7.20 Indy Week

Raleigh | Durham | Chapel Hill July 20, 2022

Building

Musical

By Nick McGregor P. 12 Traducido a español por Caryl Espinoza Jaen P. 14

Larry Bellorín and Joe Troop blend música llanera and bluegrass into egalitarian Nuevo South brew

Raleigh W Durham W Chapel Hill VOL. 39 NO. 29

Ukrainian dancer Krystyna Dubrovschenko photographed at Durham's Fred Astaire Dance Studio, p. 10 PHOTO BY BRETT VILLENA

CONTENTS NEWS 4

Raleigh residents are rallying to save the historic Seaboard Station from demolition. BY MARIANA FABIAN 6 Wake leaders are bullish on the area's future, but are things really as good as they say? BY JASMINE GALLUP 8 Retired Hillside High drama teacher Wendell Tabb takes a labor dispute with DPS to the U.S. Supreme Court. BY THOMASI MCDONALD 10 At a Durham dance studio, Ukrainian dancers count steps to the music to escape thoughts of the war. BY LENA GELLER 11 A city recycling program finds success in Walltown. BY SEVANA WENN

ARTS & CULTURE 12

Musical duo Larry & Joe blend música llanera and bluegrass into egalitarian Nuevo South brew. BY NICK MCGREGOR 16 The Boot Room in Durham is a promising space for local soccer fans, but there are a few ways it can raise the bar. BY MICHAELA DWYER 18 Switchyard Theater is bringing the dramatic arts back to a distinctly local audience. BY BYRON WOODS

THE REGULARS 3

Backtalk/15 Minutes

20 Culture Calendar

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Managing Editor

Interns Hannah Kaufman, Mari Fabian, Caryl Espinoza Jaen

Geoff West Arts & Culture Editor

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Contributors Madeline Crone, Grant Golden, Spencer Griffith, Lucas Hubbard, Brian Howe, Lewis Kendall, Kyesha Jennings, Glenn McDonald, Nick McGregor, Gabi Mendick, Dan Ruccia, Rachel Simon, Harris Wheless

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BACK TA L K

Last week Thomasi McDonald wrote about the conviction of Antonio Davenport in the killing of nine-year-old Z’Yon Person while the boy was on his way to get a snow cone.

We cited some data from a new WRAL documentary, Durham Under Fire, about recent conviction rates from District Attorney Satana Deberry’s office that show that during Deberry’s tenure, felony conviction rates dropped from 51 percent to 33 percent. We received the following response from Deberry’s office.

“Looking only at people convicted as charged leaves out a significant number of cases in which people were, in fact, held accountable—including people who pled guilty to other charges and may be serving long prison sentences, people who went through rigorous diversion programs and are now less likely to reoffend, people whose cases were resolved in accordance with the wishes of crime victims or their families, and people like Antonio Davenport who were prosecuted by our federal partners. It also overlooks cases in which the evidence did not support the charges filed and moving forward would have been unethical.

“Unfortunately, these figures give the false impression that most people charged in homicides in Durham are not held accountable; in fact, it’s the opposite. Of the 88 homicide defendants whose cases were closed from 2019–2021, two-thirds were convicted of charges involving murder and manslaughter. Another 10 percent, including Davenport, were turned over for federal prosecution with the assistance of my office.”

We also received a lot of mail about Hannah Kaufman’s story on Chatham County’s Big Hole facility that could be the inspiration for the Hawkins Lab in the Netflix hit Stranger Things. There were too many messages to print here, but check out our Backtalk online for a sampling.

Durham

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15 MINUTES Mac Barnes, 18 NC School of Science and Math graduate and winner of a gold medal in the Scholastic Art and Writing Competition for his quilted series “A Walk in Their Shoes”

BY HANNAH KAUFMAN backtalk@indyweek.com

How did you first discover your talent for art, and specifically quilting?

I grew up really close with my grandmother, and she was into crochet. She worked quickly—so that was kind of fascinating to me as a six- or seven-year-old. I wanted to be her little helper, so I would sit there with a ball of yarn and watch her, and that turned into her showing me how to crochet. I made some blankets for her church, and just sort of naturally through YouTube, I was looking up some other techniques. As the YouTube rabbit hole works, I landed on quilting, and I really loved watching it—it was just a whole new field. So I had to explore that. I got a sewing machine and got into replicating what I would see online, and I was about eight or nine when I got my first sewing machine. So I kind of went from there, and then my neighbor donated me their sewing machine, and that’s the machine that grew up with me and created all of the pieces [from my series].

Can you tell me about the inspiration for your series, “A Walk in Their Shoes”?

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I found the artwork of Bisa Butler, and I was completely blown away that you could create these sort of photorealistic portraits using fabric, so I created a piece that was about a collective American identity for [my American studies] class, and it was successful.

Quilting, especially in the South, is an interesting medium that is kind of disarming because a lot of people have intimate relationships with quilts, or people in their family have heirlooms with quilts, so there’s fond memories there. If you can tie those fond memories to real people, then you can start to have sort of an unarmed conversation about empathy and people.

Did you base your works on real people and their actual stories and experiences?

These were real people that I had interacted with. There’s not a lack of amazing or interesting people that have experienced a lot, but I knew these people, and I had about three in mind to start with and I thought that their stories were very distinct from one another. Those were the first three pieces I did, so I sat down and interviewed these people—because I knew something, but I didn’t know everything. I interviewed all of them for like an hour and a half, and just kind of sat there trying to be like the photographer; maybe change the lighting or the angle, but just take the picture and sort of remove that bias. It was a lot of listening.

Did you expect to receive the Gold Medal award?

With this portfolio, I don’t think anyone expects to win something like that because of how difficult it is and how there’s so many talented, wonderful people who submit, but I think I had a sort of newfound appreciation for the work that I had done, and based off that first piece, was able to be like, ‘If I put my mind to it and do my best effort, I have a chance.’ W INDYweek.com

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Raleigh New development at Seaboard Station PHOTO BY BRETT VILLENA

Saving Seaboard Station Raleigh residents are fighting a proposal that would see the demolition of the historic train station. BY MARIANA FABIAN backtalk@indyweek.com

R

aleigh’s Historic Seaboard Railroad Station has stood as a symbol of the city’s past and cultural history for more than 80 years. For Ruth Little, a longtime preservationist and architectural historian, the connection to the historic building is much more personal.

“When I got married in 1973, we got on the train and went up to New England for our honeymoon,” Little recalls.

“When they found out that it was our honeymoon, they actually gave us a private suite on the train. It’s always been my train station.”

Since Robert Logan Jr. bought the erstwhile train depot and warehouse buildings in 1991, the space has served as a beloved nursery, garden shop, and café. In December, the Logans sold the property to New York–based Turnbridge Equities, a real estate and investment company, for $8.5 million.

The company’s plans for Seaboard Station have some residents alarmed.

In a proposal that will soon go before Raleigh’s city council for a vote, Turnbridge Equities plans to demolish the station and replace it with a 12-story parking garage that would serve two 20-story buildings on either side. But in order to construct the buildings, Turnbridge needs the council to approve a rezoning request that changes the cap 4

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on building height on the property from seven stories to 20. The proposal will go to a public hearing in September, ahead of a potential vote.

The Seaboard train station held its grand opening in September 1942, and the station was used for decades for travel for millions of commuters. When it first opened, the station saw the departure of many North Carolina soldiers on their way to fight in World War II. It aided travelers until 1986, when CSX Transportation abandoned a stretch of rail from Norlina, NC, to Petersburg, VA, and passengers could no longer head north from Raleigh. Up until its closing, Seaboard Station was the only station that served daily, long-distance Amtrak trains heading north. Trains were rerouted and the station sat obsolete and abandoned until the Logan family purchased the station and it became Logan’s Trading Co., which is how locals know it best nowadays.

The fight to preserve the station has been ongoing since Turnbridge Equities purchased the property. Little, the preservationist and owner of Longleaf Historic Resources, says the landmark was never given the historic landmark distinction, which would have protected it from demolition.

“Since the 1980s, the Raleigh Historic Development Commission has been trying, and the state has been try-

ing to list it on the National Register of Historic Places, to make it a local historic landmark, because everybody knows how important it is,” Little says.

But it never happened.

Little explains that throughout her travels and research, she’s seen historic locations and buildings preserved in unusual ways. She emphasizes that the Seaboard Station can be preserved and utilized for future Raleigh development and that demolition is not the only option.

Frank Harmon, a Raleigh writer, architect, and professor, is critical of the proposed demolition as well and agrees that Seaboard Station is architecturally and historically significant.

“In particular, I like the sheds,” Harmon says. “They’re remarkable. My students have studied them for many years, especially the way that the timbers are put together, the economical use of materials, and the thoughtfulness of integrating drainage from rain within the structure.”

As for its historic significance beyond aiding so many travelers, Harmon points out that Seaboard Station was built during the Jim Crow era and had separate waiting rooms for Black and white travelers—there’s no trace of that now, he says, but it’s a part of Raleigh’s history that needs acknowledging.

Matthew Brown, North Carolina’s former state historian, is an advocate for preserving Seaboard Station too.

He and other residents had a meeting with Turnbridge Equities’ lawyer and a representative, Brown says, in which Turnbridge paid lip service to updated conditions in their proposal that they say will save a part of the station. But Brown says the conditions were drafted in a misleading fashion. Representatives from Turnbridge Equities did not respond to the INDY’s request for comment.

“They give all the conditions about saving this part of the building or that part of the building, and so on,” Brown says. “However, the building is defined elsewhere as just a section of the building …. If they say they’re going to save half of the building, they really mean half of this part of the building. At the very end, it says, ‘If we decide not to use any of these options, we’ll just tear it down and take pictures of it.’ That’s like saying, ‘We’re going to murder your grandmother, but we’ll give her a real nice funeral.’”

Brown says Turnbridge claims that some members of the Raleigh Historic Development Commission (RHDC) approved the demolition of the building. But he says he spoke with the commissioners, who said they told Turnbridge that if the company tore the station down, it would have to document the property before the teardown for state archives. That, Brown says, doesn’t mean the commission approved of demolishing the station (RHDC members are bound from advocating for or against preservation of an undesignated building).

“I want to live in a city that is full of interesting buildings that are beautiful architecture that tells stories that make our lives interesting and beautiful,” Brown says. “I don’t want to live in a city of cheap, disposable generic boxes.

That sounds like hell to me.”

