Morning Star Pop-Up Brunch, Activist Poetics, The Design of Dissent, And More Picks For Jan 30-Feb 5
by Stranger Things To Do Staff
In addition to the protests this week, our arts and culture critics have picked the best events happening in their areas of expertise—including RESIST! A Show of Burlesque, Bellydance, and Punk Rock, the Darkness Film Series, a free community talk about activist poetics, and The Design of Dissent exhibition.
MONDAY
PERFORMANCE
Every Five Minutes
Every Five Minutes by Scottish playwright Linda McLean (known for her celebrated debut work, Any Given Day) examines the lasting effects of prolonged torture. Presented by Washington Ensemble Theatre and directed by Ryan Purcell.
READINGS & TALKS
Jon Raymond
Portland writer Jon Raymond is known for his novels (The Half-Life and Rain Dragon), his short story collection Livability, and his screenplays (including Kelly Reichardt's Old Joy and Wendy and Lucy). At this event, he'll speak about his new novel Freebird, which follows the struggles of a contemporary California family.
Lisa Wade: American Hookup
Kids and young adults used to "go steady," and now they're just "hooking up." In American Hookup, sociologist Lisa Wade examines the practices of modern sex and dating without moralizing, "asking not 'How do we go back?' but 'Where do we go from here?'"
MONDAY-FRIDAY
PERFORMANCE
The King and I
I went into The King and I with no knowledge of the material—it's one of those musicals I never got around to watching or listening to—but on first listen, I kept thinking: "Ah, this song is about Trump's relationship to facts!" "Ah, this is a song about the stupidity of white racists!" "Oh my god, wow, when was this written?" It was written in 1951, and it's set in the 1800s. It's a credit to director Bartlett Sher, and to the cast and crew, and to Rodgers and to Hammerstein, that what I was sure was going to be creaky material comes across with freshness and humor and life. Clarity, lightness, humor, warmth, love, and a bias toward facts and science—the show has everything the real world seems to be lacking right now. CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE
MONDAY, THURSDAY-SATURDAY
PERFORMANCE
Proof
Strawshop honcho Greg Carter directs Proof, David Auburn's Pulitzer Prize– and Tony Award–winning play about Catherine, the daughter of a late University of Chicago professor and mathematical wizard of prime numbers. Catherine is a math genius herself, and she worries she's inherited her father's mental illness along with his smarts. Invariably, one of Seattle's theaters produces this contemporary classic each year, but Carter's sure to pull out the political fire burning just beneath the play's surface. RICH SMITH
TUESDAY
READINGS & TALKS
Ayelet Waldman: A Healthy Dose of LSD
Ayelet Waldman—author of mystery novels, essays about motherhood, and more—is a funny if controversial internet presence. At this event, she'll speak about her new book A Really Good Day that explores mood disorders, LSD micro-dosing, and being a Jewish mom.
Loud Mouth Lit
This series of "fresh, local, and organic" author readings is curated by playwright and fiction writer Paul Mullin and thrives on face-to-face interaction.
SFWA Presents: Curtis Chen, Randy Henderson and Fonda Lee
Courtesy of Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA), hear and discuss works by Curtis Chen (Waypoint Kangaroo), Randy Henderson (Bigfootloose and Finn Fancy Free), and Fonda Lee (Exo). Discover these authors and make new sci-fi friends.
PERFORMANCE
RESIST! A Show of Burlesque, Bellydance, and Punk Rock
They describe it as "a therapeutic night of rage, fun, music and art." It's past Inauguration Day, and the future is one big combination of 'huh??' and 'unnnngh.' This bash aims to get you through it with sexy, angry togetherness, music from Burn Burn Burn and FCON, and bellydance and burlesque from Magi, Betty Fish, Scandal From Bohemia, and Solange Corbeau. Plus, they'll help you figure out how to get in touch with your representatives for future activism.
