (April 5–7)
SEATTLE OPERA
Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony (April 12–14): The best existential wallowing in the world can be done during a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony. In descriptive program notes commissioned by his patroness, the composer explained the first movement as a declaration that “all life is an unbroken alternation of hard reality with swiftly passing dreams and visions of happiness” where “no haven exists.” Seattle Symphony will be conducted by visiting Toronto Symphony music director Peter Oundjian. (Also on the program: Augustin Hadelich featured on Dvoˇrák’s Violin Concerto.) Beyond the Score: Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony (April 15): With narrator. Myung-Whun Chung and the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra (April 16) Trpˇc eski, Mälkki, Dutilleux (April 19–21): The ostensible highlight of these concerts is celebrated Macedonian pianist Simon Trpˇceski playing Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major, but there are added reasons to go. Dukas’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice (fun) is on the program, plus the American premiere of two folk tunes by Damir Imeri, the presence on the podium of Finnish conductor Susanna Mälkki (a female conductor is still rarely seen despite the success of Marin Alsop and a few others), and French composer Henri Dutilleux’s Symphony No. 1. Dutilleux is still living though seldom heard—he’d never been featured in Seattle until this season, when new music director Ludovic Morlot made it his project to honor the living master.
Hungarian Dances (May 4): Features József Lendvay Jr. Organ Concert: Joseph Adam (May 7)
JACK DEJOHNETTE TRIO featuring CHICK COREA and STANLEY CLARKE
Celebrating Jack’s 70th Birthday! Three Jazz Greats Performing Together for the First Time!
THU 6/14 - SUN 6/17
BILL FRISELL
Explores the Music of John Lennon THU 6/21 - SUN 6/24
SPECTRUM ROAD featuring Cindy Blackman Santana,
Jack Bruce (Cream), John Mediski (MMW) & Vernon Reid (Living Colour) THU 9/6 - SUN 9/9
BÉLA FLECK and the MARCUS ROBERTS TRIO
Multi-Grammy Award Winning Banjoist Joins Trio of the Classic Jazz Tradition
2033 6th Ave. | 206.441.9729 all ages | free parking full schedule at jazzalley.com
32
A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE
(Unless otherwise noted, events take place on the University of Washington campus at 15th Ave NE and NE 40th St, 685-2742, www.meany.org) Emerson String Quartet (April 17) Craig Sheppard: Mostly Brahms (April 20) Afghan Music with Homayoun Sakhi and Salar Nader (April 24; they perform again at another venue, SAAM, on April 29) Cedric Watson and Bijou Creole (April 28)
Angela Hewitt: Rameau, Bach, Couperin (May 15)
Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 2 (May 3, 5): Features Misha Keylin.
THU 5/10 - SUN 5/13
MEANY HALL
Brahms Piano Quartet, Op. 60 (April 22): With Simon Trpˇceski.
Young Composers: A Concert of World Premieres (May 1)
First Daughter of Soul
Madame Butterfly (May 5–20): Seattle Opera is allowed its warhorse: It hasn’t done Puccini’s Madame Butterfly in 10 years, and this production comes with distinguishing features. First, it’s the Seattle Opera debut of the woman who basically owns the title role worldwide today, Patricia Racette, a New Hampshire native who studied music education and jazz at the prestigious North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas) in Denton. Second, this is the first time Seattle Opera will offer a free simulcast. Eight thousand people will be able to watch and hear opening night, free of charge, at KeyArena (305 Harrison St, www.keyarena.com). Awesome.
Seattle Wind Symphony (May 6)
Sophie Lee (April 27): The 7-year-old violinist presents a community concert. (Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center, 104 17th Ave S, 684-4757)
LALAH HATHAWAY
Don Pasquale (April 1–7) with Seattle Opera Young Artists. (Meany Hall, 15th Ave NE and NE 40th St, 6852742, www.meany.org)
Pink Martini with the Seattle Symphony (April 20)
Schwarz Conducts Prokofiev and Shostakovich (April 26, 28)
THU 4/19 - SUN 4/22
(McCaw Hall unless otherwise noted: 321 Mercer St, 733-9725, www.seattleopera.org)
Bluebeard’s Castle (May 15, 17): With set design by Dale Chihuly.
JACK Quartet (May 18): Music by UW Composers. (Jones Playhouse, 4045 University Way NE, 543-4880) Seattle Youth Symphony (June 3)
SEATTLE ASIAN ART MUSEUM (1400 E Prospect St, 654-3100, www.seattleartmuseum .org) Along the Silk Road with Early Music Guild (April 7): First comes a narrated photographic lecture on the historic sites of the Silk Road, from China through the Middle East, followed by the concert. Visiting Japanese musician Tomoko Sugawara plays the ancient Kugo harp, invented in Iraq in 1900 BC, with percussion accompaniment.
Afghan Music with Homayoun Sakhi and Salar Nader (April 29): Homayoun Sakhi is part of a musical lineage in Kabul that goes back to the origins of Afghan classical music in the 1860s. He was born into a musical family living in the musical quarter of the city in 1976, but soon he became a refugee in Pakistan, and then, in 2001, he came to Fremont, California, where he lives. He’s considered the finest rabab player of his generation (rabab is a short-necked lute), and tonight he’ll perform both traditional music and new works with percussionist Salar Nader on tabla, whose family left Kabul during the Russian-Afghan war, making this an SOOTHING entire evening of diasporic sound. COCKTAILS
Mozart’s Requiem (May 18–19): If you are one of those people who has never heard a live performance of Mozart’s Requiem, you are aware that you could die any time, right? Marvin Hamlisch’s American Songbook (Pops) (May 31–June 3) Hugh Laurie with the Copper Bottom Band (June 4) Jesús López-Cobos conducts Capriccio espagnol (June 7, 9–10) Ravel and Dutilleux with Cristina Valdés (June 8) Symphony Sing-Along for the whole family (June 9) Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3 (June 14–17): With Stephen Hough. The Damnation of Faust (June 21, 23): The gentleman devil, the gnomes, the soldiers, the sylphs, the demons, the spirits, the young lady, the old scholar—Berlioz’s version of The Damnation of Faust is a spectacle featuring a bulging orchestra, a children’s choir, an adult chorale, and spotlighted soloists. New Seattle Symphony music director Ludovic Morlot is conducting, and word is that he’s excited. Benaroya will be bumping. Natalie Merchant with the Seattle Symphony (June 22)
WITHIN WALKING DISTANCE OF TOWN HALL
Primo It’s a friendly full bar in the (secret) most beautiful room in town. (1106 Eighth Ave, 547-7466) Sorrento Hotel Both the Fireside Room and the Hunt Club bar are marvelous spots for a posh adult beverage. (900 Madison St, 622-6400) Vito’s Experience the old-school Italiano-style glory, which pretty much requires a martini. (927 Ninth Ave, 397-4053)
Seattle Chinese Orchestra (April 20): It’s the only traditional Chinese orchestra in the Pacific Northwest— bow-stringed instruments (seated to the left of the conductor), plucked instruments (seated to the right of and in front of the conductor), woodwinds, and percussion (in back). Seattle Chinese Orchestra has 50 members, some of Chinese descent and others nonChinese scholars of the music, and they play everything from traditional to folk to contemporary. Boston Camerata (April 21): Alexander the Great is supposed to have said, “I would rather excel others in the knowledge of what is excellent than in the extent of my powers and dominion.” Easy for you to say, dominionizer. Still, the guy inspired all manner of song and poetry, and early-music group Boston Camerata, with Turkish music ensemble Dünya, promise to deliver Greatness. Alarm Will Sound (April 26): The New York Times calls this 20-member new-music band “the future of classical music” and “the very model of a modern music chamber band.” The program is juicy, with music by Aphex Twin, John Adams, Stefan Freund, Edgard Varèse, and an arrangement of the Beatles’ “Revolution 9.” Numbanine, numbanine, numbanine, numbanine. Seattle Baroque Orchestra and Tudor Choir (April 28): Every time you hear the Tudor Choir take a giant collective breath during their performance of Vivaldi’s Gloria in D, think of the composer, who had asthma. He had to stop playing woodwinds but ended up just fine as a violinist, composer, and priest (known for his red hair, he was nicknamed “The Red Priest”). Seattle Baroque Orchestra and the Tudor Choir give great Vivaldi—the baroque master is their wheelhouse. Simple Measures: Local Vocals featuring Seattle Girls’ Choir (April 29) Saturday Family Concerts: Message from Guinea (May 12) Thalia Symphony: Beethoven and Glazunov (May 12) Lake Union Civic Orchestra: All Tchaikovsky (June 15) Joshua Roman & an All-Cello Ensemble (June 19): You love him. You really love him. Who wouldn’t? Joshua Roman is a curly-headed Dionysus of a cellist. He was once the youngest principal player in Seattle Symphony. Though he broke off to pursue his own career, he oversees classical music at Town Hall and still pops up now and again, including in this program with an all-cello ensemble in a program featuring a commission by musician/DJ/composer Mason Bates, plus works by Piazzolla and Strauss. Onyx Chamber Players: Music from America & the British Isles (June 24)
CORNISH COLLEGE OF THE ARTS (710 E Roy St, 726-5151, www.cornish.edu) Cristina Valdés (April 14): Admit it: If you love classical music already, at least a small part of you craves the thrill of obscurity. Odds are you’ve probably never heard of Latin American composers Carlos SanchezGutierrez, Orlando Garcia, Jorge Grossmann, Mario Lavista, and German Caceres—despite the fact that they’re leaders in their obscure field. Cornish adjunct faculty pianist Cristina Valdes plays them. Gamelan Pacifica & Midiyanto (May 12): If you’ve never heard a Javanese gamelan—the Indonesian percussive orchestra—make a point of it. Featuring traditional and new music, and performer Ki Midiyanto.