Harmon, Little, and Brown all float the idea there is in saving it. of turning the station back into what it once “I don’t buy the argument that [Seaboard Station] was: a station that will serve as a hub for can’t be incorporated into their development plans,” inner-city transportation for Raleigh residents.

Cox says. “Unless this developer comes up with a It’s in a prominent location on West Peace plan, I am not willing to vote for it as is. If they can’t Street near William Peace University, plus it come up with something, maybe another one can.” still has intact railroad tracks and offers parkCorey Branch of District C raises some concerns about the development as well as the conditions ing, which Raleigh’s current Amtrak station but was less certain about his vote. However, Branch lacks.

In June, Raleigh’s Planning Commission voted says, he definitely does not want to see the landto approve the rezoning application as presentmark demolished. ed. It’s an advisory recommendation to the counHarmon, the architect, notes that in addition to demolishing a landmark and losing a piece of the cil, but if four or more council members commit city’s history, tearing down Seaboard Station would to opposing the rezoning if Turnbridge does not include a condition requiring preservation of the just be wasteful. station in some form, the company could have “There’s a lot of talk about sustainability,” Harto add such a condition or change its plans for mon says. “One of the most important ways to do the property. that is to keep the structures that we’ve had. It goes without saying that the history of that structure is Mayor Mary Ann-Baldwin says it’s her understanding that “the conditions have been strengtha common history that we all share. It’s not something that only belongs to that station, it’s part of ened to look at preserving the structure and mov- Historic image of Seaboard Station STATE ARCHIVES OF NORTH CAROLINA our memory, part of the shape of Raleigh, and part ing it to another site on the property, or preserving pieces and incorporating them into the new design, similar Three other members of the council also told the INDY of our future. Why would we even think about tearing to what was done at the Dillon in Raleigh’s Warehouse that they don’t support demolishing the station. something down as valuable as that?”

District.”

At-large council member Jonathan Melton says he Little has enjoyed Seaboard Station in its latest iteraIn an email, Baldwin says that the council will look at believes Turnbridge should find a way to incorporate the tion, long after taking the train to her honeymoon. She is these conditions as part of its decision-making. As Sea- train station into the new development. hopeful that the station can be saved.

“I’ll be looking at the conditions thoroughly. I don’t think “Now, it’s my nursery,” she says. “It’s where I get my bedboard Station stands, a developer could currently build seven stories there, by right, and not preserve any of the it should be demolished,” Melton says. ding plants and my seeds. I go there for lunch with friends.

David Cox of District B supports preserving this land- I’ve bought gifts like orchids for people who were sick. It’s structure. Baldwin says she would prefer to see some mark and points to the amount of community interest been a really big part of my life.” W protection of the historic station.

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Wake County

“Everything’s Hard” Raleigh and Wake County leaders delivered their own State of the Union address Thursday, but is the area doing as well as they say it is? Politicians talked affordable housing, commuter rail, and support for small business as corporations move to the area. BY JASMINE GALLUP jgallup@indyweek.com

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he city and county are doing better than ever, according to officials speaking at an annual luncheon on Thursday.

Two pillars of politics—Raleigh mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin and Sig Hutchinson, chair of the Wake County Board of Commissioners—each spoke positively about the progress made in the last year. According to them, city and county officials are leading the charge in making homes and apartments affordable, expanding public transportation, supporting businesses, and reducing gun violence.

Baldwin and Hutchinson each have reason to praise Wake County. Under their leadership, the area has seen an incredible economic boom and weathered crises like the COVID pandemic. Baldwin is also up for reelection this fall, giving her a strong incentive to emphasize how well the city is doing.

Although Baldwin and Hutchinson have both been active and responsive to issues residents are facing, they’ve faced their fair share of criticism as well.

Affordable housing As scores of people move into Wake County—62 per day, according to Hutchinson—housing prices have skyrocketed, with demand outweighing supply. The city and county have each set goals for building more affordable housing.

That could mean building apartments with rents set lower than market price, so people don’t have to spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing. Or it could mean changing zoning regulations, so it’s easier for developers to build townhomes and condos, which cost less than single-family homes.

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“Affordable housing units” could also include apartments reserved for people exiting homelessness or those who need supportive services like addiction counseling or job placement.

The city has a goal of creating 5,700 new affordable housing units by 2026 and so far has reached 3,910, according to Baldwin. Those units include 27 new apartments earmarked for people making less than 30 percent of the area median income and 100 apartments for people exiting homelessness. These projects, and more, are funded by an $80 million housing bond passed by voters in 2020.

The city council has also amended the zoning code to allow the construction of town houses and duplexes in neighborhoods that are traditionally single family. This year, the council continued its crusade to create housing that is affordable for middle-class residents by allowing the construction of tiny homes, accessory dwelling units, and taller apartment buildings along bus lines.

Wake County has also made progress on affordable housing, having set a goal of creating 2,500 new units by 2023. Last year, the county met that goal, two years ahead of schedule. The new units include apartments, single-family homes, and permanent supportive housing that must stay affordable for the next 30 years.

“I think we can all agree that stable housing is key to everybody’s future. It’s key to ending poverty. It’s key to ensuring that we have equity in our city,” Baldwin said Thursday during her presentation.

“It takes political will to get this done, and people are gonna get mad at you. They don’t want town houses in their neighborhood. I’ve heard people say, ‘I don’t want those people living there.’ I don’t know who

Mary-Ann Baldwin

PHOTO BY ALEX BOERNER

those people are, but those people are residents of our community and they deserve a place to live.”

Still, Raleigh and Wake County have lost many more affordable housing units than they’ve gained. As of this year, Wake County has “an estimated shortage of 56,195 units affordable to low-income families,” according to a county news release. In Raleigh, about 4,700 affordable apartments—with rents less than $999 a month—have been lost on average per year since 2017.

Critics of the city council say its zoning policies have made it easier for developers to install high-priced luxury condos and apartment buildings, in some cases wiping out naturally occurring affordable housing.

Although more apartments are being built, which helps lower costs, developers are not required to keep rents or mortgages below a certain price.

Giving developers more leeway can also lead to gentrification, where property taxes and the cost of living rise, pushing out longtime residents. Ultimately, the consensus is that despite the work the city council is already doing, more work and more money are needed to fight the housing crisis.

Sig Hutchinson

PHOTO BY JADE WILSON

Growth and transportation Growth hasn’t just affected the cost of housing; it’s spilled over into the job market. When housing is prohibitively expensive, employees can’t afford to live near where they work, which can push some low-wage workers to seek jobs elsewhere.

That’s affected the ability of public bodies to attract qualified job seekers.

The Wake County school district, for instance, is having trouble recruiting and retaining employees, school board chair Lindsay Mahaffey said Thursday during her presentation. That’s one reason why it raised its minimum wage to $16 an hour this year for noncertified employees, such as bus drivers and instructional assistants.

Wake County also raised pay for its emergency medical services staff this year, becoming the leader in EMS pay for the state. Starting salaries are now $20 an hour for EMTs and $28 an hour for paramedics.

Raleigh also gave employees a 2 percent cost-of-living adjustment and raised police and fire pay, although not as high as officers themselves wanted.

With so many people coming to Raleigh and Wake County, managing traffic and

roadways is another priority for current officials. Baldwin and Hutchinson agreed that moving forward on the commuter rail project—a 37-mile line that goes from Garner to Durham, with stops in Raleigh, Cary, Morrisville, and Research Triangle Park—is on the must-do list.

A commuter rail line would help carry people to the Triangle’s job centers, as well as the Raleigh-Durham airport and college campuses, Hutchinson said. The main challenges to moving the project forward have historically been “consensus and cost,” Baldwin added.

“Cost is still a challenge for us right now,” she said. “The bottom line is that we have to get creative. We can’t keep doing things the way we’ve been doing. We need help from the [federal government]. We need help from the state. And we also need to have our own commitment, to make sure, as leaders, that we are saying, ‘This is necessary.’ We can’t just flinch and go, ‘Oh, this is hard.’ Everything’s hard right now. We have to find ways to get it done.”

Economic development Hutchinson touted Apple’s move to Raleigh as a big win and had the same victorious attitude toward Amgen’s $550 million investment in a new drug manufacturing facility and Fujifilm Diosynth’s $2 billion investment in a biologics production plant, both in Holly Springs.

The amount of economic growth in Wake County is great news, as companies bring new jobs and boost the tax base, Hutchinson said.

But, he added, “it’s only good news if we keep up with the infrastructure, continue to build capacity in housing, continue to build transportation options, continue to invest in our education, and expand Medicaid.”

“We have to continue to do the best, because it’s nice to be on top but you can fall off quick,” Hutchinson said.

North Carolina is clearly a great place for big business, but what about small businesses and workers? Last year, the state was ranked the worst place to work in America by Oxfam, a nonprofit fighting poverty. Much of that ranking has to do with state laws—the $7.25 minimum wage, bad unemployment benefits, and lack of worker protections.

The county and the public school system (the third-largest employer in the state) have made some progress on creating living wages for their workers, but many say the pay raises aren’t enough.

Small businesses are also suffering as they try to keep up with rising real estate costs. In an effort to boost small business, Raleigh officials are offering grants of up to $30,000 for things like debt repay-

ment, equipment or vehicle leasing, specialized training, and technology purchases.

The program, which launched last Friday, is funded with $4.2 million in federal money.

Gun violence Where Hutchinson’s presentation was overwhelmingly upbeat, Baldwin’s was a little more down-to-earth. She addressed Raleigh’s problems frankly, including rising gun violence. So far, there have been 24 homicides in Raleigh this year, compared to 33 total last year. Two men of color have also been gunned down by Raleigh police officers.

When it comes to prosecuting violent crime, the city is “getting serious,” Baldwin said. In a joint press conference last week, Raleigh police chief Estella Patterson announced a new partnership with the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Working with federal agents, police have been able to make 27 arrests in the past three weeks for allegations involving drugs and guns.

Baldwin also spoke about the city’s efforts to prevent crime. In the next year, the city aims to educate people about safe gun storage and expand the ACORNS unit, a task force that helps people in crisis connect with resources like shelter and counseling.

Since the start of this year, Raleigh police officers have intercepted 563 guns in the course of their patrols and received 200 individual reports of guns stolen from cars, Baldwin said.

“Let that sink in. Most of these cars are unlocked. People are leaving their damn guns in their car where anybody can access them,” she said. “We are working on an education program, and quite frankly, if you own a gun, I am begging everybody in this city to be a responsible gun owner. Lock it in a safe, keep it away from your kids, keep it away from others.”

