Seattle Blog by Press Corps Field Reporters

Nothing compares to the exhilaration I felt sitting in the audience at Benaroya Hall, watching the director of the 8-Bit Big Band take the stage to the electrifying flourish of his own introductory music. Over the next two hours, Charlie Rosen, a two-time Grammy and two-time Tony Award winner, captivated the audience with his characteristic charm, arrangements, as well as his one-of-a-kind musical versatility and unexpectedness.

Rosen is—among many other things—a musician, whose arranging career started in Broadway music. Beyond the theater, Rosen has combined his musical expertise with a passion for video games: the 8-Bit Big Band, a jazz orchestra he founded in 2017. The band reimagines music from beloved video game franchises—part of what Rosen has dubbed the “Great Video Game Songbook,” a play on the “Great American Songbook,” which is a loosely defined canon of influential 20th century popular music, show tunes, and jazz standards. The 8-Bit Big Band draws on big-band jazz, funk, orchestral, and Broadway’s characteristic sounds to bring a new perspective on a genre often overlooked outside gaming communities. Rosen himself is a great advocate of the expressive potential and complexity of video game soundtracks; the band’s 2022 Grammy for “Meta Knight’s Revenge” from Kirby Super Star is only further evidence that video game music is deserving of at least as much attention as more traditional repertoire.

If you like good fiction, you will like Electric Poe… 

I am not a true theater person – I enjoy it, but it is not my favorite artistic medium. The reason I say this is because Electric Poe (by the Coterie Theatre at Union Cemetery) broke through the cynical shell that surrounds my brain when I ingest a piece of theater for the first time.

Day in Day Out is a three day indie music festival at Fischer Pavilion in the Seattle Center. This year, hundreds of people flocked out to see their favourite artists while withstanding some seriously hot weather, with temperatures hovering around the mid 80s over the weekend. The crowd was trending younger, with many people taking refuge from the sun sitting on a grassy slope looking out at the stage that was completely covered in people the whole time I was there. Photo courtesy of Day In Day Out Fest

There were food trucks and various booths giving out free energy drinks, breath mints, protein shakes, and the like as some sort of giveaway marketing campaign. The Celsius booth was particularly intriguing, with a bizarre silver ball sculpture in the middle of their tent that was reminiscent of videos I’ve seen of liquid mercury. Unclear how liquid mercury relates to energy drinks but it was kind of cool I guess in a waste of resources kind of way. All their reps were wearing matching all black outfits, matching Celsius tees, and matching fake tans. I shouldn’t be too judgmental though, as I did partake in the free Celsius. The festival setup was simple, with a mainstage, and in the 21+ section a DJ booth that had mostly local acts playing music in between sets. Philadelphia indie punk band Mannequin Pussy were fantastic performers, with guitarist and lead singer “Missy” Dabice oscillating between a breathless baby girl lilt and hoarse full throated screaming, both while singing and talking to the audience. She railed against the harmful heavy metals and toxins found in tampons in between songs, and many lyricshad a political message to them. Photo courtesy of Day In Day Out Fest

The High Fashion High show at Seattle’s 2023 Bumbershoot was thoughtfully designed, curated, and inspired. Ellie Fein, the curator, gathered young people from around the greater Seattle area to share their love of fashion and teach like-minded peers about the design process. If you’re familiar with Project Runway, Fein played the role of Tim Gunn, helping to acquire material, talk through designs, and give feedback. Fein assisted her designers while reaching out to different studios and planning the logistics of the show itself.

Fein’s vision began with stained glass windows and puffer coats and gave a theme to each of the designs. The young designers, accompanied by Fein, went to a puffer coat manufacturer in SODO, Seattle, where they learned about the construction of puffer coats to further understand their inspiration. In our interview, Fein mentioned the puffer coat facility showed them past designs worn by Lady Gaga—and if Gaga doesn’t scream high fashion, I don’t know what does. Fein also organized for the designers to participate in a stained glass workshop to understand the physics and geometry of stained glass and how each piece must be thoughtfully shaped to fit the window. As there are limits piecing glass together, there are similar boundaries with how different fabrics can be joined. After learning more about their themes, the designers were ready to create and Fein ready to take on the role of the designer’s supporter.

This Labor Day weekend, Bumbershoot is back with a wide variety of unconventional arts, like a cat circus and roller skating. Among those peculiar programs is pole dancing, a nontraditional yet empowering art. As a pole dancer myself, I was ready to take a spin and talk to the curators and performers of the show. The Pole Pavillion was a collaborative program created by Aero Space Studios in Oregon and Ascendance Pole & Aerial Arts, right here in Washington.