THE ESOTERICS (Venues vary, 935-7779, www.theesoterics.org) Ekstase: Approaching ecstasy with Whim W’Him (May 18–20) is a concert-length choral ballet. (Intiman Theatre, 201 Mercer St, 269-1900)
TOWN HALL
Antama (June 29–30, July 1): The Esoterics are a thrilling a cappella group that does just what their name promises: they perform music you haven’t heard elsewhere, and aren’t likely to. Led by Eric Banks, this late spring concert is a series of works on the theme of community by lesbian and gay composers, including David Conte, Frank Ferko, Robert Kyr, Steven Sametz, Donald Skirvin, Joan Szymko, and Karen Thomas. (All Pilgrims Christian Church, 500 Broadway E)
(1119 Eighth Ave, 652-4255, www.townhallseattle.org)
NORTHWEST SINFONIETTA
Thalia Symphony Orchestra: Frances Walton Opera Gala (April 1) Seattle Rock Orchestra: Poetry Apocalypse 2012 (April 6): After the apocalypse, future generations may find nothing of Seattle except for the original score and libretto for this evening’s performance, written by a gang of spoken/written poets and rock classicists. Poets include Roberto Ascalon, Karen Finneyfrock, Tara Hardy, and Soulchilde/Okanomode (also performing as a tenor), and Buddy Wakefield, with Seattle Rock Orchestra and soprano Annie Jantzer. Lake Union Civic Orchestra: An American in Paris (April 13)
(Benaroya Hall, 200 University St, 215-4700, www. seattlesymphony.org/benaroya) Christophe Chagnard and the Northwest Sinfonietta (April 27) fly beneath the radar, though they’re treasures of the local classical scene. The orchestra is midsize, fresh and light, not a booming Beethovian band—its specialty is nuance. This program plays to that strength, with Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 1, Saint-Saëns’s Cello Concerto No. 1 (soloist: David Requiro), and Mendelssohn’s “Italian” Symphony (No. 4). After this Benaroya Hall performance, repeat concerts are April 28 at the Rialto Theater in Tacoma and April 29 at Pioneer Park Pavilion in Puyallup. Schwarz conducts Beethoven (June 1): After this Benaroya Hall performance, there are repeat concerts June 2 at the Rialto Theater in Tacoma and June 3 at Pioneer Park Pavilion in Puyallup.
SPRING CALENDAR
ALL THAT JAZZ
HIP HOP, SALSA, TANGO, WEST EN E W COASTGRSWING, T VALUEAST EABACHATA, N COAST SWING, IO N S E S D SE HID X TAP, NO WALTZ, LINDY ! HOP VERY SI EES E F HIP HOP, E E K S SALSA, TANGO, WEST W COAST SWING, EAST COAST FUN! WALTZ, TAP, SWING, BACHATA, BLE!SALSA, DAHOP, LINDYAF HOP FORHIP TANGO, WEST THY! SWING, LCOAST HEASWING, EAST COAST ME! O ELCBACHATA, ES W WALTZ, LINDY HOP HIP SINGLTAP, 60 HOP, SALSA, TANGO, NLY $WEST O S K E E W 5 SWING, ! COAST SONCOAST PEREAST PERBACHATA, SWING, WALTZ, COUNTS OR DIS EARLY FHOP, TAP, BACHATA PAY LINDY
A Guide to Jazz Clubs in Seattle by Charles Mudede Dimitriouâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Jazz Alley (2033 Sixth Ave, 441-9729, www.jazzalley.com) This is the place to hear national and international jazz acts nearly every night of the week. If you live in Seattle and have not heard of Jazz Alley, then itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s possible you have never heard of jazz music. Tulaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s (2214 Second Ave, 443-4221, www.tulas.com) If Jazz Alley is about national/international acts, Tulaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s is all about our cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s jazz talent. Tulaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s and Jazz Alley are downtownâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s main jazz planets. Eganâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Ballard Jam House (1707 NW Market St, 789-1621, www.ballard jamhouse.com) This establishment has a strong commitment to young jazz performers. Indeed, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hard to tell if itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a club or a school, and this confusion is meaningful because the original place for a jazz education was not a school like Cornish but a club like Eganâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s. Jazz and blues happen here from Tuesdays to Saturdays. The Triple Door (216 Union St, 838-4333, www.thetripledoor .com) This popular downtown spot always has jazz on Mondays and lots of jazz shows on its calendar. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s especially great when people play jazz near that huge fish tank in the bar. It feels very noirish. Royal Room (5000 Rainier Ave S, 906-9920, www.theroyal roomseattle.com) Though partly owned by one of the stars of Seattleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s jazz scene, Wayne Horvitz, the Royal Room isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t strictly a jazz club. On some nights, you may hear African music; on others, rock. But on Wednesday night, you can always catch the Royal Jazz Session, which features Brendan Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Donnell (guitar), Carmen Rothwell (bass), Chris Icasiano (drums), and Gus Carns (piano). Serafina (2043 Eastlake Ave E, 323-0807, www.serafina seattle.com) This restaurant hosts live jazz (trios and duos) on the weekends. Monaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s (6421 Latona Ave NE, 526-1188, www.monas seattle.com) This bistro and lounge hosts live jazz Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. They also have a 9-to10 pm happy hour. Vitoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s (927 Ninth Ave, 397-4053, www.vitosseattle .com) Jazz happens here on almost every night. Ron Weinstein Trio, Michael Navedo Quartet, Darrius Willrich Trio, and Jerry Zimmerman are some of the acts that contribute to Vitoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s defining mood, which is somewhere between â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Velvet Fogâ&#x20AC;? and â&#x20AC;&#x153;Lush Life.â&#x20AC;? Hiroshiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s (2501 Eastlake Ave E, 726-4966, www.hiroshis .com) Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Friday night, and suddenly you have the urge to eat sushi and listen to live jazz. Where to go? The answerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s easy: Hiroshiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s. Lucid Jazz Lounge (5241 University Way NE, 402-3042, www.lucid seattle.com) This jazz joint has a great atmosphere and a calendar that features solid jazz acts like the Kareem Kandi Band and the Cornish-educated/ NYC-based jazz singer Kelly Ash. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s open Wednesday through Saturday and thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s never a cover. Barça (1510 11th Ave, 325-8263, www.barcaseattle .com) Jazz happens here every Thursday. And this jazz, which happens for free, is performed by Phil Sparks and Adam Kessler from 9 pm until midnight.
