TeenTix Blog

Content Warning: This review contains description of murder and animal violence. Not recommended for younger readers.

2010. A video appears on Youtube titled “1 boy 2 kittens.” In the video, a man in a blue jacket, the hood obscuring his face, places two kittens on the ugliest wolf blanket you ever did see. He pets them briefly, before placing them in a vacuum bag. He attaches the vacuum to the bag. He turns the vacuum on. The internet loses its mind. After all, as internet sleuth Baudi Moovan said herself, “There’s one unwritten rule on the internet. Don’t f**k with cats.” The Netflix documentary, aptly named Don’t F**k With Cats, covers the story of the kitten killer and the scramble to catch him before he makes the leap from killing cats to killing humans.

Barb Hoffman just wanted to draw on clouds. Now, her film, What We See in the Clouds, is up for a jury nomination at NFFTY, the largest youth film festival in the world. This week, I had the privilege to speak with her (virtually) as well as the young artistes behind God is a Lobster, another film debuting at the festival, to discuss their experience making films safely in the age of COVID-19. Let’s see what they’ve been up to:

In Hoffman’s What We See in the Clouds, she has her friends describe what they see in various pictures of—you guessed it—clouds. Then, Hoffman expresses the descriptions visually by drawing on top of the images, blurring the line between reality and imagination. Essentially, she crafted a cloud-centric Rorschach Test and conveyed her results through mixed-media animation. She chose this technique because “telling stories with actual imagery that we’re used to, plus images on top of it gives [the film] a sense of magical realism that I’m very intrigued in seeing.”

Built in 1962 for the Seattle World’s Fair, the Pacific Science Center’s Laser Dome—or the Spacearium, as it was known at the time—is the world's oldest operating laser dome. Standing at 105 feet long and 100 feet wide, it is also the world’s largest. Its recent upgrade to a new laser system with nine Rainbow FX laser projectors, which helps create a more vivid and full experience, also makes it the Laser Dome with the greatest number of permanently installed full-color lasers in America.

The Laser Dome’s mesmerizing laser shows are created by the beams of photons shot out by specially made laser diodes. Prior to the laser upgrade, the PacSci had used gas lasers, which produced beams of bright light with carbon dioxide and compounds of noble gases that were regulated by electrical currents. However, the PacSci’s current lasers operate in a manner similar to that of an LED light, but at a far higher intensity. The Pacific Science Center’s Laser Dome, photo courtesy of Pacific Science Center.

We are thrilled to announce our very first podcast, the TeenTix Arts Podcast! A team of three Press Corps teens have been hard at work for months, (both pre and post-COVID!) to bring you this three-episode series. Stay tuned to hear "What's on TAP" as Ava, Huma, and Katherine go behind the scenes with TeenTix Partner Mirror Stage about their production, Expand Upon: Gun Control. You’ll hear from the Mirror Stage playwrights, actors, and director as we release one episode every Thursday, for the next three weeks. The podcast will be available to stream for free on TeenTix's Soundcloud and YouTube channels. Be sure to follow us on both platforms for the latest updates!

To find out more about Mirror Stage check out their website or listen to their podcast, and be sure to make your calendars for Expand Upon: Gun Control, October 3-4, and 10-11, on Zoom! Episode 1:

TeenTix is proud to announce the 2020/2021 Teen Editorial Staff. This year's Teen Editorial Staff (TEDS) is comprised of six teens: Anya Shukla, Eleanor Cenname, Lily Williamson, Lucia McLaren, Mila Borowski, and Triona Suiter. The TEDS are the leaders of the TeenTix Newsroom, and work to curate reviews and arts coverage for the TeenTix blog. Teen Editorial Staff members decide which TeenTix Arts Partners' events to cover each month, write an editorial about their curatorial choices, and assign Newsroom writers to review each event. TEDS members interface with TeenTix Arts Partners to set up press tickets for each review, and edit all Newsroom writing before it is published on the TeenTix blog. The Teen Editorial Staff is a group of skilled writers, editors, and leaders, who keep the pulse of the TeenTix Press Corps and the Seattle arts scene.

Statement from this year's Teen Editorial Staff: “The goal of the Teen Editorial Staff is to promote our local Arts Partners while amplifying the perspectives of the next generation of arts patrons. The TeenTix Newsroom fosters arts journalism by teens, for teens. We are dedicated to elevating youth voices and encouraging them to think critically about the arts and media they consume.” About the Teen Editors Anya Shukla

Anya (she/her) is a 12th grader at Lakeside School, where she sings acapella and writes for the newspaper. She joined TEDS to support teens interested in arts criticism and find others who love writing just as much as she does. Beyond the Newsroom, Anya also serves on the TeenTix New Guard and is the co-founder of The Colorization Collective, an organization that supports teens artists of color. Eleanor Cenname

This is a strange time for the arts world. Art is a community effort, a group-bonding experience… yet right now, we’re all watching these pieces in separate locations, isolated and alone. We hope our reviews provide the connective tissue between your viewing experiences and someone else’s—a chance for you to reflect on artwork alongside our writers. If nothing else, we’ll offer you arts recommendations to brighten your socially distant September.