TUESDAY-SATURDAY
ART
Those Who Remain: After Hours
The installation of Those Who Remain: Concerto for Installation and Improviser is the second in a two-part tribute to the Northwest poet Richard Hugo, based on two of his poems. The installation—on view during museum hours at the Asian Art Museum—will be animated by four separate performances, each with different artists and musicians: Stuart Dempster on trombone, Greg Campbell on percussion, and Suzuki on January 31; violinist Alex Guy, trumpeter Raymond Larsen, and Suzuki on February 3; and Ivan Arteaga on saxophone, Peggy Lee on cello, and Suzuki on February 4. The piece was created by Seattle's Horvitz with the Japan-based artists Suzuki (dancer/choreographer) and video artist/VJ Yohei Saito. JEN GRAVES
TUESDAY-SUNDAY
PERFORMANCE
The Cherry Orchard
The Seagull Project and ACT Theatre present Anton Chekhov's last play, The Cherry Orchard, directed by John Langs. The play—a strange mix of humor and tragedy—is about a group of family and friends hiding out in a Russian country estate as the world they know is about to fall apart.
WEDNESDAY
READINGS & TALKS
Civic Cocktail
This month's edition of Civic Cocktail (pressing local issues over drinks and Tom Douglas appetizers) will feature both a one-on-one discussion with host Joni Balter and Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson, and a panel about the state of media featuring The Stranger's own co-founder and publisher Tim Keck, Marcus Green (Founder and Editor-in-Chief, South Seattle Emerald), Caryn Mathes (President & General Manager, KUOW), and Don Shelton (Editor, The Seattle Times).
Contagious Exchanges
This monthly reading series curated and hosted by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore features queer writers—this time, hear from writer and critic John Treat, educator and author Chad Goller-Sojourner, and poet and writer (and subject of a recent "High Society" interview with David Schmader) Julene Tripp Weaver.
Helen MacDonald
Helen MacDonald's H is for Hawk is a well-observed, lyrical memoir about hawks, T. H. White, and the grief of losing a father. Her descriptive sentences pull you in so that you feel like you're just walking around and having a nice chat full of arcane facts with your pal Helen MacDonald, but then she'll drop a surprising image and it'll hit like a firework up close. Read this excerpt and you'll see what I mean. RICH SMITH
Presidential Power in 2017
What are the limits of presidential power? What exactly can and will President #45 do, and how the public remain involved past the election? These questions are obviously of huge interest to the public, evinced by the fact that this event is sold out (there will be a standby line at the door). Panelists will explain Trump's powers and constraints in their particular domains; these speakers, who will be moderated by expert in Constitutional and election law Lisa Manheim, include Bob Anderson on environmental and natural resource law; Angelica Chazaro, immigration law; Trevor Gardner, criminal law; Sallie Sanford, health care law; Kathryn Watts, administrative law and presidential power.
Silent Reading Party
Invented by our own Christopher Frizzelle, the reading party is every first Wednesday of the month at 6 p.m. That's when the Fireside Room at the Sorrento Hotel goes quiet and fills with people with books tucked under their arms. (And, occasionally, a Kindle or two.) By 7 p.m., you often can't get a seat. And there's always free music from 6 to 8 p.m. Lately the resident musician is pianist Paul Matthew Moore. He's amazing.
A Silver Lining: Health Benefits of Climate Change Policies
Experts on environmental health (Jeremy Hess and Andy Dannenberg of University of Washington; Kathy Strange of Puget Sound Clean Air Agency) will explain how new pro-environment policies will bring advances in urban mobility, well-being, and fitness. Learn how these changes will represent "a win-win for most people, and for the planet."
FOOD & DRINK
First Annual Stoup Brewers Dinner
Dine finely with chefs and brewers on carefully paired dishes like Citra IPA plus Hamachi with apple and Mosaic Pale with foie gras torchon (like foie gras terrine, but in a different dish).
WEDNESDAY-SUNDAY
FILM
Children’s Film Festival
The Children's Film Festival promises a wide variety of shorts—from adorable stop-motion animals to contemplative messages about climate change and the environment to trippy fantastical voyages—plus a selection of full-length feature films appropriate for kids. The children might walk out of the theater feeling they've had a pleasant and cheery experience, or it might spark an intellectual curiosity that lasts them all year. Whatever your aim, with over 150 films from around the globe, there's plenty to choose from.