SOME OF THAT JAZZ What Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m Most Looking Forward to This Spring by Charles Mudede APRIL 12â&#x20AC;&#x201C;15 McCoy Tyner McCoy Tyner is, of course, one of the greatest pianists of jazzâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s post-bop, modern period. He made his mark in the first half of the â&#x20AC;&#x2122;60s as a member of John Coltraneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s classic quartet (it included Elvin Jones on the drums and Jimmy Garrison on bass). In the late â&#x20AC;&#x2122;60s and early â&#x20AC;&#x2122;70s, he released a series of albums that never swerved into the chaos of free jazz and the dead end of fusion. The modernist poet Ezra Pound once wrote that â&#x20AC;&#x153;music begins to atrophy when it departs too far from the danceâ&#x20AC;Ś poetry begins to atrophy when it gets too far from music.â&#x20AC;? During his peak, Tyner managed to be innovative without departing from the dance (free jazz) or completely surrendering to it (fusion). (Jazz Alley, 2033 Sixth Ave, 441-9729, www.jazzalley.com)
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TUES APRIL 17 Josh Deutsch Quintet Deutsch is a trumpeter and composer who currently lives in NYC but was trained in our public school systemâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;he learned the trumpet at Washington Middle School and Garfield High School. His advanced education in music, however, was obtained from the old and very noble New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. Deutsch is an intellectual; he really does know a lot about music. As a consequence, those who attend his show tonight will be exposed to the more serious (but not unmusicalâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Deutsch does not make noise) side of jazz performance and composition. (Royal Room, 5000 Rainier Ave S, 906-9920, www. theroyalroomseattle.com)
MON MAY 14 Amina Figarova Born in Azerbaijan (â&#x20AC;&#x153;the largest country in the Caucasus region of Eurasiaâ&#x20AC;?) and trained in Rotterdam Conservatory and Berklee College of Music in Boston, Amina Figarova is a composer and a pianist who has a very polished and full sound. She is not fast or intricate or super-sensitive; she is stable, strong, and confident. Indeed, when she plays, you do feel like you are in good hands. If you want a great way into her music, I recommend listening to the album Above the Clouds. (Jazz Alley, 2033 Sixth Ave, 441-9729, www.jazzalley.com)
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SAT JUNE 16 The Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra Tonight, Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra pays respect to one of the most significant movements in the cultural history of our country, the Harlem Renaissance. SRJO will provide the music of the moment (the 1920s and 1930s) and KPLUâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Robin Lloyd will provide a narration that captures its literary atmosphere. I highly recommend a dinner at Kingfish Cafe before this performance. (Benaroya Hall, 200 University St, 215-4700, www.seattlesymphony.org/benaroya)
JUNE 19â&#x20AC;&#x201C;20 Benny Green Trio Two things make this show worth mentioning: One, Benny Green is, of course, a brilliant jazz pianist (he is often compared to Bud Powell, one of the founders of bebop and a major influence on pianists ranging from Bill Evans to McCoy Tyner). Two, in my opinion, the best mode for a jazz pianist to explore his/her sound is a trio (piano, bass, drums). This show is for the lovers of hardcore, no-nonsense jazz. (Jazz Alley, 2033 Sixth Ave, 441-9729, www.jazzalley.com)
Open 2pm - 2am Happy Hour 2-6pm 719 E. Pike St â&#x20AC;˘ Seattle â&#x20AC;˘ 206.245.1390 saintjohnsseattle.com â&#x20AC;˘ Find us on Facebook SPRING 2012
33
AT EDMONDS COMMUNITY COLLEGE
What can you do at the Black Box Theatre? Comedy Hour every Frida
y and Saturday
Concerts
Plays
Dance pe
rformance
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discussion panels Conferences, meetings, Special events and more
Insert your event idea here:
For more information on events, visit our website. For information on rental, call: 425.640.1629 www.BlackBoxEdcc.org @BlackBoxEdCC 34
A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE
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SPRING CALENDAR
Hall, 7:30 pm, $15)
FRI APRIL 27
READINGS & LECTURES by Paul Constant SUN APRIL 1 Emerald City Comicon In just 10 years, Emerald City Comicon has grown from an underwhelming collection of retailers and a few local comic book professionals into the biggest comic book convention in the Pacific Northwest. Sunday, the last day of the convention, is a great time to get some serious bargains; most vendors are willing to haggle rather than cart all those heavy books and comics back home. This is the beginning of the High Holy Days of Seattleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nerd calendar, culminating with next weekâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Norwescon. (Washington State Convention Center, 800 Convention Place, www.emeraldcity comicon.com, 10 amâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;5 pm, $20â&#x20AC;&#x201C;$45)
WED APRIL 4 Jonathan Haidt In his book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, Jonathan Haidt, a professor of social psychology, argues that morality â&#x20AC;&#x153;closes hearts and minds to opponents even as it makes cooperation and decency possible within groups.â&#x20AC;? Why does the quest for goodness turn some of us into such huge assholes? Is there a point at which morality stops being evolutionarily useful? Is there any way to reconcile your own morality with that of others? Haidt will answer all of your questions on the topic in his appearance at Town
Elliott Bay Book Company (1521 10th Ave, 624-6600, www.elliott baybook.com) Readings and events (including kidsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; story time) happen nearly every day; also presents off-site events with Seattle Public Library, Town Hall, Benaroya Hall, and local museums. University Book Store (4326 University Way NE, 634-3400, www .ubookstore.com) At nine locations, various kinds of readings and events (including kid-friendly ones) practically every day. Third Place Books/Ravenna Third Place Books (www.thirdplacebooks.com) Kidsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; story time every Saturday morning, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Science on Tapâ&#x20AC;? in Ravennaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s basement pub every last Monday of the month, and tons of other events.