In another effort to prevent crime, the city is working with the NAACP and Moms Demand Action to intervene with people who are at risk of committing, or becoming victims, of gun violence.

Still, some activists are pushing for greater investment in crime prevention. Calls to defund the police and refund community programs escalated in June, as the city council was passing its annual budget.

Council members ultimately ignored a proposal from Refund Raleigh to create an independent crisis response unit and raise pay for city workers in favor of a nearly $8 million funding increase to the Raleigh police budget—an increase of about 7 percent over last year—mainly in an effort to recruit and retain more officers for patrol and other duties. W

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Durham

Dramatics Dispute A retired Hillside High drama teacher has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review his labor dispute with Durham Public Schools.

BY THOMASI MCDONALD tmcdonald@indyweek.com

L

ast month, a celebrated, recently retired high school theater arts director filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court to review a labor dispute he has with Durham Public Schools (DPS).

Former Hillside High drama teacher Wendell Tabb, who retired this year after an acclaimed Tony Award–winning career spanning more than three decades, filed a petition with the nation’s highest court on June 3, after the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond and the U.S. Middle District Court in Greensboro both denied his claims that he was forced to work overtime without pay. Tabb also claims that race played a role in DPS’s refusal to compensate him. Tabb, in his complaint, has demanded damages of $40,800 per year.

His petition to the Supreme Court is a long shot.

According to the Judicial Learning Center, the court agrees to hear less than 1 percent of the 10,000 cases it receives each year and is “most likely to take cases that will affect the entire country, not just the individuals involved.”

It’s a chance that Tabb, who is African American, is willing to take. His petition asks the Supreme Court to determine if race was a factor when DPS refused to compensate him for work he performed, and if the board of education’s decision was in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when the lower courts denied that the Durham School of the Arts’ (DSA’s) drama program was a comparative program to Hillside’s theater productions.

“We do just as many plays as Durham School of the Arts, if not more,” Tabb told the INDY this week. “I’m not trying to bash DSA. The schools are doing an excellent job. This is about equity for all 8

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programs. But if I’m having trouble with the level of success I’ve had, Lord knows what happens to the schools that don’t.”

Tabb is also asking the Supreme Court to determine if it is ever appropriate for public school officials to “negate” Fair Labor Standards Act compliance and not pay employees who work overtime.

Finally, Tabb wants members of a highly politicized conservative court to determine if it is “constitutionally equitable” for public schools to receive federal funding if the school systems “allow inequalities between employees who perform the same or similar extra duties”—in this instance theater directors and technical theater directors.

“The [DPS] board does not comment on pending litigation and speaks through its court filings,” William “Chip” Sudderth, the school system’s chief communications officer, replied when asked about Tabb’s petition to the Supreme Court.

As the INDY previously reported, the case dates back to 2017, when Tabb filed a federal lawsuit against DPS alleging racial discrimination and retaliation. Over more than a decade, he says, he was cheated out of tens of thousands of dollars in unpaid wages. This wasn’t merely the result of difficult school-funding choices, his lawsuit insists. Tabb says he was subjected to payback after he sued the school board in 2006 over the mistreatment of his son, who has cerebral palsy.

At the crux of Tabb’s lawsuit is his claim that in addition to serving as director of Hillside’s drama department, he also functioned as an unofficial, unpaid technical director, with a workload that included hanging lights, creating sound designs, and building sets.

Two members of a three-judge panel with the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals denied Tabb’s claim on March 22.

Former Hillside High drama teacher Wendell Tabb Judge Paul V. Niemeyer, writing for the majority, noted that “over the years,” Tabb had asked the DPS board and Hillside High principals to provide him with a theater technical director to relieve him of the hours he has had to devote to technical issues when staging student performances. In making the request, Tabb noted that some of the other DPS high schools “had both a theater director and a … technical director, and he requested that Hillside High School be one of them.”

In upholding the U.S. Middle District’s dismissal, the Fourth Circuit opinion states that Tabb’s desire to create a premier high school theater program was pretty much his own fault—that is, DPS didn’t ask him to establish an award-winning, nationally recognized drama program whose students traveled all over the world.

Tabb made an “independent decision to produce high-quality plays,” and while his work was “laudable, [it] was a decision he made for the benefit of his students rather

PHOTO BY BRETT VILLENA

than a task he performed as a requirement of his position,” Niemeyer stated.

The Fourth Circuit also agreed with the U.S. Middle District ruling that even if the school system’s refusal to pay Tabb a technical theater director supplement “could be considered an adverse action,” the retired teacher had not plausibly alleged that DPS had “denied him a technical supplement due to his race,” because he had not alleged “that a single white theater director was paid such a supplement at any time.”

Niemeyer, whose ruling was joined by Judge Julius Richardson, also agreed with the Middle District’s decision to exclude DSA “as a legitimate comparator for Tabb to demonstrate any discrimination,” because DSA is a specialized high school “for arts and drama,” while Hillside offers an International Baccalaureate magnet program.

Tabb’s need for a technical theater director appeared obvious to even the most casual observer of the stage productions he mounted at the historically Black high school, one of only four in the state to sur-

“This is about equity for all programs.

But if I’m having trouble with the level of success I’ve had, Lord knows what happens to the schools that don’t.” vive desegregation, along with West Charlotte, E.E. Smith in Fayetteville, and Dudley in Greensboro.

In 1995, Tabb developed an international professional student exchange program that enabled his budding thespians to study and perform on six continents and all over New York and Los Angeles.

He also started a Celebrities in the Classroom program that allowed students to participate in acting workshops with some of the industry’s most notable artists. Over the years, Hillside drama students sat at the feet of Danny Glover, Bill Cobbs, Obba Babatundé, Phylicia Rashad, and Margaret “Shug” Avery; the likes of famed choreographer George Faison; and Hillside graduates such as fashion icon André Leon Talley and legendary gospel recording artist Shirley Caesar.

Along the way, Tabb’s cultivation of the theater discipline and his nurturing of aspiring artists yielded impressive fruit.

His former students include Academy Award–winning film director Kevin Wilson Jr., actress April Parker Jones (who has a recurring role in the new Peacock drama series Bel-Air), Lauren E. Banks (who plays Siobhan Quays in the Showtime series City on a Hill), and Santron Freeman (a dancer who has worked with Beyoncé, Alicia Keys, and Mariah Carey).

Of his 2017 complaint, Tabb told the INDY that’s it’s no coincidence that Hillside’s student population is about twice as Black as the other schools: about 79 percent of Hillside students were African American during the 2016–17 school year, compared to about 41 percent at Jordan, 44 percent at Riverside, and 36 percent at DSA. “Despite the success of the Hillside High School Drama Program,” Tabb’s complaint says, “[the school board has] failed to provide Hillside High School with the same level of staffing and funding that it provides at comparable drama programs in high schools that are not predominantly black.”

Tabb stated that he was “forced to do the work of two or three teachers in order to maintain the Hillside High School drama program, while white theater directors at white high schools with

comparable theater programs have had two or more teachers assigned to assist them,” according to the Fourth Circuit’s majority opinion.

Tabb, while claiming he has not been compensated for extra-duty work, alleges that theater directors with similar programs were not asked to do this same type and volume of unpaid extra work or have been paid an extra-duty payment or a contractual payment for performing this type of work.

“Tabb attributed all of the disparate treatment alleged in his complaint to racial discrimination by the [DPS] School Board,” Niemeyer wrote.

In her dissent, Fourth Circuit judge Diana Gribbon Motz said the majority erred by dismissing Tabb’s claim for a financial supplement for his work as Hillside’s de facto technical theater director.

Motz also noted that in order to allege a civil rights “disparate treatment claim,” a school employee must plead that his employer “took an adverse action against him; namely, an action that adversely affects the terms, conditions, or benefits of [his] employment.”

“Tabb alleges such an action,” Motz stated. “He alleges that, due to the [DPS] Board’s failure to hire a technical director, he regularly needed to perform significant additional work (managing ‘the lighting, sound, sets and other technical duties’ for student productions) to fulfill his own role in directing those productions.”

Motz would also reverse the U.S. Middle District Court’s decision to exclude DSA as a comparative program to Hillside’s drama department.

“Tabb alleges that the drama program at Hillside has become one of the premier high school drama programs in the United States and that Hillside has produced at least as many (and in most years more) theater productions than DSA,” Motz wrote. “It is thus reasonable to infer that, even though the school district has not specifically labeled Hillside as a ‘drama’ or ‘arts’ school, Hillside’s drama department would require a similar level of drama staffing as a school that has received such a label.” W

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July 20, 2022

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Durham

Counting Steps At Durham’s Fred Astaire Dance Studio, Ukrainian dancers focus on their craft to escape thoughts of the war.

BY LENA GELLER lgeller@indyweek.com

A

s the war in Ukraine approaches 150 days, global news coverage of the Russian invasion is steadily contracting into a “by the numbers” format, with scorching, unfathomable losses turned cold and quantifiable.

Delivered with the caveat that, because so many troops have been killed and buried in mass graves along the war’s 1,500-mile front line, the death toll is likely much higher than figures suggest, reporters recite their latest tallies: Tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops and civilians are dead. Millions have been displaced. Thousands of residences, schools, and hospitals have been leveled.

Though metrics can be reductive in measuring a war’s total impact, we often take solace in the firmness of numbers when a tragedy is as dizzying and indefinite as the war in Ukraine.

As some spend their days counting casualties, Krystyna Dubrovschenko, a Ukrainian dance instructor at Durham’s Fred Astaire Dance Studio, is counting her steps. When she focuses on the number of beats in a fox-trot, or a Viennese waltz, or a bachata, she’s able to stop thinking about the war devastating her home country.

“The moment you stop counting, the thoughts start to come back into your mind,” Dubrovschenko says.

Dubrovschenko is one of a dozen Ukrainian dance instructors at Fred Astaire, a spacious South Durham dance studio with gleaming wood floors, paper-lantern-strung ceilings, and walls plastered with posters of its eponymous founder. The Durham studio, owned by local Ukrainian Yuriy Simakov, is part of a franchise launched by Astaire in 1947 that now has 180-odd locations across the United States, Europe, South America, and Africa.

Dubrovschenko grew up in eastern Ukraine’s Luhansk region. She and her hus10

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INDYweek.com

band left the country in 2014 to escape the Russia-Ukraine conflict over Crimea and lived briefly in the United Arab Emirates before moving to Durham, where Simakov—who had taught dance lessons to Dubrovschenko’s husband years earlier in Ukraine—had offered them jobs at Fred Astaire.

