INDY Week 9.27.17 by INDY

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The Triangleâ€™s LGBTQ community keeps bravely building on the legacy of Stonewall

The Pride issue

raleigh 9|27|17

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WHAT WE LEARNED THIS WEEK 6 Last year, Donald Trump pledged to “do everything in my power to protect LGBTQ citizens.” How’s that working out? 9 Of all the metro areas within the proposed threethousand-mile East Coast Greenway, the Triangle’s bike trails are the most developed. 17 “What queer activism has taught us time and time again is the sense that we are unapologetic and unafraid to put bodies on the line.” 27 Of the three women who started Black Lives Matter, two identify as queer.

VOL. 34, NO. 38

DEPARTMENTS 6 Triangulator 9 News 15 Pride 29 Music 36 Food 42 Arts & Culture 46 What to Do This Week 49 Music Calendar 53 Arts & Culture Calendar

34 Molly Tuttle didn’t realize how few women played lead guitar until she got to music school. 38 The main ingredient in Panciuto’s pawpaw milkshake is also sometimes known as the “hipster banana.” 44 In Playing with Fire, Frankenstein’s monster meets his maker and has many questions.

ON THE COVER

DESIGN BY SHAN STUMPF PHOTO BY LINDSAY WILLIAMS

Catherine Edgerton (see p. 23)

PHOTO BY ALEX BOERNER

INDYweek.com | 9.27.17 | 3

NCDOT TO HOLD PUBLIC MEETING SEPTEMBER 28 FOR THE PROPOSED INTERSECTION IMPROVEMENTS AT THE INTERSECTION OF U.S. 501 (N. ROXBORO ROAD) WITH LATTA ROAD (S.R. 1448) AND INFINITY ROAD (S.R. 1639) DURHAM COUNTY TIP No. U-5516 The N. C. Department of Transportation will hold a public meeting in September regarding the proposed project to widen N. Roxboro Road and add dedicated right turn lanes in both directions of Latta Road (S.R. 1448) and Infinity Road (S.R. 1639). Sidewalks will be added on the north and south sides of both Latta and Infinity Road from the intersection at N. Roxboro. The meeting will take place on Thursday, September 28 at Mount Sylvan United Methodist Church located at 5731 N. Roxboro Road, in Durham from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Interested citizens may attend at any time during the meeting hours. NCDOT representatives will be available to answer questions and listen to comments regarding the project. Please note that no formal presentation will be made. Citizens will also have the opportunity to submit comments and questions in writing. Comments received will be taken into consideration as the project develops. The public can view maps displaying the location and design of the project as they become available online at http://www.ncdot.gov/projects/publicmeetings. Anyone desiring additional information may contact Mr. Mark Reep, PE at (919) 900-1635 or by email at Mark.Reep@hdrinc.com. All comments must be received no later than Thursday, October 12, 2015. NCDOT will provide auxiliary aids and services under the Americans with Disabilities Act for disabled persons who wish to participate in this meeting. Anyone requiring special services should contact Ms. Diane Wilson via e-mail at pdwilson1@ncdot.gov or by phone (919) 707-6073 as early as possible so that arrangements can be made. Aquellas personas que hablan español y no hablan inglés, o tienen limitaciones para leer, hablar o entender inglés, podrían recibir servicios de interpretación si los solicitan antes de la reunión llamando al 1-800-481-6494.

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Raleigh Durham | Chapel Hill

PUBLISHER Susan Harper EDITORIAL

EDITOR IN CHIEF Jeffrey C. Billman MANAGING EDITOR FOR ARTS+CULTURE Brian Howe DESIGN DIRECTOR Shan Stumpf STAFF WRITERS Thomas Goldsmith,

Erica Hellerstein, Sarah Willets MUSIC EDITOR Allison Hussey COPY EDITOR David Klein FOOD EDITOR Victoria Bouloubasis LISTINGS COORDINATOR Kate Thompson THEATER AND DANCE CRITIC Byron Woods RESTAURANT CRITIC Emma Laperruque STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Alex Boerner CHIEF CONTRIBUTORS Drew Adamek, Elizabeth Bracy, Timothy Bracy, Michaela Dwyer, Spencer Griffith, Corbie Hill, Jill Warren Lucas, Sayaka Matsuoka, Glenn McDonald, Neil Morris, Angela Perez, Hannah Pitstick, Noah Rawlings, Bryan C. Reed, V. Cullum Rogers, Dan Ruccia, David Ford Smith, Zack Smith, Chris Vitiello, Patrick Wall INTERNS Emma Parna Gomes, Maddy SweitzerLammé

PRODUCTION+DESIGN

PRODUCTION MANAGER Christopher Williams GRAPHIC+EDITORIAL DESIGNER Steve Oliva

OPERATIONS

BUSINESS MANAGER Alex Rogers

CIRCULATION

CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Brenna Berry-Stewart DISTRIBUTION Laura Bass, David Cameron,

Michael Griswold, JC Lacroix, Richard David Lee, Joseph Lizana, James Maness, Gloria McNair, Jeff Prince, Timm Shaw, Freddie Simons, Marshall Wade, Gerald Weeks

ADVERTISING

ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Shannon Legge SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Lee Coggins,

Ele Roberts, Sarah Schmader

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Stephanie Miller,

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Last week gave a tw Makers p new dram a rare thi culated a Christian titioners h and have impose on In an e descriptio ers’ curre time. Th ters as hu but mainl receiving. describes acter as a sive, cru from the accurate— sionate— might be has their o conceived ing with defensive allowing t perceive t and confu safe place humans g the finest a long tim service to Letter w er critiqu duction o play. The ing, and m liantly do to tell Byr performa the review productio the subjec David praise of the Durh Internatio league ba ence whe and devel

backtalk Missed the Boat Last week, our theater critic, Byron Woods, gave a two-star review to The Cake, a PlayMakers production of Beka Brunstetter’s new drama. “The Cake,” Woods wrote, “is a rare thing in our current moment: a calculated apologia for conservative Southern Christianity and the antigay bigotry its practitioners have inculcated in their families— and have attempted, through legislation, to impose on everyone else.” In an email, Rick takes exception to that description: “Your review of PlayMakers’ current offering missed the boat big time. The play portrayed all the characters as humans—flawed, ignorant, clueless, but mainly capable of love—both giving and receiving. The reviewer describes Macy’s character as a ‘boorish, invasive, crusading liberal from the north’; a more accurate—and compassionate—description might be ‘someone who has their own set of preconceived notions, acting with preemptive defensiveness, thereby allowing the audience to perceive this character as someone in pain and confusion, perhaps not speaking from a safe place, thus speaking in a way in which humans generally don’t talk.’ This is one of the finest plays I have seen at PlayMakers in a long time; your two-star ranking does a disservice to your readers.” Letter writer Trumpet Player offers another critique: “The Cake was an excellent production of a charming, witty, and funny new play. The characters were true to life, engaging, and multidimensional. The set was brilliantly done in its flexibility. Someone needs to tell Byron Woods: 1) he needs to attend a performance before doing a review; and 2) the review needs to be about the play and its production, not his personal viewpoint on the subject matter of the play.” David Crispell, meanwhile, writes in praise of Adam Sobsey’s piece last week on the Durham Bulls’ successful quest for an International League championship. “Minor league ball is a beautiful and weird experience where elite talent in an industry trains and develops in front of a crowd that expects

entertainment nightly. (I will never forget going to see David Price pitch for the Bulls to catch a glimpse of an elite talent, only for him, under the orders of the Rays, to throw change-up after change-up and get hammered by Indianapolis and some guy named Andrew McCutchen.) I appreciate both the knowledge and twinge of nostalgia necessary to savor baseball like the fine wine of sport that it is. “Rarely does the INDY delve into such low-culture happenings as sport, but frankly this is the best coverage I have found on the championship. The Bulls are a big part of Durham, and in particular its last decade of renaissance. As someone who has had a napkin signed by Chipper Jones at the DAP (Mom threw it away cleaning my room one day) and a ball signed by Andruw Jones at the DBAP; has played on the field at the DBAP and now coaches at DAP; was as a bat boy once instructed to go pick up front teeth off the pitcher’s mound after a brawl featuring Bulls’ battery mates Jason Standridge and Paul Hoover; and a father who now takes his boys to Wooly’s House every chance I get— the Bulls are in me like red clay, the waters of the Eno, and Brunswick stew.” Commenter pdeblin is less effusive: “I guess using the logic of this article. the NCAA championships won by Duke or UNC or Kentucky or any other team don’t really matter because a large number of players involved are one and done. The same could be said for the NFL, where rosters change dramatically from year to year due to free agency and injury. I would say a minor league baseball championship where over one hundred games are played with a solid core of players is more meaningful than an NCAA championship played by players who don’t even play forty games for their team. On the other hand, who cares? It’s a game.”

“Rarely does the INDY delve into such low-culture happenings.”

Want to see your name in bold? Email us at backtalk@indyweek.com, comment on our Facebook page or indyweek.com, or hit us up on Twitter: @indyweek.

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triangulator

HOW HAS

DONALD TRUMP SCREWED THE LGBTQ COMMUNITY? In his convention speech last year, Donald Trump made a play for LGBTQ votes, pleading to “do everything in my power to protect LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology.” He was referring to radical Islamists in the context of the then-recent Pulse massacre in Florida. But the key word in that line

JANUARY 20

Education secretary Betsy DeVos refused to commit to stripping federal funding from private schools that discriminate against LGBTQ people.

JANUARY 25

Trump signed the so-called travel ban, which, while targeting Muslims, was particularly awful for LGBTQ refugees seeking to flee those countries.

The Southern Poverty Law Center published a report arguing that Trump’s campaign had led to a surge of hate crimes, including against LGBTQ people.

JUNE 7

Three hours after Trump was sworn in, the administration had wiped the LGBT page from whitehouse.gov.

FEBRUARY 15

turned out to be foreign; since taking office, Trump’s administration has gone all-in on oppression in the name of a hateful homegrown ideology. As we celebrate Pride this week, we wanted to take a second to reflect upon what the first nine months of President Trump has meant for LGBTQ folks.

JUNE 29

Trump rescinded Obama-era protections for transgender students.

Trump appointed an anti-transgender activist to the office of Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment.

Let us count the ways 10 MARCH 16

6 | 9.27.17 | INDYweek.com

The Department of Commerce removed sexual orientation and gender identity from the list of categories explicitly protected from discrimination. After BuzzFeed reported this, the department added LGBTQ people back into its policy.

FEBRUARY 22

JUNE 15

The Department of State sent an anti-gay hate group to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.

JULY 26

Blindsiding his defense secretary, Trump tweeted that transgender soldiers will no longer be allowed in the military.

AUGUST 25

Trump signed an executive order banning new transgender military recruits; the fate of transgender people currently serving in the military is unclear.

+SONGS OF FREEDOM

Demonstrators rallied at a Durham County Board of Commissioners meeting Monday night in what one participant called “a renewed opening salvo” demanding changes at the county jail. About twenty-five people, including members of Inside-Outside Alliance and Alerta Migratoria, gathered in front of the county government building on Main Street. Earlier in the day, barricades were put up around the base of the now-dismantled Confederate monument out front. Before demonstrators showed up, about a dozen deputies gathered around the monument. The two groups in the past have gathered at the steps of the building, sometimes heading inside to disrupt a commissioners meeting. A Facebook event for Monday’s rally made no mention of the Confederate monument, which was toppled by protesters on August 14 during a rally in response to a white supremacist gathering in Charlottesville. Since the August 14 demonstration, Sheriff Mike Andrews has been calling on elected officials to develop guidelines for public assemblies—for example, better enforcement of the permitting process and facility use policies, and “to declare that they expect the laws to be observed.” Monday’s crowd chanted, called Andrews a liar and a racist, and held signs reading, “This jail kills,” “Sanctuary for all,” and “Video ‘visit’ is Newspeak,” a reference to George Orwell’s 1984. Some members of the group did go inside, delivering their demands to county commissioners via an adaption of Florence Reece’s “Which Side Are You On?”

“They say in Durham County/ there are no neutrals here/ the sheriff is a racist ass/ the people want what’s fair!” they sang to commissioners before joining the group outside and delivering an encore. (Demonstrators said they tried to get on the evening’s agenda, to no avail.) The group called on the board to pass a resolution freezing new funding for the Sheriff’s Office until Andrews agrees to halt any collaboration with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, maintain in-person visitation at the county jail at is current levels, and never charge a fee for video visitation, which is being implemented at the jail next month. In addition, they want to see Andrews “testify under oath about his department’s collaboration with ICE, the deaths in the Durham Jail, and his plans for video visitation.” Sandro Mendoza, a member of Alerta Migratoria, said the commissioners can expect to see demonstrations like the one held Monday until changes are made. “It’s going to take the rest of the community who think Durham is progressive,” he said.

+ MONUMENTAL DELAYS

In a move that was disappointing but not particularly shocking to activists, the N.C. Historical Commission voted nearly unanimously Friday to postpone a decision on removing Confederate monuments from the state Capitol in downtown Raleigh. The decision came in response to a petition sent by Governor Cooper’s administration earlier this month to remove three Confederate monuments from the Capitol to the Bentonville Battlefield state historic site

in Johnston County. Cooper proposed moving the monuments in the wake of the deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville. That such a politically charged decision comes down to an eleven-member commission is not by accident. It’s by design; specifically, a 2015 law passed by the General Assembly that prevents the state from removing “objects of remembrance,” including Confederate monuments, from public property without the approval of the Historical Commission. The Cooper administration is arguing that moving them to Bentonville would comply with the law. Unsurprisingly, Republican lawmakers contend that it would not. Ultimately, the commission punted, voting 9–1 to postpone the decision until April to seek legal guidance and form a committee to study the issue. Commission member David Dennard (one of two black members) was the sole dissenter; when he cast his no vote, observers seated in the meeting snapped in approval. Like many other things in the state, this body is not apolitical. All commission members are appointed by the governor, and Cooper has appointed three at-large members so far. A group of about two dozen protesters gathered outside the building. Few were pleased by the commission’s decision. “We just saw them tighten their grip around the neck of justice,” said Jose Romero. “They’re trying to keep choking us, but we’re going to keep organizing, and this was just the tip of the iceberg.” triangulator@indyweek.com This week’s report by Jeffrey C. Billman, Erica Hellerstein, and Sarah Willets.

PERIPHERAL VISIONS | V.C. ROGERS

Your Week. Every Wednesday. indyweek.com INDYweek.com | 9.27.17 | 7

NCDOT TO HOLD PUBLIC MEETING ON OCTOBER 9 REGARDING THE PROPOSAL TO MAKE IMPROVEMENTS TO THE INTERSECTION AT U.S. 15-501 AND GARRETT ROAD (S.R. 1116) IN DURHAM, DURHAM COUNTY STIP Project No. U-5717 The N.C. Department of Transportation will hold a public meeting regarding the proposal to make improvements to the intersection at U.S. 15-501 and Garrett Road (S.R. 1116) in Durham County. The meeting will take place on Monday, October 9, at Cresset Church located at 3707 Garrett Road in Durham from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Interested citizens may attend at any time during the above hours as there will be no formal presentation. NCDOT representatives will be available to answer questions and receive comments regarding the proposed project. Citizens will also have the opportunity to submit comments and questions in writing. All written comments and questions need to be submitted no later than Monday, October 23. The purpose of this project is to reduce congestion and improve traffic operations at the intersection of US 15-501 and Garrett Road. For additional information, contact Zahid Baloch, Division Project Delivery at 2612 North Duke Street, Durham, NC 27704 or by e-mail: zbaloch@ncdot.gov, or by calling (919) 707-6012. Project information and materials can be viewed as they become available online at http:// www.ncdot.gov/projects/publicmeetings. NCDOT will provide auxiliary aids and services under the Americans with Disabilities Act for disabled persons who want to participate in these meetings. Anyone requiring special services should contact Tony Gallagher, Environmental Analysis Unit, NCDOT at 1598 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-1598, by phone (919) 707-6069 or by e-mail at magallagher@ncdot.gov as early as possible so that arrangements can be made.

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Persons who speak Spanish and do not speak English, or have a limited ability to read, speak or understand English, may receive interpretive services upon request prior to the meeting by calling 1-800-481-6494. Aquellas personas que hablan español y no hablan inglés, o tienen limitaciones para leer, hablar o entender inglés, podrían recibir servicios de interpretación si los solicitan de la reunión llamando al 1-800-481-6494.

indynews

The Placemakers

PROPONENTS SAY AN EAST COAST GREENWAY COULD REVITALIZE FORGOTTEN NORTH CAROLINA TOWNS BY AMANDA ABRAMS Someday, boosters hope, the East Coast Greenway will be a bicycle version of the Appalachian Trail: a challenging bucketlist adventure that pulls in participants from all over the world. Its advocates envision a linear park of three thousand miles of protected trail stretching from Calais, Maine, to Key West, the longest bike trail in the country—and one that passes through the heart of the Triangle. Right now, though, the East Coast Greenway is a plan on a map that is only one-third completed; most of the greenway currently uses bike-friendly streets rather than separate bike paths. That’s not true here, though. The Triangle is the most-completed metro area along the path, containing almost seventy-five miles of bike trails. On October 1–3, the East Coast Greenway Alliance, a nonprofit that’s helping drive the development of the path, is holding its Southeast Summit at the Durham Convention Center. The event will gather more than 250 planners, policymakers, and elected officials to look at the Triangle’s success and figure out how to replicate it across the South. From a recreation and transportation perspective, the greenway has been a huge boon to this area; cyclists can travel from northern Durham to eastern Raleigh and barely have to worry about cars. The benefits are quantifiable, too: this weekend, the alliance will release a report showing that the trail’s economic benefit to the region runs into the high eight figures, including eight hundred jobs and millions of dollars added to property values. Certainly the trail, and others like it, attracts young professionals with money in their pockets; in its recently announced search for a second headquarters, Amazon mentioned the existence of bike paths on its wish list. But this is a wealthy region with a wide revenue base, and while those benefits are great, they’re not critical. The same can’t be said for some of the rural areas that the trail runs through—counties like Cumberland,

The American Tobacco Trail in Durham

PHOTO BY ALEX BOERNER

Bladen, and Pender, which haven’t fully recovered from the loss of traditional economic drivers like tobacco and textiles. The development of a national transportation corridor that will bring millions of visitors to those regions annually could be a game changer for these local economies. “This ribbon of off-road greenway will bring more people to Oxford, Fayetteville, Wilmington, and all the smaller towns between,” says Dennis Markatos-Soriano, executive director of the East Coast Greenway Alliance. “It will be great for parts of North Carolina that aren’t booming.” It’s tourism: riders on the trail will need places to sleep and eat and get their bikes fixed. It could be a windfall for entrepreneurs who decide to rent out their houses as Airbnb units or expand their restaurant menus. A 2007 article in the journal Tourism Economics estimated that tourists on the Virginia Creeper Trail, a thirty-four-mile bike path in rural southwestern Virginia, spent roughly $1.2 million annually in the area; that money generated another $1.6 million in total economic activity. Tourism, though, is a simple word for something that could be a little more sophisticated.

“I think the East Coast Greenway is all about placemaking,” says Chuck Flink, one of the nation’s leading greenway planners. He lives in Durham and has been involved with the East Coast Greenway since 2006; he’ll be giving a keynote speech at the summit on Sunday. He likes to talk about the “experience economy,” in which individuals’ desire to take part in memorable activities can be harnessed to propel an economy. “It goes hand in glove [with the greenway]: that authentic experience of place is what people are really seeking and are willing to spend money on,” he says. “And North Carolina has it in spades.” He points to Vivian Howard, who—with her Kinston restaurant and accompanying PBS television show, A Chef’s Life—has singlehandedly revived a depressed region by highlighting the area’s unique culture and cuisine. By the same token, entrepreneurs in Bladen County, for example, could call attention to the county’s unique geological formations, known as Carolina Bay lakes, as well as some of the area’s indigenous food, wine, and history. Some folks in Bladen County are aware of

this possibility. “We would like to have ecotourism here, and this fits nicely in that,” says Eddie Madden, town manager of Elizabethtown. “We’re doing everything we can to make it a reality here.” His town is building trails to connect with the East Coast Greenway, and so is neighboring town White Lake. But not many people in the rural counties know about the greenway. And state policymakers and planners often seem uninterested in its potential. Officials at the N.C. Department of Transportation, as well as at state-funded economic development and tourism organizations, have barely heard of it. That’s sad, because the biggest barrier to the path becoming a reality and aiding these counties is, unsurprisingly, funding. The trail doesn’t come cheap. The alliance staff estimates it’ll take another $2.5 or $3 billion to get it completely off-road. Most of its funding comes from the federal government through various programs, some of which are threatened under the Trump administration. In particular, a funding mechanism known as TIGER has supported the greenway in the past but is scheduled to be eliminated in budgets put forth by both Trump and the House. And federal funding usually requires a 20 percent nonfederal match. But in 2013, North Carolina eliminated the state match for bicycle and pedestrian projects. That loss particularly affects rural towns and counties, which can’t easily pass bond or salestax referendums or leverage deep-pocketed philanthropists to fill the gap. In Bladen County, some trails are being built with local parks and recreation dollars and a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In other places, like Granville County, planners are still in the very early stages of gaining ownership over the rightof-way easements where the trail will lie. It’s a long game—but one that could, in time, help rural North Carolina move from the old economy into the new one. backtalk@indyweek.com INDYweek.com | 9.27.17 | 9

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indynews

Fast and Furious RALEIGH MAYORAL AND CITY COUNCIL CANDIDATES SPRINT TO THE FINISH LINE BY THOMAS GOLDSMITH

It’s a short, strange trip. On the national political scene, President Trump has pretty much been running for reelection since Inauguration Day, and there are at least a dozen Democrats already readying to challenge him in 2020. Municipal races in Raleigh, on the other hand, usually start and end in about four months—from candidates’ filing deadline in July to Election Day on October 10. Unless there are runoffs, that’s it. There are some quirks in this year’s contests that, anecdotally at least, appear to have some voters postponing commitments. Mayor Nancy McFarlane, an independent first elected in 2011, faces a challenge from Raleigh lawyer and banker Charles Francis, who’s running as a Democrat in the officially nonpartisan race. The decision of sitting at-large city council member Mary-Ann Baldwin not to run again means that Russ Stephenson, the panel’s other at-large incumbent, is facing six newcomers. They include the wellfunded, Republican-endorsed Stacy Miller; environmentalist Nicole Stewart, endorsed by former Mayor Charles Meeker; and Zainab Baloch, an energetic candidate of Muslim faith. With the election less than two weeks away, candidates are hitting parks, picnics, forums, and meet-and-greets in private homes. “We’ve done incredible things with the

city,” McFarlane recently told a group of followers at the Players’ Retreat, near N.C. State. “It really is a team sport.” Voters are generally talking about traffic, growth, and affordable housing, candidates say. At McFarlane’s rally, supporters such as Wake County commissioner John Burns—a Democrat—praised her leadership in knotty affairs like working through contracts with the state to purchase the Dorothea Dix property for a city park. “We certainly have challenges, but we’ve been looking at challenges for ten years,” said McFarlane. Not far away, Francis drew a lateafternoon crowd to Club Noir on Glenwood South. He was working to convince those gathered that he’ll be able to come up with real solutions for problems in Raleigh and that he has ideas that will lift up people all over town. “I’m running for mayor so that more people can win,” Francis said. “I am running now because we need a change in the mayor’s office.” Francis faults McFarlane for not doing enough to create new affordable housing and to preserve existing units. (McFarlane notes that last year the city council passed a one-cent property tax increase dedicated to building and rehabilitating affordable housing.) The issue is a big one for attendee Briana Garcia, a thirty-one-year-old state employee. “I’m still living at home with a bach-

“I’m running for mayor so that more people can win. We need a change in the mayor’s office.”

INDYweek.com | 9.27.17 | 11

“There’s no process or policy that can’t be improved.”