Hall, after which a blissful calm will settle over you after all these years of existential doubt. (Town Hall, 7:30 pm, $5) Heidi Julavits Heidi Julavitsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s debut novel, The Mineral Palace, was as raw and tender a depiction of sorrow as youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve ever read, and her next two books, The Effect of Living Backwards and The Uses of Enchantment, were both Nabokovian identity-twisters. While Julavitsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s newest novel, The Vanishers, continues to explore the idea of grief, the book looks to be enough of a departure from her usual formulaâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s about a pair of dueling psychics, for one thingâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;that readers familiar with her intricate language and intense style of magical realism should already be licking their lips with anticipation. (University Book Store, 7 pm, free)
APRIL 5â&#x20AC;&#x201C;8 Norwescon 35 Seattle is the nerdiest city in the United States, and Norwescon is the sci-fi convention that helped put us on the nerd map. Every year, the biggest names in science fiction gather at the aseptic but aesthetically neutral DoubleTree hotel by SeaTac airport to attend panels, get their books signed, and dance the night away at any number of the sexy sci-fi themed afterparties. In addition to all the festivities,
Open Books (2414 N 45th St, 633-0811, www.open poetrybooks.com) A poetry-dedicated bookstore with readings at least once a week: Thursday, Friday, or Saturday evenings, or Sunday afternoons. Eagle Harbor Book Co. (157 Winslow Way E, Bainbridge Island, 842-5332, www.eagleharborbooks.com) Readings of various sorts at least once a week, mostly Thursday evenings and Sunday afternoons, often both. Seattle Mystery Bookshop (117 Cherry St, 587-5737, www.seattle mystery.com) A local mystery author reads every month, coinciding with First Thursday Art Walk, along with book signings once or twice a month. The Book Larder (4252 Fremont Ave N, 397-4271, www
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costumes, and paraphernalia, Norwescon is host to the annual Philip K. Dick Award, which is consistently the most interesting sci-fi-themed book award in the business. If youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve ever loved a sci-fi book, movie, or TV show, chances are youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll find something to love in SeaTac this weekend. (DoubleTree, 18740 International Blvd, www.norwescon. org, 9 am, $30â&#x20AC;&#x201C;$70)
WED APRIL 11 Sister Spit Poetry Slam with Michelle Tea and Dorothy Allison The original queer-tastic spoken word performance group Sister Spit comes to town for National Poetry Month with a few new names, a multimedia performance, and a living legend or two. It wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t really be Sister Spit without its ringmaster, the beloved Michelle Tea, who chose some big new names on the scene to accompany her on the road: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Mr. Transman 2010â&#x20AC;? Kit Yan, playwright Erin Markey, and Brontez Purnell. And the special guest is Dorothy Allison, whose brave and furious semiautobiographical novel Bastard Out of Carolina ought to be required reading for every high school graduate in the United States. (Hugo House, 8 pm, $20)
SAT APRIL 14 Rachel Maddow If youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not nursing an enormous honking
.booklarder.com) A community cookbook store that offers classes, demos, and signings several times a month. Left Bank Books (92 Pike St, 622-0195, www.leftbank books.com) A collectively owned nonprofit bookstore with an anarchist/leftist/radical focus with readings once or twice a month. Town Hall (1119 Eighth Ave, 625-4255, www.town hallseattle.org) Hosts Seattle Arts & Lectures series and a variety of other literary events several times a week. Benaroya Hall (200 University St, 215-4747, www.seattle symphony.org/benaroya) Hosts Seattle Arts & Lectures one to three times a month.
on Capitol Hill.
Real books. Real people.
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crush on Rachel Maddow, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re doing life wrong. Maddow is the rarest of cable news hosts; sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s smart, funny, and genuinely concerned with the truth. If the doubters need further proof that sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a real intellectual force, her new book, Drift, isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t some hugefont reprinting of Rachel Maddow Show content. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an examination of how the American military has basically detached itself from the government, making it too easy for the United States to declare perpetual war. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s refreshing to see someone making a case against the military-industrial complex (known in polite company as â&#x20AC;&#x153;Halliburtonâ&#x20AC;?) in such clear, concise prose. (Town Hall, 4 pm, $5)
TUES APRIL 17 A Tribute to Anthony Shadid Anthony Shadid was one of the special ones: A brave journalist who used beautiful language to tell the truth about the conflicts that shape the Middle East. When the news of his death broke in February, many who knew himâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;including some of us here at The Strangerâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;were crushed by the loss. We are fortunate, at least, that Shadid left a memoir behind. House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t some kind of rush-job, or piecemeal document assembled from notes and fragments. The book, which documents the reconstruction of Shadidâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s home and the story of his Lebanese American family, was already scheduled to be published this spring. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s one last gorgeous firework of a book from a writer who died way too young. (Town Hall, 7:30 pm, $5)
WED APRIL 25 Etgar Keret Young Israeli writer/filmmaker Etgar Keret has been boldly assaulting the idea of what makes a short story work. His short fiction is surreal, but heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not a surrealist. The stories are full of fantastic elements, but heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not a sci-fi writer. He writes about love, but heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not a romantic. Often, Keretâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s brief, absurd storiesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;start with his collection The Nimrod Flipout if youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re looking for a way into Keretâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s headâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;will end with something like a punch line, a twist from nowhere that completely changes the meaning of the cartoonish reality he has painted for us. That quick little bit of turbulence is a great metaphor for the way Keret has changed the rules of fiction; itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s easy to imagine a realistic naturalist like Raymond Carver bloodying his own forehead in frustration when confronted with one of Keretâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s books. Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s at the forefront of a generational shift, and it looks to be a beautiful one. (Town
Seattle Poetry Slam: The 2012 Grand Slam What better way to celebrate the close of National Poetry Month than a competition that pits poet against poet in a high-stakes game of literary Mortal Kombat? The Grand Slam is the culmination of a seasonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s worth of Seattleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s spoken-word competition, meaning that the winner at this thing will be crowned the King or Queen of Seattle Poetry for the next year. The change of venue, from the boozy cafes they usually perform in to the churchlike Town Hall, seems to raise the stakes for the performers. Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not just in a down-and-dirty competition where a well-timed fart joke can win the day: This is time for them to bring out their serious Rocky shit, the real hard stuff. (Town Hall, 7:30 pm, $15)
SUN APRIL 29 David Sedaris Exactly once a yearâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;like Santa or the Easter Bunny or some other mythical creatureâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; David Sedaris visits Seattle and sprinkles us with laughter and joy. Like Christmas, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an event thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eagerly anticipated by children of all ages. Like Easter, it features a sacred, age-old ceremonyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Sedaris shares three or four longer pieces, mixed with shorter one-liners culled from recent journal entries, and then audience questions. Last Sedarismas was the best year ever. When the audience finally stopped laughing and started up their phones again, they learned that while Sedaris was entertaining the pants off of them, Osama bin Laden had been killed. Brave and mighty is our giver of laughter! May he proffer such blessings upon us again this year! (Benaroya Hall, 7 pm, $38â&#x20AC;&#x201C;$47)
WED MAY 2 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s play Two Truths and a Lie about Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. 1. The 34-year-old author was born in Nigeria to Nigeriaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first-ever professor of statistics and the first-ever female registrar at the University of Nigeria. 2. Her books Purple Hibiscus, Half of a Yellow Sun, and The Thing Around Your Neck have won awards, been best sellers, and charmed the pants off of critics in the United States and Nigeria. 3. She once punched out James Frey in a bar fight, and kept his $700 Berluti loafers as a trophy. They remain on her mantel to this day. The correct answer is number 3â&#x20AC;Ś or is it? (Benaroya Hall, 7:30 pm, $15â&#x20AC;&#x201C;$50)