Dubrovschenko’s immediate family resides in an area of Ukraine that has been under Russian occupation for the past eight years, she says, so while they are “pretty safe” from violence, they’ve also been indoctrinated by Russian propaganda.

“No matter how many facts you’re gonna tell them, no matter how many videos and news articles you’re gonna show them, it’s really hard for them to believe what’s going on,” Dubrovschenko says.

The war has had a greater impact on her husband’s parents, she says, who recently fled their home in Severodvinsk and moved to a port city in southern Ukraine, bearing no belongings except a “little purse” containing their passports and a bottle of water.

During the past few months, several Fred Astaire instructors have managed to get their families out of Ukraine—Simakov, for one, moved his parents from Ukraine to Durham in March, and his mother’s home-cooked cutlets and mashed potatoes have been a welcome comfort for staff—but Dubrovschenko’s father-inlaw is younger than 60 years old, and Ukrainian men aged 18 to 60 are banned from leaving the country. There’s nothing that she and her husband can do to ensure his parents’ safety.

These are the things that Dubrovschenko forgets about when she counts her steps.

“It takes your mind away,” she says.

“When you dance, you don’t think about anything.”

Dancer Krystyna Dubrovschenko

PHOTO BY BRETT VILLENA

And when she’s not dancing, Dubrovschenko finds consolation in her fellow instructors, most of whom are enduring similar challenges.

Natalia, an instructor who moved from Kyiv to Durham two years ago and asked to be identified by only her first name, says her family has been struggling since 2014, when they lost everything they owned during a Russian bombing attack. The same year, Ukraine enacted a law requiring residents living in separatist-controlled parts of eastern Ukraine—including the Donetsk region, where Natalia’s parents reside—to physically cross the border into government-controlled areas every 60 days in order to receive their pension. For the past eight years, Natalia’s parents have been making the exhausting 450-mile trek from Donetsk to Kyiv every two months.

But with Donetsk now under relentless bombardment from Russian forces, her parents’ most recent journey to Kyiv has turned into an indefinite relocation.

Like Dubrovschenko’s husband, Natalia is unable to retrieve her parents because her father is under 60, but she talks to them on the phone every day. On some

nights, Natalia says, her mother has to hide under a blanket while reading the news on her phone so that the light of the screen doesn’t attract the attention of nearby artillery.

“It’s a new part of surviving,” Natalia says.

At Fred Astaire, Natalia has found a supportive community in not just her coworkers but her students, who bring her flowers and regularly text her to share prayers for her family.

And when she’s dancing in the studio, she says she’s able to remember “the pleasure of life.”

“You can feel the different time in different melodies,” she says.

Natalia may be referencing the rhythms and time signatures that vary from dance to dance—the kind that Dubrovschenko loses herself in—but I get the feeling that she’s looking at time through a broader lens; certain melodies remind her of a time before the war or allow her to envision a time that’s yet to come.

“Dancing distracts us in a good sense,” Natalia says. “You’re full of negative emotions, and dancing helps us to feel something better. To believe in the good future.” W

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Durham

Food Fare After launching just six months ago, a city food waste collection program in Walltown is keeping tons of waste out of Durham’s landfills.

BY SEVANA WENN backtalk@indyweek.com

B

rowning banana peels, decaying fish bones, crumbling pizza crusts. These ingredients may not seem appetizing to most, but to seedlings hungry for fertile soil, they’re the stuff of a gourmet meal.

A city food waste collection program in the Walltown neighborhood has redirected more than four and a half tons of waste from landfills since it launched just six months ago. Through a curbside pickup system, the pilot program processes food scraps from 80 Walltown households and returns them to the environment as rich compost.

Every Thursday evening, small black carts line the streets of Walltown. One of these belongs to Hafeez Dalla and his partner, Carina Barnett-Loro, who joined the program when recruitment efforts began in late 2021. Neighbors often inquire about the container, they said.

“Actually, a lot of people have come up to us and said, ‘Oh, what’s that? I haven’t seen it before,’” said Barnett-Loro, sitting on her back porch which overlooks her fruitful garden.

Some of those neighbors have since signed up, she said, eager to make their neighborhood a greener place.

The program represents a collaboration between the city, a local company, and Duke researchers. The city collects the food waste and delivers it to Atlas Organics, a company that converts the scraps to compost. This final product is sold to gardeners and landscapers and also distributed for free at occasional public giveaway events, such as a June 11 compost giveaway at the Briggs Avenue Community Garden. The city will work with Atlas Organics to host another event in the fall.

Melissa Southern, who first began composting in 2019 to nourish her garden beds, was also excited to see the project serve her community. “It seems that Walltown does not typically get picked for these kinds of pilots,” she said. “I love that our neighborhood was chosen, and to see it do so well and so many people participate is really … it’s encouraging.”

Southern lives in Walltown with her husband and oneyear-old and has seen her household’s garbage output shrink to just a third of what it once was.

“We went from maybe three trash bags a week or two trash bags a week to one a week,” she said, “and I think that’s really impressive.”

The pilot project was originally intended to run for just 12 weeks, according to Wayne Fenton, the city’s assis-

Hafeez Dalla and Carina Barnett-Loro

PHOTO BY MADDIE WRAY

tant director of solid waste. But when the trial period was up, all participants opted to continue curbside food waste collection.

The environmental benefits of composting extend beyond improving soil health and conserving water.

By keeping food waste out of landfills, composting helps curb methane emissions that contribute heavily to global warming. Nevertheless, some deterrents keep people from taking up the practice: for instance, the odor.

Dalla recalled a recent party he and Barnett-Loro hosted in which composting played a role.

“We had a party here not that long ago, and we got all compostable plates and cups and stuff and thought it’d be great if everyone just put their stuff in the compost. And it was—I don’t think we anticipated just how stinky the bin had gotten over time,” he said, chuckling. “But, you know, we hosed it out, and it was fine.”

Despite this minor hiccup, the couple has enjoyed their experience. “We love the program. We’d love for it to get expanded for all of Durham,” said Dalla.

To run smoothly, the program relies on psychology as much as earth science. In order to motivate and sustain the habit of composting, the city collaborates with the Duke Center for Advanced Hindsight to formulate strategies and messaging. The city issued countertop food waste collection bins with acceptable items illustrated clearly on the front and also encouraged participants to download the Durham Rollout app, which sends weekly reminders about food waste pickup days.

Lyndsay Gavin, innovation project manager for the city, says programs such as the Walltown pilot may encourage

environmentally friendly behaviors in other areas of life and foster engagement with one’s community.

“Does collection of your food scraps in the morning make you think about turning your thermostat down or reducing your water use, or some other kind of pro-environmental behaviors that we would consider spillover from participation in this?” she said.

“And then, even beyond environmentalism, this is a cityrun municipal service that’s being brought to you. So does that also make you think more about belonging to your community or engagement with your local government?”

Project leaders are currently scouting out a new candidate area for phase 2 of the project, which is expected to kick off in mid-August. The second phase will reach roughly 500 households, in addition to the 80 still receiving service in Walltown. In this phase, researchers from the city and the Duke center will analyze how much waste is diverted from landfill. They will also assess whether behavioral interventions reduce contamination of the compost and will conduct surveys and interviews to gauge participants’ attitudes toward the program.

Barnett-Loro is optimistic that her vegetable peelings and coffee grounds are making a difference. “I think it is, from a behavioral change standpoint, one of those daily reminders of, you know, this is the kind of the impact that I’m having,” she said. W This story was published through a partnership between the INDY and 9th Street Journal, which is produced by journalism students at Duke University’s DeWitt Wallace Center for Media & Democracy.

Comment on this story at backtalk@indyweek.com.

INDYweek.com

July 20, 2022

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LARRY & JOE

Tuesday, July 26 | The Pour House, Raleigh | 8 p.m. | Pay what you want

Larry Bellorín and Joe Troop PHOTO BY BRETT VILLENA

Building Musical Bridges Larry Bellorín and Joe Troop blend música llanera and bluegrass into egalitarian Nuevo South brew.

BY NICK MCGREGOR music@indyweek.com

L

ofty quotes about music litter the philosophical record.

Confucius and Plato both weighed in, although their respective aphorisms—”Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without” and “Music is a moral law”—are impossible to definitively attribute.

Easier to source is Arthur Schopenhauer’s famous 19th-century claim that “music is the language of feeling and of passion.” But cantankerous English art critic John Berger might have said it best in 2015: “A song narrates a past experience. While it is being sung it fills the present … while it hopes to reach a listening ear in some future somewhere. It leans forward, farther and farther.”

That spirit of propulsive, progressive momentum is alive in the work of Larry & Joe. Born in Winston-Salem and 12

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now based in Durham, Joe Troop learned bluegrass and oldtime music as a teenager before spending a decade living in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and leading Grammy-nominated fusion group Che Apalache. Larry Bellorín, meanwhile, grew up 2,100 miles south in Punta de Mata, Monagas, Venezuela, where he was a legend of música llanera, traditional Venezuelan folk punctuated by arpa (harp), cuatro (small classical guitar), and maracas (hand percussion).

Forced into exile six years ago by the Venezuelan migration crisis, Bellorín applied for political asylum and landed in Raleigh, where he started working construction while rebuilding his musical life.

The unlikely duo connected at the beginning of 2022 with help from Sophia Enriquez, an assistant

professor at Duke University specializing in the intersection of Latinx and Appalachian music, migration, and belonging.

Bellorín had accompanied Enriquez during a gig at the North Carolina Museum of Art, while Troop was gearing up for a month-long residency at Durham Fruit.

“Larry came to the first gig and joined in on bass,” Troop tells INDY Week at the Raleigh Times, where the duo performed one Tuesday night in June. “Then I sent him some scratch recordings to learn before the next show. When he took out his harp, he got a standing ovation.” Bellorín, who responds in Spanish (effortlessly translated by the bilingual Troop), smiles and adds, “Right away, there was something really unique between us—a different kind of connection.”

That connection is built on the surprising common ground that exists between Bellorín’s música llanera tradition and Troop’s bluegrass heritage.

“They’re both the folkloric representations of our countries,” Bellorín says. “They’re both string band music, and they’re both working-class music. Having that commonality but from different vantage points is what gives us our own unique identity.”

Troop remembers meeting llanera musicians busking in the Buenos Aires subway around 2016 when a mass exodus of artists and intellectuals left Venezuela.

