send in the clowns - crosscut · 2019-02-01 · send in the clowns clowns, the "oscars of kids...

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Jan 30, 2019

Welcome to your new Crosscut Arts & Culture newsletter! Inside you’ll find our picksfor cultural events this week, links to our latest stories and quick hits of cultural news.

I’m arts writer Brangien Davis, and here’s your arts fix.

Send in the clowns

Clowns, the "Oscars of kids books" & more

Crosscut Arts <[email protected]>Wed 1/30/2019 12:23 PMTo: [email protected] <[email protected]>

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Installation view of Cherdonna Shinatra: DITCH. (Photo by Jenny May Peterson)

Cherdonna Sinatra, aka Seattle dancer and performance artist Jody Keuhner, hasbeen causing audiences to crack up, cringe and contemplate gender roles for over adecade. As a queer woman playing a man in female drag, her act has layers uponlayers — and the same goes for her makeup, which takes eyes and lips to sparklyextremes.

Her newest work, Ditch, would seem the logical extension of her look and loose-limbed physical comedy, as she becomes a full-on clown sporting a romper in Day-Glo colors. She performans at the Frye Art Museum (in a stunning run of 80consecutive shows), with an alleged goal to make people happy in unhappy times.But as will most clowns, the result is more disturbing than delightful. Shows dailyexcept Mondays, through Apr. 28. See Frye Art Gallery for schedule. (Free)

Fewer clowns, but an evil fairy

On the other end of the dance spectrum is Pacific Northwest Ballet’s The SleepingBeauty , the classic, tutu-laden ballet that PNB imparts with a bit of a gender switch,too: departing principal dancer Jonathan Porretta in warty-nosed fairy drag as thewicked Carabosse. Pacific Northwest Ballet, Feb. 1-10. ($37-$149)

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Seattle cleans up at "The Oscars of Kids Books"


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The American Library Association held its conference in downtown Seattle thisyear, where on Monday attendees were the first to learn the winners of the 2019Youth Media Awards (aka “the Oscars of kids books”). You might call it home-fieldadvantage — Seattle-based authors showed up big, winning several honors andearning shiny stickers on their books.

Jonathan Evison won an Alex Award (given to the 10 best adult books thatappeal to teens) for his coming-of-age novel, Lawn Boy, set in Washington state.Deb Caletti won a Michael L. Printz Honor Award (for excellence in YA literature)for A Heart in a Body in the World, about a teen girl who processes a trauma byrunning from Seattle to D.C. Dori Hillestad Butler won a Theodor Seuss GeiselHonor Award (for beginning-reader books) for King & Kayla and the Case of theLost Tooth. And Joy McCullough was a finalist for the William C. Morris Award(for debut YA novels) for Blood Water Paint, about a young woman painter in 17thcentury Rome. Congrats to all!

Read our interview with Lawn Boy author Jonathan Evison.

Cool kid culture

Kids deserve to know there’s more to movies than Disney and the latest comic bookremake. There’s no better place to expand their silver screen experience thanNorthwest Film Forum’s annual Children’s Film Festival. Featuring shorts, docs,animation and foreign films, the fest is refreshing and incredibly fun. Northwest


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Film Forum through Feb. 9. (Prices vary)

No Seahawks? Try the Seagull Project

Peter Crook and Alexandra Tavares in rehearsal for Uncle Vanya.

The Super Bowl takes place this weekend, but since it features a couple non-Seattleteams we advise avoiding the hype (and the halftime show) and doing somethingcompletely different. Perhaps an afternoon with Anton Chekhov? The SeagullProject is a talented local theater company so obsessed with the Russian playwrightthat over the past eight years it has staged all his major works. (In football circles,that’s akin to painting your belly in team colors every weekend.) For this finaledition, it presents Uncle Vanya (1898), the classic tale of seething drama thaterupts when a citified professor comes home to the country with plans to sell thefamily estate. You won’t see a read-option or an onside kick, but there is a dramatichail mary of sorts. ACT Theatre, Feb. 1-14. ($32-$52)


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After growing up gay in Russia, aSeattle filmmaker wins bigby Brangien Davis

Wes Hurley, creator of the documentary ‘LittlePotato,’ scores a $100K Creative Capitalgrant...Read more

New in film

Power to the people

Courtesy of NAAM

Seattle birthed the second chapter of the historic Black Panther Party. Crosscutcontributor Jonathan Zwickel writes: Among its founders was Aaron Dixon, aChicago-born teenager recently graduated from Garfield High School in the CentralDistrict. With the blessing of Panthers leader Bobby Seale, Dixon and his fellowsopened the Northwest regional BPP headquarters and for the next 10 yearsorganized free breakfasts for kids, free transportation to visit family members inprison and a free neighborhood medical clinic. These days Dixon lives inAlbuquerque, New Mexico, and is visiting Seattle to discuss his memoir My PeopleAre Rising, along with his vision of “what Black radical imagination might look like


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What WA's prison past tells us aboutmass incarceration todayby Mason Bryan

A new edition of a heralded book offers anintimate look at prison life. Scholar Dan Bergertalks about its significance today...Read more

in the 21st century and beyond.” Northwest African American Museum, Jan. 31 at6:30 p.m. (Free)

New in books

A legendary Seattle art couple, honored


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‘Shift Change’ by Fay Jones (Image courtesy of G. Gibson Gallery)

Seattle’s visual-art world lost a giant in late December, when noted Northwestpainter Robert C. Jones passed away at age 88. Now, two longtime local galleriesare paying homage with joint shows of work by Jones and his equally heraldedwife, the painter Fay Jones. Both received countless honors and grants throughtheir 50-year careers; both are known for their playful approach to color. But whileFay is recognized for her dreamlike, rounded figures, Robert is known for hisheavy-lined abstractions. Compare and contrast the couple’s work over their manyyears together and imagine a household built of hue and form. James HarrisGallery through Feb. 23 and G. Gibson Gallery through March 2. (Free)

New in visual arts


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Dystopian warnings wrapped up inpretty boxesby Brangien Davis

A Port Townsend artist channels climate changefears into meticulous microcosms...Read more

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send in the clowns - crosscut · 2019-02-01 · send in the clowns clowns, the "oscars of kids...

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