FRI MAY 4 Corey Marks Marks has been published in virtually any poetry magazine you can name. Here, from the Threepenny Review, is the beginning of his poem â&#x20AC;&#x153;Dumb Luckâ&#x20AC;?: â&#x20AC;&#x153;The horseâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;its number smudged/by sweat and thumbs nuzzling/predictable exactas/stamped in blackâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;stumbles/at the last, run too hard, run/beyond what her ankles could bearâ&#x20AC;Śâ&#x20AC;? Under the wild hoofbeats, you can practically hear the terrible fall that is to come. His work is full of gorgeous, terrifying little details. Unfortunately, detail poetsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;unlike
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big-idea poets, who write like they suffer from pendiarrhea—are slow to produce sizable new chunks of work. Marks will be in town in support of his new collection, The Radio Tree, which is his first book in over a decade. (Open Books, 7:30 pm, free)
FRI MAY 11 Alison Bechdel The problem with true comic book greatness is that it takes a long time. Not only do artists have to write a whole brilliant book, they have to draw it, ink it, and letter it too. So in case you need a refresher, Alison Bechdel’s memoir Fun Home was the kind of comic book that changes lives—the portrait of Bechdel’s deeply closeted father was so tender, and so unforgiving, that many readers came away from the book with Bechdel’s thoughtful, literate, distinctive voice echoing around in their heads like a favorite song. Her long-awaited second memoir, Are You My Mother?, is a portrait of Bechdel’s mother, who, when Bechdel was 7, decided without any warning to never touch her daughter ever again. (And, yes, the title is a reference to the adorable children’s book.) (University Book Store, 7 pm, free)
SAT MAY 12 Melissa Dickey and Zach Savich UW graduate Melissa Dickey is the author of the poetry collection The Lily Will, which includes a poem about a three-inch baby born to a woman who “put it in a dark cloth contraption/so it would feel more comfortable./ Then she shook it around.” Zach Savich, also a UW grad, is the author of the very good poetry collection Full Catastrophe Living. Hopefully his new one, The Firestorm, will continue with Savich’s trend of highly intelligent poems shot through with the occasional terrific bit of earthy surprise, as with a reference to the “innards” of bread bowls at a chowderhouse at which Savich worked. (Open Books, 7:30 pm, free)
TUES MAY 15 Matthew Dickman and Michael Dickman A lazy blurb writer would be sure to lead with the fact that Matthew and Michael Dickman are identical twin poets. It’s a tiny touch of the freak show, and just enough to catch a prurient eye. We’re better than that here. Aren’t we? Oh, what the hell: Matthew and Michael Dickman are identical twin poets. It’s not like they’re hiding their family ties, though their poetry is anything but identical. Matthew’s poems are more traditional in style than Michael’s, which sometimes look like jagged tears across the page. The brothers often travel in a pack of two. They want you to remember that they’re two different people, even as some part of your dumb lizard brain can’t stop noticing that they look exactly alike. (Benaroya Hall, 7:30 pm, $20–$35)
THURS MAY 17 Jim Lynch Olympia author Jim Lynch is best known for his debut novel, The Highest Tide, which had to do with a lonesome young boy who finds a giant squid, causing a media firestorm. His newest novel, Truth Like the Sun, is set in the Seattle of two very different eras— as we sat on the cusp of an enormous boom in 2001 and during the World’s Fair in 1962, when the world first took notice of us. It’s a book that reportedly doesn’t shy away from politics, and no less a critic than Jonathan freakin’ Raban has raved about it. That’s enough to get us very excited. (Eagle Harbor Book Co., 7:30 pm, free) John Irving It is absolutely true that John Irving’s last few novels have been awful. The Fourth Hand was basically a pitch to George Clooney to star in the film version, and Until I Find You was a paean to Irving’s penis in novel form. In One Person’s big hook is that its main character is bisexual, which is not promising—in interviews, Irving sounds smug to have discovered this lost demographic—but you don’t go to see John Irving read because you’re hopeful for his new work. You go to see John Irving read because A Prayer for Owen Meany and The Hotel New Hampshire and The World According to Garp are still three of your favorite novels of all time, and you have to go pay your goddamned respect. (Town Hall, 7 pm, $TBD)
THURS MAY 24 Greg Rucka Portland author Rucka is that rare talent who is equally gifted when it comes to writing novels and comic books. His Atticus Kodiak series of thrillers are well-loved by fans of mysteries, and his comics (especially the spy thriller series Queen & Country and the Portland-based mystery series Stumptown) are practically hailed as classics as soon as they’re published. His newest novel, Alpha, is about a hostage expert who steps in when a dirty bomb is hidden inside the world’s largest theme park. (Seattle Mystery Bookshop, noon, free) Paul Krugman How often do you get a chance to see a real, live Nobel Prize–winner in the flesh for a measly five damn
dollars? (Granted, it’s just a Nobel Prize for economics, but still…) Paul Krugman, who has been praised by virtually everyone with a pulse for his books The Great American Unraveling and The Conscience of a Liberal, will offer a lecture titled “An Economist’s Take on 2012.” Will the good guys win in the November election? Krugman might have the answers you seek. (Town Hall, 7:30 pm, $5)
SUN MAY 27 Meredith Cole The poet is the author of a collection titled Miniatures. If you were to scour the internet for information about Miniatures, you would not discover very much information. A mystery! (Open Books, 3 pm, free)
FRI JUNE 1 David Westin Westin, a former president of ABC News, will read from his book Exit Interview, which is jam-packed full of his impressions about the television journalism industry. Are TV news anchors really filthy sex perverts when the cameras are off? Find out tonight! (Note: You probably won’t find out tonight.) (Town Hall, 7:30 pm, $5) Dana Levin Published by great Port Townsend poetry press Copper Canyon last year, Sky Burial is a poetry collection about Aztec sacrifices and Tibetan sky burial. Which is to say, it’s obsessed with death, but in the best way possible. (Open Books, 7:30 pm, free)
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SAT JUNE 9 Jeanne Matthews Bone Reapers is a mystery about a vault at the Arctic Circle where samples of seeds are kept in case of atomic war or a global-scale apocalypse. A private investigator gets involved, somehow. (Seattle Mystery Bookshop, noon, free)
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MON JUNE 11 Christopher Buckley Buckley is known and loved for his political satires—he wrote Thank You for Smoking, which was better than the pretty-damn-good movie adaptation. His newest is They Eat Puppies, Don’t They?, a novel about a lobbyist who starts a rumor that the Dalai Lama has been targeted for assassination in order to sell a fancy new weapons system to the US government. Hilarity ensues, but probably not as much hilarity as in Buckley’s earlier novels. (Town Hall Seattle, 7:30 pm, $5)
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Gail Collins The New York Times columnist—who is way better than New York Times columnist David Brooks, which is unfortunately faint praise—reads from her new nonfiction book, As Texas Goes… How the Lone Star State Hijacked the American Agenda. (Town Hall, 7:30 pm, $5)
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TUES JUNE 19 Andrew Blum Remember when that old fuddy-duddy Senator Ted Stevens called the internet “a series of tubes”? Journalist Andrew Blum argues that he wasn’t entirely wrong in Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet, which explores the physical structure of the internet. This looks fascinating (especially if you’re a terrorist). (Town Hall, 7:30 pm, $5)
THURS JUNE 21 Sharma Shields Spokane author Sharma Shields’s new short story collection, Favorite Monster, is packed with cyclopses and werewolves and the occasional serial killer or two. But before that turns you off, you should consider the names at the bottom of the glowing blurbs on the back of the book: J. Robert Lennon and Stewart O’Nan. Suck on that, lit-snob. (University Book Store, 7 pm, free)
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MON JUNE 25 Alafair Burke The up-and-coming young mystery novelist, who was a deputy district attorney in Portland, is known for her sharp, strong female characters. At press time, not much information was available about Never Tell. (Seattle Mystery Bookshop, noon, free)
TUES JUNE 26 Hiromi Goto Hiromi Goto represents the kind of wild productivity that you don’t see in modern authors. Rather than churning out one book every five years, she’s written award-winning young adult novels (and not just any crappy award; The Kappa Child won the very interesting James Tiptree, Jr. Award), a collection of short stories, and a long poem. She’s also reportedly working on a comic book. Goto writes vividly of the mixture of cultures and the exploration of heritage, while still throwing in heaps of Neil Gaiman–style horror at every opportunity. Catch her on the way up, because you’re going to be paying a lot more the next time she’s in town. (University Book Store, 7 pm, free)
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SPRING CALENDAR
FILM
by David Schmader, Charles Mudede, and Anna Minard
Festivals & Series APRIL 5–MAY 24 Shadow Street: The Best of British Film Noir (Seattle Art Museum, 1300 First Ave, 6543100, www.seattleartmuseum.org) Seattle Art Museum’s film series “Shadow Street” explores the dark underbelly of British reserve. Beyond double crosses and low-life crime, SAM’s British noir series morphs into war propaganda, science fiction, and sex-drenched psychodrama. Some highlights of the series: Odd Man Out (April 12): Directed by Carol Reed—creator of the impeccable The Third Man—this 1947 film charts the daily life of a Northern Irish city embroiled in ever-more-confrontational (and illegal) political unrest. These Are the Damned (May 10): The 1963 sciencefiction noir about an American divorcé who stumbles upon mysterious island of naked— and radioactive!—children. Deep End (May 24): A 1970 drama concerning a 15-year-old boy who takes a job at a London bathhouse and soon finds himself providing odd erotic services for the female patrons. Bonus: Prominently features the song “Mother Sky” by krautrock masters Can!