“They were phenomenal,” he says. “Like, ‘holy crap’ good. But I never got a chance to work with a Venezuelan musician full-time until Larry. It’s the chance of a lifetime. We’ve both been exposed to each other’s folk traditions, but now we’re really trying to find a way to fuse them together.”

At first glance, that comes from carving out a rhythmic role for the banjo on música llanera standards like “Uno No Tiene la Culpa”—and spicing up old-time country favorites like “Rollin’ in My Sweet Baby’s Arms” with maracas.

The duo’s interpretation of “Caballo Viejo,” a Venezuelan classic originally recorded by Simón Díaz, even earned Troop an endearing new nickname: El Gringo Llanera.

“That’s the first time música llanera has been made with a banjo,” Bellorín emphasizes, “with a high level of musicianship and execution. But it’s not about difficulty.

The beautiful thing is the love with which Joe performed it.” Troop says the cross-cultural osmosis goes both ways, citing Bellorín’s crowd-pleasing performances on arpa and cuatro at last month’s Mount Airy Fiddlers Convention. “It brought people to tears,” Troop says. “Music touches people’s hearts in a way that’s ineffable. You don’t necessarily know what it is that moves people to cry. But it’s symbolic, and humans live and die off symbolism and beauty. It’s the only thing that makes life worth living.”

“We’re structurally dismantling barriers to our music. Language isn’t a barrier. Race and color aren’t barriers; in the end, all blood is red.”

This concept is baked into the Spanish word inquietude, Bellorín says. He and Troop spend several jocular minutes cycling through possible English translations—Ancientness? Longing? Concern?

Reflection?—before accepting the lack of any perfect analog. “That’s the bridge we’re building,” Bellorín says. “We’re structurally dismantling barriers to our music.

Language isn’t a barrier, since we play a bilingual set. Race and color aren’t barriers; in the end, all blood is red. We’re promoting a message of unity between our two folk traditions.”

They’ll put that mixture on tape in August, when they plan to record their full-length debut with Durham guitar whiz and composer Charlie Hunter— most likely live to tape to capture the electrifying musical chemistry they’ve developed while gigging all over North Carolina. Whether that’s for bluegrass purists in Danbury, Hispanic families in Graham, white hippies in Carrboro, or multicultural youth in Durham, Larry & Joe’s mixture of old-world elegance, foot-stomping joy, and multi-instrumental prowess always wows the crowd.

Even more important, both men say, is democratizing that crowd.

“We don’t want to exclude anyone from our shows who can’t afford to come,” Troop says. “We want to create spaces that everyone can share.” Nearly all Larry & Joe live shows (including their upcoming one at Pour House in Raleigh on July 26) rely on a pay-what-you-can model. Surprisingly, they say it’s been a resounding success.

Many concertgoers drift in the door based solely on the singular sound of the llanera-bluegrass blend, then drop $10 or $20 into the bucket on their way.

“We know we have to work within the confines of capitalism,” Troop says of the model. “But we’re trying to encourage a more egalitarian approach to the often exclusive economy of live music.”

Such themes of social justice have always permeated Troop’s work, from his Che Apalache days to his 2021 solo album, Borrowed Time. That critically

acclaimed work showed solidarity with Mexican immigrants, progressive Black politicians, and queer communities thriving in rural places. “My song ‘Hermano Migrante’ resonated with Larry,” Troop says. “Our music has more than a political message. It has a human rights message that values sharing space and learning about each other’s cultures. We are part of a broader movement—what Cesar Chavez called La Causa and what today is known as Nuevo South. We’re one representation of that cultural phenomenon.”

Troop says the Triangle—home to nearly a quarter of North Carolina’s 1.2 million Latinx population—is the duo’s perfect home base. He and Bellorín have hosted bilingual harp-building workshops for local schoolchildren, and Hillsborough-based nonprofit Music Maker Foundation has provided the duo with extensive support (including a stand-up bass for Bellorín to play and a table saw for his harp luthiery).

“We’re developing a concept,” Bellorín says. “I want the harps that I build to be touched by painters, poets, and children. Their hands are a metaphor for the unity of our work as cultural community builders.”

Troop marvels at the fact that their work only began because he and Bellorín were both searching for new collaborators during the depths of the recent Omicron spike.

“This has been a really beautiful thing to come out of a lot of tragedy,” Troop says.

“Our music’s helped us express ourselves and sublimate these experiences that have been hard on everyone.”

Momentarily overcome by the fiery emotion he normally saves for the stage, Troop looks at Bellorín and adds, “We are really lucky to have this man in North Carolina.” Bellorín smiles back, their unspoken intuition clearly sharpened after just a few months together as a duo. “Music is a universal language—the language of integration. And everyone speaks it. This could be the beginning of something big.” W INDYweek.com

July 20, 2022

13

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LARRY & JOE

Martes, 26 julio | The Pour House, Raleigh | 8 p.m. | Pagan lo quiéran

Larry Bellorín y Joe Troop FOTO POR BRETT VILLENA

Construyendo puentes musicales Larry Bellorín y Joe Troop fusionan música llanera y bluegrass en una nueva mezcla sureña. POR NICK MCGREGOR | TRADUCIDO A ESPAÑOL POR CARYL ESPINOZA JAEN

C

itaciones idealistas sobre música llenan los anales filosóficos. Confucio y Plato ambos comentaron, con sus respectivos aforismos como; “La música crea un tipo de placer que la condición humana que, sin ella, no se puede vivir” y “La música es una ley moral”, son imposibles de atribuir definitivamente a ellos. Es más fácil trazar la famosa cita del siglo 19 por Arthur Schopenhauer “La música es el lenguaje del sentimiento y la pasión.” Pero el malhumorado crítico de arte Inglés John Berger quizás lo dijo mejor en 2015: “Una canción narra una experiencia pasada. Mientras está siendo cantada llena el presente … tiene la esperanza de alcanzar a una audiencia en algún futuro. Avanza hacia adelante cada vez más y más lejos.”

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Ese espíritu propulsivo y progresivo está vivo en la obra de Larry & Joe. Nacido en Winston-Salem y ahora establecido en Durham, Joe Troop aprendió a tocar bluegrass y old-time cuando era un joven, antes de vivir por una década en Buenos Aires, Argentina, donde dirigió un grupo de fusión musical nominado al Grammy, Che Apalache. Larry Bellorín, mientras tanto, creció 2,100 millas al sur de Punta de Mata, Monagas, Venezuela, donde fue una leyenda de música llanera, música folclórica venezolana amenizada por arpa, cuatro (guitarra pequeña), y maracas.

Forzado al exilio hace seis años por la crisis inmigratoria venezolana, Bellorín aplicó a asilo político y llegó a

Raleigh, donde empezó trabajando en construcción mientras reconstruyo su vida musical.

El improbable dúo se conectó a inicios del 2022 con la ayuda de Sophia Enríquez, una profesora asistente en la universidad de Duke, especializándose en la intersección entre la música, migración, e identidad Latina y Apalachina.

Bellorín había acompañado Enríquez durante un concierto en el museo de arte de Carolina del Norte, mientras Troop estaba preparándose para una residencia de un mes en Durham Fruit.

“Larry vino al primer concierto y se unió a tocar el bajo,” Troop le dice a INDY Week The Raleigh Times, donde el dúo tocó una noche de martes en junio.

“Después le mandé unas grabaciones improvisadas para aprender antes del siguiente espectáculo. Cuando sacó su arpa, a él le dieron una gran ovación.” Bellorín, que responde en español (traducido sin algún esfuerzo por el bilingüe Troop), sonríe y añade, “De inmediato, había algo muy especial entre nosotros, un tipo de conexión diferente.”

Esa conexión es construida en las sorprendentes características en común que existen entre la tradición de música llanera de Bellorín y la herencia bluegrass de Troop.

“Las dos son representaciones folclóricas de nuestros países,” Bellorín dice. “Las dos son música de instrumentos de cuerdas, y las dos son música de la clase obrera.

Teniendo esa similitud, pero de diferentes perspectivas es lo que nos da nuestra propia identidad única.”

Troop recuerda haber conocido músicos llaneros tocando en el metro de Buenos Aires entre 2016 cuando un éxodo masivo de artistas e intelectuales salieron de Venezuela.

“Eran fenomenales,” él dice. “Como, ¡santo cielos de bueno!, pero nunca tuve un chance de trabajar con un músico venezolano a tiempo completo hasta Larry. Es el chance de una vida. Los dos hemos estado expuestos a la tradición folclórica de cada uno, pero ahora estamos verdaderamente buscando una manera de combinar las dos juntas.”

A primera vista, eso viene de adaptar el rítmico para el banjo en las normas de la música llanera como en “Uno no tiene la culpa”—y dándole sazón antigua de favoritos de la música country como “Rollin’ in My Sweet Baby’s Arms” con maracas. La interpretación de “Caballo viejo” por el par, un clásico venezolano grabado originalmente por Simón Díaz, con el cual Troop se ganó un nuevo adorable apodo, El gringo llanero.

“Esa fue la primera vez que música llanera se ha hecho con un banjo,” Bellorín enfatiza. “Con un nivel alto de maestría musical y ejecución. Pero no se trata de comple-

jidad, la cosa más bella fue el amor con el que Joe la tocó.” Troop dice que la osmosis transcultural va en dos vías, citando las funciones carismáticas de Bellorín en arpa y cuatro en la Mount Airy Fiddlers Convention del mes pasado. “Llevo a la gente al llanto”—Troop dice. “La música toca los corazones de la gente en una manera que es indescriptible. No necesariamente sabes que es lo que mueve a la gente a llorar. Pero es simbólico, y los humanos viven y mueren de simbolismo y belleza. Es la única cosa por el cual vale la pena vivir.”

Este concepto esta fundado en la palabra española “inquietud,” Bellorín dice. Troop y él pasaron muchos minutes jocosos tratando de encontrar posibles traducciones en inglés—¿antigüedad?, ¿nostalgia?, ¿inquietud?, ¿reflexión?—antes de aceptar la falta de una perfecta definición. “Ese es el puente que estamos construyendo,” Bellorín dice. “Estamos culturalmente venciendo barreras a nuestra música. El lenguaje no es una barrera porque tocamos en un set bilingüe. Raza y color no son barreras; al final toda sangre es roja. Estamos promoviendo un mensaje de unidad entre las dos tradiciones folclóricas.”