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elor's degree,” Garcia says. Like many voters, Garcia is still gathering information before deciding how to cast her ballot. That’s fine with Republican mayoral candidate Paul Fitts, who’s partaking in voter forums and other events, spreading his doctrine of lower taxes and reduced city debt. “My message is entirely different from the other two candidates,” Fitts says. “Most people don’t even recognize how much debt we have.” In addition to the mayoral candidates, people running for the city’s seven city council seats are hitting events as well as going door-to-door to meet with voters. Stefanie Mendell, who’s opposing incumbent Bonner Gaylord in District E, was knocking on doors in the largely suburban district Monday. “They really feel like developers have too much influence on the city,” Mendell says. Gaylord says his conversations with voters reflect a citywide survey that showed most residents really like Raleigh. And as for development? “There’s no process or policy within the city that can’t be improved,” he says. “So I welcome any specific improvement that could be suggested.” On his website, Gaylord adds: “We got where we are today by changing and adapting and I want to make sure we find innovative solutions to our challenges that keep our current residents while attracting new ones.” First-term council member David Cox has also been going door-to-door, discussing his sometimes contrarian view of development as he attempts to defeat longtime Raleigh politician John Odom for the second time in a row. “We’re at the point where we are out and going door to door,” Cox says. “It’s looking good, but we’re not making any assumptions.” In the District C race in southeast Raleigh, incumbent Corey Branch is not only making plenty of stops, he’s also active on social media sites, notably Instagram. He’s got four opponents: James Bledsoe, Crash Gregg, Olen Watson III, and Jeff Stewart.

At campaign appearances, Branch stresses his work on the priorities of inclusive economic growth, better communication from the city to the public, and “frequent and reliable” public transit. Branch notes his roles with the Raleigh Transit Authority and the Wake County Transit Advisory Committee. “I’m not just talking about these things. I’m doing them,” he frequently says on the stump. On Thursday comes one of the season’s most closely watched events, a candidate forum sponsored by WakeUp Wake County, the Delta Sigma Theta Raleigh Alumnae Chapter, and the Wake League of Women Voters. The event lasts from seven p.m. to eight-thirty p.m. Thursday at Avent Ferry United Methodist Church, 2700 Avent Ferry Road, Raleigh. tgoldsmith@indyweek.com

THE INDY’S

2017 VOTING GUIDE RALEIGH Mayor: Nancy McFarlane At-Large: Russ Stephenson and Nicole Stewart District A: Dickie Thompson District B: David Cox District C: Corey Branch District D: Kay Crowder District E: Stefanie Mendell Transportation Bond: Yes

DURHAM Mayor: Steve Schewel Ward 1: DeDreana Freeman Ward 2: Mark-Anthony Middleton Ward 3: Vernetta Alston

CARY At-Large: Edward Yerha District A: Jennifer Robinson District C: Kenneth Presting

NCDOT TO HOLD A PUBLIC MEETING REGARDING THE PROPOSED WIDENING OF I-40 AND THE PROPOSED IMPROVEMENTS AT I-40 AND N.C. 42 INTERCHANGE STIP Project Nos: I-5111 & I-4739 The N.C. Department of Transportation will hold a public meeting regarding two projects to make improvements to Interstate 40 in Wake and Johnston Counties. Project I-5111 proposes to widen I-40 between exit 301 in Raleigh and exit 312 in Johnston County. The purpose of widening I-40 in this area is to improve the level of service throughout the length of the 11-mile project. Project I-4739 proposes to improve the interchange at I-40 and N.C. 42 (exit 312) in Johnston County. The purpose of the work is to improve the function of the interchange and its ability to handle large volumes of traffic in the Cleveland area of Johnston County.

The meeting will take place on Monday, October 2, at the Garner United Methodist Church, located at 201 Methodist Drive from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. The public may attend at any time during those hours. NCDOT representatives will be available to answer questions and listen to comments regarding the project. The opportunity to submit written comments will also be provided at the meeting or via phone, email, or mail by October 20, 2017. Comments received will be taken into consideration as the project develops. Please note that no formal presentation will be made. Project information and materials can be viewed as they become available online at http://www.ncdot.gov/projects/publicmeetings. For additional information, contact Robert Deaton, NCDOT Project Development Engineer by mail: 1548 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699 by phone: (919) 707-6017, or via email: rdeaton@ncdot.gov. NCDOT will provide auxiliary aids and services under the Americans with Disabilities Act for disabled persons who wish to participate in this meeting. Anyone requiring special services should contact Tamara Makhlouf, Human Environment Section via e-mail at tmakhlouf@ncdot.gov or by phone (919) 707-6072 as early as possible so that arrangements can be made. Persons who speak Spanish and do not speak English, or have a limited ability to read, speak or understand English, may receive interpretive services upon request prior to the meeting by calling 1-800- 481-6494. Aquellas personas que hablan español y no hablan inglés, o tienen limitaciones para leer, hablar o entender inglés, podrían recibir servicios de interpretación si los solicitan antes de la reunión llamando al 1-800- 481-6494.

Your week. Every Wednesday. ARTS•NEWS•FOOD•MUSIC INDYWEEK.COM INDYweek.com | 9.27.17 | 13

“W

e, the undersigned, afﬁrm the lives of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer people. We condemn acts of bigotry and hatred. We join PFLAG in celebrating the lives of those we love and admire. Acceptance and love... family values for a lifetime.”

[INDIVIDUALS]

Joel Adams The Angri-Becks Kay Atchison LCSW Jane and Ted Avery Scott and Heather Baker C.J. and Helen Grace Barefoot Jim Bentley, Nathan Bell and their dog Camper Jennifer, Hailey & Gilbert Boothe Jose Bravo & Chris Bernart Tracey Callison and Jeff Heard Livio Carnera Lela Chesson Melissa Anne Christians The Circosta Family Micah Clark Joe and Alice Cleary Donna Dean Coffey, Kasen Dean & Korie Dean Laura and Scott Collins Chris Weedy & Jimmy Creech Jana Currier Michele Edmundson Carson & Chester Farley Matt Gaebel Mindy Gaebel and Alexander Thornhill Stephen Gheen and Cathy Moore Ron Grunwald & Lorisa Seibel Cheryl Hiser Sheri Hoffman Scott and Nicole Holmes Virginia and Mark Johnson Kim & Henry Krzywy Janine LeBlanc John J Little Bernise Lynch & Julia Schelly Jacqueline Marx Ted and Lisa Mayer Pat McGown Deb, Abby and Grant McNaughton Kent Parks Judith and John Philpot Erich and Ken Priest Richard and Carolyn Pysch Greg Schweizer Greg Schweizer Marc Segre Anna Short-Slightom, Brian Slightom and Neko Slightom Elaine Shriner Mark and Jody Simpson Cris, Dorothy, Hanna & Mitchell Slentz Molly and Garrett Stein-Seroussi Anne Stoddard and Ron Gallagher Brady and Carolyn Surles The Sved Family Sandy Sweitzer, Jon and Maddy Sweitzer-Lamme Beth and Alston Sykes Valerie Waters Danielle White

[CONGREGATIONS] BETH EL SYNAGOGUE

Beth El Synagogue Sydney, Krisha, & Mataya Miller

CHURCH OF THE HOLY FAMILY Chris and Caitlin Fuller Maggie and Taylor Miller Tracey Armstrong Powell

COMMUNITY UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST

Rev. Jenny Shultz-Thomas Susan & Paul Atkinson Cynthia Ball Porter Bell Kim Bowen Megan, Greg and Gabrielle Bretz Chris, Heather, Erik, Ian and Anna Burkhardt Carol Clark Sue Cottle Lena Gallitano Carol & Jack Kepler Jeanne Ledbetter Roger Manus Cathy Marshall Santi Matthews Joan McAllister Nancy Newell Robert Parrish Fawn Pattison Jonah Pierce Suzette Roach Annaka Sikkink

14 | 9.27.17 | INDYweek.com

Gary and Jane Smith Lisa Spalding Nancy & Skip Stoddard Bev and Keith Stolarick

DURHAM FRIENDS MEETING Toby Berla

HOLY TRINITY EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH Holy Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church Leanne Brisbin & Keith Pedersen John and Debbie Franke Ashley and Eric Hardin Chuck Korte Kenneth Marks Judy Occhetti-Klohr Ginny Snyder Matt and Martha Stallmann

JUDEA REFORM CONGREGATION Judea Reform Congregation Caryn Hertz and Larry Marks

KEHILLAH SYNAGOGUE, CHAPEL HILL Diane Wright

KOL HASKALAH, A HUMANISTIC JEWISH CONGREGATION Kol Haskalah, a Humanistic Jewish Congregation Renee & Burt Rauch

PULLEN MEMORIAL BAPTIST CHURCH Pat Long

ST. JOHN’S MCC

Robert F Cobb Jay Allen Kelderman Jim Manchester and Edward Smith

ST. LUKE’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH

St. Luke’s Episcopal Church Congregation The Rev. Dr Helen and Shawn Svoboda-Barber, Charlie and Luke The Rev. James B. Craven III and Sara H. Craven The Rev. Dan Laird and Timothy Laird-Truelove Jeff and Jennifer Barnes, Jayelle, Evelyn, J.J., and Tayla Phillip, J, and Brock Bass Susan P. Bennet Leigh and Wes Blalock Beth Bonner Dot Borden Tom, Ginny, Fletcher, and Jia Brooks Hillary and Kate Bruce Bill and Valleri Callahan Sue Campbell Sarah Craft Amy Davis and Jon and Iris Newlin Ken and Kristi Duke Kimberly Ellis and James Beadle Daniel, Venicia, Elijah, and Elyse Emory Rosalie Fonda Peggy Freer Ann Gale Hope Galunas Karen and Michael Gray Grams and Bill Gutknecht Nora Hammond The Rev. Kathy Harper The Hege Family Barbara Heineck The Hendrix Family Mike, Cindy, Kasey, and Jessica Henry Steve and Frances Hite Joanne Hooker Ila Hurley Joe and Hetty Kaiserlik and Trinity Bailey Amy Kiser and Sally Starrfield Carol Kokesh Carolyn, Vincent, and Dan Kreuger Kelley Lawton and Peter, Lawton, and Michael Kariher Patricia LeMoine Barbara and Wilbur Longmire Nancy Mamlin Ana and George McKee Lizzie and Jonathan McManus-Dail Jimmy Meyers Patty Michaels & Julia Hoyle Bob and Mary Jane Moore Eileen Morgan Mari, Keith & Elena Nealson and Ardyn Flynt Lee, Lauren, Marleigh, and Maggie Nelson Rebecca Porter and David, Jasper, and Annabeth Bass

Bill and Joye Pursell, in memorium Marlys Ray and Carlton Brown Monnie Riggin Cathy and Kelly Rimer-Surles, Mateo, Tomás, Miguel Harold and Sandy Rose Kaye Saunders and Ted Trinkaus Elaine Scagnelli Ken Schmader and Renee Weisner Brady and Carolyn Surles Paul, Corrinne, Evie, and Amelia Surratt Ted Triebel Jean-Mary and Lizbeth Videau Nancy Usher Williams Elizabeth Witherspoon Michelle Wolff, Derek Jones, and Joaquin, Juliet, and Camille Wolff-Jones John and Nancy Wyman John Yarbrough

ST. LUKE’S YOUTH GROUP TEMPLE BETH OR

Temple Beth Or Social Action Committee Theresa Joan Rosenberg

UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST FELLOWSHIP OF RALEIGH Rev. Dr. Justin Osterman Rev. Sasha Ostrom Tryst Chagnon Mary Choe Kathryn Kevin Kathie McCutcheon Yuri Yamamoto Mary Alexander Jane Bartlett Jim and Jinny Batterson Amy Blackwell Kim and Chris Breivogel Eric Brunner Kathy Bundy and Jill Kidd Patricia Butler Richard Kevin and Ceci Callahan Anne, Josette and Jean Calvignac Jackie Castellow Lois Cavanagh-Daley Gary and Jan Chvatal Wendy Gates Corbett and Donald Corbett Ethan, Ali, Emerson, Ella and Bennett Davis The Edmonston Family Jim and Beth Flanagan Mary Kay Fruga and John Leucke Joyce H. Gad Karen and Barry Goldfarb Sara Grover & David Prestrud Lynda Hambourger Anne Hayes Tracy Hollister and Barbara Cruz Jane Hunt Diann Irwin and John McLain Chloe Katz Jim Krabill Don Laonipon & Greg Hunt Paul & Bonnie Latham Art Lieberman and Pat Clark Linda and Billy Liles Jessica Lin Ellen MacMillan Bill and Denise MacMillan John and Beverly Manifold Laura Martin and Gabby McCutchen The Mayhew Family Roger & Dorothy McFeeters Michele McIntosh Pat and Jim McLaughlin Robert & Nancy Moxley Cathy Murphy Barbara B Norman Sandy Pearce Alice Pettyjohn Mary Lou and Jule Shanklin Susan and Tom Silverio Georgia Springer and William Finger Christina Stableford Jeff & Linda Stratford Lee Tate Barry and Lynne Taylor Lane and Athena Tracy Pat Ward Linda Watson Todd & Suzie Weber Mark and Carmen White Chris and Fran Wise

UNITED CHURCH OF CHAPEL HILL

Dianne Bertsch Miriam & John Haebig Marty Nour Anne Stoddard & Ron Gallagher Thomas Tiemann & Eileen McGrath

WATTS STREET BAPTIST CHURCH

Chuck Clifton & David Heist Dorisanne Cooper, David Tatum Anne & Jim Drennan David Goodman and Greg Palmer Diane Eubanks Hill Sarah Jobe Amie & Patrick Koch Bob and Jeanne Kruhm Fran Langstaff Emily and Ralph McCoy The Patillo Family Barbara & Dick Rumer Kelly Sasser David Curtis Smith Gordon Whitaker and Bob Hellwig

[ORGANIZATIONS AND BUSINESSES] THE ANDROGYNY CENTER Louis Sawyer

CHANGE FOR LIVING COUNSELING PLLC Michelle Topal

DURHAM GENDER ALLIANCE Lea Salas Córdova

EQUALITY NC FOUNDATION ERGOSMITH CONSULTING, LLC Mindy Smith

HEATHER LANGAN, MA, LPCS, CSAT, PSYCHOTHERAPIST KELLER WILLIAMS REALTY CJ Wilson

LGBT CENTER OF RALEIGH

Jim Manchester and Edward Smith Glen Medders James Miller Theresa Joan Rosenberg Kelly Taylor Lisa Tobey Karen Waters

LGBTQ CENTER OF DURHAM Helena Cragg

MAIN STREET CLINICAL ASSOCIATES PFLAG OF FAYETTEVILLE NC POWER OF DIVERSITY Elaine Martin

RAINBOW COMMUNITY CARES J Zirbel

SOFFA @ LGBT CENTER OF RALEIGH Fadale & Kreig family

VILLAGE HEARTH COHOUSING WAGS HAPPY DOGS GROOMING PLAYCARE Robert Short

about our monthly support meetings and our education and advocacy projects in churches, schools and the workplace.

www.pflagtriangle.org

The Pride issue

THE DEFIANT ONES T

he planning for this year’s NC Pride festivities went sideways early on. As usual, the parade was scheduled for the last Saturday in September. But no one on the Pride staff looked at a calendar and figured out that the event would overlap with Yom Kippur and thus exclude observant Jews. NC Pride apologized for the oversight; last month, organizers announced that they were scrapping the parade and pushing back the start time for the event until four o’clock, closer to sundown. It was an ineffective balm to a selfinflicted wound, to be sure, casting a shadow over a normally jubilant celebration. That’s unfortunate—especially this year, when hard-fought LGBTQ rights gained over the last several decades are threatened by an ever-hostile White House and legislature, when Pride, a celebration rooted in open defiance of cultural disapprobation and a demand for recognition and equality, is needed more than ever. In keeping with this great challenge of our times, this year’s Pride Issue profiles five people in the local LGBTQ community who are living up to the commitment for justice embodied in the legacy of Stonewall, the 1969 riots that served as a catalyst for the gay rights movement. These are not just champions of LGBTQ rights, but LGBTQ individuals who are using their activism or their art or their work to fight for the rights of marginalized and sometimes-forgotten populations within and beyond the queer commu-

nity: elderly gay people forced back into the closet; people suffering from mental health issues and addiction; working-class folks trying to eke out a decent living; those on the losing end of institutional white supremacy and transphobia. But first, I’d be remiss if I didn’t take the opportunity to mark the passing of my own champion. In last year’s Pride Issue, I asked a friend and former colleague, Billy Manes, to write about the aftermath of

This country needs Pride now more than ever. the Pulse massacre. Billy was the editor in chief of Watermark, an LGBTQ-focused publication in Orlando, and in that role, he had unique insight into the tragedy. And he wrote about it beautifully, as he always did. I got to know Billy a decade ago, when we were staff writers at the Orlando Weekly. He was kind, funny, clever, thoughtful, tireless, undyingly passionate, haunted by unspeakable demons but determined not to let them win. After his longtime partner died in 2012 and his partner’s family tried to claim what was left of the estate, Billy became a force of nature, a champion for marriage equality and all of the property rights that went along with it. After Pulse,

he became something of a national spokesman for the Orlando gay community and an advocate for gun control. But through it all, he was Billy Manes, one of my dearest friends, one of the most pure-hearted human beings I’ve ever encountered. Three months ago, I flew to Orlando to say goodbye to Billy. I stood in a hospice room with his husband, Tony, and a handful of his closest friends, listened to one of his favorite songs—Alison Moyet’s “The Rarest Birds,” which she dedicated to him at a concert earlier this month in New York City—and watched him expire, the result of a sudden, unexpected health crisis. He was forty-five. I miss Billy every day: our commiserations over the stresses of our jobs, our agape-mouthed despair over the state of politics, his ebullient cheerleading of all things Duran Duran, his unwavering love for Tony, the way he said “Love you” at the end of every phone conversation—not just to me, but to all of his close friends. Billy fought to make the world a better place until his body couldn’t take it any longer. For that, and for so many other reasons, he was my hero. He was my brother. He was my friend. This country—indeed, this state—needs Pride more than ever. It needs heroes more than ever, people who will defiantly stand up for justice and equality, against bigotry and ignorance and hatred. It needs people like my friend Billy Manes. —Jeffrey C. Billman

INDYweek.com | 9.27.17 | 15

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UNAPOLOGETIC, UNAFRAID Serena Sebring, an organizer for Southerners on New Ground, is fighting entrenched white supremacy BY SARAH WILLETS

erena Sebring credits her activism to Durham. She participated in her first “street protest” during the lacrosse scandal at Duke, where she was earning a Ph.D. in sociology. She first felt she had grown into an organizer during a campaign to stop Amendment One, which prohibited samesex marriage in North Carolina before it was overturned in 2014. Now, as a regional organizer with Southerners on New Ground, the mother of three is helping to launch a campaign to reform (and ultimately end) money bail, foster queer and trans leadership across North Carolina, and connect thirteen states across the Southeast in SONG’s intersectional, queer liberation movement. “I love the Bull City,” she says. “I really enjoy the ways that history and culture and art and activism blend so seamlessly here in the scrappiness of this city.” Sebring, forty, was born in Boston to a psychologist mother and father who worked on housing issues with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination. She moved to Durham in 2005, just before allegations broke that members of Duke’s lacrosse team had raped a black woman at a party. (They were later cleared of the charges.) “For me, as a person new to the community but also someone who was the only black woman in my department at Duke and as a survivor of sexual violence, it became necessary to develop a community of support and a way to make meaning of all that swirling around us at the time,” Sebring says. The passage of Amendment One in 2012 was also a pivotal moment in her career. Sebring had recently come out as lesbian and set out to have one-on-one conversations about how the law would affect her and her family. It was during this time that she became an active member of SONG, which was founded in Durham twentyfive years ago by three black and three

Serena Sebring

PHOTO BY ALEX BOERNER

white lesbian women. “As an LGBTQ organization, people oftentimes expect us to be working on issues that are particular to LGBTQ people,” she says. “What we know about liberation is that we can’t be free until our cousins, our aunties, our children who may or may not share our identities in terms of gender and sexuality are also free. We also know that as LGBTQ people of color and black people that we have to be attuned to issues of white supremacy and antiblackness in order for our membership to get free, for ourselves to get free.” Recently, much of her time has gone to the campaign to end pretrial incarceration. SONG locally (in concert with events elsewhere in the country) bailed out fourteen black mothers on Mother’s Day and another nine to mark Black August. She and others are still working to support

those women by helping them secure housing, mental health care, and rides, as well as by attending their court appearances. Of the original fourteen, six have had their cases dismissed. “I can’t say enough how much this work has not just excited me but moved me, to be part of people getting free who have been held in cages for reasons that are not in line with our collective belief in innocence until guilt is proven,” she says. Sebring has also been supporting Defend Durham, a movement that grew from the August 14 toppling of a Confederate monument downtown. She wasn’t there when demonstrators tore down the statue, but she helped organize a mass turn-in at the jail where about sixty people showed up to take shared responsibility. In action, she exudes a grounded mix of clarity, gratitude, and zeal. “Since that all went down, I’ve been

calling Durham the city where the statues fall and the people stand up,” she says. “I think it was beautiful, both the response of people to come out to the jail to turn themselves in and the response of people across the country.” Throughout the demonstrations, she has worked alongside her twenty-oneyear-old daughter, Courtney, who is cochairwoman of Black Youth Project 100’s Durham chapter. “To watch her leadership grow, to watch her find her voice and her political home is one of the greatest joys of mothering that I’ve had,” she says. As a queer woman of color, Sebring says the causes central to SONG’s mission not only affect her but also her kids. (“This isn’t the world I want to leave them,” she says). This creates a sense of urgency that makes it hard to put work down and also informs who she is as an activist and a mother. Dinner-table conversation is about dance classes and demonstrating. “I hope what they see from me is both an ability to actually change things that are unjust and an ability to speak up for what you know to be true and for people who are like you,” she says. “I think mothering has also taught me humility and patience and finding a way when sometimes it seems there isn’t a way.” It makes her proud that queer activists have been a driving force of the Defend Durham movement, stepping into a legacy that includes the demonstrations that broke out after police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay club in New York City, in 1969. “What queer organizing and resistance has taught us time and time again—from Stonewall through ACT UP and resistance to AIDS policies that were killing our people on through today—is the sense that we are unapologetic and unafraid to put bodies on the line and to take action,” Sebring says. “To not just talk about it but to be about it.” swillets@indyweek.com INDYweek.com | 9.27.17 | 17

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ust bas got job at Du ago. He is “I have The bre but they drag quee become o in Durha funny and If you p life, you’v With Co enclave t of several Jay and S himself a presences part of C competiti that large In 2013 at the ba when ow with a que in Season be perform weekend, anyone w yes, he co photos of “‘Well, not even t look like w ister sayin He reti some bra on Vivica name riff rities wh star was b In the beginning ful figure ture, with like The P

ALL THAT GLITTERS Drag queen Vivica C. Coxx has a big personality, but her shows effect change that’s even bigger BY ALLISON HUSSEY

ustin “J” Clapp is standing in his basement, surveying his domain. He got home from a stressful day at his job at Duke University less than an hour ago. He is looking for a piece of himself. “I have to find my breasts,” he says. The breasts belong to Clapp, technically, but they really belong to his alter-ego, a drag queen who, in less than five years, has become one of the most important forces in Durham’s queer-friendly nightlife: the funny and ferocious Vivica C. Coxx. If you pay any attention to Durham nightlife, you’ve probably seen that name before. With Coxx and the House of Coxx, an enclave that includes Clapp’s drag family of several other performers (such as Spray Jay and Stormie Daie), Clapp has cemented himself as one of the city’s premier drag presences. But drag wasn’t always a major part of Clapp’s life He won amateur drag competitions in college, but it was a hobby that largely existed on a back burner. In 2013, that changed. Clapp was sitting at the bar at The Pinhook with a friend when owner Kym Register turned to them with a question. Manila Luzon, a runner-up in Season 3 of Ru Paul’s Drag Race, would be performing at The Pinhook during Pride weekend, Register said. Did they know of anyone who could open for her? Clapp said yes, he could, and showed Register some photos of him in drag at Halloween as proof. “‘Well, if you look like that when you’re not even trying, I can’t wait to see what you look like when you try,’” Clapp recalls Register saying. He retired his old drag name and, after some brainstorming with friends, settled on Vivica C. Coxx for his next chapter (the name riffs on one of Clapp’s favorite celebrities while punning on his sexuality). A star was born. In the four years since that auspicious beginning, Clapp has made Coxx a powerful figure in Durham’s vibrant queer culture, with frequent appearances at spots like The Pinhook and The Bar Durham. A

Vivica C. Coxx

PHOTO BY LINDSAY WILLIAMS

House of Coxx event is guaranteed to be a good time, but Clapp and company take their shows a step further than most. “We put forward a social justice bent, with a focus on humor, enthusiastic consent, antiracism, antitransphobia, antimisogyny—just basically trying to create an environment for everyone. And I think anyone who has been to our shows has felt comfortable, unless they are a bigot,” Clapp says. Clapp’s desire to develop social-justicecentered drag stems from several places. For one, he says, he’s had plenty of his own experiences in queer and gay spaces where he’s felt like he didn’t belong as a queer black man. “Durham is an activist city, we are an educated city, so I thought as an educated, activist-centered person, I could just literally put what I believe in on stage,” Clapp says.