On Day 1 of Bumbershoot, I got to talk to Ashley Madison, one of the curators of the Pole Pavillion, and co-owner of Aero Space Studios where they encourage the art of pole dancing in Portland. The theme of the program was, “What does pole dance mean to you?” After asking Madison about the theme of the program, she mentioned that, “One of the beautiful things about pole dance is that you can go so many directions with it, and everybody has their own unique style and everybody chooses their path on pole which can be all over the place so we tried to pick a diverse program that showed different styles of pole.” As I watched the performers I could clearly see the diversity of their dance styles.

Walking through Bumbershoot at the Seattle Center, different scents wafted into my nose. Smells of freshly ground coffee beans, juicy tacos with succulent meat from MexiCuban, smokey dough from Candela Pizza, and the sweet scent of popsicles drifted through the hot air. Though the food program at Bumbershoot was excellent, it lacked an international taste. The culinary options were predominantly seafood, Mexican, and Italian. While the seafood was deeply Seattle, giving more space to European, African, and Asian food vendors would have been greatly appreciated and could have better recognized the ethnic and cultural diversity within Seattle. Despite this, I found the food delicious! I tried all sorts of food at the Labor Day weekend festival and here is what really caught my eye.

As I found myself staring at all the beautiful outfits people wore and letting the loud music thrum through my body, Amazon employees handed out Seattle Pops. They had all kinds of flavors including Cookies and Cream as well as Lime. I chose a Cookies and Cream pop and it was the right call! The frozen treat melted in my mouth and the cream slowly trickled down my throat. When I asked the employees why they were out in the heat handing out their little miracles they said, “We’re trying to spread joy.” I smiled and walked on.

Fast fashion is an increasingly relevant issue in society today. The introduction of social media into mainstream pop culture has led to more world-connectedness making the newest fashion trends cycle faster and faster. The ever-changing popularity of outfits might not seem like such a big deal at first—after all, trying new styles is fun—but then, you start to wonder… How can companies produce new clothing so fast, yet sell it for so cheap?

The answer, unfortunately, is a complete disregard for ethics. The cheap and readily available clothing that fits the newest trends is so convenient, especially for teenagers, that there’s an astounding lack of awareness regarding the harm of fast fashion. From sweatshops to poorly made clothing that falls apart after five washes, fast fashion is extremely hurtful and wasteful. After the clothing is made, worn, and soon after, torn, the quality makes it unsalvageable, leading to a majority of clothing being thrown into the garbage. Fast fashion creates much larger harm to both humans and the environment than it seems on the surface.

If you, like me up until a month ago, have no idea what Bumbershoot is and your knowledge of music festivals is limited to Coachella, this is the perfect article for you. I went into Labor Day weekend at Bumbershoot having done minimal research and expecting a completely different experience than what I actually felt. So you don't fall into the trap that I did: Bumbershoot is an annual arts festival in Seattle, which has been occurring for over fifty years—with this being its first year back since quarantine. It attempts to highlight local creatives, which tend to be mainly indie, rock, and country-leaning when it comes to music. However, it also includes many other kinds of artists, including designers, nail artists, and even cat circus performers!

It seems that somewhere in this massive range, the festival has lost sight of who it is trying to draw in. In 2019, The Seattle Times reported that "Bumbershoot’s target audience has been trending younger and that was clear as ever [that] year, with a lineup boasting enough collective Instagram followers to alter an election." Looking at the lineup now, I recognize each and every single name and would be buzzing with excitement to have the chance to see even one of them. However, this year seems to have taken an abrupt turn with the artists seeming to cater more to an older audience while many festival goers are in their late teens or twenties.

The 5th Avenue Theatre has historically been the first residence of many productions. The newest addition to its repertoire of world premieres is called Afterwords by Zoe Sarnak and Emily Kaczmarek. It follows sisters Kali and Simone as they struggle to piece their life back together following the death of their mother. With the new burden of ever-mounting bills and the house mortgage, they rent out their attic to news journalist Jo, who is similarly in the midst of wading through the churning sea of loss. As they get to know each other, a complex history of intersecting stories unravels and new relationships form. The show bounces between modern-day and the past as we meet our characters and explore their stories. This story is one of love and loss, grieving and healing, hardships and family.