APRIL 14–22 Langston Hughes African American Film Festival (Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center, 104 17th Ave S, www.langstonblackfilm fest.org) In January 2010, the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center shut its doors for an extensive upgrade/makeover/renovation. This spring, after two years of multiple temporary locales, the Langston Hughes African American Film Festival comes home to a restored grand hall lobby area and an auditorium with freshly upholstered seats (plus 13 renovated bathrooms). Some highlights of the festival: An Uncommon Woman: This French-language comedy is set in West Africa’s Burkina Faso, where a wife, exhausted by her husband’s infidelity, decides to take a second husband. Drawing from conversations with polygamist wives, director Abdoulaye Dao crafts a conjugal-switcheroo spin on Freaky Friday (minus the waterskiing). Keeper of the Flame: This family drama is set in hurricane and flood-ravaged New Orleans, where Mardi Gras Indian culture serves as a pillar of the African American community, and where conflict arises when the Big Chief dies and passes leadership of the tribe to his young grandson. Marriage Equality: Byron Rushing and the Fight for Fairness: This documentary pays tribute to a hero in the fight for marriage equality, Massachusetts representative Byron Rushing, a veteran of the civil rights movement who took his state’s campaign for same-sex-marriage rights into African American communities, directly challenging religious leaders and advocating for samesex marriage as a civil-rights issue on par with the fight for racial equality.
APRIL 19–MAY 2 Cinerama’s First Annual Science Fiction Festival Seattle’s most gorgeous cinema spends two weeks geeking out with a festival of science fiction and nothing but. Go for the classic/beloved/lost/underrated sci-fi, stay for the freakishly delicious chocolate popcorn. (Cinerama, 2100 Fourth Ave, 4486680, www.cinerama.com)
MAY 1–10 Notes on the Cinematographer: The Films of Robert Bresson (Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave, 829-7863, www.nwfilmforum.org) NWFF pays tribute to the master with
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a 10-day festival featuring a wealth of Bresson delights. Some highlights of the series: The Trial of Joan of Arc (May 3): Keeping with the style of Bresson’s mature films, 1962’s The Trial of Joan of Arc uses nonprofessional actors—aka regular people—this time to dramatize the trial and rehabilitation of the woman who would be Saint Joan. Having crafted an extremely spare and restrained film, Bresson bristled at comparisons with The Passion of Joan of Arc, mocking the “grotesque buffooneries” in Carl Theodor Dreyer’s 1928 film. Lancelot of the Lake (May 8): Demanding a purposeful lack of emotion from his actors, Bresson’s 1974 film presents Arthurian legend devoid of fantasy, offering instead an unglamorously bloody portrait of the Middle Ages. Four Nights of a Dreamer (May 9): Bresson’s 1971 drama is loosely based on the Dostoevsky story “White Nights” and concerns the fleeting but life-altering affair between a young painter and a woman in love with another man. “It is shockingly beautiful,” sayeth the New York Times. Unavailable on DVD, so if you want to see it, don’t miss this screening.
MAY 5–27 UCLA Festival of Preservation (Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave, 829-7863, www.nwfilmforum.org) While the rest of us focus our attention on ever-stupider entertainments on ever-smaller screens, the good folks at the UCLA Film and Television Archive devote themselves to preserving and restoring culturally significant films and television programs of yesteryear. This biennial festival showcases some of the archive’s pristine restorations and preservation achievements in glorious 35 mm. Some highlights of the festival: Wanda (May 6): This independent drama of 1970 was written and directed by Barbara Loden, who also stars in the title role, about a woman living in the anthracite coal region of eastern Pennsylvania who flees a string of abusive relationships by taking up with a petty criminal. Improvisational, meditative, and notably Bressonian (see above) in style, Wanda is the only film Loden made before her early death from cancer. (Also, she was married to Elia Kazan.) Native Land (May 19): Directed by Leo Hurwitz and Paul Strand, this 1942 documentary is based on the La Follette Committee’s 1938 report on the repression of labor organizing, presenting staged reenactments of the struggle between trade unions and union-busting corporations, with narration by Paul Robeso. This Is Your Life (May 27): Broadcast on NBC from 1952 to 1961, This Is Your Life is the American television documentary series in which a guest is surprised with a multimedia tour of his or her entire life in front of a live studio audience. Tonight, NWFF screens 35 mm restorations of three classic episodes.
MAY 17–JUNE 10 Seattle International Film Festival The largest film festival in the world kicks off on May 17 with an opening-night premiere of Your Sister’s Sister starring Emily Blunt, Rosemarie DeWitt, and Mark Duplass. The director is Stranger Genius Award– winner Lynn Shelton. Find out more at www.siff.net/festival. The Stranger’s guide to every single film at SIFF this year hits the streets May 16.