Clapp’s attempts at inclusion extend far beyond his own experiences. He has degrees in medical anthropology and gender studies, as well as a master’s degree in higher education administration. At Duke, Clapp oversees the Office of Access & Outreach, which helps first-generation and low-income students. “My entire academic history has been about creating inclusive spaces,” he says. “You could say that I am literally taking my degrees and applying them to drag.” Sometimes, that means having to take control when a heckler goes too far and uses bigoted or otherwise unacceptable language. As Coxx, Clapp never hesitates to call out inappropriate behavior, using humor as his main method of disarmament. “Sociology shows that you don’t have to kick people out. Sometimes you can

just scold them and be successful with the audience,” Clapp says. As an audience member, it can be fun to watch Coxx make a rude interloper squirm, but her pointed dressings-down serve a much larger purpose. They send a clear public message that such behavior is not acceptable, which in turn reassures her other audience members that she’s committed to keeping her shows fun and safe for all. On top of being a compelling entertainer, forwarding social justice efforts, and ministering to up-and-coming House of Coxx performers, Clapp still must contend with a hefty amount of dayof work before a show. He estimates it takes him a solid four hours to get spotlight-ready. Wigs included, Clapp’s ensembles can weigh twenty-five to thirty pounds. Try singing and dancing in that for a few hours—and in heels, too. Clapp has big hopes for himself and the House of Coxx. He and his cohorts want to continue to expand their presence in Durham and help shape local dialogue about consent and respect for marginalized populations along the way. So the next time you get ready to queue up Drag Race on Netflix again, make sure there’s not a House of Coxx throwdown you’re missing—you’ll catch something much more compelling wherever Clapp and company are than on your couch. ahussey@indyweek.com The House of Coxx Presents: Endangered Species at The Pinhook Friday night as part of Pride weekend. Tickets are $15, and the show starts at 10 p.m. INDYweek.com | 9.27.17 | 19

#1 Rule of Pride:

When you run into your ex, always have a cutie by your side.

Orange County Animal Services has you covered. Adopt this week & make everyone jealous. Orange County Animal Services 1601 Eubanks Road • Chapel Hill www.orangecountync.gov/ departments/animalservices

YOUR WEEK. EVERY WEDNESDAY. MUSIC•NEWS•ARTS•FOOD INDYWEEK.COM 20 | 9.27.17 | INDYweek.com

events THURSDAY SEPT 28

FRIDAY SEPT 29

DURHAM

CHAPEL HILL

9pm 7th annual Karaoke Grammy Awards w $600 Cash & Prizes at The Bar, 711 Rigsbee Ave

5pm - 8:30pm Pre Pride Coffee and Desserts at Cafe Driade, 1215 East Franklin St

RALEIGH

DURHAM

8pm Pre Pride Party at Legends Nightclub, 330 W. Hargett St 11pm Asheville Invasion Show w Priscilla Chambers, Gigi Von Trapphaus and more at Flex Bar, 2 S. West St

5:30 - 6:30 Rainbow Wine Tasting,will include a red, white, orange & rosé wine, Advanced purchase tickets. Bar Brunello, 117 E Main St 6pm Pride Crawl on Ninth Street with Coffee and Desserts at Madhatter’s, 1802 West Main St Pride Crawl Dinner at Blu Seafood, 2002 Hillsborough Rd 6pm Pride Dinner for Pride Crawl at Blue Corn Café, 716 9th St 7pm Pre Pride Outdoor Dinner at JUJU, 737 9th St

CHAPEL HILL 8pm Pre Pride Desserts and Coffee at Sugarland, Franklin St

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

7pm Pre Pride Crawl Dining at Dos Perros, 200 N Mangum St 7pm Pride Happy Hour - building community one cocktail at a time at West End Wine Bar, 601 West Main St 10pm - 2am The All White 90’s Party - Hosted by DJ Perry Music By DJ RNB at The Bar, 711 Rigsbee Ave 10pm - 2am Special Aerial Burlesque Performance by JoRose $500 CASH GIVEAWAY and Prizes for Best Dressed! The Bar, 711 Rigsbee Ave 10pm - 2am Pre Pride Party at PinHook Club Dance Party, 117 West Main St

RALEIGH

celebrity guests at Legends, 330 W. Hargett St 9pm - 9:30pm Jazmine Brooks hosts a TurnUp Friday -- bringing together local entertainers in Legends Tent Stage 10pm $10k giveaway and we want you to have it! Legends, 330 W. Hargett St 10pm Spotlight Divas w special guest Jazmine Brooks,Phi Phi O’Hara from RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 4, Legends, 330 W. Hargett St 10pm GoGo-Thon - 8 Of NC Hottest GoGo Boys at Flex Bar, 2 S. West St 11pm - 1am Get wild and wet in our Legend-[wait for it]dary Foam Party with hot gogo dancers at Legends, 330 W. Hargett St

8pm - 9pm Celebrity Social Mix and mingle with Lance Bass and other

INDYweek.com || 9.27.17 9.27.17 || 21 21 INDYweek.com

events SATURDAY SEPT 30 NC PRIDE BUD LIGHT NIGHTFESTIVAL “EMBRACE THE NIGHT” RALEIGH 4pm - 10pm NC Pride Street Festival Harrelson Ave. - Street Vendors, Food,Music, Entertainment FREE EVENT 6pm - 7pm Street Festival Stage show produced by Pardon Moi French featuring Coco Montrese, Nina Bonina Brown, Gia Gunn and Miss Peppermint 10pm - 11pm Spotlight Divas special show, Festival street tent stage 10pm - 4am Flex Club Pride Dance Party w/ DJ Marvyy Marvv at Flex, 2 S. West St 11pm NC Statewide Titleholders Review Show w/ talent from around

the state, Spotlight Theater at Legends 11pm Celebrity Social Mix and mingle with Lance Bass and other celebrity guests at Legends, 330 W. Hargett St 11pm NC Pride Dance Party - POP Ups & GOGO Boys at Legends, 330 W. Hargett St

DURHAM 4pm NC Pride Street Festival Rigsbee Ave - Street Vendors, Food, Kiddie Zone, Music, Entertainment FREE EVENT 4pm Special Pride party w rainbow drinks and food at James Joyce Irish Pub, 912 W Main St 7pm Pride Happy Hour - building community one cocktail at a time at West End Wine Bar, 601 West Main St “Big Freedia Live in Concert! w/ local Entertainers 1-hour Vegas Style Show featuring all of her greatest hits!

9pm - 4am DJ RNB & DJ Sedrick $25 General Admission at The Bar 711 Rigsbee Ave 10pm - 4am Pride Outdoors at Night at PinHook Club, 117 West Main St

DURHAM 11am - 2pm Elegant Pop Up Drag Brunch, 21cHotel - performances by Drag Diva, Vivica C. Coxx - brunch buffet by chef Thomas Card. $70 Noon Pride Lunch and HangOut at Madhatter Café, 1802 West Main St

SUNDAY OCT 1 RALEIGH 9pm - 2am Super Sinful Sunday w Model Pablo Herdandez dancing & gogo dancers to close out Pride with a bang! Legends Nightclub, 330 W. Hargett 9pm - 2am Pride Karaoke party hosted by NICK at Flex Club, 2 S. West St

8pm Post Pride party at The Bar, 711 Rigsbee Ave

CHAPEL HILL 4pm Post Pride Coffee at Sugarland, 140 East Franklin St

2017 SPONSORS GOLD SPONSORS

Nissan • Bud Light • PNC Bank Hendrick Alfa Romeo FIAT - Cary • Biogen Glaxo Smith Kline • Legends Club • Pepsico Suntrust • Capital Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge Camping World of Raleigh

PARTNER SPONSORS

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HOLISTIC HEALTH

Through Art Asylum, Catherine Edgerton helps people who, like her, have struggled with mental health and addiction issues BY ERICA HELLERSTEIN

atherine Edgerton is getting ready for a dinner party. It’s a sunny afternoon, and the light filters through the living room of her airy Durham home, brimming with potted plants, books, and artwork. The thirty-five-year-old has just put the finishing touches on a creamy chocolate dessert, and before an interview starts, she points out an important house rule: “You have to have a side pie,” she says matter-of-factly. “So if you would like some pie, this one is a chocolate tort. It’s setting.” Edgerton, a Durham native and selfidentified queer artist, has shaggy brown hair and a warm smile. An alligator is tattooed on her forearm—a symbol of a decision she made five years ago to quit drinking. It’s a theme that makes its way into her personal artwork, which, among other things, explores addiction and mental health issues. In addition to oil painting, bookbinding, and making multimedia collage journals, Edgerton started making kaleidoscopes for people struggling with their own mental health and addiction issues after she got sober. Now she gives them away to people “with the purpose that they’d be re-given, so they’d have their own little journeys,” she explains. So far, she’s passed out twenty-two. Edgerton distributes other resources to people struggling with mental health and addiction. As a member of Art Asylum, a Durham-based group comprising about fifteen people that “builds creative pathways and reduces isolation among folks who struggle with mental health and addiction,” she’s helped create a mental health resource guide for a range of Trianglebased care providers: therapists, healers, trans-affirming care providers, massage specialists, herbalists, and assault and family violence centers, to name a few. They’ve also compiled a customizable booklet of advanced directives—a guide for someone going through a mental health crisis who may be unable to make decisions or communicate effectively.

Catherine Edgerton

PHOTO BY ALEX BOERNER

Edgerton says the decision to create the organization and the resources it provides came from a place of personal need. Art Asylum made the advanced directives, for example, after a friend had a psychotic break. “We didn’t have all of these things, and it was really awful,” she explains. After her friend got out of the hospital, he ended up contributing significantly to the project. “It feels important to me that everybody engaged in this work is benefiting from it.” That includes Edgerton. As a high school student, she was institutionalized, expelled, and struggled with addiction. She came to internalize the idea that she was crazy and, in some ways, began to strongly identify with her diagnosis. Her perspective is different now; after years of art, community building, and sobriety, she sees her high school self as presenting symptoms of a “sick society.”

“Our culture and our system needs people to be crazy and criminal to institutionalize them and get them out of the way,” she says. “I think there was some piece of me that molecularly knew this that whole time. A lot of my art in high school was reflective of knowing that something was wrong and that it wasn’t me. And that I was carrying it in a way. I feel like I was reflecting a lot of the maladies of society.” The experience didn’t just provide Edgerton with insight into society’s relationship with mental illness; it also helped her develop an understanding of her own privilege as a white woman relative to the care she received. “I think a lot of other people who were going through the same stuff could have easily ended up in prison,” she says. “And so I came through it and gained the analysis of what it means to be privileged enough

to come through that. It made me really critically think about the fact that it’s not random.” Edgerton finishes her thought and steps into the kitchen. The pie is done, and it’s time to get started on the party’s savory fare. She grabs a handful of small potatoes, halves them, and then drizzles them with olive oil, placing them on a baking tray. The kitchen is bright and filled with spices; tacked on the wall to her right is a sketch of the “father of bluegrass music,” Bill Monroe. As Edgerton continues methodically chopping, she talks about the specific mental health needs she sees manifesting in the community: stressors caused by gentrification, poverty, displacement, and the state legislature’s famous hostility toward the LGBTQ community and trans people in particular. For now, Edgerton is hoping that more people find their way to Art Asylum’s mental health resources and advanced directives. As the conversation winds down, she makes sure to highlight one group of people in particular: the artists quietly working outside of the limelight. “How many artists struggle with mental health do that in so much silence?” she asks. “You come home and you’re exhausted and go paint. I’m sure ninety-nine percent of people who live in that reality are anonymous. It’s such a privilege to be able to connect with other people doing that work.” And with that, she returns to drizzling the potatoes. Evening is just around the corner, and her guests will soon be on the way. ehellerstein@indyweek.com INDYweek.com | 9.27.17 | 23

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GRAY AND GAY

Long-term care can often mean going back into the closet. Les Geller wants that to end. BY THOMAS GOLDSMITH

or many older LGBTQ people, entering long-term care can mean going back in the closet. That is, people who may have been out for decades often set aside central parts of their identities in fear of discrimination or stigma as they seek places to live in senior housing, assisted-living centers, or nursing homes, says Les Geller, who helped start the Raleigh affiliate of the New York-based organization SAGE, or Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders, in 2011. (The local SAGE affiliate was previously called Gay and Gray.) Given the need for affordable housing for older LGBTQ people, Geller helped found the SAGE Raleigh Senior Housing Initiative last year. Allied with a national effort called UC Homes, it’s designed in part to avoid the wrenching syndrome of LGBTQ people having to deny their sexuality. “Federal civil rights law says you can’t have housing for LGBT only, but you can make it welcoming,” Geller explains. “There are two parts to the effort. One, there’s the actual desire to build or buy housing to live in. Two, there’s an educational element, where we go out to facilities to talk to administrators about these people’s situation. We have gotten a very positive reaction.” Geller says he’s seen examples in the Triangle of people who enter long-term care but break off relations with their LGBTQ friends and no longer identify themselves as gay to the people they’re around every day. In addition, sometimes fellow residents with dementia and/or “no filters” can use demeaning and hurtful language. There’s more than anecdotal evidence that LGBTQ baby boomers can run into trouble in medical and long-term care environments. A 2006 study by the MetLife Mature Market Institution called “Out and Aging” found, “Gaps in knowledge and education of healthcare providers appear to correlate with perceptions shared by the

older LGBT patient population. More than a quarter of older LGBT adults report great concern about discrimination as they age.” Geller, a seventy-oneyear-old New Jersey native, has lived and worked in Raleigh since 1994 and has been a key figure in the community since before the formal founding of the LGBT Center in 2009. “I heard that there was a group of people that were starting an LGBT center in Raleigh,” he says. “I wanted to be there so that senior people would have a place at the table.” Geller was educated at Syracuse University and had a background in architecture and high-end retail. Two decades ago, he and his thenpartner decided to leave New Jersey; they explored up and down the East Coast before landing in the Triangle. Now married to Allan Feinstein, a realtor, Geller has experienced the ups and downs of gay acceptance in North Carolina. In recent years, the harsh edges of bigotry and discrimination have made them- Les Geller selves increasingly clear in a state where tolerance once seemed to have the upper hand. Geller says his experiences in Raleigh have been almost entirely positive, but he’s worried by what he sees happening statewide. “When you see HB 2 and you see Amendment One, you wonder what is going to come down next,” Geller says. “There is a fear that they’re going to try to undo gay marriage.”

PHOTO BY ALEX BOERNER

As a low-key person—he recalls being a theater nerd in his youth—Geller says he’s not the kind of confrontational spokesman who stages a sit-in at a legislator’s office. However, LGBT Center board member John Hammond calls him “an extremely strong advocate for services for the aging [LGBTQ] community … It is in his heart and soul,” Hammond says in an LGBT Cen-

ter video tribute to Geller. Bobby Hilburn, former executive director of the center, says Geller grew in his role as a community leader. In time, “with that knowledge of himself, he became an amazing advocate,” Hilburn says. Geller changed his areas of concentration during his tenure with the LGBT Center. After Gay and Gray joined SAGE in 2011, he says, “We established a certain number of things we wanted to do for the first three years. So many of our seniors were isolated from their families, had no children, and had friends and partners who died from HIV.” The group hosts fairly standard activities: a downtown dance in the spring, cookouts for Memorial Day, July 4, and Labor Day, and a holiday potluck. SAGE also sponsors a Thursday morning drop-in at the LGBT Center. But much of Geller’s focus is on the housing issue. A recent feasibility study showed there was a need of 700 affordable units and 220 market-rate units for Triangle LGBTQ residents. So his work continues: locating a developer who could help with housing and educating social workers in existing facilities about the ways discrimination can make long-term care a bad experience for LGBTQ folks. “There should be recognition that we bring our needs to be recognized as opposed to being oppressed,” Geller says. tgoldsmith@indyweek. INDYweek.com | 9.27.17 | 25

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MAKE YOUR MARK

Denicia Williams grew up on a picket line. Now she’s trying to make the North Carolina labor movement a more welcoming place for LGBTQ people. BY JEFFREY C. BILLMAN

ast year, Denicia Montford Williams decided she couldn’t do it anymore. Williams been working for K-Mart since 2002. She’d risen from a seasonal worker in Garner to a retail manager for a store in Raleigh. She was making a good living—six figures, she says, and if she landed a district manager position, her salary would double. But something was gnawing at her. “The things they were asking me to do— they were asking me to change my integrity,” says Williams, forty-five. “They were asking me to lie to associates about their pay, about their wages.” She quit without having another gig in place. For a month she stayed home, unemployed, teetering on the edge of depression. Then, one day, her father called and asked her to dinner. Melvin Motford was the executive director of the North Carolina A. Philip Randolph Institute, named for a man who helped bridge the civil rights and labor movements; her mother, Mary Montford, was the organization’s president. Her parents had a job for her. The money wasn’t what she was making at K-Mart. But she wanted to give back. “The older I get, and I look at the history of the past and the history of the present, I’m thinking, What am I doing for my kids’ future? I’m pretty privileged [because] of what people before me have done. So what is going to be my mark for my kids and my grandkids?” So she said yes. Today, she’s the program manager at the North Carolina APRI; she also started a spinoff chapter of the Bayard Rustin LGBT Coalition, named for the APRI cofounder who helped organize the 1963 March on Washington but was largely forgotten by history because he was gay. In those dual roles, Williams is leading a voter-registration drive in nine North Carolina counties, including Wake; advocating for paid sick leave, living wages, and against hostile immigration laws; hosting workshops related to financial and physical

Denicia Montford Williams

PHOTO BY ALEX BOERNER

health; and seeking to bring LGBTQ people into advocacy work. A few weeks ago, Williams was also elected to the N.C. AFLCIO’s board of directors—the first openly LGBTQ director in the board’s history. It was a long and sometimes tumultuous journey for Williams, but the destination seems like a natural fit. She grew up on the picket lines. Her mother, a grocery-store cashier, was a shop steward in Jacksonville, North Carolina. Her father, who worked for a plywood company, became the first black president of the state chapter of International Woodworkers of America. Williams had her first child at the age of fifteen—the result of her very first sexual encounter, she says. After her family moved to Memphis, she had a second son at nine-

teen and married the father. They divorced a few years later. A third son came a few years after that. She eventually completed an associate’s degree in computer accounting—a twoyear program that took her five years to finish, Williams says—and she and her family moved to Atlanta. There she grappled with the reality of who she was and the cultural expectations she’d been surrounded by growing up. “At that point,” she says, “I was trying to figure out why I can’t make these relationships work, what is wrong. At the same time, I was also having other feelings that I had been feeling before, but I really hadn’t put a name to those feelings. I just kept on walking the line that I was supposed to walk, which is

work, go to school, take care of your family, look for that spouse—that male spouse. I was still on that path and trying to figure out what was wrong with me at the same time.” She started going out to bars and meeting women, but it would take years before Williams fully came out. In the meantime, she followed her parents to Raleigh, embarked on another long-term relationship with a man, and had a daughter. But eventually, she decided she could no longer keep up the pretense. This July, she married Joyce Williams, her partner of eight years and now the treasurer of the Bayard Rustin Coalition. “I drug her in,” Williams says, “and now her daughter’s involved, her daughter’s husband, all the grandkids. It’s a family affair, and we do it together.” Through that organization, she says, her mission is to create a more welcoming environment for LGBTQ people in the labor movement. “I’m very comfortable,” Williams explains. “I could care less what anybody thinks about me. But there are a lot of my friends and family and associates that are uncomfortable still, and I can come to the regular APRI meetings and I’m not concerned about what little snide stuff they would say, but a lot of people don’t feel comfortable at that table. This is sad that we fight for rights, but we got people who don’t want to come to this table to fight for rights because they don’t feel equal at this table.” jbillman@indyweek.com INDYweek.com | 9.27.17 | 27

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IBMA’S WORLD OF

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O C TO B E R

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ince 2013, the International Bluegrass Music Association has called Raleigh home for its annual World of Bluegrass convocation. The event includes a trade conference for professional and amateur musicians, promoters, instrument makers, label representatives, journalists, and dedicated fans. The city has rolled out the red carpet for IBMA every year, with a free street festival that helps draw in the general public to a generous helping of twang. There’s also the annual Thursday night award show, which honors the genre’s best musicians, songwriters, and more; honorees include Durham’s own Alice Gerrard, who will be inducted into the International Bluegrass Hall of Fame with her former songwriting partner, Hazel Dickens, who passed away in 2011. This year, the awards also feature the institution’s first female nominee for best guitarist: twenty-four-year-old Molly Tuttle. The festival is still largely settled in its ways, with acts like Steep Canyon Rangers and Steve Martin, The Travelin’ McCourys, Hot Rize, Béla Fleck & Abigail Washburn all making reliable, triumphant returns to the Red Hat Amphitheater stage for the two-day ticketed music festival. (One extra special treat, however, is a rare appearance by Bluegrass 45, a Japanese ensemble whose members helped create a presence for bluegrass in their home country in the sixties.) We’ve criticized the festival for booking too many of the same bands and relying too heavily on older, white audiences for past iterations, but that seems to be a little different this year. Happily, the festival has been expanding its diversity efforts to be more of an active presence, with a special diversity-focused showcase that features Gerrard, members of Bluegrass 45, and the black string band The Ebony Hillbillies. As you wander the streets of downtown, the banjo rolls and guitar runs might start to bleed together, but keep an ear out for the finer differences between the music that’s wafting around: there’s the creaky wheeze of old-time music, the laser-like clarity of pure bluegrass, and bluegrass-rooted blends that reach a little toward rock. For an even bigger challenge, see if you can keep count of “Wagon Wheel” covers while you’re at it. —Allison Hussey

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WOR L D OF B LU E GR A S S

Off Main

HAD ENOUGH STEEP CANYON RANGERS? HERE ARE A FEW SMALLER NAMES TO SEE AT WORLD OF BLUEGRASS. BY SPENCER GRIFFITH

ith hundreds of acts in Raleigh for IBMA’s 2017 World of Bluegrass, a glance at the week’s schedule can be awfully intimidating, particularly for those who rarely wade into the genre. Though there’s no shortage of talent on stage at any given moment, it can be trying at times to hunt down the performances likely to stand out from a crowded line-up of typical ’grass that can often blur together. Here are eight artists who take on bluegrass from varying angles and sometimes even skirt the genre’s customs entirely, forming a cross section of the festival’s best and most intriguing offerings. DANNY PAISLEY & SOUTHERN GRASS Friday, noon, City Plaza With a set timed perfectly for a lunch break for downtown workers, IBMA’s 2016 male vocalist of the year, Danny Paisley, leads his Southern Grass in kicking off this year’s street fest with some of the finest singing and traditional picking to be found all weekend. This isn’t the first time we’ve recommended Paisley as one of the festival’s standout acts, but with powerful vocals, fleet flatpicking, and lightning-quick banjo rolls, it’s hard to pass up one of the rare local appearances by the hard-driving rural Pennsylvania native. THE EBONY HILLBILLIES Friday, 2:30 p.m., City Plaza/ 7:30 p.m., Dance Tent While the Carolina Chocolate Drops continue to be passed over by IBMA’s festival planners, booking New York City’s The Ebony Hillbillies—whose career revitalizing the legacy of black string bands actually preceded that of the Chocolate Drops—is a step in a similar direction. Equally at home performing in a subway station or at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, the sextet revisits the roots of African-American string band music from the turn of the twentieth century while folding in unlikely takes on contemporary fare, like Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing”—surely the only time the oft-covered classic has been done with fiddle and washboard. You can 32 | 9.27.17 | INDYweek.com

Japan's Bluegrass 45 PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ARTISTS also expect heavy doses of traditionals such as “Liza Jane” and a smattering of original numbers.