Afterwords was very reminiscent of Rent. A newer, less rock, version of Rent, but Rent nonetheless. It has some of that raw and truthful emotion that Rent’s composer Jonathan Larson loved to utilize in his work. As I sat down in the theater, the first song “After” came on it immediately engaged me. The use of bold harmonies straight off the bat to build the music and draw the viewer in immediately gave me goosebumps and a sense of total encompassment. Now, as we evolve as a music loving society, Broadway evolves with us—Six embraces our pop side, Hadestown our love of folk and jazz and of course Hamilton the popularity of rap. So Afterwords’ pop/rock/folk score was not new per se, but still thrilling, and surprisingly cohesive throughout the show given the differing genres.

Despite being overwhelmingly enjoyable to view, Afterwords disappointed on more than one front. After having thoughtfully contemplated the story, I felt the characters lacked development around the mental health issues they faced, and the plot had a very disheartening resolution. The musical opens with a well-delivered monologue, from a character named Jo, then progresses into the story of two young sisters, arty Simone, and Kali, the older, Grammy-nominated sister. They live in their recently deceased mother’s home together. They both struggle with grief in a realistic way—Simone tries to push it down, and Kali is deeply bitter. When Simone brings up the fact that they really need another source of income and suggests they get a roommate, Kali is extremely defensive, but eventually relents when Jo, a war reporter, shows up on their doorstep to apply to be a tenant; she recently lost someone very important too.

The 5th Avenue Theatre’s Afterwords, a new musical about three women working through an unexpectedly intertwined grief, is a bone-shaking masterpiece.

The show follows sisters Kali and Simone six months after their mom has passed, living together in their childhood home. When finances get tight, they search for a roommate. Jo, a journalist mourning the loss of her mentor, moves in, hoping the change in scenery will help her write his eulogy. The show switches from past to present—it follows Kali and Simone’s mother as she falls in love and cares for her daughters in the months leading to her death, and how Jo’s mentor shapes who she will become—to the women trying to navigate the space they left. The final twist completed the tragedy of the relationship of these five.

Fellow TeenTix Press Corps writer, Rosemary Sissel, and I were honored to interview Seattle Art Fair’s curator and artistic director, Nato Thompson. The Seattle Art Fair 2019 took place at Centurylink Field Event Center August 1-4.

You’ve attempted to create a wide array of different objects and pieces of art and magic that evokes the curiosity rooms of the 16th and 17th centuries, and reading your curatorial statement, it’s almost as if these rooms contained everything. So how is it possible to curate everything?

A tunnel of captive trees reflects itself into infinity. Pieces of wood arranged in the shape of Africa cast the shadow of a face. Another face, painted by many tiny newspaper words, loses its eye.

The Fair is a river of continual images, inviting viewers to look at, question, and interact with collections from nearly one hundred galleries from around the world—and the variety is staggering. A head is suspended upside down by steel cable. A nose is a shoe. A plunger is glass.

The boy with the warm brown eyes walked away down the sidewalk, turning back to wave before rounding the corner.

Think about that sentence. Visualize it. What did you picture? A busy city street or a suburban neighborhood? A teenager or a young child?

Whitney Mongé, an Alternative Soul artist originally from Spokane, got her start in the Seattle music scene in 2007. As a street musician, (busking in Pike Place Market), Mongé was enlightened as an artist. It was this time in Pike Place that spurred her into taking up music as her profession.

“I’m reclaiming the hell out of this space!” Rell Be Free’s shout echoed throughout the theater of the Vera Project, accented with dim blue and purple lights. A teenager with homegrown Seattle beginnings as a musician, Rell Be Free was one of the night’s featured musicians. These artists, youth who speak truth to power, prepared to make themselves heard through rap and spoken word performances at the Northwest Folklife Festival.

Through Creative Justice, youth are encouraged to share their stories using art as an alternative to completing traditional probation. Co-director Nikkita Oliver describes the program as offering opportunities to “liberate ourselves in a creative space.”

The 2019 Northwest Folklife Festival featured a new exhibit that put youth arts at the forefront. Fitting with Folklife's 2019 cultural focus of "Youth Rising," the A/NT gallery at Seattle Center featured the showcase of The Hydrant Lounge, a collective of youth arts leaders who came together to promote their work and form lasting partnerships within the art world. With an entrance facing the International Fountain, the central location of The Hydrant Lounge greatly facilitated the Lounge's popularity.

The Hydrant, the organization behind the Folklife display, is a youth-created and youth-led artistic "think tank" that seeks to promote emerging figures in the Seattle arts community. Urging young art creators of all kinds to "tap the Hydrant," the organization gives priority to young creators who, without a platform, may feel isolated in artistic fields that are often dominated by the older generations.