Ellos van a grabar esa mezcla en agosto, donde planean a grabar su primer debut de larga duración con Charlie Hunter, el fenomenal guitarrista y compositor de Durham. Lo más probable es que la grabación sea en vivo para capturar esa electrificante química musical que han creado mientras han dado conciertos en toda Carolina del Norte.

Ya sea para los ávidos del bluegrass en Danbury, familias hispanas en Graham, los hippies blancos en Carrboro, o los jóvenes multiculturales en Durham, la mezcla de la elegancia de antaño, el jolgorio del zapateado, y habilidad multi instrumental de Larry y Joe siempre sorprenden al público.

Más importante, los dos hombres dicen, es democratizar a ese público.

“No queremos excluir a nadie que no puedan pagar la entrada,” Troop dice.

“Queremos crear espacios donde todos puedan compartir.” Casi todos los conciertos en vivo de Larry y Joe (incluyendo su próximo en The Pour House en Raleigh el 26 julio) dependen en un modelo donde la gente paga lo que pueda. Sorprendentemente, ellos dicen que ha sido un éxito resonante. Muchos de la audiencia vuelan adentros de las puertas solo por el sonido singular de la mezcla llanera-bluegrass, y después dejan $10–$20 en un cubo a la salida de la puerta.

“Sabemos que tenemos que trabajar en los confines del capitalismo”—Troop dice

sobre el modelo. “Pero estamos intentando a animar una manera de abordar más igualitaria a la economía usualmente exclusiva de música en vivo.”

Los temas de justicia social siempre han permeado el trabajo de Troop, desde sus días en Che Apalache a su solo álbum de 2021 Borrowed Time. En esa obra críticamente aclamada se muestra solidaridad con inmigrantes mejicanos, políticos afroamericanos progresivos, y comunidades marginadas viviendo en lugares rurales. “Mi canción ‘Hermano migrante’ resonó con Larry,” Troop dice. “Nuestra música tiene más que un mensaje político. Tiene un mensaje de derechos humanos que valoran compartir espacio y aprender sobre las culturas de cada otro. Somos parte de una causa más grande—lo que Cesar Chavez llamó ‘La causa’ y a como se refiere ahora como ‘Nuevo South’. Somos una representación de ese fenómeno cultural.”

Troop dice que el ‘Triángulo’—el hogar para casi un cuarto de la población de Carolina del Norte. Existe 1.2 millones de residentes latinos—es la perfecta base de operaciones para el dúo. Él y Bellorín han organizado talleres bilingües para construir arpas para niños en escuelas. Una organización sin fines de lucro con sede en Hillsborough Music Maker Foundation le han proporcionado al dúo un soporte extensivo, incluyendo un bajo para Bellorín y una sierra de mesa para su lutería de arpas.

“Estamos desarrollando un concepto,” Bellorín dice. “Yo quiero que las arpa que yo construyo sean tocadas por pintores, poetas, y niños. Sus manos son una metáfora para la unidad de nuestro trabajo como constructores de una comunidad cultural.”

Troop se maravilla del hecho que su trabajo con Bellorín empezó porque los dos estaban buscando nuevos colaboradores en medio de la reciente ola del Ómicron.

“Esto ha sido una cosa muy hermosa que surgió de mucha tragedia,” Troop dice.

“Nuestra música nos ha ayudado a expresarnos y a sublimar estas experiencias que han sido muy duras para todos.”

Momentáneamente anonadado por esa fiera emoción que el normalmente guarda para el escenario, Troop mira a Bellorín y añade, “Estamos muy suertudos por tener este hombre en Carolina del Norte.” Bellorín le sonríe de regreso, su intuición tácita claramente afilada después de solo unos meses como un dúo. “Música es la lengua universal, la lengua de integración. Y todos lo hablamos. Esto puede ser el comienzo a algo muy grande.” W

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July 20, 2022

15

E TC.

THE BOOT ROOM

Open Mon—Sun | 2501 University Drive | bootroomdurham.com

Inside the Boot Room in Durham PHOTOS BY BRETT VILLENA

Beautiful Game Room Durham soccer bar The Boot Room is a promising community space, but small changes would mean the world of difference in making it more inclusive for women’s teams and fans.

BY MICHAELA DWYER arts@indyweek.com

A

s the pandemic plods on, I’ve been bar-hopping in my mind. Lately I’m visiting Portland, Oregon’s Sports Bra, which has gained (rightful) publicity for its corrective mission: to broadcast solely women’s athletics across its in-house TVs, in effect eliminating what Vogue writer Emma Specter calls the self-motivated “hustle” required of bar goers who must request, often unsuccessfully, that women’s sports events be shown.

Because the Sports Bra is distant, it remains utopic: a beam from the Instagram stream. The bar seems very gay (because women’s sports participants, fans, and advocates are very gay), by which I mean accessible to and affirming of visitors who are not straight cis men; there are gender-neutral bathrooms, Pride flags, and trans-affirming language alongside Black Lives Matter posters. The bar is deep, all on one level, with spillover 16

July 20, 2022

INDYweek.com

seating outside. (As someone more resistant with each new coronavirus variant to eating and drinking indoors, I consider outdoor seating essential for any venue.)

The Bra’s website and social media clearly list which sports events are happening when so that both established supporters’ groups and the sports-curious can be informed and schedule accordingly. Photographs and tchotchkes depicting women and nonbinary athletes decorate the walls.

These venue features are not mere superlatives; the Bra’s intentionality around inclusiveness informs my evaluative metric for any establishment that organizes its offerings around a cultural interest in 2022. I had all this in mind when I went on a recent midday Saturday to the Boot Room—Durham’s newish soccer bar—to watch Sweden and the Netherlands face off in the UEFA Women’s Euro

2022 early group stage. (This July is a banner month for professional women’s soccer, with the Women’s Euro and the Copa América Femenina, 2023 World Cup qualifying tournaments, and the National Women’s Soccer League running simultaneously. When I say I’m watching soccer this July, these are the matches I’m scrambling to find across the panoply of minor-mainstream sports platforms that, taken together in their disjointed mess, form another barrier to watching women’s soccer in a bar or at home.)

Slickly advertised with its own team crest—block colors of red and white and a charging bull more akin to Ferdinand than Wool E.—the Boot Room describes itself as a “sandwich shop, soccer pub, and event space.” (Based on my just-OK BLT and tots, I’d gently advise reordering the aforementioned list.) The crest also states its startup date: 2020, when the owners took over former Italian restaurant The Boot, naming the new space for European football clubs’—especially Liverpool’s—cleat storage cum social spaces. (The bar retains a loose Liverpool F.C. affiliation.)

I am happy to say there was no hustling involved in my recent visit. Mask on and kombucha in hand, I wound my way through the multiroom space that comprises the Boot Room—bright yellow walls in the frontal food-ordering area, dark navy blues in back— and noticed every reflective surface bearing that familiar fescue green. All of the bar TVs and projection screens were already tuned into Sweden-Netherlands on ESPN2, with commentary clearly audible over the low glitch-thrum of the bar’s ambient Sylvan Esso.

None of the TV programming changed over during the match, which was a nice distraction from the total five people (my party of three and two friendly dad types, one wearing a Netherlands men’s team jersey) who showed up with the intention of watching.

The Boot Room is a place to settle into. Seating is comfortable—seminar-style wooden tables, smaller bistro setups, bench booths—and spread out. HEPA filters hum and chug. Patrons and bartenders breeze in and out of adjoining Beer Study, which the very kind Boot Room cashier told me functions as a “sibling” venue. This seamlessness, and the seeming lack of proprietary attitude on behalf of either business, is surprising and revelatory: imbibers of alcoholic and nonalcoholic drinks alike will find much more variety next door, but the Boot Room has indicated via Instagram that it’s expanding in-house bar offerings soon, adding an import bar, cask engine, and “more bottle selections.”

Traditional sports bars find their function in being places to settle: they thrive as placaters, not correctors.

Gather with friends, get your drink, watch the game. But

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what are the micro-actions that build toward these gestures? Where does one’s attention move during commercial breaks, between penalty shots? (Mine: to my own clenched knuckles.) The light: Too bright, too dim? The wall art: How does it connect to the bar’s theme? And then: Who or what does the artwork represent, and how? What, or whose, story is embedded in the landscape?

Beyond striking vintage (men’s) World Cup posters (the best an orby ode to the Zaragoza matches in Spain’s 1982 tourney) and hundreds of historic soccer photographs, I counted only a handful of images of non-male players. The bathrooms— for “men” and “women,” none gender neutral—are flanked by outdated photographs of the U.S. men’s and women’s national teams. Though there’s outdoor seating, the TVs are minuscule and useless in direct sun, making game-viewing decisions more fraught for COVID-conscious patrons. As I scanned the the Boot Room’s social media during halftime to check the bar’s upcoming events, I was dismayed to see no mention of any of the current women’s tournaments or connected viewing events.

On these points, I encourage this promising community soccer bar to be more intentional, and quickly. These are simple material issues—correctives—that require and affirm attention not only to the women’s game (which, as I always point out, includes trans and nonbinary players) but also to a broader fan base and clientele.

Here I think of the (unpaid) work of supporters’ groups, particularly for women’s soccer, to appeal to everyone while supporting the most marginalized: an antidote to heteronormative fan culture. Without their own space, our local, the NC Courage–affiliated Uproar, regularly pops up at Raleigh’s London Bridge soccer pub and, more recently, Durham’s Hi-Wire Brewing for Courage watch parties.

As a much smaller and more fragmented metropolitan area than Portland, or New York, or London, the Triangle contains fewer interest-based venues like the Boot Room. Their arrival surfaces the scarcity conundrum that afflicts our arts and culture scene at large: the idea that celebrating and sustaining these spaces requires papering over critical concerns.

What I love about queer bars, and the idea of bars like the Sports Bra, is their pleasure in political orientation. I can arrive, IRL or in my mind, in all my fullness, knowing, and reveling in, the many valences of a game or a dance or a drink. (No pretension, in other words, that cultural activities are neutral or mere apolitical entertainment; no “shut up and play” tolerated.) These are the spaces that deserve our front-line, full-energy protection and advocacy and that deserve the credit when mainstream cultural establishments—in Durham, in Portland, anywhere—incorporate their inclusive gestures and edge closer to validating the full spectrum of the beautiful game. W

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July 20, 2022

17

STAGE Actors Mary Rowland (r) and Samantha Corey in the recent production of The Half Life of Marie Curie PHOTO COURTESY OF CHARLES MACHALICKY

Theater for Everyone Following the implosion of several local theater companies before and during the pandemic, the founders of Switchyard Theater are resurrecting the art form with ambitious productions for Triangle audiences.