Sedelmyer to reinterpret traditional fiddle tunes with inventive arrangements and to craft modern acoustic originals.

10 STRING SYMPHONY Friday, 5:15 p.m., Capitol Stage Though Bobby Hicks brought the fivestring fiddle to the bluegrass world decades ago, he likely wouldn’t have envisioned 10 String Symphony, which relies almost exclusively on the instrument—and the extra range provided by its low C string— to craft elegant roots music. While the duo occasionally pulls out a banjo to mix it up, the dynamic Nashville pair combines Rachel Baiman’s old-time background and the classical leanings of Christian

FRONT COUNTRY Friday, 8 p.m., Capitol Stage A staple of World of Bluegrass since the festival moved to Raleigh, Nashville-via-San Francisco quintet Front Country has rightfully built a following here. That’s thanks in large part to the band’s engaging and energetic progressive roots pop and frontwoman Melody Walker, a soulful dynamo whose passionate pipes have the power to rattle a room and the grace to quiet it back down. Straddling the line between forward-thinking string band and muscular rock ’n’ roll

outfit, Front Country creatively rearranges Americana conventions and embeds its music with formidable hooks that have plenty of crossover appeal. JOE NEWBERRY & APRIL VERCH Friday, 8 p.m., City Plaza While Missouri native and Raleigh resident Joe Newberry scored one of IBMA’s most coveted awards for the host city in 2013—“They Called It Music,” which he cowrote with The Gibson Brothers, earned a song of the year trophy—the multi-instrumentalist is an equally engaging performer in a variety of combos. On Newberry’s latest project, he’s paired with Canadian fiddler, singer, and step dancer April Verch,

The Ebony Hillbillies PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ARTISTS

A look at the week’s schedule can be awfully intimidating. We’re here to help. an award-winning bandleader in her own right whose wistful vocals suggest her rustic upbringing in a family of roots musicians. Together, the two sidestep bluegrass, instead tackling traditional old-time tunes along with their own sharp original contributions and what they’ve dubbed “Ottawa Valley and Ozark” songs. BLUEGRASS 45 Saturday, 2 p.m., Red Hat Amphitheater Kobe, Japan, may be famous for its beef, but in the late sixties it also served as the point of origin for Bluegrass 45, a groundbreaking sextet of Japanese bluegrass musicians who could’ve easily been confused with traditional stateside bands. Though the group played the Grand Ole Opry on its first North American tour, appearances outside of Japan have been rare, save for a handful of reunion gigs since the group disbanded in the seventies. Reforming the original lineup for its fiftieth anniversary, the group plans to record a new album, but it remains to be seen whether it’s still up for any behind-the-head instrumental antics.

ROB ICKES & TREY HENSLEY Saturday, 7:45 p.m., City Plaza Though Rob Ickes’s fifteen trophies for dobro player of the year make him the most decorated instrumentalist in IBMA history, in his collaboration with Trey Hensley—now Ickes’s main focus since leaving Blue Highway after more than twenty years—the legend shifts his talents away from the genre. Hensley’s powerhouse vocals and virtuosic guitar playing often suggest traditional country more than strict bluegrass. Barreling like a freight train through classics by Haggard and Hank while mixing in change-ups from Stevie Ray and The Grateful Dead, Ickes and Hensley should provide welcome relief after a weekend filled with occasionally generic pickin’ and grinnin’. CHATHAM COUNTY LINE Saturday, 1 p.m., Red Hat Amphitheater/9:30 p.m. City Plaza These native sons should be a fixture at IBMA weekend thanks to their tremendous local draw, if not for their song “Living in Raleigh Now” becoming the event’s unofficial anthem after its first year in town. This year’s double dose should make up for last year’s absence, though, with an expanded version of Chatham County Line closing down the festival at City Plaza with its electric variant. The free Saturday night appearance is a rare one—the band’s electric revues have generally been limited to brief, annual holiday jaunts. Expect classic rock covers nestled between rollicking versions of the already unconventional roots tunes the acoustic quartet will play during its afternoon set. music@indyweek.com INDYweek.com | 9.27.17 | 33

WOR L D OF B LU E GR A S S

Pickin’ Power

MOLLY TUTTLE IS THE FIRST FEMALE NOMINEE FOR IBMA’S GUITARIST OF THE YEAR AWARD—AND SHE’S NOT STOPPING THERE BY KAT HARDING

women instrumentalists, so I think it’s all just building. As more and more women do it, it’ll just create more, because other younger women will see so many women out there at festivals and at shows.

hough she was raised in California’s Bay Area, Molly Tuttle grew up in bluegrass. She regularly went to Kathy Kallick and Laurie Lewis shows, and listening to records with her music teacher dad. The twenty-four-year-old has been performing since the age of eleven, and for this year’s IBMA Awards, she’s been nominated for Emerging Artist of the Year and Female Vocalist of the Year trophies. Most notably, she’s also the first woman ever to be nominated for IBMA Guitar Player of the Year. Her flatpicking playing style is deeply rooted in bluegrass, though she’s carved out a fresh sound all her own. Now based Nashville, Tuttle took some time to talk about her work, and what it feels like to be an award nominee who didn't notice it was odd to be a female guitar player until she was already in college. INDY: How did you get started playing guitar? MOLLY TUTTLE: I started when I was eight years old. My dad was a music teacher in the Bay Area for a long time, like over thirty years. I always saw him playing music, and I really wanted to play music. When I was eight, I asked for a guitar so my dad bought me one, and he started teaching me a couple tunes on the guitar. What’s your favorite part of playing a lot of festivals? On your tour schedule, it seems like you’ve got a lot of festival appearances over a more traditional tour. I love festivals, because it’s when I get to see all my friends. You have this big community of people all over the country and you’re all playing similar festivals, so you reunite and it feels like a big network that’s kind of like a family or community. That’s kind of the best part, you get to run into these people who you might only see at festivals, or you might run into them on the road or different places. But it’s always just a lot of fun to reconnect with different members of the music community. You’re the first woman nominated for the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Guitar Player of the Year award. What does that feel like? 34 | 9.27.17 | INDYweek.com

Molly Tuttle PHOTO BY ANTHONY SCARLATI It feels really exciting. I think that’s the award that I got nominated for that I’m most excited about. I’ve spent a lot of my life studying guitar. In school, it was really rare for a woman to be playing guitar so that’s kind of a special one for me.

who are maybe wanting to learn guitar or see me and thinking, Oh, that looks cool; I could see myself doing that. I didn’t have too much of that growing up, so it does mean a lot to me because hopefully I could be that for someone else.

What does it mean to you? Does it weigh more heavily on you that you’re the first woman? Let me think about that. [Laughs] I mean, it means a lot to me because I didn’t have many women to look up to who played guitar, who played leads on guitar. I had a few really great mentors and heroes that played lead on guitar. It means a lot to me that hopefully I can be that for younger women

Being the first woman nominated for Guitar Player of the Year, do you personally feel like this could be a turning point in the industry? I don’t know if me being nominated is the turning point, but I do feel like it is just kind of all snowballing, and I think more and more women are coming up. There’s a lot more women starting bands in the bluegrass world and in general, and a lot more

Why do you think it took this long? I think there’s a lot of factors that might make it intimidating, because it’s such a male-dominated field. I’ve had instances where I feel pretty uncomfortable being the only woman in the room, or if certain people I’m around aren’t being supportive of women playing music. I’ve had definitely my fair share of sexist comments. So it can be really intimidating and it can be uncomfortable and I think maybe that deters women. Also, when you don’t see that many other women doing something that you might want to do, sometimes subconsciously you don’t even see it as an option. Luckily, I had a lot of female role models who lead their own bands and played. I got to see Laurie Lewis and Kathy Kallick a lot growing up. My dad was always really supportive of me, and I don’t think he ever made it clear to me that it was a little bit unusual for girls to be playing lead on guitar. I never realized that until I went to college later and I was the only woman playing guitar, or in a lot of my classes. I never had a guitar class with another woman. There were other women who I would see at the school, who were studying guitar, but I just didn’t happen to have any of them in my classes. I think thirty percent of the school is female, but in the guitar department, I maybe only knew of one or two other women. Do you feel kind of like a trailblazer, then? I don’t know…maybe. I mean, hopefully, there will be more women coming up in the next generation who are playing leads on guitar. I think it’s becoming more and more common. I didn’t realize it was that uncommon until I got there [Berklee College of Music] and it was like, Whoa, this is crazy. I think I’m glad I didn’t really have that realization until later, because it probably would have kind of psyched me out a little bit. music@indyweek.com

WOR L D OF B LU E GR A S S

Broad Minded THIS YEAR’S DIVERSITY EFFORTS AT IBMA AIM TO MAKE BLUEGRASS A BIGGER TENT BY ALLISON HUSSEY If you’ve spent more than fifteen minutes in downtown Raleigh during past IBMA convocations, you’ve noticed some trends about audience demographics. There’s a moderately strong presence of young people, but the audience largely leans toward an even mix of white, middle-age (or older) men and women; and like country music, bluegrass has a not-always-accurate reputation for politically conservative leanings. This year, though, organizers have made a couple of strong attempts at bridging the gaps between what the institution looks like and the people who actually make its music—something that can only help IBMA as it tries to expand its reach to new audiences. The biggest diversity effort this year was Tuesday night’s Shout and Shine showcase, presented by Raleigh’s Pinecone in partnership with The Bluegrass Situation, a music and lifestyle site. The showcase presented a thoroughly respectable slate of artists from vastly different cultural, musical, and personal backgrounds. But with a Tuesday night slot, it didn’t have as big of a spotlight as it deserved. Among the Shout and Shine performers are The Ebony Hillbillies, a long-running all-black string band. It’s utterly refreshing to see artists of color represented who aren’t current or former members of The Carolina Chocolate Drops as part of a diversity showcase. There’s also Sam Gleaves, a young, gay banjo picker and songwriter who aims to promote LGBTQ visibility in bluegrass, and members of Bluegrass 45, a Japanese group that helped create a space for bluegrass in Japan. Today’s passionate bluegrass fan base in Japan exists in large part due to the band’s efforts in the sixties and seventies. Shout and Shine also featured longtime Durhamite Alice Gerrard, who turned eighty-three this year and is a vibrant, engaging musical presence. When it comes to bluegrass and old-time music, Gerrard has pretty much seen and played it all, and her continued involvement in

the music remains a gift. Speaking of shining, the California Bluegrass Association has spearheaded yet another outreach effort. In June, the West Coast wing of bluegrass boosters entered a float in the San Francisco Pride Parade for the first time, bearing the banner of “Bluegrass Pride.” The organization brings its Bluegrass Pride banner to IBMA with a Friday “brunch” that runs from 2–4 p.m, with the intention of helping connect bluegrass fans countrywide who may be interested in boosting LGBTQ visibility in their communities. The event is small—it’s

This year, organizers have made a couple of strong attempts at bridging institutional gaps. hosted in a hotel room, number 324 at the downtown Marriott hotel—but still open to the public. (They’ll have coffee, mimosas, cake, and other treats on hand, too.) Between them, Shout and Shine and Bluegrass Pride don’t afford a ton of room for voices that are marginalized in the institution and in the world at large. But it’s a confident step in a necessary direction—momentum that, with any luck, will continue to build. ahussey@indyweek.com

Your week. Every Wednesday. News • Music • Arts • Food

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INDYweek.com | 9.27.17 | 35

indyfood

Garden Party Crashers

AFTER YEARS OF LOOKING THE OTHER WAY, A SOUTH DURHAM HOA CRACKS DOWN ON FRONT-YARD GARDENS BY AMANDA ABRAMS

hat happens when the board governing a community doesn’t represent a majority of the community’s wishes? That’s the furor overtaking Woodcroft, a leafy neighborhood in south Durham. The argument is ostensibly about gardens, but ultimately it’s more than that: it’s a generational divide, a difference in opinions about what home is, and an illustration of south Durham’s evolving personality. When Meg and Matt Hoffman were looking to buy a home in Durham five years ago, Woodcroft seemed perfect. The neighborhood was lined with paved trails, giant pine trees, and reasonably priced homes on cozy cul-de-sacs. And vegetable gardens. “At the time, there were raised bed gardens all over Woodcroft,” says Meg Hoffman. She and Matt knew they eventually wanted to grow vegetables, and so, she says, “We purposely sought a neighborhood where there were visible gardens.” Technically, the neighborhood’s homeowners association didn’t allow front-yard gardens, but Woodcroft was a laid-back place, and residents told the Hoffmans that those rules were rarely enforced. The Hoffmans settled in Woodcroft, and, by 2015—now with a couple of kids in tow— they were cultivating food in their yard, with six-foot-high tomato plants attracting toddlers and their parents from around the neighborhood. Like many Woodcroft lots, the backyard was too shady for gardening, but the front yard worked. “Our yard was the place to be that summer,” Meg says. But it was the last year they gardened. In early 2016, Woodcroft residents received a letter from the board saying that the HOA’s guidelines would now be closely followed. Shortly after, the Hoffmans and dozens of other households received cease-and-desist letters stating that the plots were in violation of the HOA’s rules and needed to be removed. 36 | 9.27.17 | INDYweek.com

The gardens were all duly taken down. But resentment and confusion remain. At 860 acres and just over 2,000 households (roughly half are single-family homes), Woodcroft is one of Durham’s biggest neighborhoods. It was built in 1984 by East West Partners, a Chapel Hill-based developer that has created more than two dozen mixed-use communities around North Carolina. “It was state of the art at that time in terms of mixed-use or urbanist development,” says Roger Perry, East West’s president. Woodcroft included a range of homes at various price points, office buildings, and walking trails along main roads and through the woods. “Of course, state of the art wasn’t very sophisticated at that time.” Not many people were bragging about downtown Durham in the mid-eighties, so Woodcroft was heralded for its proximity to Research Triangle Park and the under-construction I-40. The HOA was there from the beginning. Like most HOAs, Woodcroft’s is a quasi-legal group that has standing in court. Back then, there were no architectural guidelines dictating the appearance of houses and yards; after a few years, some were developed, but they only filled three pages. These days, they’re thirty-three pages long, outlining rules about awnings (always prohibited), alarm systems (allowed), and playground equipment (requires approval). Meanwhile, the neighborhood’s target market has changed. With prices around the mid-$200,000s, Woodcroft’s colonials and Cape Cods—which have held up remarkably well over the years—are seen as “starter homes” in the context of Durham’s ballooning home prices and tend to attract young families. Rather than being focused east toward RTP, many work in Durham and are eager to be part of the city and its many amenities. With that has come a more urban and sustainable approach toward their homes. Rather than maintaining manicured lawns, many young families want to use them as

Meg and Matt Hoffman share tomatoes from their front yard. gardens, gathering spots, play spaces for their kids. And although they knew from the start that the neighborhood was governed by an HOA, many were surprised when it sprang into action.

PHOTO BY ALEX BOERNER

Board members have said that the shift occurred because the houses and infrastructure were aging and incurring increasing maintenance issues, potentially affecting property values. In response,

“the board transitioned several years ago to using professional property management companies that had strong experience with enforcement,” wrote representatives of the board, led by architect Andrew Stillwell, in an email. Matt Hoffman’s response to the garden letter was to run for the board that governs the HOA. At the time, few residents paid attention to its actions or elections, and he won a seat handily. Next, he created a survey to find out exactly how Woodcroft residents felt about gardens.

of 30 percent participation, a minimum that had not been required or met in recent memory—both candidates lost. “Though we had not followed this rule in recent years,” the board wrote in an email about the quorum rule, “after consulting with our legal counsel, we decided to more strictly follow this rule going forward to improve the integrity of our election process.” While pro-garden residents seem to be the majority, others genuinely oppose front-yard gardens.

“I want there to be understanding. But instead, we have a big knock-down, drag-out fight.” “I thought it would just be a matter of finding out what the majority of people wanted on any given issue and making rules based on that,” says Hoffman, a computer scientist. “But I totally underestimated how closely held beliefs about neighborhood aesthetics are.” In fact, his poll—which went out to the neighborhood email list, plus online forums like Nextdoor and Facebook—showed that of the 40 percent of single-family homeowners in the community who responded, 78 percent supported gardens anywhere in a resident’s yard, as long as they met basic, to-be-developed guidelines. But the part that surprised Hoffman was that the board refused to broadly share the survey with residents. Despite unanimously approving the poll beforehand, the HOA’s representatives now say the poll was not distributed “because the board felt it was too informally prepared and potentially had a degree of underlying bias.” They have also asserted that it only reached a tiny minority of Woodcroft residents. In response, Matt’s wife, Meg, established the Garden Party, with the aim of overturning the board’s conservative majority in the April 2017 election and enacting new rules. “Recent board decisions have brought much stricter rules for yards, front-yard gardens, and visibility of trash and recycle bins. We do not believe this trend reflects the desires of most of the neighborhood and is instead a result of the involvement of a small, but vocal, group of residents,” read her group’s online platform. “We support enforcing aesthetic guidelines where they are supported by a clear majority of residents.” The party fielded two candidates and ran a spirited campaign in a hotly contested election. In the end, though—after a voting period that was extended to reach a quorum

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“I don’t want to use the word ‘low class,’ but … well-maintained is key. I walk a lot all over the neighborhood. It’s very rare to see a garden that’s well done,” says a woman who’s lived in the neighborhood since 1988; she didn’t want to give her name after hearing about the vitriol the controversy generated online. “Already we’re battling resale issues because of the age of the neighborhood—we don’t need another reason.” Still, many residents are upset at the lack of any subsequent effort to find a compromise or solicit input. “I feel like my neighbors daily talk about wanting things to be different than they are,” says Austin (who did not give her last name), a thirtysomething resident who attended a September 12 board meeting; she was recently censured for having a Black Lives Matter sign in her yard (noncommercial signs are not allowed). “The real issue is that we would like to see changes that are considered.” The board has recently spoken about creating a community garden in a distant parking lot that could hold up to thirty plots, describing it as a “top priority.” It sounds like a useful compromise, but Patrick Kurz, who removed his two-hundred-square-foot garden eighteen months ago in response to the board letter, says it probably won’t help him. “It’s over two miles away. I’m not going to drive somewhere to garden,” he explains. “We have property here that’s cultivatable.” To Kurz, the debate is a microcosm of the contentious political climate around the country. “I want there to be understanding or to work toward that. But instead, we have a big knock-down, drag-out fight with opposing camps, and people got entrenched,” he says. “And it’s a shame. I thought, man, if we can’t do it here—I mean, we know each other here.” food@indyweek.com INDYweek.com | 9.27.17 | 37

food

[ DRINK THIS] “They can’t keep up with how many are coming off the trees.” Panciuto has done pawpaw dishes before, and they’re always sweet because of the fruit’s tropical flavor, with notes of banana and mango. The large yellow fruit have what Vandemark describes as “a creamy pulp inside, almost custardy” and “large, favabean-sized black seeds.” These seeds make them labor-intensive to process. But once you harvest the flesh, it freezes well—save for some inevitable oxidation—and then can be used well beyond the fleeting season. In past years, Panciuto has done a pawpaw budino (an Italian pudding), a pawpaw tart, a pawpaw cocktail with rum, and now, a pawpaw milkshake. “I’ve been wanting to do a milkshake on the menu forever, as we push back against this notion of fine dining and play with the idea of fun dining,” Vandemark says. Except, Panciuto doesn’t have an ice cream machine, and Vandemark isn’t the type to buy anything he could make from scratch. So how do you make a milkshake without ice cream? The answer, it turns out, was in the restaurant’s pantry.

YOUR WEEK. EVERY WEDNESDAY. FOOD • NEWS • ARTS • MUSIC

Hipster Banana PANCIUTO’S MILKSHAKE BRINGS ALL THE PAWPAWS TO THE YARD BY EMMA LAPERRUQUE

“I

INDYWEEK.COM 38 | 9.27.17 | INDYweek.com

Panciuto’s pawpaw milkshake PHOTO BY ALEX BOERNER

remember walking through my neighborhood ten years ago and seeing this tree on the side of the street in someone’s yard,” Aaron Vandemark says. “It had these large, green, mango-looking lobes, and I thought, What the hell are those?” They were pawpaws. And that, for many people, raises the same question: What the hell are those? Pawpaws have been called “America’s forgotten fruit” by NPR and “America’s best secret fruit” by Serious Eats. Their nick-

names range from “custard apple” to “hipster banana.” But let’s just call them delicious. They’re indigenous to the eastern United States and are particularly abundant in our neck of North Carolina. During the three-tofour-week season, from late August to early September, you can forage them or find a farm with its own trees. Minka Farm in Efland has seventeen. Vandemark—owner and chef of Panciuto in Hillsborough—got almost a hundred pounds of pawpaws there. “And they have more than that,” he says.