THURSDAY
FILM
Darkness Film Series: Touki Bouki
The last act of Djibril Diop Mambéty's Touki Bouki (an African Breathless) will blow your mind. It reaches the condition of a music video. It has two tunes: One is Afro-funk, and the other is an orchestral blend of jazz horns, electro, funk, and Afropop. The second tune steals the show. It swells and soars as the young African lovers (or whatever they are) rush to the seaport to catch the next ship to France. They sit in the back of a convertible, passing small and big businesses, modernist office buildings, government and military officers of Dakar, the capital of Senegal. The messy and impressive last act of Touki Bouki is a very funky experiment. CHARLES MUDEDE
Viva Italia! Italian Film from Neorealism to Fellini
Revisit the greatest works of mid-century Italian cinema with works by Monicelli, Rossellini, Fellini, and other masters of postwar Neorealism and the more stylized movements that followed. This week, watch Voyage in Italy (otherwise known as Journey to Italy), a 1954 film featuring Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders that "embodies the emotionally cool, rational hyper-efficient ethos of northern cultures."
ART
First Thursday Art Walk
During February's edition of the city's oldest art walk, look forward to gallery openings, free booze, and the opportunity to mingle with other artsy folks in Pioneer Square. This month, don't miss the opening receptions for Chris McMullen: C.S.E. (Collaborative Stacking Extravaganza!) and John Grade: Middle Fork "Extended".
READINGS & TALKS
Maya Lin
World-renowned architect and public artist Maya Lin's resume includes creating the famous Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington and a dozen other major US works, being the subject of the Academy Award-winning 1995 documentary Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision, and receiving the National Medal of Arts from President Obama in 2009. Tonight, she'll give a lecture titled, "At The Intersection of Art and Architecture," and will discuss how her work "originates from a simple desire to make people aware of their surroundings.”
Seattle StorySLAM
A live amateur storytelling competition in which audience members who put their names in a hat are randomly chosen to tell stories on a theme. Local comedians tend to show up, but lots of nonperformers get in on the action as well. This week's theme is "Love Hurts," so expect stories about "a love that made you go OUCH. The agony of deferred love! The misery of good love, gone bad! The anguish of one-way love!" But know that stories about "Love that 'Hurts So Good'" are also welcome.
The Sorting Room Residency Reading
Hear work that local writers Bill Carty, Wilson Diehl, and Rachel Kessler wrote during their 2016 residency with The Sorting Room, an inaugural residency program with Seattle7Writers that's named after the work-storage space for S7W's Pocket Library Program. Bill Carty is the author of Huge Cloudy (forthcoming, Octopus Books) and the chapbook Refugium (Alice Blue Books); Wilson Diehl's work has appeared in places including The New York Times, Salon, Teachers & Writers Magazine, and The Iowa Review, and Rachel Kessler's work has appeared in publications including Narrative Magazine, Literary Hub, Poetry Northwest, The Open Daybook, and The Stranger.
FOOD & DRINK
HopMob: A Washington Triple IPA Event
Hoppophiles, this is Washington State and you can get a good dose of that IPA flavor just by going into a bar and breathing in and out a few times. But if that's not enough, you should definitely come to this festival of hoppy power, originally begun as a release party for Russian River's Pliny the Younger IPA. 32 beers from Washington breweries will be on tap.
CANNABIS
Sex & Cannabis: More Reason To Cherish This Plant
Are you having a stressful week, Seattle? Us, too. What a coincidence. Regardless, nothing warms and relaxes your stress-stiffened muscles like sex with weed. Duni Disston from BOND Sensual Oil will plug THC-enhanced lube; Susan Gress from Vashon Velvet will inform you of the benefits of weed for post-menopausal women; and sexual health expert George Froehle will explain the medical side of things and the applications of CBD and THC.
THURSDAY-FRIDAY
PERFORMANCE
reSET
Curated by Mark Haim, Babette Pendleton, and Alice Gosti, reSET is a sort of arts-share dance series put on by the Washington Ensemble Theatre. Choreographers perform new pieces using the set for whatever play the company happens to be producing at that time. The stage for Every Five Minutes will be reimagined to suit their artistic needs. RICH SMITH
THURSDAY-SATURDAY
PERFORMANCE
Mothers and Sons
Terrence McNally's Mothers and Sons is a Tony Award-nominated play about queerness, AIDS, family, and romance. It's a drawing room drama, showing just an hour and a half of the characters' lives, and is about a woman visiting her late son's former partner.
Shot
Shot is an exploration of police brutality and racism through dance theater, presented as part of Spectrum Dance's season examining American identity, race, and culture.
ART
The Design of Dissent
This show will celebrate a new gallery (Non-Breaking Space) and a revived exhibit—a survey of social and political protest art, originally curated in 2005 by Milton Glaser and Mirko Ilic and displayed at New York's School of Visual Arts.
