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. We're always on the lookout for ways to shine a light on all the awesome creativity we see around us.

This week's Volcano arts section includes Hide/Seek at Tacoma Art Musuem, Papakali in Tacoma, The Farnsworth Invention in Lakewood and Collision at the Evergreen State College.

Here's a look at the Volcano arts coverage waiting for you this week in print and online.

FEATURE: HIDE/SEEK

The internationally-acclaimed exhibition Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture caused a ruckus when it debuted at The Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery in 2010. David Wojnarowicz's unfinished film, A Fire in My Belly,was removed from the exhibition, sparking a national controversy, demonstrations and renewed discussions about censorship and artists' rights. Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Virginia) called the exhibition "an outrageous use of taxpayer money," and a spokesperson for House Speaker John Boehner told The Hill newspaper "Smithsonian officials should either acknowledge the mistake or be prepared to face tough scrutiny beginning in January."

Tacoma Art Museum will proudly include A Fire in My Belly along with photographs and paintings by a slew of famous American artists with an eye toward issues of gender and sexual identity over nearly 150 years of American art. Yes, this is the queer show. And despite outrage by a few people such as Cantor and Boehner, it has been a stupendous success with audiences across the country.

Beginning with works from the late 1870s by Thomas Eakins and John Singer Sargent, the exhibition uncovers the lives of gays and lesbians in America throughout the years. ... -- Alec Clayton

FEATURE: PAPAKALI

Local creative extraordinaire Kali Kucera is a music composer. He also helped to found the Tacoma Poet Laureate program, and is the arts development guy at Urban Grace Church. Kucera has told stories at libraries and museums far and wide as a member of the Fireside Storytelling League. Since late 2010, he has also operated Papakali.com-a website dedicated to original Tacoma folklore.

"I'm really more of a lorist than a writer-someone who starts a story from a conjecture about his environment, and then gives it away to the community to spin it from there," Kucera says. ... -- Kristin Kendle

THEATER: THE FARNSWORTH INVENTION

I've been following the work of Aaron Sorkin since the days of the short-lived TV show Sports Night. I've observed that there are a few things Sorkin clearly loves more than anything else: space travel, talking while walking, stealing his own lines and Philo T. Farnsworth.

I've also known John Munn for more than a few years, and there's not much he loves more than Aaron Sorkin. This is how we come to have Sorkin's The Farnsworth Invention at Lakewood Playhouse, directed by Munn himself.

Philo Farnsworth - "Phil" to his friends and family - invented the television. Sort of. That is, he was the first scientist to successfully transmit and reconstruct an image over the air. If you haven't heard of him, the play would have you believe that it's largely because he lost a prolonged legal battle with RCA and did not become a multi-millionaire as owner of the patents used in commercial television. ... -- Joe Izenman

THEATER: COLLISION

If you've been out of college for a while, you're probably unfamiliar with the phrase "rape culture." It's a feminist term, circa 1975, which classifies entire regions as supportive of sexual violence. Such a culture considers women public sexual utilities, then blames victims of whatever abuse is inevitably suffered. In such a culture, for example, it might be acceptable to refer to a woman who wants birth control included in her health plan as a "slut" or "prostitute." Thankfully, that could never happen here.

Sigh...

"Dare to peek at your culture," advises Ariana Throne, whose one-woman "dance drama" Collision looks at rape culture in American college life. She herself was involved in two such collisions, and much of her performance is uncomfortably autobiographical. She says one in eight college women will be raped, a statistic which originated in a 1985 study for Ms. magazine. The veracity of that fraction depends largely on one's definition of rape, in that it includes women who did not self-identify as raped but who had sex while severely intoxicated. In Throne's view, that's the whole point: it's our prevailing culture which makes such incidents happen, and their psychological fallout is largely the same. It's food for thought. ... -- Christian Carvajal

LOCAL FILMMAKING: HISTORY IS _____ FILM COMPETITION

The Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI) in Seattle has brought back its History Is ____ Film Competition for a second time since beginning in 2011.

Then I suppose what they say about history is true...

(I take off my shades and peer seductively into my readers' eyes)

...It has a way of repeating itself. (We kiss. End scene.)

As MOHAI's Manager of Programs and Community Engagement Helen Divjak remembers, "(The competition) last year really went beyond what we'd expected... We were really overwhelmed with not only the number, but the quality of the entries."

Now you can do your part to make the new batch of films bigger and even better. But first, the rules: Each work has between one and five minutes to creatively fill in the above blank with any word or phrase of one's choosing. For example, History is HUGE.  ... -- Christopher Wood

PLUS: COMPLETE SOUTH SOUND ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT CALENDAR

PLUS: MORE EVENTS WE RECOMMEND

PLUS: WEIRDNESS LIKE THIS