PANCIUTO

110 South Churton Street, Hillsborough 919-732-6261, www.panciuto.com

Panciuto sources brown sticky rice from South Wind Farm, which grows a notably wide range of grains, from oats to rye. The restaurant uses the rice for dishes like risotto, but inevitably the grains leave some shards and scraps behind, unfit for most recipes. Knowing this, Vandemark started to think about horchata, a sweet rice milk drink hailing from Mexico and parts of Central America, often spiced with cinnamon, sometimes fortified with almonds or other nuts. What would happen if you substituted rice milk for the usual cow’s milk? And frozen, custardy pawpaw flesh instead of the usual ice cream? You get a just-happens-to-be-vegan milkshake. Well, until Vandemark dollops some whipped cream on top, plus a shower of rainbow sprinkles. A milkshake can only take itself so seriously. food@indyweek.com

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indymusic

MDOU MOCTAR

Tuesday, October 3, 9:30 p.m., $10–$12 Kings, Raleigh www.kingsraleigh.com

Global Threads NIGERIEN GUITARIST MDOU MOCTAR REACHES BEYOND BOUNDARIES OF COUNTRY OR GENRE BY KATIE JANE FERNELIUS

Mdou Moctar PHOTO BY CHRISTOPHER KIRKLEY

he modern Tuareg musical tradition is defined by movement. In post-colonial Africa, the Tuareg were migrants living on the periphery of cities, struggling to find work and citizenship. In fact, their popular guitar style, ishumar, got its name from chumar, the French word for “unemployed.” Now Taureg music travels as much on informational highways as it does on real ones: MP3s are swapped across mobile devices, whole albums shared via Bandcamp, and musicians go viral via YouTube clips. But few have earned an international spotlight like Nigerien guitarist Mdou Moctar, just one of the Tuareg musicians carrying this tradition forward on the world stage. Moctar is as rock ’n’ roll as he is Tuareg, and his music leans just as much toward psychedelia as it does folk, pushing the bound-

aries of what music of the region is expected to sound like. On his latest album, Sousoume Tamachek, released by the Portland, Oregon, label Sahel Sounds, Moctar takes a harder folk turn with a fully acoustic album. The album emerges from a period in his early musical life where he couldn’t play in public spaces because of strict religious authority; instead, he played with friends at private takits, informal picnics where friends would drink tea and play songs together. This album represents the slower and more meditative pace of his music before it quickened due to the influence of Western styles and preferences. Christopher Kirkley started Sahel Sounds as a pet project to record the sounds of the southern Sahara, which stemmed from Kirkley’s desire to capture the music played at village weddings and

takits, as opposed to just the music popularized by radio stations in urban centers. After hearing Moctar’s song “Anar” via MP3, Kirkley decided to befriend him and see if he could feature the song on his compilation album Music from Saharan Cellphones. Moctar agreed to participate, and now the two have been friends and collaborators for over seven years, working together on albums, concerts, and even a movie—Akounak Tedalat Taha Tazouhhai, a Tuareg reimagining of Purple Rain. Moctar and Kirkley’s work at Sahel Sounds testifies to the changing landscape of world music, which historically has teetered recklessly between curiosity and fetishism. What used to be a genre organized around selling “undiscovered” artists to Western audiences has become, with the advent of digital platforms, a dia-

logue on how to think through musical traditions and how those traditions interact. “We usually see some contemporary touring African acts play pretty large festivals or academic programs, but I’ve noticed that, this tour, Mdou is playing a lot of bills with pretty experimental acts and smaller independent-show spaces with alternative programming,” says Devon Tuttle, who booked Moctar’s appearance at Kings in Raleigh. “The fans of Mdou’s music are the really deep diggers. They are the really exploratory kind of listeners. He’s being mixed in with radically diverse programming.” Explorers, music archivists, curators, d.j.s, and musicians have been at the forefront of current dialogues in world music—and Kirkley considers Sahel Sounds to be a hub for all of the above. He especially emphasizes the importance of a global audience, inclusive of both Western and Nigerien listeners. “As much as Mdou plays in the West, he’s going to continue to play in weddings in Niger,” Kirkley said. “That’s his real bread and butter. He can’t get to a place where he can’t make music for his fans back home because that’s where his heart lies.” Tellingly, one of the most popular videos on Kirkley’s YouTube account is one of Moctar playing at a local wedding in his hometown of Tchin-Tabaraden, Niger. He hoists an electric guitar in the middle of an outdoor crowd so comfortably enmeshed that elbows and hips bump against each other. Moctar bobs and sways with the confidence and concentration of Hendrix. The crowd whoops and hollers and claps along as he grooves to his popular song “Afelan”— a beloved local classic that went viral via the exchange of SIM card MP3s on mobile phones. It’s this energy—the kind that flourishes in intimate, joyful spaces—that Moctar hopes to emulate in his tour across the United States. It’s his first tour of the country with a full band. “Mdou showed up in Los Angeles and they were like, This is America! and then we were in Iowa and they said, This is America! and now we’re in Louisville, so it gives a good impression of how vast and different the U.S. is,” Kirkley says. “This is like, the apogee of the whole process where the musicians behind the music can also travel. Music provides a chance to really open those doors.” music@indyweek.com INDYweek.com | 9.27.17 | 41

indystage

Gold Mettle

PAM TANOWITZ AND SIMONE DINNERSTEIN SCALE THE HEIGHTS OF BACH’S OFTEN CHARTED, NEVER CONQUERED GOLDBERG VARIATIONS BY MICHAELA DWYER

horeographer Pam Tanowitz creates modern dances that play with classical movement, while pianist Simone Dinnerstein brings modern energy to classical music. So the two are well matched for the Duke Performances co-commissioned premiere, following a weeklong residency, of New Work for Goldberg Variations. Bach’s canonical 1741 score has been popularized again and again, most famously by Glenn Gould and, more recently, by Dinnerstein, whose independently financed 2007 recording propelled her to international acclaim. Nor is the score any stranger to dance; one well-known setting is Jerome Robbins’s 1971 ballet. We recently spoke with Tanowitz and Dinnerstein about the movement in music, the music of dance, and how Bach’s ageless variations adapt to reflect the times. INDY: Why Goldberg in 2017? SIMONE DINNERSTEIN: There’s a monumental quality to the Goldberg Variations. It takes on the personality of whoever is listening to or interpreting it. If you listen to the recording by Wanda Landowska from the forties, or if you look at the choreography of Jerome Robbins, it reflects the aesthetic of that time. It lends itself to being almost a reflection of the society around it. People who are not familiar with a lot of classical music, if they have one piece … PAM TANOWITZ: They love the Goldberg. It’s true. People came up to me at a residency and said, That is my favorite piece, that was my way into your dance. And Simone’s approach is very specific in a way that helped me find my way into it. Simone, could you talk about returning to this piece physically? Because your gestures, your embodiment as you play, are a part of this dance.

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SD: The fact is I’ve never really left this piece. I’ve been performing it since the recording came out. However, it’s constantly changing and surprising me. I don’t know about choreography, but I do think in terms of gesture and phrasing and breathing and rhythm. The shapes that I’m making with the music are sparking different things that happen on the stage, and in that way, I’m part of the dance. PT: The dance is designed so that the audience can go back and forth between focusing on Simone or focusing on the dance. And there’s interplay between the dancers and Simone. I wanted to be modest and simple about it. I really tried to honor and respect [Bach’s score], but at the same time, have my personality come out within those constraints. SD: I think that’s the thing the music does that is really phenomenal. When you’re interpreting the music, you’re trying to understand the structure. But what comes out is yourself, really. It’s almost like it’s a conduit into your own world.

“When you’re interpreting the music, you’re trying to understand the structure. But what comes out is yourself, really. It’s almost like it’s a conduit into your own world.”

An uncostumed rehearsal of New Work for Goldberg Variations PHOTO BY MARINA LEVITSKAYA I saw a video clip of a residency where Lindsey Jones is sitting on the piano bench, back to back with Simone, moving her feet quickly to the tempo of Simone’s playing. What was the anatomy of that moment? PT: With some variations, I had very specific ideas of what I wanted to do. The twentieth was always going to be a “fake tap dance” for Lindsey, who wanted to really try to mirror what Simone was doing. SD: She’s an incredible dancer because she has phenomenal range. She does that crazy dance that’s really fun, and then she does the next variation, one of the darkest in the whole piece. You can barely watch her because it’s so painful. PT: I wanted to take the happy and fun and invert it. She’s actually doing the same steps, inverted. SD: I didn’t realize that. In the music, there’s this very deep mathematical symmetry of patterns and sequences. At the same time, the music is about breaking all of that. That’s something I think Pam has captured,

because sometimes it looks like [the dancers] are all going to do the same thing, and then they don’t. I’ve seen this project discussed in terms of “danger” and “risk.” But you’re both masters of live art, and you’re setting your own terms. What does risk look like here? PT: I mean, it’s the Goldberg Variations. There’s the sheer weight of it. But I actually feel like going through this process has made me so full of hope and possibility. I used to think everything had been done before. [Simone] kind of had to talk me off the ledge. SD: When we were just about to start you were worried about understanding it historically, what it is to be baroque. I think what I said to you was, We shouldn’t focus on that. PT: It was more like I wanted to understand the music. I felt like it was too far away from me. SD: In terms of risk, this feels like a progression that has been moving me away

from rule-bound classical music training, where there’s a tremendous emphasis on tradition and an obsession with historical accuracy. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found that there are other ways that you can think about music. When I made the Goldberg Variations recording, that was the first big step into playing in a way that was following other values than what I had been taught. Now, doing it in three dimensions is pushing me farther in my own thinking about music. [Simone], you played for the Robbins Goldberg Variations in 2016 with the Paris Opera Ballet. That’s an obvious touchstone in a dance historical sense. SD: I think the Robbins is a beautiful ballet. But it’s a very different way of thinking about the connection between dance and music. One note is played and that note has to be matched with a foot. It does mean the music loses a lot of flexibility.

PT: Yeah, I don’t need to do that. It’s already been done. One of the things that scared me [about this project] was the Jerry Robbins piece. I’m not in direct conversation with it, but I also am, because it exists. But I’m a modern dance choreographer. I use ballet and Merce Cunningham technique within my work, but it’s not a ballet. We’re barefoot; we’re way more grounded. SD: You don’t have one lift in this piece. PT: Yeah, and that was a conscious choice. We have one male dancer. There is some obvious dueting between a man and a woman, but I have not dealt with it in a way that’s traditional. When you put a man next to a woman there’s already a story there, and they didn’t even move yet. As part of the Duke Performances residency, Dinnerstein and Tanowitz will have a public lunchtime conversation at the East Duke Building on Wednesday, Oct. 4.

PAM TANOWITZ DANCE & SIMONE DINNERSTEIN: NEW WORK FOR GOLDBERG VARIATIONS Friday, Oct. 6 & Saturday, Oct. 7, 8 p.m., $10–$38 Reynolds Industries Theater, Durham www.dukeperformances.com

INDYweek.com | 9.27.17 | 43

stage

PLAYING WITH FIRE | HHH Through Sunday, Oct. 8 Theatre in the Park, Raleigh www.theatreinthepark.com

Prattle Not with Monsters

FRANKENSTEIN AND HIS CREATION TALK IT OUT IN PLAYING WITH FIRE BY BYRON WOODS

John Honeycutt, Anthony Pender, and Ira David Wood IV in Playing with Fire

t’s the endgame every chess player dreads: a board with only two pieces left. When players are equally matched, the stratagems of troop reduction—murder by gameplay, in other words—result in the irresolvable equilibrium of a stalemate.

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PHOTO BY STEPHEN J. LARSON

Or do they? As with Nick Dear’s striking adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which London’s National Theatre produced and broadcast to theaters worldwide in 2011, playwright Barbara Field’s version, Playing with Fire (After Frankenstein), now showing

at Theatre in the Park, begins at the end, with two figures on a desolate field of ice. Only one of them is standing: the creature to which the title character gave nothing more than a very literal spark of life. Nearby, his creator lies sprawled on the ice, his fingers already gray with frostbite—clearly a man still pursuing revenge on his last legs. Field takes that final pairing even further than the National production did. With Frankenstein (Tony Pender) weakened, his emboldened creature (Mark Zumbach) draws near until the two are within earshot. As their bloodlust subsides, it is replaced by something unexpected: mutual curiosity. Thus begins the pair’s first dialogue in years. After a cry from the depths, the creature earnestly transmits the details of his life while the doctor dispassionately records them. Before long, though, the tables turn, and the creature’s equally probing questions become a truly final examination for a creator who has never fully invested in any human relationship. When an irritated Frankenstein calls this back and forth an unendurable catechism, the term is more accurate than he knows. Incessantly, the creature grills the doctor: Why was he created? Why build an intricate machine that has no purpose? Why would a creator abandon his creation without clothing, feeding, teaching, protecting, or loving it? Such questions form the base of religion and philosophy. It is surely no coincidence that the imagery in director Ira David Wood III’s flashback scenes of a younger Frankenstein (Ira David Wood IV), his bride, Elizabeth (Olivia Fitts), college mentor Professor Krempe (John Honeycutt), and an earlier version of the creature (Ford Nelson) invoke the crucifixion and its aftermath in Michelangelo’s Pietà. But despite the script’s strong spiritual and ethical elements, this production rarely rises above melodrama. Last Saturday, moments of pathos only sometimes slipped out from beneath the inexpertly applied prosthetics marring Zumbach’s visage, and Pender was still reaching for the necessary emotional range. Elizabeth was underdeveloped, and Wood IV and Honeycutt stayed deep in their comfort zones. Like its subject, this show was still in search of its full humanity. bwoods@indyweek.com

STAGE BRIEF A SECOND CHANCE FOR WOMEN’S THEATRE FESTIVAL CANCELLATION MISS LULU BETT Shows rarely get second chances in the theater. It’s hard enough to synchronize participants’ busy lives for one set of rehearsals and performances; doing it twice is nearly impossible if something goes wrong the first time. Nevertheless, two months after the Women’s Theatre Festival had to cancel its August production of the early feminist play Miss Lulu Bett, its second chance arrives next week in two staged readings at Walltown Children’s Theatre (Sunday, Oct. 1, 3 p.m.) and Imurj (Wednesday, Oct. 4, 7 p.m.). “Finally, this hardworking cast has the chance to demonstrate its prowess in a public setting,” says Ashley Popio, the festival’s artistic director. Proceeds from the benefit performances (the suggested donation is five dollars) will help pay amends to Walltown, which lost money when the initial production was canceled. Lori Mahl will direct the dramatic comedy, the first Pulitzer-winning drama written by a woman. Novelist Zona Gale adapted her own best-seller into a Broadway play in 1920. Mahl says Gale “got a lot of pushback” when her script dared to seek a happy ending for an unmarried thirty-four-year-old woman. At the start, the title character cleans and cooks in her sister’s household, with few options despite her quick wits. But Lulu’s fortunes change, and change again, as several men enter and exit her life. When the play debuted, four months after the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, which secured women's right to vote, Gale’s play documented a changing time, one in which “a woman is trying to find her own voice and make her own choices,” Mahl says. Audiences in Durham and Raleigh finally get to hear that voice when Sierra Smith plays the title character this week. —Byron Woods

STAGE BRIEF LOCAL PLAYWRIGHT HOWARD L. CRAFT SHIPS FREIGHT OFF-BROADWAY In Freight: The Five Incarnations of Abel Green, by Raleigh-based playwright Howard L. Craft, a series of trains running through the last century inexorably carry the title character to his fate. Next month, they’ll take him somewhere he’s never been before: off-Broadway. The New Federal Theatre announced last week that its production of the existential drama will open October 19 at the Castillo Theatre in New York City, where familiar faces will appear on stage and off. (Freight premiered in Chapel Hill in 2015, receiving a five-star review from the INDY.) J. Alphonse Nicholson, a local actor who has worked in major regional theaters across the country as well as on network and cable television, will reprise the role he created. Joseph Megel, artistic director of StreetSigns Center for Literature and Performance, who directed the first production, also helms the off-Broadway run. The booking marks Freight’s second appearance in New York, following a July 2015 showcase production at HERE Arts Center, an off-off-Broadway presenting house. That run garnered favorable reviews from the Village Voice and The New York Times. The New Federal Theatre has been a major producer of new works by playwrights of color since artistic director Woodie King Jr. founded the company in 1970. In an interview last week, King said that Craft has “a really new and interesting voice. As far as I know, characters like these have never been seen onstage before.” An off-Broadway run signals growing interest in a show’s commercial potential— “a step ahead for the longevity of a theater piece,” as Megel says. Though he had offers before the New Federal production, Craft insisted that the original director and actor stay with the show. “It feels like we willed this thing to happen,” he says. “Joseph and Alphonse never gave up on the piece. They made it come to life; they put their sweat and blood into it.” —Byron Woods

To advertise or feature a pet for adoption, please contact eroberts@indyweek.com INDYweek.com | 9.27.17 | 45

WHAT TO DO THIS WEEK

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 4

MAN FOREVER

John Colpitts (aka Kid Millions, the drummer for psych rockers Oneida) sure knows how to beat the crap out of a drum kit. His efforts as Man Forever began as a side project, a chance for him to explore the outer edges of minimalism while continuing to pound skins off drums. Most of the time, his vision involved getting lots of snare drums together to build towers of ever-shifting rhythmic patterns. But on the most recent Man Forever album, Play What They Want, Colpitts edges ever closer to actual rock music and discrete songs. He enlisted a crack group of experimental musicians, including harpist Mary Lattimore, the band Yo La Tengo, and Laurie Anderson for a series of sonic explorations that touch on Can and Alice Coltrane with piles and piles of percussion underlying everything in unexpected ways. It’s probably the most intricate and rewarding thing Colpitts has done in a while—but it’s also anyone’s guess what it’ll be like live. With Demon Eye and Lacy Jags. —Dan Ruccia NEPTUNES PARLOUR, RALEIGH 9 p.m., $8, www.kingsraleigh.com

John Colpitts PHOTO

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 30

THE HOT AT NIGHTS

Few Triangle bands include as much densely packed talent as the Raleigh trio The Hot at Nights. Its three members have worked with a wide range of artists, including Hiss Golden Messenger, The Foreign Exchange, The Mountain Goats, Gene Ween, and Jeanne Jolly. But when these players combine forces, they come up with a curious and thrilling blend of mostly jazz and rock, with flourishes of funk and R & B, and a few proggy twists thrown in for good measure. Three Kids, which the band released in May, is a heady, inventive LP defined by hard turns toward synth and electronic elements. In the opening slot is Matthew Stevens, another jazz devotee whose approach to his music extends much further. He shares The Hot at Nights’ adventurous, eager spirit, which should make for a wellrounded evening of music. —Allison Hussey THE ARTSCENTER, CARRBORO 8 p.m., $24, www.artscenterlive.org

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 30– SUNDAY, OCTOBER 22

ROMEO AND JULIET

Bare Theatre is known for stretching Shakespeare (and regional audiences) by producing abridged, cirque, steampunk, and buskers’ treatments of the Bard in recent years. Director Lucinda Danner Gainey takes this longrunning company through yet another change-up by staging Shakespeare’s most popular play, Romeo and Juliet, in the playwright’s own time. Barbara Raddatz’s Elizabethan costumes and sundry weekend matinee show times, outdoors at the Forest Theatre, place us in a milieu like the one playgoers encountered in the roofless Globe Theatre in the seventeenth century. In the title roles, newcomers Christopher McBennett and McKenna Waldron anchor a production in which the conflicts between two upper-class families of Verona become a zero-sum game from which no one is spared, including the children. Michael Parker and Amanda Lee Scherle lead the house of Capulet; Doug Kapp and Ann Forsthoefel head the Montagues. —Byron Woods FOREST THEATRE, CHAPEL HILL 2 p.m., $10–$18, www.baretheatre.org

46 | 9.27.17 | INDYweek.com

BY LISA CORSON

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 1

MIKE HACK

When Max C. Lee was ten, he was amazed by a VHS tape his mother got in the mail. It showed a young man going through a carwash without a car. The creator and star was Mike Hack, who has autism and was a patient of Lee’s mother, a therapist. When she and Hack reconnected years later, he was an active adult with decades of video work behind him, as is sampled in This is Me, Right Here, Mike Hack. This is Me, Right Here, a Carrack exhibit curated by Lee, his ad hoc archivist. The videos track changes in technology and culture as well as in Hack’s life and interests. Sometimes he enters the work as an actor or through a handheld camera’s lens, other times as a visionary, spontaneous editor. “Mike’s videos are highly tactile collages layered with different sources, media, and timelines,” artist Mark Leckey has said. “The result is an idiosyncratic (and simultaneous) production/editing process that reveals Mike’s deliberate decision making, calls attention to the process itself, and builds a stacked montage of bygone pop-culture that Mike has filtered and digested for us.” Hack’s artist talk on Sunday is also your last chance to see the show. —Brian Howe THE CARRACK MODERN ART, DURHAM 3 p.m., free, www.thecarrack.org

9.27–10.4

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 3

AQUILA THEATRE: SENSE & SENSIBILITY

N.C. State University’s current celebration of Jane Austen is called Austen 200 because the world has known the author for only two hundred years, despite Sense and Sensibility’s immediate success in 1811 and the even greater reception Pride and Prejudice received two years later. During Austen’s lifetime, her novels were published anonymously. In Sense’s first edition, the words “By a Lady” appear beneath the book’s title; Pride’s first edition was written “By the Author of Sense and Sensibility.” Austen was only identified as the author after her death in 1817. NC State LIVE keeps a slot open for Aquila Theatre each season with good reason; the company has staged daring and innovative adaptations of classics such as The Trojan War. Artistic director Desiree Sanchez’s take on Sense is still under wraps; the company’s tour begins after press time. Austen fans, take note: Sense arrives just after the university theater’s current production of Pride and Prejudice closes on October 1. —Byron Woods NCSU’S STEWART THEATRE, RALEIGH 8 p.m., $7–$31, www.live.arts.ncsu.edu

Aquila Theatre PHOTO BY RICHARD TERMINE

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 30

WAKE FOREST DANCE FESTIVAL

Wake Forest isn’t likely to top your list of Triangle dance hubs, but it may well move up a few spots after the inaugural Wake Forest Dance Festival on Saturday. Directed by former Martha Graham Dance Company principal Mariya “Masha” Dashkina Maddux and sponsored by Wake Forest Arts and the Town of Wake Forest, the daylong, outdoor dance festival takes place in the bucolic E. Carroll Joyner Park. Guided tours will usher festivalgoers through short pieces by locals such as Renay Aumiller Dances, Gaspard & Dancers, and former Carolina Ballet dancer Manuel Barriga, among other Triangle and Triad companies; the day will close with a “festival concert” featuring both professional dancers and advanced younger ones from the area. It’s pitched as a family-friendly event, but dance-history nerds will want to note that Maddux and Miki Orihara, another former Graham principal, will perform works from the Graham repertoire, including the canonical 1930 solo Lamentation. —Michaela Dwyer JOYNER PARK, RALEIGH 10 a.m.–6:30 p.m., free, www.wakeforestdancefestival.org

Wake Forest Dance Festival director Mariya “Masha” Dashkina Maddux in Joyner Park PHOTO BY MAKSYM KOLOTYN PHOTOGRAPHY

WHAT ELSE SHOULD I DO?