Events MARCH 30 AND APRIL 1 Bringing Up Baby Five words: Katharine. Hepburn. Cary. Grant. Leopard. What else do you need to know? In a new 35 mm print. (Grand Illusion, 1403 NE 50th St, 523-3935, www. grandillusioncinema.org, 7 and 9 pm)
APRIL 2 The Royal Ballet: Romeo & Juliet SIFF’s Ballet in Cinema series presents a performance from London, projected on a humongous screen, which is ridiculously gratifying. Romeo & Juliet features choreography by Kenneth MacMillan, music by Sergei Prokofiev, and mind-effing heartbreak by William Shakespeare. (SIFF Cinema at the Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave N, www.siff.net, 6:30 pm)
APRIL 5 The Sound of the Silents with a Side
A&P: SEATTLE ART & PERFORMANCE
of Schtick Cinema and vaudeville commingle at this night copresented by the Moisture Festival, the Seattle Composers Alliance, the Seattle Jazz Composers Ensemble, and SIFF, which will feature classic silent film with freshly composed soundtracks performed by a live chamber orchestra, along with live vaudeville performance. (SIFF Cinema at the Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave N, www. siff.net, 7:30 pm)
APRIL 13–14 Vertigo Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 masterwork is the richest, darkest film he ever made. If you miss this on the big screen, you will be sad Carlotta. (Egyptian Theatre, 805 E Pine St, 781-5755, www.landmarktheatres.com, midnight)
APRIL 14 John Zorn: Treatment for a Film in 15 Scenes Those who love experimental jazz and experimental cinema finally have a film made just for them. (Grand Illusion, 1403 NE 50th St, 523-3935, www.grandillusion cinema.org, 9 pm)
APRIL 16 AND 22 National Theatre Live: She Stoops to Conquer The theatrical counterpart to SIFF’s Ballet in Cinema series features big-screen broadcasts of acclaimed productions from the National Theatre in London. She Stoops to Conquer is Oliver Goldsmith’s 1773 comedy of errors, here directed by Jamie Lloyd and starring Coronation Street’s Katherine Kelly. (BBC nerds unite!) (SIFF Cinema at the Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave N, www.siff.net, April 16 at 7:30 pm/April 22 at 1 pm)
APRIL 24–MAY 3 Michael Glawogger’s Globalization Trilogy Michael Glawogger is the Austrian film director, screenwriter, and cinematographer best known for his documentaries about contemporary labor. Megacities is an artful look at the underclass in Mexico City, Bombay, Moscow, and New York. Workingman’s Death depicts the lives of 21st-century coal miners in the Ukraine, ship dismantlers in Pakistan, slaughterers in a Nigerian stockyard, and sulfur harvesters on an Indonesian mountain. And Whores’ Glory is a cinematic triptych on prostitution involving three countries, three languages, and three religions. Director in attendance April 24–25. (Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave, 829-7863, www. nwfilmforum.org)
511 Queen Anne Ave N, www.siff.net, 6:30 pm)
MAY 11–16 Children of Paradise Marcel Carné’s French cinema classic of 1945 concerning a variety of artsy love triangles in 19th-century Paris, presented in a glorious new digital restoration. (Warning: involves mime.) (SIFF Cinema at the Film Center, Seattle Center Northwest Rooms, www.siff.net)
Openings OPENS APRIL 6 The Salt of Life This is Gianni Di Gregorio’s follow-up to Mid-August Lunch, which was a lyrical and simple film about wine, food, Rome, and old women. (Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way NE, 781-5755, www.land marktheatres.com) Footnote This 2011 Israeli drama—written and directed by Joseph Cedar—concerns the heart-wrenching power struggle between a father and his son, both Talmudic scholars at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. (Seven Gables Theatre, 911 NE 50th St, 781-5755, www.landmarktheatres.com)
OPENS APRIL 13 The Hunter Willem Dafoe stars in this psychological thriller about a mercenary deployed to the Tasmanian wilderness to hunt a rare tiger. (Egyptian Theatre, 805 E Pine St, 781-5755, www.landmarktheatres.com) The Lady In this biopic directed by Luc Besson, Michelle Yeoh stars as Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese opposition leader, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and human-rights warrior. (Harvard Exit Theatre, 807 E Roy St, 7815755, www.landmarktheatres.com) Applause This dark, Cassavetes-flavored Danish drama stars Dogme 95 luminary Paprika Steen as an alcoholic stage actress who leaves rehab to take the role of Martha in a production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (!!!!) (Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way NE, 781-5755, www.landmarktheatres.com) The Cabin in the Woods Completed in 2009 and lost in the wreckage of the bankrupt MGM, The Cabin in the Woods—the Joss Whedon–scripted comedic horror film about five friends on a mind-bending nature retreat—finally hits cinemas. (Wide release)
OPENS APRIL 27
The Films of Laura Amelia Guzmán and Israel Cárdenas This husband-and-wife team made a splash on the international festival circuit with both their debut feature, Cochochi, and their latest, Jean Gentil. Both films will be screened in this mini-festival, as well as Ocaso, an Argentinean feature that the couple produced. Directors in attendance April 27–29. (Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave, 829-7863, www.nwfilmforum. org)
Monsieur Lazhar Philippe Falardeau’s Oscar-nominated dramedy concerns an Algerian immigrant who weaves himself into the fabric of a Montreal neighborhood as a substitute teacher, while dealing with a plethora of dark personal issues (including ever-impending deportation). (Egyptian Theatre, 805 E Pine St, 7815755, www.landmarktheatres.com) Damsels in Distress Whit Stillman—the writer/director of Metropolitan, Barcelona, and The Last Days of Disco—returns with a wry comedy about a group of beautiful girls who shake up a grungy East Coast college. (Harvard Exit Theatre, 807 E Roy St, 781-5755, www. landmarktheatres.com) We Have a Pope At the Vatican, an unassuming cardinal is suddenly elected the new pope—and freaks the eff out, requiring the aid of an agnostic psychiatrist to help prevent a world-shaking papal crisis. (Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way NE, 781-5755, www. landmarktheatres.com)
APRIL 30
OPENS MAY 4
San Francisco Opera: La Rondine The internationally renowned San Francisco Opera tackles the rarely performed Puccini gem about interclass love. (SIFF Cinema at the Film Center, Seattle Center Northwest Rooms, www.siff.net, 6:30 pm)
Sound of My Voice A psychological thriller about an American journalist sucked into a charismatic cult he’s sent to investigate. (Harvard Exit Theatre, 807 E Roy St, 781-5755, www.landmark theatres.com)
MAY 7
OPENS MAY 11
Bolshoi Ballet: Bright Stream The Ballet in Cinema series returns with the Bolshoi Ballet’s Bright Stream, a zany, allegedly laugh-out-loud ballet (!) about a Russian farm collective, featuring choreography by Alexei Ratmansky and music by Shostakovich. (SIFF Cinema at the Uptown,
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel Starring the worship-worthy British biddies Dame Judi Dench and Queen Bitch Maggie Smith, this comedic drama follows a group of British retirees who move to India to live out their golden years in a dilapidated hotel. (Guild 45th Theatre, 2115 N 45th,
APRIL 26–29 NFFTY 2012 Short for the National Film Festival for Talented Youth, NFFTY is the largest youth film festival in the world, lighting up Seattle each spring with the work of the best young directors aged 22 and younger from around the world. For the full lineup, see www .nffty.org. (SIFF Cinema at the Uptown and other locations, www.nffty.org)
APRIL 27–MAY 3
781-5755, www.landmarktheatres.com) Nobody Else but You Earning comparisons to David Lynch and the Coen brothers, this French thriller follows a writer of detective novels sucked into a series of mysteries in the snow-packed town of Mouthe. (Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way NE, 781-5755, www.land marktheatres.com)
OPENS MAY 18 First Position Bess Kargman’s documentary follows six young ballet students as they prepare to compete for elite dance scholarships at the Youth America Grand Prix. (Think Black Swan without the hallucinatory lesbianism, or Spellbound with bloody feet instead of sweaty nerds.) (Seven Gables Theatre, 911 NE 50th St, 781-5755, www.landmark theatres.com)