BY BYRON WOODS arts@indyweek.com

W

ith Switchyard Theater’s production of The Half-Life of Marie Curie just closed at Durham’s PSI Theatre, company cofounder Charles Machalicky is trying to describe the experience of managing live theater.

“Actually, it’s a lot like a duck,” Machalicky grins. “Smooth on the surface,” he says before laughing, “with all sorts of activity happening underneath.”

After the company bowed with an outdoor late April production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream on the commons at Chapel Hill’s Southern Village, it turned to a historical drama by Lauren Gunderson, currently the most produced living playwright in the United States, for its first endeavor in a conventional theater.

The scripts and venue choices were not accidental. A decade ago, Chapel Hill and Carrboro hosted notable theater companies including Deep Dish and the Open Door, while Durham was a theatrical hub for innovative, independent companies including Tiny Engine Theatre, Com18

July 20, 2022

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mon Wealth Endeavors, and Little Green Pig at spaces like Common Ground and Manbites Dog Theater.

Both of those venues shuttered before the pandemic virtually closed the art form down, and a number of itinerant companies went dormant or folded. Though Switchyard’s artistic director Noelle Azarelo calls Durham and Chapel Hill “very arts-forward areas,” Machalicky notes that the theater scene has “imploded” in both towns—leaving an opening for new endeavors like Switchyard.

Shakespeare would be a no-brainer for a theater’s opening bid, and Azarelo crafted an accessible, medieval-tinged production, with buskers and performers from the regional ren faire community entertaining and mingling with the crowds before the show.

But why do a historical drama about Marie Curie for a follow-up?

“One of the questions we asked was, ‘Who was going to enjoy that show?’” Machalicky says. “It’s women in STEM

[science, technology, engineering, and math]. And we have a lot of them in high tech, in Raleigh and RTP.” In the wake of the Supreme Court’s reversal on abortion, Gunderson’s script was nothing if not timely: an examination on how women’s lives were and still are circumscribed by sex. “A love affair is about to bring the entire career down of the first person to ever win two Nobel Prizes,” Azarelo says. “Why do we even care who she has sex with?”

When the play’s two scientists place the highest possible value on proof—scientific moments of universal acknowledgment when what is known is known beyond all doubt— they expose the degree to which a gaslighting culture has so often questioned, denied, and delegitimized the experiences of women.

“It speaks to our moment,” Azarelo says. In its vision statement, the company plans to keep doing so, emphasizing “a broader understanding of current events and our shared humanity.”

Look closely, and you’ll see that in its upcoming season.

Its next production, the dark comedy Fuddy Meers, runs at Burning Coal Theatre in October. In it, Claire, a central character with a form of amnesia like the subject of the film 50 First Dates, wakes every morning with no knowledge of her recent life. Her husband shows her a photo album and updates her on recent events.

One morning a different man enters, says he’s her brother, and tells her that the man who’s been waking her up has been lying to her. From that point forward, Claire—and the audience—has no idea whom to believe.

To Azarelo, the parallels with our current social and political landscape seem obvious.

“We are constantly getting conflicting information; we don’t know who to trust,” the director says. “How do you do your own research when the algorithms created for you just show you what you want to read, instead of what might be factually correct?”

“The more you get into your bubble, the more you’re only getting the information that someone else wants you to have,” Azarelo concludes. “That’s exactly what’s happening with Claire.”

The company’s first season will continue with a winter production of a rarely produced Noël Coward comedy, with a twist. Nontraditional casting “will have a really interesting impact on the show,” Azarelo says. Multiple roles will be open to actors of any gender identity; all roles are open to any race or ethnicity.

“Representation is so important,” Azarelo says, “because we’re not just making theater for straight, white, able-bodied, neurotypical, and conventionally beautiful people. We are making theater for everyone. Each body tells a story.

And we tell different stories, depending on the bodies that we see.” W

SA 7/23 @CAT’S @CAT’S CRADLE BACK ROOM

HONEY MAGPIE

SU 8/7 @CAT’S @CAT’S CRADLE BACK ROOM

A GIANT DOG

W/ ANNIE STOKES, HEATHER SARONA SA 7/30 @CAT’S CRADLE BACK ROOM

SU 8/21 & MO 8/22 @HAW RIVER BALLROOM

BRICK + MORTAR

LUCINDA WILLIAMS

W/ANDRES, AMERICA PART TWO CAT'S CRADLE

ALESANA, VAMPIRES EVERYWHERE, FRONTSIDE, AND GOLD STEPS ($20)

TH 8/18

SA 8/20 ABBEY ROAD LIVE! (MATINEE AND EVENING SHOWS) TU 8/30

BORIS W/ NOTHING

SA 9/3 MIPSO W/ RODES BABY, LOU HAZEL

MIPSO W/ BELLA WHITE

SU 4/4

SPIRITUALIZED LIVE

FR 9/9

MO 9/12 [TU 9/13

BRISTON MARONEY W/ MEDIUM BUILD

POSTPONED: SALES] AMANDA SHIRES

WE 9/21

FR 9/23 CRANK IT LOUD PRESETS: FLOR W/ WLDLFE, GOOD PROBLEM

TH 9/8 @CAROLINA THEATRE

A.J.CROCE PERFORMING THE MUSIC OF HIS FATHER, JIM CROCE

SA 9/24 BE LOUD ’22:

PREESH!, WHAT PEGGY WANTS, THE SEXELLS

(MEMBERS OF CONNELLS AND SEX POLICE) SU 9/25 MOVEMENTS W/ ANGEL DU$T, ONE STEP CLOSER, SNARLS MO 9/26 TU 9/27

GIRLPOOL

OSEES

W/ BRONZE ($25/$28)

ELECTRIC SIX/ SUPERSUCKERS

TH 9/29 FR 10/1

JUKEBOX THE GHOST

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OF MONTREAL

W/ LOCATE S,1

WE 10/5 FR 10/7

IBEYI

STEVE KIMOCK & FRIENDS

SA 10/8 WILD RIVERS W/ KYNDAL INSKEEP SU 10/9 CAROLINE FR 10/14

TWO NIGHTS! SA 9/3 & SU 9/4 @CAT’S CRADLE

MIPSO

W/ RODES BABY, LOU HAZEL W/ BELLA WHITE

STEREOLAB

MO 10/17 TU 10/18

ROSE W/ TOTH

KMFDM

CALEXICO W/ADA LEA

WE 10/19 BLACK ANGELS (RESCHEDULED FROM JAN '22) TH 10/20

ALEX CAMERON

FR 10/21 SHAME/ VIAGRA BOYS/KILLS BIRDS

SU 10/23 PANCHIKO W/ COMPUTER WIFE TU 10/25

WHITNEY

WE 10/26 THE AIRBORNE TOXIC EVENT W/ MONDO COSMO

SU 8/7 A GIANT DOG ($15/$17) FR 8/12 THE BLAZERS 2022 SUMMER REUNION

MOTORCO (DURHAM) 8/11 THE DEAR HUNTER W/TWIABP…

TU 8/16 YELLOW OSTRICH WE 8/31 SIR WOMAN

8/21 MAN OR ASTRO-MAN? W/ SHUTUPS

SA 10/29

TOO MANY ZOOZ

FR 9/2 BIRDS AND ARROWS W/ JOSH KIMBROUGH ($10)

SA 10/29

TOO MANY ZOOZ

WE 9/7 HOLY FAWN W/ ASTRONOID

10/28 ALGERNON CADWALLADER

MO 10/31 NAPALM DEATH W/ W/ BRUJERIA, FROZEN SOUL, MILLIONS OF DEAD COP

SU 9/11 MARGO CILKER MO 9/12 TALL HEIGHTS W/ TOWRS

11/6 OSO OSO W/ M.A.G.S. ANXIOUS HAW RIVER BALLROOM (SAX) 8/20 SNAIL MAIL W/ MOMMA, HOTLINE TNT

WE 11/2

W/YAM YAM

RUSSIAN CIRCLES

BETH STELLIG

SA 11/5

WE 9/14 ILLITERATE LIGHT

W/ REZN

FR 11/4 ANDMOREAGAIN PRESENTS

CHLOE MORIONDO

FR 9/16 BRONCHO SU 9/18

THE KING KHAN & BBQ

SU 11/27 THE MENZINGERS: ON THE IMPOSSIBLE PAST 10 YR ANNIVERSARY TOUR

WE 9/28 KING BUFFALO W/ HEAVY TEMPLE

W/ TOUCHE AMORE, SCREAMING FEMALES

FR 9/30 TITUS ANDRONICUS

WE 12/14 MCLUSKY

TU 10/4 MELT

JUNIOR BOYS EELS

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FR 7/22 JON WARD BEYLE W/ WILL EASTER & THE NOMADS AND COURTNEY LYNN & QUINN ($10/$12) SA 7/23 HONEY MAGPIE W/ ANNIE STOKES, HEATHER SARONA TU 7/26 GET SAD Y’ALL PRESENTS:

MERCI, MY KID BROTHER

10/17 MADISON CUNNINGHAM W/ BENDIGO FLETCHER SOLD 10/26 VIOLENT FEMMES OUT

9/14 JOE PURDY

SA 10/8 CLEM SNIDE &

10/13 JONATHAN RICHMAN FT. TOMMY LARKINS

TH 10/13 DEAD HORSES

10/16 BOB MOULD SOLO ELECTRIC W/ H.C.MCENTIRE

FR 10/21 JON SPENCER &

10/30 DAR WILLIAMS ($30/$35)

JILL ANDREWS

THE HITMAKERS

THE RITZ (RALEIGH) 9/4 INTERPOL

TU 10/25 PILE—DRIPPING TEN YEAR ANNIVERSARY TOUR W/ MANEKA WE 10/26 CORY BRANAN TH 10/27 MO LOWDA & THE HUMBLE WE 11/2 TROPICAL FUCK STORM

TH 7/28 SPRING SUMMER

SU 11/6 THE LEGENDARY PINK DOTS W/ ORBIT SERVICE

SA 7/30 BRICK + MORTAR W/ ANDRES, AMERICA PART TWO WE 8/3 STEPHEN DAY W/ JOSH GILLIGAN TH 8/4 BAD BAD HATS W/ GULLY BOYS FR 8/5 BLUE CACTUS / LIBBY RODENBOUGH

THE ARTSCENTER (CARRBORO)