COLD MOUNTAIN AT UNC’S MEMORIAL HALL (P. 55), ALEX HARRIS AT CRAVEN ALLEN GALLERY (P. 53), KEDI AT NCMA (P. 56), MASTERS OF CAJUN ACCORDION AT THE ARTSCENTER (P. 51), MDOU MOCTAR AT KINGS (P. 41), MISS LULU BETT AT WALLTOWN CHILDREN’S THEATRE & IMURJ (P. 45), PLAYING WITH FIRE AT THEATRE IN THE PARK (P. 44), HOLLIS ROBBINS AT THE REGULATOR (P. 56), SYLVAN ESSO AT SHAKORI HILLS (P. 49), PAM TANOWITZ DANCE & SIMONE DINNERSTEIN AT DUKE (P. 42), WORLD OF BLUEGRASS IN DOWNTOWN RALEIGH (P. 29) INDYweek.com | 9.27.17 | 47

Coming

FINDER

THE INDY'S

GUIDE TO THE TRIANGLE

soon

48 | 9.27.17 | INDYweek.com

WE 9/27@ CAT’S CRADLE BACK ROOM

TOGETHER PANGEA MO 10/2

RAC 9/27 PSYCHEDELIC FURS LD W/ BASH & POP SO OUT 9/29 PINBACK AUTUMN OF THE SERAPHS 10TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR W/ MESSTHETICS ($20) 9/30 TIMEFLIES: TOO MUCH TO DREAM TOUR ELLED W/ DAWIN, LOOTE CANC 10/2 RAC W/LPX ($22/$25) 10/4 CAMERON ESPOSITO AND RHEA BUTCHER: BACK TO BACK $32.50 (SEATED SHOW) 10/5 LIQUID STRANGER AND MANIC FOCUS W/ FREDDY TODD AND LIVE ANIMALS ($17/$20) 10/6: WXYC 2000'S DANCE ($5 STUDENTS /$8 GP)

MO 10/2 @RED HAT AMPHITHEATRE

THE HEAD AND THE HEART 11/12 LUNA W/ ELEANOR FRIEDBERGER ($20/$23) 11/14 COUSIN STIZZ W/SWOOSH, BIG LEANO ($15/$18) 11/15 THE STORY SO FAR W/TURNSTILE, DRUG CHURCH 11/16 YELAWOLF ($25/$28) 11/18 CULTS ($19/$21) 11/30 CUT COPY 12/2 POKEY LAFARGE ($17 ADV/ $20 DAY OF; ON SALE 9/29)

FR 9/29

PINBACK 10/28 ELLIS DYSON & THE SHAMBLES 10/31 RATBOYS W/ DAGS 11/2 LARRY KEEL EXPERIENCE W/ JON STICKLEY TRIO ($!6/$20)

10/9 BERMUDA TRIANGLE (BRITTANY HOWARD OF ALABAMA SHAKES, BECCA MANCARI AND LESSE LAFSER) W/ MUSIC BAND ($20)

12/17 HORTON’S HOLIDAY HAYRIDE STARRING REVEREND HORTON HEAT, WITH THE BLASTERS, JUNIOR BROWN, BIG SANDY ($25/ $28)SANDY ($25/$28)

11/3 ALL THEM WITCHES W/ KING BUFFALO 11/4 THE HOTELIER W/ OSO OSO, ALEX NAPPING ($13/$15)

1/22 AND 1/23/18 SHOWS! SAY ANYTHING ($22/$27; $40 FOR 2-NIGHT PASS)

11/5 TERA MELOS W/ SPEEDY ORTIZ, PROMM

1/27/18 TENNIS

10/10 MURA MASA W/ JOEY PURP ($17/$20)

1/30/18 DESTROYER W/ MEGA BOG ($20/$23

11/7 THE WORLD IS A BEAUTIFUL PLACE AND I AM NO LONGER AFRAID TO DIE W/ ROZWELL KID, ADJY ($15)

10/12 TURNOVER W/ ELVIS DEPRESSEDLY, EMMA RUTH RUNDLE ($17/$20)

5/25 PETER HOOK & THE LIGHT ($28/$31)

11/11 ARKELLS W/ IRONTOM ($15)

10/7 LANY THE LANY TOUR PART 2 LD W/ DAGNY SO OUT

10/13 CHELSEA WOLFE** W/ YOUTH CODE ($20/$23) 10/14 RIVER WHYLESS W/ THE GRAND SHELL GAME ($14/$16) 10/15 BROTHER ALI W/ DJ SOL MESSIAH, LAST WORD (DJ SET), SA-ROC ($16/$18) 10/16 KALI UCHIS W/ PHONY PPL ($15/$18) 10/17 THE DIGITOUR PRESENTS WES TUCKER ($25) 10/20 YEP ROC 20 -- NICK LOWE, JOSH ROUSE, LOS STRAITJACKETS, ELI PAPERBOY REED, SPECIAL GUEST TBA 10/21 YEP ROC 20 -- DAVE ALVIN AND PHIL ALVIN WITH THE GUILTY ONES, CHUCK PROPHET WITH THE MISSION EXPRESS, JEREMY & THE HARLEQUINS, DRESSY BESSY, THE FLESHTONES 10/24 TED LEO AND THE PHARMACISTS W/ IAN SWEET, THE STARS EXPLODE ($16/$18) 10/25 JOSH RITTER & THE ROYAL CITY BAND W/GOOD OLD WAR ($27.50; INCLUDES ALBUM DOWNLOAD) 10/26 SAN FERMIN W/ GRACIE AND RACHEL ($15) 10/27 AMINE W/ TOWKIO ($22/$25) 10/28 DEADHEAD MASQUERADE BALL FT COSMIC CHARLIE 10/29 GRYFFIN W/ AUTOGRAF (DJ SET), AYOKAY ($17/$20) 10/31 JR JR W/ CHAD VALLEY ($16/$18) 11/1 CRANK IT LOUD PRESENTS: CITIZEN W/SORORITY NOISE, GREAT GRANDPA 11/2 THE ENGLISH BEAT ($18/$20) 11/3 JD MCPHERSON W/ NICOLE ATKINS ($16/$18) 11/4 KNUCKLE PUCK W/ MOVEMENTS WITH CONFIDENCE, HOMESAFE 11/5 JOYCE MANOR / WAVVES W/ CULTURE ABUSE ($20/$23) 11/6 WAX TAILOR: SOLO SET & GUESTS W/ DIRTY ART CLUB ($20/$23) 11/7THE STRUMBELLAS W/ NOAH KAHAN ($22/$25)

11/12 OVERCOATS ($10/$12) CAT'S CRADLE BACK ROOM 9/27 TOGETHER PANGEA W/ DADDY ISSUES, LALA LALA ($12/$14) 9/28 DRIFTWOOD W/ DRISKILL ($12/$14) 9/29 LAIRS, ARSON DAILY, NOISE LIGHTS ($7/$8) 9/30 SWEET SPIRIT W/ TINNAROSE, ERIC SLICK (FROM DR DOG) 10/1 ELECTRIC SIX W/ GROVES ($13/$15) 10/4 TROUT STEAK REVIVAL W/ DEAD HORSES ($12/ $15) 10/5 GREAT PEACOCK W/ THE HIGH DIVERS ($10) 10/6: MAGNOLIA COLLECTIVE, REESE MCHENRY & THE FOX, AMIGO 10/7 MAX FROST W/ NAWAS ($12) 10/8 JESSICA HERNANDEZ & THE DELTAS 10/10 BANDITOS W/CALEB CAUDLE 10/11 NOW, NOW W/DEM YUUT ($13/$15) 10/12 HOLLY BOWLING ($15/$17) 10/13 WITT LOWRY W/ RO RANSOM 10/14 MATT POND PA W/ WILD PINK ($15/$17) 10/15 ZENSOFLY, JOOSELORD MAGNUS, BRASSIOUS MONK, J ROWDY & THE NIGHTSHIFT 10/16 THE NATIONAL PARKS W/ RIVVRS 10/17 RACHEL KIEL ALBUM RELEASE W/JOSH KIMBROUGH, JOSH MOORE 10/18 SH-BOOMS

SOLD OUT

11/13 DAVID BAZAN W/ MICHAEL NAU ($15) 11/15 MO LOWDA & THE HUMBLE 11/16 CITY OF THE SUN ($10/$12) 11/17 HOWARD IVANS (ROSEBUDS, GAYNGS) W/SKYLAR GUDASZ ($12) 11/18 MODERN ENGLISH W/ ENTERTAINMENT ($20/$23) 11/30 THE WEATHER STATION W/ JAMES ELKINGTON 12/1 ALLAN RAYMAN ($18/$20) 12/5 DAVID RAMIREZ: WE’RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE ($15/$17) 2/7/2018 WILLIE WATSON ($18/$20; ON SALE 9/29) CAROLINA THEATRE (DUR) 12/6 THE MOUNTAIN GOATS W/ JENNY BESETZT MOTORCO (DUR) 10/13 GUIDED BY VOICES ($26/$30) 11/3 BLITZEN TRAPPER W/ LILLY HIATT 11/4 BORIS W/MUTOID MAN, ENDON ($18/$20) 11/30 THE DISTRICTS W/ SUN SEEKER ($15/$17) DPAC (DUR) TWO 11/13 AND 11/14 SH OWS! BON IVER W/ AERO FLYNN 11/25 ST. VINCENT THE RITZ (RAL) 10/26 PORTUGAL.THE MAN W/LIDO RED HAT AMPH (RAL) 10/2 THE HEAD AND THE HEART W/ THE SHELTERS

10/19-21 YEP ROC 20-YEAR CELEBRATION

HAW RIVER BALLROOM 10/13 JULIEN BAKER W/ HALF WAIF ($16/$18)

10/22 PICKWICK W/ THE ELWINS ($12/$15)

10/20 EMILY SALIERS

10/23 TREVOR SENSOR ($10/$12)

11/5 KISHI BASHI W/ TALL TALL TREES ($20)

10/24 JESSICA LEA MAYFIELD W/ BLANK RANGE ($15) 10/25 THE ALTERNATE ROUTES W/ NICK FRADIANI 10/26 SOCIAL ANIMALS 10/27 THE MOVIELIFE W/IRON CHIC

11/10ABBEY ROAD LIVE!! 11/11 SAINT MOTEL W/ GIBBZ

TWO

11/30 AND 12/1 SHOWS! HISS GOLDEN MESSENGER SHAKORI HILLS COMM. CTR. 9/30 SYLVAN ESSO W/ TUNE-YARDS, WYE OAK, HELADO NEGRO, THE DEAD TONGUES & MORE

CATSCRADLE.COM ★ 919.967.9053 ★ 300 E. MAIN STREET ★ CARRBORO

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WED, SEP 27

CAT’S CRADLE: Psychedelic Furs, Bash & Pop; 8 p.m., $30. • CAT’S CRADLE (BACK ROOM): Together Pangea, Daddy Issues, Lala Lala; 8 p.m., $12-$14. • THE CAVE: Essex//Muro Residency; 9 p.m., $5. • DEEP SOUTH: Static and Surrender, Canadian Airports; 8:30 p.m., $5. • IMURJ: Karen Smedley, Three Jack Jenny, The Carolina Pinecones; 8:30-11 p.m. • IRREGARDLESS: Nixon Blevins & Gage; 6 p.m. • KINGS: IBMA World of Bluegrass: Nefesh Mountain, Richie and Rosie, The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys, The Small Glories, Songwriters in the Round: Becky Buller, Jon Weisberger, Donna Ulisse, Tim Stafford, Lindsay Lou and the Flatbellies, Charm City Junction; 6 p.m. • KOKA BOOTH AMPHITHEATRE: Johnny Folsom 4, Candy Thomas Band; 5:45 p.m., $5-$20. • LINCOLN THEATRE: IBMA Ramble: Slocan Ramblers, Jenni Lyn, Front Country, Fireside Collective, The Railsplitters, Hank Pattie & the Current, Sheriff Scott and the Deputies; 7 p.m., $10. • LOCAL 506: Casey Williams, JPhono1, Majestic Vistas; 9 p.m., $6. • MOTORCO: Charley Crockett, Rissi Palmer Band; 7:30 p.m., $12-$14. • NIGHTLIGHT: 919Noise September Showcase; 8:30 p.m. • THE PINHOOK: Big Ups, Maple Stave; 9 p.m., $10. • POUR HOUSE: IBMA Ramble: Missy Raines & the New Hip, Nefesh Mountain, Molsky Mountain Drifters; 7 p.m.

THU, SEP 28 Mykki Blanco It’s not quite right BEST BARS to call Mykki Blanco an enigma or a mystery; the rapper is a powerful presence who’s open about her genderqueer identity, her HIV-positive status, and personal ups and downs (see “I’m in a Mood” or the breathtaking “Loner”). More accurately, Blanco is an immensely talented artist whose many compelling multitudes make her impossible to box in in any regard. ZenSoFly, a promising young Raleigh rapper, opens. She’s got a new EP, Sunflowers, out the day after this ArtsCenter show, and its first cut, “Getting Started,” is bouncy and enticing. —AH [THE ARTSCENTER, $25/8 P.M.]

Driftwood

Driftwood DRIFT AWAY features the same carefully manicured take on bluegrass and folk that previously catapulted acts like the Lumineers and Mumford & Sons to heights of hobo-cap-wearing stardom. With its earnest and energetic performances, ingratiating hooks and populist sing-alongs, there is nothing about Driftwood to particularly hate. But there’s not much to love either, unless you’ve always wanted your honky-tonk records just a bit more arena ready. Driskill opens. —EB [CAT’S CRADLE, $12–$14/8 P.M.]

Jukebox the Ghost Emphasizing HOOK HAPPY bouncy piano and Ben Thornewill’s crystalline tenor, Jukebox the Ghost’s eager, earnest tunes feel scientifically calibrated for maximum catchiness. On “Postcard,” the band summons numerous jukebox ghosts, including Bruce Hornsby, Billy Joel, and John Parr’s St. Elmo’s Fire theme. With Secret Weapons. —DK [MOTORCO, $14–$16/7:30 P.M.]

Rufus Wainwright POPERA Released in 1998, SINGER Rufus Wainwright’s first record reached a wider audience than his parents had in their already considerable folk-singing careers. A piano balladeer whose romantic songs balance biting humor with liberal doses of camp and unflinching self-scrutiny, Wainwright has undertaken ambitious projects, including opera writing, an evening of Judy Garland music at Carnegie Hall, and an album of adapted Shakespeare sonnets. His operatic croon communicates depths of feeling. —DK [CAROLINA THEATRE, $40–$60/8 P.M.]

WWW.INDYWEEK.COM

CONTRIBUTORS: Jim Allen (JA), Elizabeth Bracy (EB), Timothy Bracy (TB), Grant Britt (GB), Charlie Burnett (CB), Kat Harding (KH), Allison Hussey (AH), David Klein (DK), Dan Ruccia (DR), David Ford Smith (DS)

ALSO ON THURSDAY ARCANA: Jaguardina, Ships in the Night; 8 p.m., free. • BLUE NOTE GRILL: Ana Popovic; 8 p.m., $20$25. • THE CAVE: Mountain Lions, Ben Trickey, Matthew Paul Butler; 9 p.m., $5. • CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF THE AMERICAN SOUTH: Music on the Porch: Gabe & Will, Roots Music from Two Continents; 5:30-7 p.m., free. • DEEP SOUTH: IBMA Afterhours: Cuttin Grass, Salt & Light, Pickin’ Pear, Hazy Ridge; 8 p.m., free. • DUKE’S BALDWIN AUDITORIUM: Duke University Wind Symphony: Celebration Concert; 8 p.m., free. • IRREGARDLESS: IBMA World of Bluegrass: The Fly Birds; 6-9 p.m. • KINGS: IBMA Localgrass: The Clydes, Nixon, Blevins & Gage, Swift Creek, Steady Drive, The Honey Dewdrops, Ken Tizzard; 7 p.m. • LINCOLN THEATRE: IBMA Ramble: Molly Tuttle, Po Ramblin Boys, Town Mountain, Christiane and the Strays, Hank Pattie & the Current, Sideline, Karen Smedley & Three Jack Jenny; 7 p.m., $10. • LOCAL 506: The Plot in You, Dormiveglia, Discoveries, Within Echoes; 7:30 p.m., $12-$15. • THE MAYWOOD: Devil City Angels, Shallow Side, Faith & Scars, Audio Assault; 7 p.m., $18-$100. • MEMORIAL AUDITORIUM: International Bluegrass Music Awards; 7:30 p.m. • NEPTUNES PARLOUR: Reese McHenry & The Fox, The Feeds, Sunset Kings; 10 p.m., $5. • POUR HOUSE: IBMA Ramble: Blue Octane & Dirty Grass Players, Charm City Junction; 7 p.m. • RUBY DELUXE: Seize the Stage; 8 p.m.

FRI, SEP 29 Jake Xerxes Fussell Too individualistic OLD & NEW to be a revivalist, Jake Xerxes Fussell digs up old folk, blues, and jazz tunes to weave a tale of an America long gone. He filled one of the best albums of the year, What in the Natural World, with such tunes. But when he puts his own idiosyncratic spin on those songs, the U.S.A. of eras bygone sheds the dust of the years and lives once more, if only for a little while. With Nathan Bowles, House and Land, and Trío Huracán Hidalguense. —JA [THE ARTSCENTER, $25/8 P.M.]

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 30

SYLVAN ESSO & FRIENDS

PHOTO COURTESY OF LOMA VISTA RECORDINGS

music 9.27 – 10.4

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You can easily make a strong case that one of the biggest bands to come out of the Triangle is Sylvan Esso, the Durham synth-pop duo of vocalist Amelia Meath and producer Nick Sanborn. Its sunny debut LP, released in mid-2014, quickly courted a national audience with its dynamic, catchy numbers. Touring with the likes of tUnE-yArDs and Justin Vernon’s Volcano Choir didn’t hurt, either. That record now feels like a quaint, safe marker of a still-young project. Sanborn didn’t shy from big, bassy buzzes in his mixes, and Meath demonstrated a knack for instant-earworm hooks (just look to “Hey Mami” for both). But What Now, which came out at the end of April, is at once sharper and more nuanced—where the pair once swung for the bold and brash, they now seem more comfortable reveling in subtlety and uncertainty. It suits Sylvan Esso rather well. “Radio,” the record’s main single, is a biting number that cleverly assesses the traps and trappings of the music industry. It’s plenty boisterous, driven by a bouncy, clicking beat, but it’s laced with contempt: “Faking the truth in a new pop song/Don’t you want to sing along?,” sings Meath with a delivery so direct that you can almost hear her rolling her eyes. Elsewhere, though, “The Glow” bathes in nostalgia, with hazy pedal steel-sounding rippling throughout the track. Though the song is a fond recollection of youth, in fleeting moments it feels a little sad, too.

Across the board, the production feels more tailored and perhaps even reserved—but it doesn’t feel like risk avoidance as much as a recognition that a bigger sound isn’t always better. What Now also boasts some beautiful moments that make the record even more compelling. “Die Young” feels like a heavy, resigned sigh—one delivered upon realizing that your life isn’t going to turn out as you thought it would, and how unsettling but marvelous that could actually be. But “Slack Jaw,” What Now’s penultimate track, outstrips them all. Meath sings barely above a whisper, “Is it a sign, or just a landmine? Or a feeling roaming free? It’s overtaking me,” as Sanborn adds the most gentle electronic touches behind her. The song feels so small, intimate, and delicate that it almost seems like an invasion of privacy to listen to it. But therein lies “Slack Jaw”’s power: you don’t expect such an stark emotional wallop at the tail end of an otherwise easygoing pop record. For Saturday’s celebration at Shakori Hills, Sylvan Esso has enlisted a few other friends for its homecoming bash. Wye Oak brings cool, electronics-laced rock, tUnEyArds rolls up with Technicolor ramshackle pop, and Helado Negro delivers ambling, mindful rock. Durham’s reigning drag queen, Viva C. Coxx, holds court, too (read more about her on page 19). Plus The Dead Tongues, Dante High, Well$, DJ PlayPlay, and Oak City Slums. —Allison Hussey SHAKORI HILLS, PITTSBORO 5:30 p.m., $50, www.catscradle.com INDYweek.com | 9.27.17 | 49

Futurebirds

Pinback

Futurebirds’ FRONT PORCH laid-back alt-country sounds are a blend of Americana, folk, and rock; jangly guitar and steely slide guitar winds around gravelly harmonized vocals and soft drums. The band’s new EP, Portico II, is just over a month old—it’s front-porch listenin’ music and the soundtrack to the end of the summer. Parker Gispert of the Whigs opens. —KH [KINGS, $10–$12/9 P.M.]

AUGHTS A long-running POP bastion of tightly coiled, smartly conceived indie rock, San Diego’s Pinback formed in 1998 and proceeded to build a formidable audience on the strength of its releases. In 2004, the band’s Summer in Abaddon dovetailed well with the rising tide of similarly inclined ensembles The Shins and Death Cab For Cutie. While Pinback never ascended those commercial heights, its best work equals or exceeds the achievements of its more famous peers. Messthetics open. —EB [CAT’S CRADLE, $20/9 P.M.]

Jack Johnson A gifted conjurer SOFT ROCK of mood and a reliably genial presence, soft-rock singer Jack Johnson broke into the mainstream around the same time as similarly sensitive peers like Dave Matthews and John Mayer. In many ways he’s better than both, though it doesn’t always rescue him from pure tedium. —EB [COASTAL CREDIT UNION MUSIC PARK AT WALNUT CREEK, $35–$89/7:30 P.M.]

WE 9/27 TH 9/28 FR 9/29 SA 9/30 SU 10/1 TU 10/3

The Queers Long-standing PUNK POWER stalwarts in the punk wars, New Hampshire’s The Queers were adjacent to pre-fame Green Day in the early nineties but never felt approachable enough to make it as stars. They remain a formidable, Ramones-conjuring machine, with the occasional Johnny-like lapse

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BEYÙ CAFFÈ: Jason Eskridge; 7 & 9 p.m., $15. • BLUE NOTE GRILL: Davis Messina Band; 9 p.m., $8. • CAT’S CRADLE (BACK ROOM): Lairs, Arson Daily, Noise Lights; 9 p.m., $7-$8. • DEEP SOUTH: IBMA Afterhours: The Outliers; Hank, Pattie & the Current; Fireside Collective; 10 p.m., free. • DUKE’S BALDWIN AUDITORIUM: Andrea Edith Moore, Jason Karn, David Heid; 8 p.m., free. • FLETCHER OPERA THEATER: Jesse Cook; 8 p.m. • IMURJ: Hank & Brendan, The Outliers; 8 p.m. • IRREGARDLESS: The Longleaf Pine Nuts; 6:30 p.m. • LINCOLN THEATRE: An Evening with the Chris Robinson Brotherhood; 9 p.m., $20. • THE MAYWOOD: Mostley Crue; 9 p.m., $10. • MOTORCO: VNV Nation, Ivardensphere; 8 p.m., $22-$25. • NIGHTLIGHT: UE Local 150 Graduate and Campus Workers Union Dance & Fundraiser; 9 p.m., $5-$15. • POUR HOUSE: IBMA After Party: Larry Keel Experience & Friends, Wood & Wire; 9 p.m., $12-$15.

SAT, SEP 30 American Brass Quintet AGELESS This program is a BRASS collision of the very old and the very new by one of the U.S.’s longest-running brass quintets. The group starts in Elizabethan England with songs by Thomas Morley and John Dowland and a boisterous canzon by William Brade, thickening the gentle counterpoint with the oomph that only brass can provide.

From there, the ensemble jumps to the turn of the twenty-first century with searching, buoyant compositions by Joan Tower, Kenneth Fuchs, and Eric Ewazen. —DR [DUKE’S BALDWIN AUDITORIUM, $10–$42/8 P.M.]

Arrow Beach JANGLE Arrow Beach’s COLLAGE ReverbNation cites “dense pop songs with indelible hooks” and aligns its music with legacy acts like the Pixies and the Jesus and Mary Chain, which is misguided. Like any middling band worth its salt, Arrow Beach is actually a stitchedtogether collage of various standard-bearer pop-rock tropes. Not much is offensive in its bar-rock bombast, and not much is gripping either. With The Stars Explode. —DS [THE STATION, $6/10:30 P.M.]

Cedric Napoleon Founding bassist LOW BASS of the Philly soul trio Pieces of a Dream, Cedric Napoleon has been making

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RED HAT AMPHITHEATER: IBMA Wide Open Bluegrass: Molly Tuttle, The Kruger Brothers and Kontras Quartet, Flatt Lonesome, Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, Mark O’Connor ft. the O’Connor Band, Bela Fleck & Abigail Washburn, Jerry Douglas & Sam Bush, The Infamous Stringdusters; noon. • THE RITZ: Issues; 7 p.m. • RUBY DELUXE: Jaguardini, Ships in the Night, Tescon Pol; 8 p.m., $5. • SHARP NINE GALLERY: Carolina Jazz Messengers, Salute to Art Blakey; 8 p.m., $10-$20. • SLIM’S: Greves, Gnarlscar, Basillica; 9 p.m., $5.

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50 | 9.27.17 | INDYweek.com

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funky jazz for more than forty years. In 2001, he left the group, forging a solo sound that’s just as silky smooth. His deep, slinky bass lines set up an ever-changing assortment of grooves. Sometimes he sings on top, sometimes he lets the rest of the band do its thing. It sways smoothly enough throughout to get some hips moving. —DR [BEYÙ CAFFÈ, $15/7 & 9 P.M.]

Outlaws of Rock Fest To live outside the HEAVY HORDE law you must be honest, said the poet. Conversely, there are no poets at the Outlaws of Rock Fest. Thorazine, a long-running Philly punk band whose run-in with the makers of the powerful antipsychotic gave the band an early boost, are headliners. They’ll be abetted by Bone Shelter, ZZ Corpse, KIFF, Horseskull, Alien8, Bad Blood, and a half dozen more whose only real crime might be excessive volume, which of course is no crime at all. —DK [THE MAYWOOD, $16/4:30 P.M.]

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in judgment to drive the point home. Blood Red River, Paint Fumes, and Sibannac open. —TB [LOCAL 506, $12–$15/8 P.M.]