THURSDAY-SUNDAY
PERFORMANCE
Let the Right One In
This play (adapted by Jack Thorne) is based on the novel and film of the same title by John Ajvide Lindqvist, and follows a friendship between a young child and a young vampire. This production is presented by the National Theatre of Scotland. About the film, former Stranger staffer Paul Constant wrote, "By taking nothing about the vampire legend for granted, and by leaving great swaths of mysteries unsolved, Right One can become a film about all kinds of things: the weird sexuality of burgeoning adolescents, how anger and violence can sometimes be a perfectly reasonable response in the proper situation, and how love is always completely, seriously fucked-up."
ART
Truth B Told
Onyx Fine Arts' 12th annual juried exhibit, Truth B Told, will reveal the truth about Black artists: their strength and fragility, the variety of their styles, and the uncategorizable nature of a broad, diverse group of artists. At the closing reception on Saturday, there will be food and drinks, Ekphrastic poetry read by members of the Seattle African American Writers' Alliance, and dance performances featuring the Northwest Tap Connection.
FRIDAY
READINGS & TALKS
Free Community Talk: Activist Poetics
After the "Affect and Audience: Activist Poetics" symposium at UW during the day, there will be a free evening of intersectional, social justice-centric, poetic performance. Featured speakers—all of whom have been inspired by "the surge of public and digitally inflected social movements...such as #Blacklivesmatter, #sayhername, #blacktranslivesmatter"—will perform poems that "will add texture to the contemporary conversation in literary criticism that asks where the new avant garde in poetry is going." The featured speakers are Alexis Pauline Gumbs (founder of the multimedia education initiative School of Our Lorde), Kai M. Green (Assistant Professor of Queer Theory and Feminist Studies at UC Santa Barbara), Fabian Romero (writer, performance artist, and activist), Carmen Gimenez Smith (Editor-in-Chief of Puerto del Sol, publisher of Noemi Press, and Associate Professor at New Mexico State University), and Layli Long Soldier (recipient of a Native Arts and Cultures Foundation artist fellowship).
Ottessa Moshfegh
Ottessa Moshfegh, whose celebrated novel Eileen was shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker prize and named a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, will read from her latest work, Homesick for Another World.
PERFORMANCE
Spin the Bottle
This is Seattle's longest-running cabaret and has seen just about everything—dance, theater, comedy, paper airplanes, tears, stunts, music, romance—from just about everyone.
FRIDAY-SATURDAY
PERFORMANCE
Cendrillon
The Pacific Northwest Ballet presents another take on a classic tale: this time, a ballet production with Jean-Christophe Maillot and Bernice Coppieters that offers a new take on the story of Cinderella, the ash-covered young woman who is (eventually) rewarded for her goodness.
SATURDAY
READINGS & TALKS
Fire Safety and Other Stories
Music and storytelling from Seattle tale-spinners and musicians, including readers John Mullen and Barbra Earl Thomas and instrumentalist Kate Farrell.
Robert Francis Flor with Michelle Penaloza, Victor Pineda and Emily Lawsin
Robert Francis Flor is a poet, playwright and activist who has long encouraged the flourishing of Asian American arts and culture. His new chapbook, Alaskero Memories, "recounts his coming of age during the four summers he worked in the salmon canneries in King Cove, Alaska, in the early 1960s." Join him for a reading and contributions about Filipino workers from Michelle Penaloza, Victor Pineda, and Emily Lawsin, plus music by Roger Rigor et. al.
PERFORMANCE
Arthaus 3.0: Broken Hearts Club!
Version 3.0 of Kremwerk's drag-queen battle royale/dance party is upon us. Teams of hilarious and artsy queens will compete for bragging rights, shade throwing rights, and the right to play puppet master at the following year's Arthaus series. As I predicted, Betty Wetter, Cookie Couture, Miss Americano, and Khloe5X of Halfway Haus won the series last year, and they'll be hosting and picking the themes this year. For this broken hearts' club party, LightHaus and Henny & The Jets will compete, with Halfway Haus hosting and performance by Cookie Couture, Betty Wetter, Americano, Old Witch, and Butylene O'Kipple. French Inhale will DJ. Drinks will be had. RICH SMITH
The Blue Show
Improvisers have been saving up their dirtiest material for The Blue Show, an emphatically adults-only improv comedy night that happens just once a month—and that has attracted celebrity guests Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher.