OPENS MAY 20 Surviving Progress Martin Scorsese is the executive producer of this documentary, which is directed by Mathieu Roy and Harold Crooks and roughly based on Ronald Wright’s book A Short History of Progress. What is progress? How did it come about? Where is it leading us? These and other questions are considered by public intellectuals such as Jane Goodall, Margaret Atwood, David Suzuki, and Stephen Hawking. (Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way NE, 781-5755, www .landmarktheatres.com)
OPENS JUNE 1 My Way In Korean director Kang Je-gyu’s war drama, a pair of rival marathon runners in colonialera Seoul find themselves forced to fight in World War II, during which they flee Soviets and fight on the shores of Normandy. (Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way NE, 781-5755, www.landmarktheatres.com)
OPENS JUNE 8 Prometheus Ridley Scott returns to sci-fi with this thriller set in the year 2085, as the crew of the spaceship Prometheus explores an advanced alien civilization. (Cinerama, 2100 Fourth Ave, 448-6680, www.cinerama.com)
OPENS JUNE 15 Hysteria Set in Victorian England, director Tanya Wexler’s romantic comedy stars Maggie Gyllenhaal, Hugh Dancy, and Rupert Everett, and concerns the genital-stimulation procedures that led to the invention of the vibrator. (Egyptian Theatre, 805 E Pine St, 781-5755, www.landmarktheatres.com) Your Sister’s Sister Following its Seattle premiere as the opening-night film for SIFF 2012, Stranger Genius Lynn Shelton’s new romantic comedy— starring Mark Duplass, Emily Blunt, and an exquisite Rosemarie DeWitt—arrives for a proper hometown run. (Harvard Exit Theatre, 807 E Roy St, 781-5755, www.land marktheatres.com) Peace, Love & Misunderstanding Jane Fonda plays a hippie. (Harvard Exit Theatre, 807 E Roy St, 781-5755, www.land marktheatres.com)
OPENS JUNE 22 Moonrise Kingdom Wes Anderson returns with a stylishly whimsical period piece set in 1960s New England, where a pair of runaway teenage lovers prompts a local search party led by the girl’s concerned parents (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand) and a sheriff (Bruce Willis). (Wide release)
OPENS JUNE 29 Magic Mike Partially based on the real-life stripper experience of animate bologna column/movie star Channing Tatum, Steven Soderbergh’s comedy tracks the competitive brotherhood among male dancers (played by Tatum, Alex Pettyfer, and Matt Bomer) at a Dallas strip club. (Metro Cinemas, 4500 Ninth Ave NE, 781-5755, www.landmarktheatres.com) Polisse Winner of the Jury Prize at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, this gritty French drama follows a photographer assigned to cover the Child Protection Unit in Paris. (Think Law & Order: SVU meets French vérité.) (Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way NE, 781-5755, www.landmarktheatres.com)
Fame A very short story
by Sherman Alexie
Y
ou’ve seen the viral video of the zoo lion, golden and impatient in its enclosure, trying to eat a toddler girl through the observation glass, right? I was at the zoo and watched it happening. Three million online people think it’s the cutest thing ever. And the toddler’s mother, as she filmed the scene, laughed and laughed. I didn’t think it was funny. I kept thinking, Shit, that lion truly wants to eat that kid’s face. But, yeah, yeah, laugh at the big cat. Laugh at the apex predator trapped behind glass. I hate zoos. I was only there to court a woman and take her out after work. She made balloon animals part-time at the zoo, but I’d met her when she entertained my niece’s birthday party. Her giraffes were great, her elephants were passable, her tarantulas looked too much like tarantulas so nobody wanted them. She made 50 bucks for each party she worked. The zoo paid her minimum wage plus commission. But who comes to the zoo for balloon animals? If you’re going to buy something for a kid at the zoo, then you’re going to get a stuffed animal. So she was a beautiful woman with an eccentric skill who was financially unsustainable. I liked her well enough to think about being
in love with her. We’d been on two dates. Later that afternoon, over coffee, halfway through our third date, she told me I had a great face but weighed 30 pounds too much. “Get skinny,” she said. “Like we could wear each other’s jeans, and then maybe I’ll have sex with you.” She said it like she was kidding, but I knew I’d never be thin enough for her. I walked her home. We didn’t talk much. It was a security building, so we said good-bye on the sidewalk. She apologized for rejecting me. “It’s okay,” I said. I said, “Apologies offered and accepted are what make us human.” I said, “It’s only those damn balloon animals that hold grudges.” She laughed and hurried into her building. Through the lobby window, I watched her step into the elevator and disappear behind the closing doors. I wasn’t angry. I was lonely. I was bored. And I half-remembered a place and time when I’d been young, and lean, and feared. Nostalgic, I pressed my mouth against the glass and chewed. If somebody had filmed me and posted it online, then I would have become that guy with the teeth. I would have become a star. Q
Batteries and Bands Replaced While You Wait
Roanoke Park WAT C H R E PA I R
(206) 322-0828
2405 10 t h Avenue, East Seattle, Washington 98102
Fine Art Gallery, Art & Design Services, Classes & Workshops
Anyone can create ART!
50% off all flex card classes Choose from Tots on the Ridge(2-5 year-olds), Merlot and a Masterpiece, Drawing, & more! 1 discount per person. Expires 6/1/12.
www.ArtOnTheRidge.com
8005 Greenwood Ave N. (206)510-3421
ILLUSTRATION BY KATHRYN RATHKE
Geniuses: Where Are They Now?
A
year and five months after his 2010 Genius Award for literature, cartoonist Jim Woodring was standing in the Husky Deli in West Seattle fondling tinned foods, including canned haggis… Annie Han and Daniel Mihalyo of the Genius Award–winning sculpture/art duo Lead Pencil Studio were spotted pushing a desktop computer and two hard-boiled eggs through the X-ray machine in a security line at Boston’s Logan Airport… Genius Award–winning theatermaker Sarah Rudinoff was on a highway in Hawaii recently, driving for three hours as fast as she could in what turned out to be the wrong direction… Genius Award–winning filmmaker Lynn Shelton, whose film Your Sister’s Sister will premiere at the opening night of the Seattle International Film Festival in May, traveled to Dublin this past February and spent one gray day eating macadamia nuts in bed… Novelist Sherman Alexie, the Genius Award winner with a short story on this page, was recently vacuuming his car while trying to hide his asscrack beneath a long T-shirt at Sea Suds Car Wash on 23rd
and Union…Genius Award–winning artist Jeffry Mitchell was wearing jeans when he got snubbed with “a cold stare-down” from film actor and sartorial snob Chloë Sevigny at Soho House in Los Angeles… At 3:34 on a recent afternoon, Genius Award– winning writer Lesley Hazleton noticed that it was raining after looking up from her desk in a houseboat on Lake Union… The building that houses the Genius Award–winning dance company Pacific Northwest Ballet—where this spring you can see performances of Coppélia and the blockbuster double-bill Apollo & Carmina—continues to be across the street from a parking garage on Mercer Street… Actor, writer, and director Marya Sea Kaminski—who won the Genius Award for theater in 2010—ventures frequently to a 24-hour QFC on Broadway, where she wanders the aisles and often leaves with bizarre grocery combinations such as strawberries, organic lemons, and kale. Q For more on the Genius Awards, go to strangergeniusawards.com. SPRING 2012
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arts, culture & design ILLUMINATING CHALLENGES, IMAGINING TOMORROW’S POSSIBILITIES Illuminations: Art of the Next 50 apr 21 – oct 21
seattle center campus
Selected by jury, a variety of over 25 visual, performing, literary and media art projects will be on temporary display. Support from the City of Seattle OFFICE OF ARTS & CULTURAL AFFAIRS 1% for Art program.
SEATTLECENTER.COM
red, black & GREEN: a blues may 30 – jun 2
playhouse/intiman
The newest on-stage installation by Marc Bamuthi Joseph layers poetry, dance, music and film to jump-start critical conversations in the climate change era. Designed by visual artist Theaster Gates and directed by Michael John Garcés.
Trash Fashion Futures jun 8 – 9
playhouse/intiman
Quite possibly sourced from a dumpster near you, exotic models flaunt designer detritus on the catwalk like never before as our celebrity MC announces the surprising source and vision behind each creation. Seattle Center, 205 Harrison Street, Seattle, WA 98109 206-684-7200 / Dates subject to change Image/Photo Credits: Bruce Torn, John J. Little, Mandy Greer, Bethanie Hines, Vaughn Bell, Michael Cline, Stacy Levy, Adam Frank
Seattle Office of
City of Seattle