COMING SOON: LUKE ELLIOT, THEE COMMONS, ZAO, THE LIGHTHOUSE AND THE WHALER

www.LOCAL506.com

THE HOT AT NIGHTS & MATTHEW STEVENS MASTERS OF CAJUN ACCORDION FESTIVAL PRESENTED BY UNC LIBRARY’S SOUTHERN FOLKLIFE COLLECTION

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SUNDAY, OCTOBER 1

MASTERS OF CAJUN ACCORDION

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ARTSCENTER

SNST SIDE OF SNST is Chris SYNTHS Broach of nineties emo band Braid and Steve Znavor, who have been working together since the early aughts with Chicago alt-rockers The Firebird Band. Now they’re shaking things up with this side project, which emphasizes slick synth-pop hooks. Sonically, it feels something like the Postal Service working with a more dance-friendly intent. Bruxes, the newish project of Rachel Hirsh of I Was Totally Destroying It, explores heavy themes over gleaming eighties-alluding soundscapes. Things take a turn for the immense with the pile-driving psych rock of Chapel Hill’s Minor Stars. —DK [THE STATION, $8–$10/7:30 P.M.]

Sweet Spirit Depending on DOG DAYS your other musical proclivities, you may recognize Sweet Spirit’s frontwoman, Sabrina Ellis, and

guitarist, Andrew Cashen, from their rollicking outfit A Giant Dog. But where A Giant Dog swings hard toward fast, loose, and fearless, Sweet Spirit feels comparatively genteel. That’s not to say that Sweet Spirit is any less mighty. “The Power” is an irresistable, strutting anthem, while “Pamela,” an ode to Pamela Anderson, is sunny and straightforward. Ellis’s and Cashen’s knack for crafting immediately attractive songs with hooks that don’t quit remains marvelously consistent. Tinnarose and Eric Slick open. —AH [CAT’S CRADLE BACK ROOM, $10–$12/8:30 P.M.] ALSO ON SATURDAY ARCANA: The Bliss Official Pride Party; 8 p.m., $5. • THE ARTSCENTER: The Hot at Nights, Matthew Stevens; 8 p.m., $24. See page 46. • BLUE NOTE GRILL: Sutter’s Gold Streak; 8 p.m., $10. • THE CAVE: Angel Snow, Fluorescence, Ships in the Night, Jaguardini; 9 p.m., $5. • DEEP SOUTH: Burnstock; 3-5 p.m., free. IBMA Afterhours: The

Steve Riley and Jo-El Sonnier are both masterful accordionists. They share a common south Louisiana origin, but what tumbles out of their respective squeezebox folds is vastly different. Jo El Sonnier sounds more old-school country than some of the good ol’ boys he’s channeling, while Riley and his Mamou Playboys stir up a gumbo with ingredients from all over. “We’re influenced by everything that touches our ears,” Riley says. “Dance music, club music, swamp pop, everything from jazz to folk music to blues.” But that doesn’t mean he turns his back on tradition. The accordionist says he plays Cajun music with a rock ’n’ roll attitude. Riley was mentored by Cajun fiddle master Dewey Balfa, and the early Mamou Playboys albums were mostly traditional arrangements electrified and rocked up a bit. But Riley and the Playboys started writing their own material, still singing largely in French but hopping around vigorously among genres and styles. Sonnier wrote and recorded his first song, “Te Yeaux Bleu,” when he was eleven years old. It was a traditional-sounding Cajun waltz, but his heart had remained in country music. Country has always been a comfortable ride-along for Cajun songsters, but Sonnier hauls it around like an old dog riding shotgun in his pickup. Hank Williams and George Jones had his ear early on, but Johnny Cash got

Outliers w Special Guests, The Po’ Ramblin Boys; 10 p.m., free. • DURHAM ARMORY: Gay Face: Dirty Queer Dance Party; 8 p.m., $12. • IRREGARDLESS: The Maggie Valley Band; 6 p.m., Magnolia Still; 9 p.m. • LINCOLN THEATRE: An Evening with the Chris Robinson Brotherhood; 9 p.m., $20. • LOCAL 506: King Monsoon, Blood Red River, Arctic Blonde; 9 p.m., $7. • NIGHTLIGHT: Volume 24: TRAXX The First Sighting + Claudio Grava; 10 p.m. • POUR HOUSE: IBMA After Party: Jeff Austin Band & Friends; 9 p.m., $12-$15. • RED HAT AMPHITHEATER: IMBA Wide Open Bluegrass: Sister Sadie, Chatham County Line, Bluegrass 45, Sierra Hull, Lonesome River Band, Balsam Range, The Travelin’ McCourys, Hot Rize, Steep Canyon Rangers ft. Steve Martin; noon. • THE RITZ: Grits & Biscuits; 9 p.m. • RUBY DELUXE: Bizarre: A Drag Show Oddity wiht Dere Lict; 10 p.m. NC Pride Dance Party with DJ Luxe Posh; 11 p.m. • SHAKORI HILLS: Sylvan Esso, tUnE-yArDs, Wye Oak, Helado Negro; 5:30 p.m. See box, page 49. • SHARP NINE GALLERY: Dave Potter CD Release; 8 p.m., $10-$20. • SLIM’S: Revolving Beast, Slomo Dingo; 9 p.m., $5. • THE STATION: Black Forest Quartet; 2 p.m., free.

SUN, OCT 1 Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle YOUNG Dmitri ShostakovWISDOM ich’s first symphony, written in 1925 when the composer was only nineteen, shows off everything that would define his music for the next fifty years: long, expressive melodies; thorny dissonances that never venture into atonality; an abiding love of humor and the grotesque; and a deep, unquenched sense of longing. —DR [CAROLINA THEATRE, $30/3 P.M.]

Crowbar Since 1990, New NOLA DOOM Orleans’s Crowbar has been punishing listeners and audiences with riffs as thick as the swampy Louisiana air of its home state. The doom metal lifers, led by Kirk Windstein, remain vital and released their eleventh record, The Serpent Only Lies, last year. With Datura and Bitter Resolve. —CB [MOTORCO. $15/8 P.M.]

his soul when he recorded Sonnier’s “Cajun Born” on 1978’s Gone Girl. You can hear Cash mutter, “That’s pretty, Jo-El,” when Sonnier cranks up his accordion at the beginning. Sonnier continued to write and record with a litany of country greats including Cash, Jones, Haggard, and Jerry Lee Lewis. One of Sonnier’s biggest hits was his cover of Richard Thompson’s “Tear Stained Letter,” from 1988’s Come On Joe. The accompanying video, acted out in hammy eighties MTV fashion, features Judge Reinhold getting tossed around by an fluffy ex-lover while Sonnier lays down straight-up, old-school country vocals, accented, of course, by his inimitable accordion playing. Both Riley and Sonnier are traditionalists at heart, so you’ll hear the culture shining through whatever they tackle. Riley and the Playboys used to give lectures before a show, discussing the history of Cajun music, singing in French, then translating, and taking questions from the audience. This show also has a lecture by Barry Jean Ancelet, a professor and folklorist at the University of Louisiana at LaFayette. But the real message is the music, a wellstirred gumbo as informative as it is tasty. Dig in, savor, and enjoy. —Grant Britt THE ARTSCENTER, CARRBORO 5:30 p.m., $17.50–$30.50, www.artscenterlive.org

Festifall As part of Chapel LOCAL SAMPLER Hill’s Festifall, Local 506 has put together an intriguing and musically diverse bill packed with local talent. The lineup includes the vintage ska of Sound System 7, hip-hop from (J) Rowdy, folk-rock stalwart David Wimbish, the gleefully untethered Celtic punk act Tan & Sober Gentlemen, the distinguished orchestral folk of Hudson & Haw, and the panoramic pop stylings of Stephanie Morgan. —TB [LOCAL 506, FREE/11 A.M.] ALSO ON SUNDAY THE ARTSCENTER: Masters of Cajun Accordion Festival; 7:30 p.m., $18-$31. See box, this page. • CAT’S CRADLE (BACK ROOM): Electric Six, Groves; 8:30 p.m., $13-$15. • DUKE’S BALDWIN AUDITORIUM: Susan Fancher & Steven Stusek, Inara Zandmane; 3 p.m., free. • FRANKLIN STREET: Festifall: Counterclockwise String Band, Chaquis Maliq, Pinkerton Raid, Loreleis by Carolina for the Kids, Lonnie Walker, Ellis Dyson & The Shambles, Tea Cup Gin; 12-5:45 p.m.

LINCOLN THEATRE: Hard Working Americans, Sam Lewis; 8 p.m., $25. • MEMORIAL AUDITORIUM: Rekha Bhardawaj; 5:30 p.m. • POUR HOUSE: Dynamo; 8 p.m., $8-$10. • THE RITZ: Cafe Tacvba; 8 p.m. • SHADOWBOX STUDIO: Charming Disaster & Curtis Eller; 7 p.m., $10.

MON, OCT 2 The Head and the Heart UPBEAT You’re lucky if FOLK you’ve been able to escape the relentless advertising for indie folk band The Head and The Heart’s Raleigh show. The upbeat, earnest band features tons of “la la la la” sing-alongs and synchronized hand-clap opportunities that have saturated radio the past few years. The Shelters opens. —KH [RED HAT AMPHITHEATER, $23–$43/7:30 P.M.]

Kesha It’s hard to think HEART SONGS of any artist from the past few years who’s had INDYweek.com | 9.27.17 | 51

a public life as intense as Kesha. Though she made a career out of Top 40 party anthems, the star’s more recent time in the spotlight has focused on her legal travails against her former producer, Dr. Luke, whom she accused of repeatedly sexually assaulting her. This year’s Rainbow, however, is a triumphant refusal to succumb to pain or struggle. She’s come out on top—expect her stop at The Ritz to be celebratory and cathartic. —AH [THE RITZ, $55/8 P.M.]

RAC Formerly short for REMIX ARTIST “Remix Artist Collective” and now apparently the solo project of Andre Allen Anjos, RAC has garnered considerable acclaim and a Grammy nomination on the strength of remixes of artists as diverse as Ella Fitzgerald, Kings of Leon, and Bloc Party. Whether dealing with Tin Pan Alley or collaborating with former Vampire Weekend mainstay Rostam, Anjos brings an ingratiating energy to his work, which acrobatically treads the line between winsome and weighty. —EB [CAT’S CRADLE, $22–$25/8:30 P.M.]

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Kublai Khan A testosteroneSPEED METAL addled speed-metal four-piece hailing from Sherman, Texas, Kublai Khan channels its considerable rage and formidable chops into tracks like the retribution-hungry stomp of “The Hammer” and the Motörhead-through-a-blender controlled chaos “Belligerent,” which lives up to its title. No Zodiac, Left Behind, I Am, and Great American Ghost open. —EB [LOCAL 506, $15/6:30 P.M.]

Mastodon

IMBIBE: Grewen and Griffin; 7-10 p.m., free. • MOTORCO: Flash Chorus; 7 p.m., $7-$10. • NEPTUNES PARLOUR: Josh Sinton’s Musicianer; 9 p.m., $5-$7. • RUBY DELUXE: DJ Lord Redbyrd; 10 p.m.

Atlanta, Georgia’s HEAVY HEART aptly named Mastodon has been honing its Southern sludge metal for nearly two decades. The band has released seven full-length records and a handful of EPs, with detours into prog- and hard rock, but never straying too far from its heavy core. With Eagles of Death Metal‘s hard rock anthems and Russian Circle’s post-metal. —CB [THE RITZ. $29–$60/7:30 P.M.]

Chiffon

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Real nostalgia for 2010s-era artificial nostalgia strikes again. Back then, ambient beat king Seth Haley crept onto chillwave blog headlines with song titles like “VHS Sex” and an of-the-moment trick bag of nostalgic eighties digi-funk maneuvers. Save for some EDM flourishes, on the new album, Iteration, Haley continues on cruise control in this kitschy lane of warbling retrofuturist funk beats and Boards of Canada pastiche. Depending on your tolerance for eighties kitsch, your mileage may vary. With Nosaj Thing and Cleopold. —DS [MOTORCO, $18–$20/8 P.M.]

VHS SEX

ALSO ON MONDAY

TUE, OCT 3

Your week. Every Wednesday.

Com Truise

Tons of indie R & SLOW JAMZ B can seem especially poised, like an academic ham-fistedly absorbing the minutiae of an “other” to understand what makes it authentic. Even as a humble duo, Baltimore’s Chiffon is memorable because its woozy dance tunes inhabit naturally what other trendy indie acts often drain all the flavor out of. Don’t miss the similar pop spirit of Hotline’s Ryan Trauley and Tim Matthews, who open. —DS [NEPTUNES PARLOUR, $5–$7/10 P.M.]

ALSO ON TUESDAY KINGS: Mdou Moctar, Drunken Foreigner Band, Spirit Cooker; 9:30 p.m., $10-$12. See page 41. • POUR HOUSE: Seth Walker, Jason Eady; 8 p.m.

WED, OCT 4 Manchester Orchesetra ADULT EMO

Manchester Orchestra’s July

LP, A Black Mile to the Surface, features some of the band’s most emotional songwriting yet as it covers the birth of frontman Andy Hull’s daughter. The new tracks are awe-inspiring and moving, showcasing the indie band’s growth and maturity. Tigers Jaw opens. —KH [THE RITZ, $22.50/7:30 P.M.]

Tajmo Although the BLUES CRITTER name sounds like some crusty swamp creature, Tajmo is a manmade entity, the work of Taj Mahal and Keb Mo. Earlier this year, the duo released a surprisingly mellow collaborative LP. Mo wrote most of the music, but Mahal delivers the most knockout vocals. The two comfortably share their work, ripping up The Who’s “Squeeze Box” and blowing John Mayer away on a cover of “Waiting for the World to Change.” —GB [DURHAM PERFORMING ARTS CENTER, $72/8 P.M.]

Tas Cru Band Tas Cru has the STORY TIME soul of a born storyteller, with tongue so firmly planted in cheek he’s earned the title of the master of the triple entendre. He delivers his messages with swampy resonance on “Woman Won’t You Love Me,” roaring like Bigfoot on a twangy rampage on “Half the Time.” —GB [BLUE NOTE GRILL, $8/8 P.M.] ALSO ON WEDNESDAY THE ARTSCENTER: Triangle Jazz Orchestra; 7:30 p.m., free. • CAT’S CRADLE (BACK ROOM): Trout Steak Revival, Dead Horses; 8:30 p.m., $12-$15. • THE CAVE: Katie O Residency; 9 p.m., $5. • IRREGARDLESS: The Holland Bros.; 6:30 p.m. • KOKA BOOTH AMPHITHEATRE: Tim Cifers; 5:45 p.m., $5. • LINCOLN THEATRE: The Floozies, BoomBox, Late Night Radio; 8 p.m. • LOCAL 506: Luke Elliot, Bill West, Elliott Humphries; 9 p.m., $10-$12. • MOTORCO: The Civilians + Ethan Lipton School Project; 8 p.m., $10. • NEPTUNES PARLOUR: Man Forever, Demon Eye, Lacy Jags; 9 p.m., $8. See page 46. • POUR HOUSE: Sammy J, Of Good Nature; 9 p.m.

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SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 30

ALEX HARRIS: NEAR AND FAR With October comes the monthlong Click! Photography Festival, which brings a sprawling array of photo exhibits and events to Triangle galleries and museums. One of them, by Alex Harris, is representative of the festival’s national-caliber, local-focus bent. Harris, a founder of Duke’s Center for Documentary Studies who has been collected from MOMA to NCMA, has photographed the American South for four decades, and looks through a distinctly Southern perspective even when shooting in Alaska, Havana, or Mumbai. This self-selected retrospective of wellknown and obscure works is angled to palpate the theme of distance, a paramount concern for photographers both technically and ethically. The lenses of a photographer’s eyes can distort reality as easily as the lens of a camera; Harris has spent a lifetime exploring those complexities. After this opening reception, the exhibit runs through November 4. —Brian Howe

CRAVEN ALLEN GALLERY, DURHAM 5–7 p.m., free, www.cravenallengallery.com

OPENING SPECIAL Allison Chambers EVENT and Charlotte Foust: Paintings. Sep 28-Oct 27. Reception: Thu, Sep 28, 6-8 p.m. ArtSource Fine Art, Raleigh. www.artsourceraleigh.com. Photographs, Books, and Broadsides: Christer Berg, Catharine Carter, Gail Goers, Raymond Goodman, Bryce Lankard, Rob McDonald, and Jean Christian Rostagni. Part of the Click! Photography Festival. Oct 1-31. Horse & Buggy Press and Friends, Durham. www. horseandbuggypress.com. SPECIAL Rubber Creatures EVENT from Outer Space: Sculpture and clothing by Tom Buhrman. Sep 30-Oct 31. Reception: Sat, Sep 30, 5-7 p.m. Durham Art Guild. www. durhamartguild.org.

N.C. Museum of Art, Raleigh. www.ncartmuseum.org.

“Hong Kong Lounge, Las Vegas, New Mexico, Looking North from Richard Lucero’s 1972 Buick Centurian, July 1987” by Alex Harris PHOTO COURTESY OF CRAVEN ALLEN GALLERY

ONGOING LAST Brian Allen: “I have CHANCE had an accidentally inevitable career,” the Durhambased letterpress printer Brian Allen writes in a statement about his going-away show. Planning to be an academic, Allen fell sideways into calligraphy, typesetting, graphic design, and, ultimately uniting them all, letterpress. After ten years in the Triangle, he is now closing his letterpress shop on Mangum Street and heading elsewhere for new adventures. This retrospective exhibit, conceived by fellow-handprinters Dave Wofford and Sarah Almond, covers more than twenty years of Allen’s hand-printed and calligraphic work utilizing “disruptive technologies of the fifteenth and twenty-first centuries;” much of it is priced to sell. It’s a fitting capstone for an

inevitable career. Thru Sep 29. Horse & Buggy Press and Friends, Durham. horseandbuggypress.com. —Brian Howe LAST Annual Instructor CHANCE Exhibit: Drawings, jewelry, and photography. Thru Oct 1. The ArtsCenter, Carrboro. www.artscenterlive.org. Beyond the Front Porch 2017: Exhibition by twelve senior undergraduates. Thru Nov 12. Duke Campus: Center for Documentary Studies, Durham. www.cdsporch.org. Blooms and Lagoons: Floral and landscape collection by Sue Scoggins. Thru Oct 31. Little Art Gallery & Craft Collection, Raleigh. littleartgalleryandcraft.com. Carefully Cut: Tin can collage by Thomas Graham. Thru Nov 2. Alexander Dickson House, Hillsborough. www. historichillsborough.org.

LAST Clay for the Wall: CHANCE Sculpture by Shannon Bueker. Thru Oct 1. Joyful Jewel, Pittsboro. www. joyfuljewel.com. Coastscapes: Paintings by Nancy Hughes Miller. Thru Oct 28. Artspace, Raleigh. www. artspacenc.org. LAST Collections: Leah CHANCE Sobsey. Thru Sep 30. 21c Museum Hotel, Durham. www.21cmuseumhotels.com/ durham. Court and Capital: Art from Asia’s Greatest Cities: Thru Dec 10. Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill. www.ackland.org. LAST Dark Humor: CHANCE Paintings by Peter Williams. Thru Sep 28. UNC Campus: Hanes Art Center, Chapel Hill. www.art.unc.edu. The Disaster Paintings: Donald Sultan. Thru Dec 31.

Don’t Quit: The Nello Teer Sr. Story: History of the Teer family in Durham. Thru Dec 15. Durham History Hub. www. museumofdurhamhistory.org. LAST The Fabric of CHANCE Raleigh/The Fabric of Durham: “You were just a face in the crowd,” Tom Petty sang. “Out in the street, walking around.” If Petty captured the alchemy of a face among many turning significant, Christer Berg, who moved to Raleigh from Sweden in 1995, does it dozens of times in his new photo book. Firefighters and preachers, cobblers and baristas, dancers and construction workers—all leap out of the daily pedestrian flow before Berg’s energetic lens. “I wanted to skip the planning, styling, and scheduling that’s common with portrait projects, instead capturing people in the moment, going about what they do in an unscripted and authentic way,” Berg says. The result is also captured in a book from Horse & Buggy Press. Thru Oct 1. Betty Ray McCain Gallery, Raleigh. dukeenergycenterraleigh. com. —Brian Howe LAST Faculty and Staff CHANCE Art Exhibition: Thru Oct 1. Meredith College: GaddyHamrick Art Center, Raleigh. www.meredith.edu. The Fence: Durham is one of seven cities across the nation— the smallest, compared with the likes of Brooklyn, Boston, and Houston—to host this touring, public photography exhibit, curated from submissions from around the world and based on themes such as “home,” “nature,” and “food.” While Lori Vrba is the only local artist among the fifty included in the touring exhibit, nine area photographers, including Bryce Lankard, Leah Sobsey, Gesche Würfel, and Warren Hicks, are featured in a regional showcase. The exhibit wraps the block

around the Chapel Hill Street parking garage in a temporary fence and banner of photos. Thru Nov 30. Chapel Hill Street, Durham. —Brian Howe Fluid: Paintings by MyLoan Dinh. Thru Oct 15. Durham Convention Center. www. durhamconventioncenter.com. From Isolation to War: Native veteran story quilts. Thru Oct 31. Love House and Hutchins Forum, Chapel Hill. Gamut: Heather Gordon. Thru Oct 6. SPECTRE Arts, Durham. www.spectrearts.org. Homebound: Brenda Brokke, Leatha Koefler, Amy Friend. Thru Nov 25. Artspace, Raleigh. www. artspacenc.org. Hyperactive: Found materials by Leigh Suggs and Garry Noland. Thru Oct 27. Artspace, Raleigh. www.artspacenc.org. Image of Ukraine: Exploring Ukrainian Culture through Embroidery and Painting: Olena Zintchouk. Thru Dec 8. UNC Campus: FedEx Global Education Center, Chapel Hill. www.global.unc.edu. Juxtaposition: Married couple Donald Martiny and Celia Johnson create a profound visual language in this exhibit. Martiny’s works are nonrepresentational, heavily textured three-dimensional shapes that he creates on the floor. It’s a physically taxing process. He uses brushes, brooms, mops, and his hands to push paint into abstract swoops. The power of pure paint, combined with simple but strong, emotive strokes, is a dazzling convergence that immediately connects with viewers, unbound and unrestricted by the shape of a canvas. And Johnson has long been intrigued by moving around shapes and colors to create puzzles. Her well-organized geometric compositions blend modern sophistication with clarity and economy. Her brightly colored INDYweek.com | 9.27.17 | 53

encaustic works reflect the minimalist images of the sixties. Thru Oct 27. Artspace, Raleigh. www.artspacenc.org. — Linda Kramer A Kiss of the Earth: Apt for a work about a season of fecundity, the epochal modernist ballet The Rite of Spring just keeps on giving, more than a century after its legendary premiere. It’s the inspiration for this experiment by UNC-Chapel Hill associate art professor Sabine Gruffat, whose interactive threechannel video projection remixes the story of a pagan tribe’s maiden sacrifice with stochastic elements: real-time weather data from Paris affects the weather in the animation, and viewers can text to a number on the wall to further alter the proceedings. When you consider the contemporary implications, in a world of virtual warfare, of deciding someone’s fate with a command on a screen, you start to scratch the larger issues Gruffat is probing. Thru Jan 28. N.C. Museum of Art, Raleigh. www.ncartmuseum.org. —Brian Howe Louis C. Tiffany: Art and Innovation from the Wester Collection: Stained glass windows, vases, and lamps. Thru Mar 4. N.C. Museum of History, Raleigh. www. ncmuseumofhistory.org. LAST Love and CHANCE Forgiveness: Linwood Hart. Thru Oct 1. Crook’s Corner, Chapel Hill. www.crookscorner.com. More than One Story | Mas de una historia: Photography. Thru Feb 1. UNC Campus: Davis Library, Chapel Hill. www.lib. unc.edu/davis. Nevertheless She Persisted: Silkscreen prints by Kelly Bodie.

food

32nd Whole Hog Barbecue Championship: Thirty contestants. Fri, Sep 29, 4-8 p.m. & Sat, Sep 30, 7 a.m.-noon. Memorial Auditorium, Raleigh. www. dukeenergycenterraleigh.com. Cary’s Downtown Chowdown: Sun, Oct 1. Downtown Cary. www.townofcary.org. 54 | 9.27.17 | INDYweek.com

Thru Oct 31. Perch Studios, Carrboro. perchstudios.net. LAST One is a Crowd: CHANCE Collaborative self portraits by Ursula Gullow. Thru Sep 30. Artspace, Raleigh. www.artspacenc.org. LAST Darius Quarles: CHANCE Paintings. Thru Oct 2. Pleiades Gallery, Durham. www.PleiadesArtDurham.com. Reflections Within the Transitioning Grid: Lasercut photography by Merrill Shatzman and libi rose. Thru Nov 22. Power Plant Gallery, Durham. www. powerplantgallery.com. LAST Patterns: CHANCE Monoprints on paper and fabric by Ely Urbanski. Thru Sep 30. Pittsboro Center for the Arts. Places: Paintings by Marvin Saltzman. Thru Oct 7. The Mahler Fine Art, Raleigh. www. themahlerfineart.com. LAST Portraits by Vera CHANCE Reed: Thru Sep 30. The ArtsCenter, Carrboro. www.artscenterlive.org. LAST Serving Life: CHANCE ReVisioning Justice: Interactive installation. Thru Sep 30. UNC Campus: Graham Student Union, Chapel Hill. The Shape of Fashion: Dress trends from 1800s to 1900s. Thru May 6. N.C. Museum of History, Raleigh. www. ncmuseumofhistory.org. Small to Large: Delight in the Practice of Painting: Paintings by Margie Stewart. Thru Oct 23. Durham Arts Council, Durham. www.durhamarts.org.