FR 10/7 TYRONE WELLS W/ NATHAN COLBERG

WE 7/27 ELF POWER W/ E.R. JURKEN

FR 7/29 WYATT EASTERLING CD RELEASE SHOW

11/14 SOCCER MOMMY W/ HELENA DELAND

TH 10/6 THE CACTUS BLOSSOMS ($17/$20)

SU 10/30 GHOSTLY KISSES

W/ SPEED STICK ($12/$15 )

9/28 TINARIWEN 10/6 ALEX G W/ BARRIE

W/ THE VIIOLET EXPLOIT, SLOW TEETH

(AKA JENNIFER FURCHES)

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9/23 ANDREA GIBSON

WE 9/21 S.G. GOODMAN W/ LE REN TU 9/27 FLEECE W/ GRAE

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8/21 & 8/22 LUCINDA WILLIAMS

SHOW W/ MIRANDA AND THE BEAT

W/ DREAMER ISIOMA

2/27/23

10/4 RARE AMERICANS

10/18 MOTHER MOTHER W/ SIR SLY KOKA BOOTH AMPHITHEATRE (CARY) 7/25 IRON & WINE AND ANDREW BIRD ($40- $60)

W/ MESHELL NDEGEOCELLO

NC MUSEUM OF ART (RALEIGH) 9/14

WE 11/16 COURTNEY

MARIE ANDREWS

W/ THE DIP

10/1 WATCHHOUSE W/ ALLISON DE GROOT & TATIANA HARGREAVES PINHOOK (DURHAM) 8/12 L.A. WITCH W/ COR DE LUX CAROLINA THEATRE (DURHAM)

TH 11/17 STOP LIGHT

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MO 11/28 BLACK LIPS W/BLOODSHOT BILL WE 12/9 NEW SHOW:

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KELSEY WALDON: NO REGULAR DOG TOUR ($15/$18)

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CULTURE CALENDAR

Please check with local venues for their health and safety protocols.

Andrew Bird and Iron & Wine perform at Koka Booth Amphitheatre on Monday, July 25.

PHOTO COURTESY OF CAT’S CRADLE

stage

music Blends With Friends (Open Decks) Wed, Jul. 20, 8 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Hanson: Red Green Blue Tour $45. Wed, Jul. 20, 8 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh.

Live Jazz with Marc Puricelli and Friends Wed, Jul. 20, 7 p.m. Imbibe, Chapel Hill.

Music Bingo Wed, Jul. 20, 7 p.m. The Oak House, Durham.

Joe Troop Latingrass Quartet $20. Thurs, Jul. 21, 7:30 p.m. The Fruit, Durham.

Mellow Swells Thurs, Jul. 21, 7:30 p.m. Imbibe, Chapel Hill.

Tedeschi Trucks Band: Wheels of Soul $35+. Thurs, Jul. 21, 6:30 p.m. Coastal Credit Union Music Park, Raleigh.

Dave Matthews Band $49+. Fri, Jul. 22, 7:30 p.m. Coastal Credit Union Music Park, Raleigh.

Dynamite Bros. $12. Fri, Jul. 22, 9 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.

Jim Ketch Swingtet $15+. Fri, Jul. 22, 8 p.m. Sharp Nine Gallery, Durham.

The Jive Bombers Fri, Jul. 22, 7 p.m.

Flying Bull Beer Co., Durham.

Jon Ward Beyle $10.

Fri, Jul. 22, 8 p.m.

Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Micky Dolenz $65+.

Fri, Jul. 22, 8 p.m.

Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

New Kids on the Block: The Mixtape Tour $17+. Fri, Jul. 22, 8 p.m. PNC Arena, Raleigh.

Scott Bouldin Fri, Jul. 22, 7:30 p.m. The Oak House, Durham.

Wailin Storms $10. Fri, Jul. 22, 8 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

David Ramirez $15.

Sat, Jul. 23, 8 p.m.

Motorco Music Hall, Durham.

Defacto Thezpian Sat, Jul. 23, 7 p.m.

Durty Bull Brewing Co., Durham.

The Dollyrots $15. Sat, Jul. 23, 8 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.

Honey Magpie $8.

Sat, Jul. 23, 7 p.m.

Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Lois Deloatch $25.

Sat, Jul. 23, 7 p.m.

Sharp Nine Gallery, Durham.

Empty $10. Sun, Jul. 24, 8 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.

Andrew Bird and Iron & Wine: Outside Problems Tour $41+. Mon, Jul. 25, 6 p.m.

Koka Booth Amphitheatre, Cary.

An Evening of Comedy Wed, Jul. 20, 8 p.m. Bull City Ciderworks, Durham.

92 in the Shade Thurs, Jul. 21, 8 p.m.

Shadowbox Studio, Durham.

Read the Room: A Chill Variety Show Wed, Jul. 20, 7:30 p.m. Durty Bull Brewing Co., Durham.

Movies Under the Stars: Soul Thurs, Jul. 21, 8 p.m. The Forest Theatre, Chapel Hill.

Live Jazz with Danny Grewen & Griffanzo Mon, Jul. 25, 6 p.m. Imbibe, Chapel Hill.

Jared Freid $20+.

Jul. 21-23, various times. Goodnights & Factory Restaurant, Raleigh.

Fenton Live!

Music Series Tues, Jul. 26, 6:30 p.m.

Fenton, Cary.

Rocky Dale Davis $25+. Sun, Jul. 24, 7 p.m. Goodnights & Factory Restaurant, Raleigh.

Joseph Foglia/Luca Collona Group $10.

Tues, Jul. 26, 7 p.m.

Sharp Nine Gallery, Durham.

Larry Bellorín and Joe Troop Tues, Jul. 26, 8 p.m. The Pour House Music Hall, Raleigh.

screen

RetroClassics Film Series $11+.

Jul. 22-24, various times. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.

Movies by Moonlight Series: Raya and the Last Dragon $10.

Fri, Jul. 22, 8:30 p.m. Koka Booth Amphitheatre, Cary.

NCMA hosts a bilingual Storytime in the Garden on Wednesday, July 20.

PHOTO COURTESY OF NCMA

Home Is Distant Shores Film Festival $12.

Sat, Jul. 23, 5 and 7:30 p.m. The Cary Theater, Cary.

Outdoor Film Series: Dune $7.

Sat, Jul. 23, 8:30 p.m. NCMA, Raleigh.

Pom Poko Brunch $11. Sun, Jul. 24, 11 a.m. Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Raleigh.

Abortion Stories Fri, Jul. 22, 7 p.m.

Lump, Raleigh.

Folding Space: Opening Reception Fri, Jul. 22, 6 p.m.

Lump, Raleigh.

What’s That Sculpture? Sat, Jul. 22, 10:30 a.m.

NCMA, Raleigh.

Watch Durham: A VERY Durham Film Screening Series Tues, Jul. 26, 7 p.m.

Durty Bull Brewing Co., Durham.

Rooftop Storytime with Darren Farrell Wed, Jul. 20, 10 a.m.

The Willard Rooftop Lounge, Raleigh.

Live Jazz with the Brian Horton Trio Tues, Jul. 26, 9 p.m.

Kingfisher, Durham.

Storytime in the Garden Wed, Jul. 20, 10:30 a.m.

NCMA, Raleigh.

Merci / My Kid Brother $10. Tues, Jul. 26, 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Marcie Cohen Ferris: Edible North Carolina Thurs, Jul. 21, 6 p.m. Letters Bookshop, Durham.

page

art

Terry Roberts: The Sky Club Thurs, Jul. 21, 5:30 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill.

Adam Hollowell: You Mean It or You Don’t Tues, Jul. 26, 7 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh.

Alison B. Hart: The Work Wife Tues, Jul. 26, 5:30 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill.

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There is really only one rule to Sudoku: Fill in the game board so that the numbers 1 through 9 occur exactly once in each row, column, and 3x3 box.

The numbers can appear in any order and diagonals are not considered.

Your initial game board will consist of several numbers that are already placed. Those numbers cannot be changed. Your goal is to fill in the empty squares following the simple rule above.

If you just can’t wait, check out the current week’s answer key at www.indyweek.com, and click “puzzle pages.”

Best of luck, and have fun! www.sudoku.com solution to last week’s puzzle

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C L AS S I F I E D S EMPLOYMENT Senior Software Engineer (Raleigh, NC) Senior Software Engineer sought by LexisNexis USA in Raleigh NC to use advanced system technology to design/develop solutions for specific software functional areas & product lines. Minimum of Master’s or equiv in Comp Sci, Comp Egg, Comp Info Sys or rltd + 3 yrs exp in job offered or rltd rqd. EE reports to LexisNexis USA office in Raleigh NC but may telecommute from any location within US. Apply by mail to T. Hayward, RELX, 1100 Alderman Dr, Alpharetta, GA 30005.

Eminence IT Solutions Inc (Cary, NC) Eminence IT Solutions Inc seeks SQL Developer for its Cary, NC office to participate in all aspects of Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) including requirements analysis, software specifications and high/low level design, testing, and deployment. Utilize Workflow manager to create Workflow sessions to define mapping sequence. May travel and relocate to various unanticipated sites throughout the U.S. Must have a Master’s degree in Comp Sci, Info Sys, Engg or rltd & 12 months of exp. Send Resumes and cover letter to resumes@eitsinc.com. NO CALLS. EOE.

NOTICES HEIR ALERT Descendants of M. R. LEEDY are sought as potential heirs of real estate located in Wytheville, Virginia and owned by M. R. Leedy in 1909. A legal suit has been filed claiming ownership of a residential lot at 435 East Jefferson Street, Wytheville, VA 24382.

If you are a descendant or a sibling or descendant of a sibling of DAN STERCHI STREET who died on February 11, 2021 and lived at 1114 Manchester St., Apt. 104, Raleigh, NC 27609 and wish to make a claim related to this real property, you may contact the Circuit Court Clerk of Wythe County at: JERIMIAH MUSSER, CLERK OF CIRCUIT COURT 105 Courthouse 225 S. 4th Street Wytheville, VA 24382 You must respond in writing on or prior to August 10, 2022 and include your name, address and information about your relationship to DAN STERCHI STREET by identifying your ancestors that were children or other descendants of DAN STERCHI STREET. The litigation information is: VIRGINIA: IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF WYTHE COUNTY NANCY GAIL CROCKETT, Plaintiff, v. Civil Action: CL 22-491 Heirs of M. R. LEEDY, Addresses Unknown, Defendants

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