Oroboro
K. Brian Neel has taken on a variety of roles in Seattle theater, from an elastic solo performance about a man dreaming that he's falling from a top of a building to staging Waiting for Godot (twice!) at the Seattle Fringe Festival. Now Neel has written and directed a new 18th & Union production, Oroboro, which is described as a comedy "made up of scenes that swirl and wrap around each other...brainy and physical, a psychedelic fractal of a show."
FOOD & DRINK
Oregon Truffle Dinner
Two James Beard Award-winning chefs (Miller's Guild's Jason Wilson and Vitaly Paley of Portland restaurants including Imperial, Paley's Place, and Penny Dinner) will serve a family-style meal that highlights the Oregon truffle industry, which "is considered young compared to its French counterpart, but has similarly ideal growing climates that present the intoxicating delicacy for local chefs to create equally aromatic and delicious dishes." The menu includes geoduck crudo with shaved foie gras and black truffle vinaigrette, truffled potato gnocchi with wood-grilled beef short rib, and hazelnut spiced cake with roasted Washington apple, truffle, and ice cream. There will also be an optional wine pairing for an extra $60.
WEED
Sex and Cannabis with Dockside Cannabis
Babeland and Dockside are hosting another talk about the heaven made match that is weed and sex. Per Dockside marketing maven Kayli Nugent, it'll be "pretty similar to the last ones: a few sex jokes, a few weed jokes, champagne, dildo raffles, Dockside discounts, and plenty of questions answered." What's not to love? TOBIAS COUGHLIN-BOGUE
LUNAR NEW YEAR
Bellevue Collection Lunar New Year
This day-long culture fest will usher in the Lunar New Year with dance, Chinese opera, crafts for all ages, dumpling samples, and demos in calligraphy and martial arts. See a performance by the South Puget Sound Chinese Language School Lion Dance Troop, hear music from the Washington Chinese Youth Orchestra or from Shirley Wang on the venerable stringed guzheng, and don't miss the big parade from 2-3 pm.
QUEER
Queer Scouts Seattle: Knot Tying
When has there ever been a better time to brush up on survival skills? The Queer Scouts are an innovative group of skill-sharing LGBTs, pleasantly offering volunteer opportunities and free lessons in everything from automotive repair to filmmaking to baking. This month's lesson is knot-tying, a skill that is likely to come in handy when you least expect it. If you've always dreamed of executing the perfect sheepshank or double carrick, now's your chance to learn—and then pass the knowledge along so we're all prepared for whatever lies ahead. MATT BAUME
SATURDAY-SUNDAY
PERFORMANCE
Mimosas Cabaret
The great protest art of the Donald Trump era is already happening, with the Mimosas crew choosing a daring show to stage as their latest 30ish-minute musical. They're doing the show Cabaret, a song-and-dance extravaganza set in the days of Hitler's rise to power. The allegories to today are chillingly perfect, from nationalist Nazis singing "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" to the gut-wrenching appearance of the Star of David. For 50 years, Cabaret has been a reflection on the past, but now it's a scream of alarm about the future. You won't just cry at this show, you will sob. MATT BAUME
SUNDAY
FOOD & DRINK
Morning Star Shop Local x Pop-Up Brunch (February Edition)
This iteration of local chef Tarik Abdullah's brunch pop-up at Royal Room will feature such delights as jumbo prawns 'n' grits with squash, fennel, and tabil roasted tomato sauce, and house-made biscuits with zaatar lamb and roasted pepper gravy. Though she praises his food as "bold and wide-ranging," Stranger food writer emeritus Angela Garbes says it's primarily about the pop-up's positive vibes. "Food aside, the vibe at Morning Star is what makes it truly great," she wrote last June. "The music is always what you want to be listening to, and the crowd—lots of black, brown, and white folks—is diverse and joyful." In that same spirit of joy and diversity, Abdullah is soliciting donations this time around to help rebuild the Bellevue mosque that was the victim of arson in January. I dunno about you, but dropping a tenner in the jar, ordering up some braised chicken in saffron butter sauce, and thinking about how bummed Trump would be that a racially diverse crowd of brunch-loving Seattle liberals are raising money to rebuild a mosque sounds like a perfect meal to me. TOBIAS COUGHLIN-BOGUE