Studio and Porch Paintings: Joan Vandermeer. Thru Oct 27. Mad Hatter Bakeshop & Cafe, Durham. www. madhatterbakeshop.com. The SuperNatural: We’ve long since lost sight of the seams, once considered inviolable, between nature, technology, and commerce—though we sometimes imagine we are crossing a boundary when we take thousanddollar bikes into deceptively wild woods, guided by our smartphones and clad in moisture wicking socks. The SuperNatural wades into this liminal zone, exploring how we see and shape the contours of our planet as the physical refuse of the industrial age shades into the digital refuse of the present. The show includes a generative digital video by Tabor Robak, a virtual reality installation by Jakob Kudsk Steensen, and photos by Lars Jan, among many others. Brooklyn artist Chris Doyle created “Dreams of Infinite Luster,” a digital animation, for the museum-hotel’s exterior vitrines. In it, “All the elements are rendered in gold, the color of lucre—the product, engine, and goal of capitalism.” Is a luxury hotel an odd site for postcapitalist critique? Sure. But, as we’ve said, what seams? Thru Jul 1. 21c Museum Hotel, Durham. www.21cmuseumhotels. com/durham. —Brian Howe This Is Me, Right Here, Mike Hack. This is Me, Right Here: Videos. Thru Oct 1. The Carrack Modern Art, Durham. www. thecarrack.org. See p. 46.

Some Assembly Required: Can You Build It?: 3-D paintings and sculpture. Thru Oct 10. Pleiades Gallery, Durham. www.PleiadesArtDurham.com.

Two by Two: Watercolors by Amy Beshgetoorian. Thru Sep 30. Tipping Paint Gallery, Raleigh. www. tippingpaintgallery.com.

Free Wine Tasting: Mon, Oct 2, 5:15-7:15 p.m. Bottle Rev Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill. www. bottlerev.com.

complimentary sushi and certified sake advisor James Yang and his team pour tastings of wines and sakes. Tue, Oct 3, 5-6:30 p.m. Sono, Raleigh. www.sonoraleigh.com.

French Wine Dinner: Fivecourse dinner with wine pairings. $75. Thu, Sep 28, 6:30 p.m. Parizade, Durham. www.parizadedurham.com. Sono Wine & Sake Social: Chef Hyunwoo Kim serves

To Spain with Love Dining Event: With chef de cuisine Murray Healy and event sous chef Lauren Shober. $69$89. Wed, Oct 4, 6:45 p.m.

War Experience: Personal artifacts, medals, uniforms, maps, letters, photographs, and more. Thru Nov 29. Raleigh City Museum, Raleigh. www. cityofraleighmuseum.org. We’ve Met Before: Handwoven cloth has a certain rigor, a requirement for stitches to interact with structural integrity rather than spontaneity. Ink, meanwhile, has a quicksilver impulsiveness, a tendency to slip and run unbounded by the necessities of form. N.C.-raised artist Andrea Donnelly holds this contrast in tension. “Cloth, in its infinite variety and varied significance, is deeply linked to our histories and emotions through the body,” she writes in her artist statement. “Whether it’s woven to hang on the wall or to grace the neck and shoulders, I make cloth that creates connection.” The images on these large textile pieces evoke bodies, Rorschach blots, abstract flora, and, most of all, memory. Dyed, woven, unwoven, and rewoven, the work contains “a literal record of its own making” as well as an open range of interpretive play for viewers. Thru Jan 28. N.C. Museum of Art, Raleigh. www. ncartmuseum.org. —Brian Howe Where We Find Home: Recent Southern photography by Ben Alper, DL Anderson, Aaron Canipe, Justin Cook, Phyllis Dooney, Matt Eich, Preston Gannaway, Lissa Gotwals, Jeremy M. Lange, Jared Soares, Aaron Turner, and Will Warasila. Part of the Click! Photography Festival. Sep Thru Oct 14. The Scrap Exchange, Durham. scrapexchange.org.

Washington Duke Inn & Golf Club, Durham. www. washingtondukeinn.com. Vegetarian Italian Wine Dinner: Six courses with wine pairings. Presented by Al’s Burger Shack, Mel’s Commissary & Luncheonette, and Italian Pizzeria III. $50. Wed, Sep 27, 7 p.m. Mel’s, Carrboro.

stage OPENING Arnez J: Stand-up comedy. Thu, Sep 28-Sun, Oct 1. Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh. www. goodnightscomedy.com. Festifall Local Motion Stage: Cane Creek Cloggers, Chapel Hill School of Musical Arts, more. Sun, Oct 1, 12:30-6 p.m. Franklin Street, Chapel Hill. Guys and Dolls: Musical. $17$20. Sep 29-Oct 1 and Oct. 5-8 Cary Arts Center, Cary. www.townofcary.org. Miss Lulu Bett: Staged reading. $5 donation. Sun, Oct 1, 3 p.m. Walltown Children’s Theatre, Durham. www. walltownchildrenstheatre.org. — Wed, Oct 4, 7-9 p.m. Imurj, Raleigh. imurj.com. See p. 45. Momma’s Boy: Play. $38-$79. Tue, Oct 3, 8 p.m. Memorial Auditorium, Raleigh. www. dukeenergycenterraleigh.com. NC*PRIDE Drag Night: Drag performance. Sat, Sep 30, 10:30 p.m. Imurj, Raleigh. imurj.com. Rampage: Improv. $5. Fri, Sep 29, 8:30 p.m. Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh. www. goodnightscomedy.com. Romeo & Juliet: Play. $18. Sat, Sep 30, 2 p.m. UNC Campus: Forest Theatre, Chapel Hill. ncbg.unc.edu.

ONGOING

LAST  The Cake: An CHANCE apologia for conservative Southern Christianity’s antigay bigotry. The playwright is pulling strings and punches when Macy (Christine Mirzayan), an unsympathetic visitor from Brooklyn, grills the matronly Winston-Salem baker, Della (an accomplished Julia Gibson), on sugar’s addictive qualities. Humans generally don’t talk this way, but boorish, crusading Northern liberals apparently do. Only after sympathies are established does the picture resolve: Macy is marrying Jen (Jenny Latimer), the daughter of Della’s deceased best friend. Jen has returned from New York not only to ask Della to bake a wedding cake, but also to seek a blessing from a surrogate mother. In focusing on a privileged neighborhood where everyone remains civil, violence isn’t a threat, and Jen has the

privilege to escape, the play ignores the grimmer reality that many LGBTQ people face at the hands of good Christian folk like these. $10-$57. Thru Oct 1. PlayMakers Repertory Company, Chapel Hill. playmakersrep.org. —Byron Woods LAST Circus 1903: A CHANCE century ago, a lone institution brought death-defying performers and exotic animals to American audiences: the circus. The highly skilled denizens of the big top roared of a world far bigger than the towns where they performed. The closing of the Ringling Bros. circus last May makes this time capsule precious, a cavalcade of contortionists, acrobats, aerialists, and clowns, abetted by an imaginative variation on the wild animal acts of yore: uncanny puppets of an elephant mother and child. Step right up. $20$156. Thru Oct 1. Durham Performing Arts Center. www. dpacnc.com. —Byron Woods Comedy Roulette: Improv. $10-$31. Sat, Sep 30, 10:30 p.m. Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh. goodnightscomedy.com. LAST  Dog Sees CHANCE God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead: Bert V. Royal’s dark comedy is an extension, not a satire, of Charles Schulz’s beloved comic strip, which exposed the anxieties of childhood with disarming humor. The gang is in high school. After the sudden death of Snoopy, angst-ridden protagonist CB (Leo Brody) seeks solace among his peers. Good luck with that— Tricia and Marcy, teen versions of Peppermint Patty and Marcie, are self-centered party girls. Pig Pen is a chauvinistic germophobe who’s bullying the Schroeder character, gay pianist Beethoven. Director Pete Comperatore, who clearly knows the dynamics of a modern high school, propels this strong ensemble beyond the script’s occasional shortcomings. Thru Oct 1. North Raleigh Arts & Creative Theatre, Raleigh. www. nract.org. —Byron Woods Lighten Up Comedy Show: Stand-up. Sat, Sep 30, 7:45 p.m. Imurj, Raleigh. imurj.com.  Playing With Fire (After Frankenstein): Reviewed on p. 44. $18-$24. Thru Oct 8. Theatre In The Park, Raleigh. www. theatreinthepark.com. LAST Pride & Prejudice: CHANCE Play. $23. Thru Oct. 1. NCSU Campus: Titmus Theatre, Raleigh.

LAST Silver Lining: After CHANCE eight Florida patients recently died in a nursing home in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, this timely dark comedy focuses on five women in a British elder care facility who gradually realize that no one is coming to rescue them from a major flood. Sandi Toksvig’s play, which premiered to mixed reviews in England in February, addresses not only the substandard warehousing of the elderly but also the forced invisibility of women beyond a certain age in the theater. As the waters rise, the quintet reassembles its life skills, in what might just be a geriatric version of The Great Escape. $14$18. Thru Oct 1. Sonorous Road Theatre, Raleigh. —Byron Woods Third Date Improv: Improv comedy. $14. Sat, Sep 30, 8 p.m. Walltown Children’s Theatre, Durham. www. walltownchildrenstheatre.org. LAST ½ Closer CHANCE Than They Appear: In this compelling drama, we’re struck by the quiet desperation with which Hannah (stage veteran Elisabeth Lewis Corley), a doctor using virtual reality to treat Iraqi veterans, uses the technology to pursue her own ghosts, including her enigmatic daughter, Marian, supposedly a soldier. But when sessions, text messages, and voicemails don’t make her manifest, we sense a digital dead end lurking in this virtual labyrinth. The same goes for Zayneb (a luminous Smita Misra), who sends out YouTube dispatches on the deteriorating conditions in Fallujah. When help does not arrive, Zayneb asks the world to bear witness: “Tell them people lived here.” $5-$45. Thru Oct 1. UNC Campus: Swain Hall, Chapel Hill. piedmontperformancefactory.org. —Byron Woods

page

READINGS & SIGNINGS Heather Bell Adams: Maranatha Road. Fri, Sep 29, 5:30 p.m. Cocoon Gallery, Apex. Marc Brettler and AmyJill Levine: The Jewish Annotated New Testament. Tue, Oct 3, 7 p.m. Regulator Bookshop, Durham. www. regulatorbookshop.com.

LAST The Ugly Duckling: CHANCE Ballet. Thru Oct 1. Fletcher Opera Theater, Raleigh. dukeenergycenterraleigh.com. Wants Upon A Time: Sixteenthcentury Italy probably isn’t the first place you’d think to look for multimedia futurist Francesca Talenti. Nor might you have imagined the postmodern playwright to place her playful,

punny commedia dell’arte take on Rapunzel at Patrick Dougherty’s biodegradable sculpture on the Hillsborough Riverwalk. In a kid-friendly script with enough contemporary in-jokes to keep adults amused, no dashing knight or wonderful witch winds up the real hero. You’ll be surprised by who is. Fri, Sep 29, 6:30 & 7 p.m. Riverwalk, Hillsborough. —Byron Woods

PHOTO COURTESY OF CAROLINA PERFORMING ARTS

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 28 & SUNDAY, OCTOBER 1

COLD MOUNTAIN

In Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier’s 1997 National Book Award winner, a wounded Confederate-army deserter flees from the Raleigh area toward his home in western North Carolina and his prospective paramour. Though the journey is somewhat shorter than Odysseus’s, it takes on Odyssean proportions through the rugged, romantic sweep of Frazier’s prose. Following a popular film adaptation in 2003, the story is now also an opera with music by Jennifer Higdon and a libretto by Gene Scheer. This fully staged production, a cocommission by several operas, is copresented by NC Opera and Carolina Performing Arts. The New York Times was cool on the Sante Fe Opera’s production, but audiences weren’t; demand for tickets extended the run. And The Times mainly dinged the production for “scrubbing away the novel’s rich, woodsy atmosphere.” No disrespect to Santa Fe, but why should desert dwellers do woodsy well? We trust NC Opera’s try will have Appalachian terroir to spare. —Brian Howe

UNC’S MEMORIAL HALL, CHAPEL HILL

7:30 p.m. Thu./2 p.m. Sun., $10–$99, www.ncopera.org

Diane Chamberlain: The Stolen Marriage. Tue, Oct 3, 7 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh. www.quailridgebooks.com. Jessica Cluess and Scott Reintgen: A Poison Dark and Drowning and Nyxia. Thu, Sep 28, 7 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill. www. flyleafbooks.com. Howard E. Covington Jr.: Lending Power: How Self-Help

Credit Union Turned Small-Time Loans into Big-Time Change. Wed, Oct 4, 7 p.m. Regulator Bookshop, Durham. www. regulatorbookshop.com. Eli J. Finkel: The All or Nothing Marriage: How the Best Marriages Work. In conversation with Dan Ariely. Mon, Oct 2, 7 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill. www. flyleafbooks.com.

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E. Lockhart: Genuine Fraud. Mon, Oct 2, 7 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh. www.quailridgebooks. com. — Tue, Oct 3, 7 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill. www. flyleafbooks.com. Kelly Starling Lyons and Vanessa Brantley-Newton: Jada Jones launch party. Sat, Sep 30, 2 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh. www.quailridgebooks.com. Bren McClain: One Good Mama Bone. Sat, Sep 30, 11 a.m. McIntyre’s Books, Pittsboro. www.mcintyresbooks.com. Rick Riordan: The Ship of the Dead. Wed, Oct 4, 7 p.m. NCSU Campus: McKimmon Center, Raleigh.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27

www.quailridgebooks.com. — Thu, Sep 28, 7 p.m. Regulator Bookshop, Durham. www. regulatorbookshop.com.

HOLLIS ROBBINS: THE PORTABLE NINETEENTH-CENTURY AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS

LECTURES ETC. Big Idea Forum: Dan Heath. Wed, Oct 4. Marbles Kids Museum, Raleigh. www. marbleskidsmuseum.org.

The voices of women have been scarce in the world of literature for most of history, and in the case of black women authors, almost invisible. The Portable NineteenthCentury African American Women Writers provides a needed historical record as well as fascinating insight into what it meant to be a woman of color in the nineteenth century. Several of the nearly fifty writers represented are former slaves, like Louisa Picquet, whose words bluntly describe her hellish treatment, while abolitionist Sarah Parker Remond, whose mother was Revolutionary War American and father was a “free person of color” born in Curacao (hence not African American), inveighs against slavery in the tones of a worldly Northerner. Other voices speak to the growing recognition of Southern culture, such as an account of life in the Fisk Jubilee Singers and an 1881 culinary guide called What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking. While these writings conjure pieces of the distant past through their details and unique perspectives, many describe the kind of systemic injustices that, troublingly, persist to this day. Coeditor Hollis Robbins brings the news to Durham on Wednesday. —David Klein

In The Wings: Sense and Sensibility: Cast Q and A. Mon, Oct 2, 7 p.m. Southwest Regional Library, Durham. www.durhamcountylibrary.org. Masters of Cajun Accordian Festival Lecture: Barry Jean Ancelet (University of Louisiana, Lafayette), West End Theater. Sun, Oct 1, 6 p.m. The ArtsCenter, Carrboro. www.artscenterlive.org. See p. 51.

Sundry Poets: Sam Barbee, Bennett Myers, Susan Spalt. Sun, Oct 1, 2 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh. www. quailridgebooks.com. Tui T. Sutherland: Darkness of Dragons. Thu, Sep 28, 7 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh. www.quailridgebooks.com.

PHOTO COURTESY OF KEDIFILM.COM

Daren Wang: The Hidden Light of Northern Fires. Wed, Sep 27, 7 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh.

Storytelling Festival: Professional storytellers Tim Lowry, Sherry Norfolk, and Bobby Norfolk with musical guest Cran Ull. Sat, Sep 30, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Historic Oak View County Park, Raleigh. www. wakegov.com/parks/oakview.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 29

KEDI

A camera follows a handful of Istanbul’s most beloved citizens as they traverse bustling streets, alternately feuding with and caring for one another. They’re a hard group to pin down. Thugs and thieves, mothers and children, hunters and beggars alike, the documentary’s subjects all share one defining trait: they’re cats. Complex, artfully documented cats, but cats nonetheless. In Kedi, a few of Istanbul’s legion of street cats are given backstories, personalities, and an otherworldly significance, conveyed through the narration of the humans who care for them. Despite the film’s fixation with animals, it’s as much about a city at a crossroads and the wonderfully thoughtful, empathetic people who reside there. Even if you’re not a cat person, it just might make you a convert. —Jake Parker

NORTH CAROLINA MUSEUM OF ART, RALEIGH 8 p.m., $5–7, www.ncartmuseum.org 56 | 9.27.17 | INDYweek.com

THE REGULATOR BOOKSHOP, DURHAM 7 p.m., free, www.regulatorbookshop.com

screen SPECIAL SHOWINGS

drug smuggler in this new film from the director of The Bourne Identity. Rated R.

Citizen Architect: Samual Mockbee and the Spirit of the Rural Radio: Tue, Oct 3, 7 p.m. Stanford L. Warren Branch Library, Durham. www. durhamcountylibrary.org.

Battle of the Sexes—The true story of the 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King and washed-up champ Bobby Riggs. Rated PG-13.

The Making of MAESTRA: Women and the 1961 Cuban Literacy Campaign: Followed by discussion with Catherine Murphy. Thu, Sep 28, 5:30 p.m. UNC Campus: Wilson Library, Chapel Hill. www.lib. unc.edu/wilson. Still Life & a work-inprogress: Mon, Oct 2, 7 p.m. The Garage at Smith Warehouse, Durham. Twister: Followed by science discussion with Brice Coffer. $5. Fri, Sep 29, 7 p.m. N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences, Raleigh. naturalsciences.org.

OPENING American Made—Tom Cruise is a commercial pilot turned

Flatliners—Ellen Page stars in a sequel to the 1990 horror film about researchers playing a dangerous game with neardeath experiences. Rated PG-13. School Life—This doc follows two dedicated teachers in an Irish boarding school as they prepare to retire. Rated PG-13.

A L S O P L AY I N G The INDY uses a five-star rating scale. Read reviews of these films at indyweek.com. ½ Annabelle: Creation—An adequate scary movie if you’re in a theater packed with people yelling advice at the screen, but genre

connoisseurs might be bored. Rated R.

filled new version of Stephen King’s magnum opus. Rated R.

 Atomic Blonde— Despite flourishes of ferocity, this Cold War thriller by John Wick codirector David Leitch coasts on its own glib, quirky coolness. Rated R.

 The LEGO Ninjago Movie—Expect weak puns, weary pop-culture references, and a waning sense of discovery. Rated PG.

½ The Big Sick— Married screenwriters Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon’s autobiographical rom-com truthfully portrays the shifting cultural and romantic landscape of the U.S. Rated R. ½ Despicable Me 3—This franchise feels just about washed up, but your kids won’t care, because Minions! Rated PG. ½ Dunkirk—Christopher Nolan’s WWII picture is very British and, for better and worse, very Terrence Malick—epic, meditative, and portentous. Rated PG-13.  It—Blend classic Spielberg with Stranger Things and you get this scary, heart-

 mother!—A harrowing speed-walk through Genesis, the Gospels, and the Book of Revelation. Rated R. ½ The Mummy— Tom Cruise’s increasing creepiness is the biggest impediment to a serviceable creature feature. Rated PG-13.  Spider-Man: Homecoming—Getting back to basics, a fifty-five-yearold superhero feels like a kid again. Rated PG-13.  War for the Planet of the Apes—A conspicuous phrase scrawled on a tunnel wall beneath the Colonel’s compound says it all: “Apepocalypse Now.” Rated PG-13

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body • mind • spirit services holistic health TAOIST TAI CHI Learn Taoist Tai Chi for improved relaxation, health and energy. Classes offered in Raleigh, Cary, Durham and Chapel Hill. Call 919-787-9600 or visit northcarolina.usa.taoist. orgOn the Back PageTaoist Tai ChiRaleigh, Cary, Durham and Chapel Hill email: northcarolina@taoist.org 919 787-9600 web: northcarolina.usa.taoist.org

classes & instruction TAI CHI Traditional art of meditative movement for health, energy, relaxation, self-defense. Classes/workshops throughout the Triangle. Magic Tortoise School - Since 1979. Call Jay or Kathleen, 919-968-3936 or www.magictortoise.com

massage FULL BODY MASSAGE by a Male Russian Massage Therapist with strong and gentle hands to make you feel good from head to toe. Schedule an appointment with Pavel Sapojnikov, NC LMBT. #1184. Call: 919-790-9750.

MASSAGE BY MARK KINSEY Ten years helping clients feel at home in their bodies. Swedish & deep tissue massage for stress relief. Near Duke. MassageByMarkKinsey.com. NCLMBT#6072. 919-619-6373.

medical services

MAKE THE CALL TO START GETTING CLEAN TODAY. Free 24/7 Helpline for alcohol & drug addiction treatment. Get help! It is time to take your life back! Call Now: 855-7324139 (AAN CAN)

misc. JOANNE LI (CHINESE BARBER) Kem’s salon 1921 North Pointe Dr. Durham nc27705 North Pointe Plaza 1921c 9199439139 Mingzhu_57@hotmail.com

AFFORDABLE ONE-ONONE PILATES! Teacher trainee at reputable studio seeks clients for afternoon appointments. $15 for one hour. All bodies and levels welcome. lipilates@yahoo.com

products OXYGEN

PREGNANT? CONSIDERING ADOPTION? Call us first. Living expenses, housing, medical, and continued support afterwards. Choose adoptive family of your choice. Call 24/7. 877-362-2401

919-416-0675

contact mike for ads

classy at indyweek dot com

KEEP DOGS SHELTERED Coalition to Unchain Dogs seeks plastic or igloo style dog houses for dogs in need, as well as indoor metal crates. To donate, please contact Amanda at director@unchaindogs.net.

COMING TO ASHEVILLE? Upscale Spa. private outdoor hot tubs, 26 massage therapists, overnight accommodations, sauna and more. Starting at $42. Shojiretreats.com 828-299-0999

To adopt: 919-403-2221 or visit animalrescue.net

Boomer

professional services NEW AUTHORS WANTED!

is sweet and loving!

Page Publishing will help you self-publish your own book. FREE author submission kit! Limited offer! Why wait? Call now: 888-231-5904 (AAN CAN)

renovations EXLEY HOME IMPROVEMENTS For all repairs and upgrades. Your every need is covered: Electrical, Plumbing, Carpentry, Fencing, Additions, Decks and more. New lighting? Cabinets? Sinks? 30+ years experience. Call Greg at 919-791-8471 or email exley556@gmail.com