ARTS COVERAGE TO END ALL ARTS COVERAGE >>>
At this point it goes without saying. If you're looking for coverage of local arts in Tacoma, Olympia, and all points in between, the Weekly Volcano is THE place to find it. Our goal is to consistently provide the best local arts coverage possible to our fantastic readers -- always be on the lookout for ways to shine a light on all the awesome creativity we see around us.
Here's a look at the Volcano arts coverage waiting for you this week in print and online.
FEATURE: Queer Rock Camp in Olympia
KIMYA DAWSON: Saturday she’ll share a stage with Olympia’s Queer Rock Camp. Courtesy Michael Elvin
The latest step in the empowering-youth-through-rock movement is Queer Rock Camp, happening this week in Olympia. It's the first ever do-it-yourself music camp for queer youth.
"It really is not a music camp," says organizer Molly Fischer of Olympia. "The goal of the camp is empowerment and providing this vessel for people to express themselves and take up space.
"As a young queer person, you're pushed to the sidelines or not heard." ... -- Molly Gilmore
FEATURE: How Capital Playhouse rebounded
Capital Playhouse has held telethons to raise money. Photo credit: Facebook
"I don't think I've ever seen an arts organization make a more swift and dramatic turnaround than Capital Playhouse. Is it weird to say I'm proud of them?"
That was how I began my review of Capital Playhouse's The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, and oh, what a pleasure it was for me to write. So when board secretary Ned Hayes asked us to promote CP's summer season of Kids at Play, I made him a counteroffer. I wanted to talk about how a theater company turns a near-fatal corner amid all too public growing pains and a national recession. It's a model other troupes would do well to study. ... -- Christian Carvajal
THEATER: Cinderella at Paradise Theatre
"CINDERELLA": The Paradise Theatre version is a hoot. Facebook photo
Let's face it - we already know the plot. The King of Memphis is outside holding court when an eagle drops a shoe in his lap. It turns out the shoe belongs to Rhodopsis, "Rosycheeks," a Greco-Egyptian slave girl living in Naucratis ... Wait. That's the earlier Greek version of the story. In the Disneyfied Franco-Germa-pean version, the evil stepsisters are blinded by birds in the gory finale ... no, that's "Aschenputtel," the Grimm brothers' version from the 18-teens. A Philippine variant includes a dead mom reincarnated as a crab.
Clearly, there's room for any number of takes on our cherished Cinderella story.
The longer I do this job, the faster I can tell when I'm in capable hands. This time it took seconds. - Christian Carvajal
THEATER REVIEW: Toy Boat Theatre's Dakota's Belly, Wyoming
"Dakota's Belly, Wyoming": Steamy / Courtesy photo
Fledgling Toy Boat Theatre's mission statement promises, "good acting in a humble house," and thanks to director Marilyn Bennett and the cast of Dakota's Belly, Wyoming, it delivers. I admired Bennett's production of Cradle Will Rock for University of Puget Sound, and this shorter play is similarly micromanaged. As for the humility of the house (provided by Spaceworks Tacoma), it was uncomfortably warm opening night but fits beautifully otherwise into Hilltop's revitalized atmosphere. This play's pretty steamy, to be sure, so the sweat on actors' faces felt apropos. ... -- Christian Carvajal
VISUAL EDGE: Mark Bennion at Traver Gallery
MARK BENNION’S FRESCOES: Difficult to write about, but not difficult to enjoy. Courtesy William Traver Gallery
It may be difficult to write about Mark Bennion's frescoes at Traver Gallery, but they're not difficult at all to enjoy. That is if you're willing to give them the long and concentrated attention they deserve.
They're hard to write about because they're so minimal and there's so little variety. The frescoes are all very subtle variations on a simple theme: a flat surface in monotone divided into sections that look like flat stones or concrete blocks with scratched and drawn marks and, in many of them, smaller blocks or rectangles of a contrasting color. They look like sections of plaster or stone walls from an archeological find from a buried city like Pompeii-whose walls were decorated with fresco, Bennion's media of choice and a media rarely used by modern artists. The combination of modern abstraction and media seldom used since the Renaissance lends to Bennion's paintings a timeless quality. - Alec Clayton