If you want to get dressed up, grab some snacks, and make the most of your at-home viewing with pieces that would have been shown physically in any other year, then sit down to watch Pacific Science Center’s online footage of Laser Dome 360, Whim Whim’s XALT, or NFFTY 2020. Extra points if you bring $5 and your TeenTix pass!

This year's Teen Editorial Staff spent an evening watching the film Clueless, and brushing up on their review writing as they prepared for the launch of the 2020/2021 TeenTix Newsroom. Read on to hear what today's teens think of the '90's teen classic! ANYA

One could argue that the film’s haphazard plot structure serves to emulate Cher’s ditziness. Unfortunately, her character also confuses me. Near the beginning of the movie, Cher holds up a test to a picture of her mother, who died during a routine liposuction, and cheerfully says, “98 in geometry; pretty groovy, huh?” Cher is smart enough to get 98% of her answers correct… and she uses words like “impotent” and “capricious” in her everyday speech. But, at the same time, her logic leaves much to be desired in her other classes; she thinks her El Salvadorian housekeeper speaks Mexican. There’s a distinct disconnect here that is left unexplained. How can Cher be a brainiac but at the same time be so utterly clueless? How can she be logical enough to write proofs in geometry, but fail to structure a coherent argument in debate??

This year, TeenTix is offering an opportunity for teen artists to present their work in a virtual showcase at the Teeny Awards Ceremony on October 10 and 11. This is an incredible opportunity for teen musicians, dancers, visual artists, creative writers, and more to take the stage and perform for their peers and TeenTix Partner organizations.

In addition to featuring teen artists’ work at the Teeny Awards, TeenTix will showcase their art online after the event. Applications are due by Sunday, September 13. Apply here! Email [email protected] for more information.This project was supported, in part, by an award from 4Culture.

Join us for a series of FREE online TeenTix workshops exploring how art is a powerful tool for activism and the fight for racial justice. Each Summer Session will focus on a different genre of art including theater, dance, and performance art. You’ll learn about the history of social justice movements and how art has played a role in both the past and present movements.

Use the links below to sign up for individual workshops, or all three! Theater as Protest with Jasmine Mahmoud

Pointed, sarcastic, political, trans, Left at London, the stage name of musician and comedian Nat Puff, is a leftover gem of the Tumblr generation, what happens when the formerly silenced of us get a platform and a little bravery. With little effort, she’s remained stuck in my head ever since I heard the fated words, “nobody asked for this and nobody wants this, but here’s 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' in a major key!” At the risk of sounding too much like a “kids these days be on the internet” kind of statement maker, Left at London, her music mixed with her brazenly political Twitter and effortlessly hilarious Tik Tok, has formed the perfect storm of persona.

Left at London’s KEXP concert represents a small and tender piece of the puzzle of her as a performer. Channeling the legacy of punk girls with sparse and biting lyric the likes of Le Tigre or Sleater-Kinney, Left at London is a force armed with a laptop and a guitarist. Dressed in a painted jumpsuit and glitter, Left at London is a reminder of all Seattle punk should be: loud, a little messy, political, and mostly, unapologetic.

Are you interested in creating art under the guidance of a professional mentor? Would you like to showcase your work at a local, teen-led arts event? This is the opportunity for you!

TeenTix is excited to announce its collaboration with The Colorization Collective, a teen-led organization which promote diversity in the arts, to present a Summer Arts Mentorship opportunity as part of this year’s Teeny Awards. Teen artists of color are invited to apply to the Summer Arts Mentorship to have the opportunity to workshop or create a new work with the guidance of a professional artist/mentor of color. Teens will work within a cohort of peers and receive individual feedback and guidance from their mentors over a five week period. Their artwork will then be showcased at the Teeny Awards on October 10-11, 2020. This is a great way for teens to better their craft, build connections in the arts community, and present their art! Applications are open now: APPLY HERE!

My experience with jazz, or any music where vocals take a backseat to instrumentals, is extremely limited. Before attending this event, my exposure to jazz had mainly consisted of the soundtrack to La La Land and the songs played by my school’s jazz band between long orchestral performances. While my newness to the genre did not lessen my appreciation for the Duende Libre Trio’s performance, none of my previous experiences were able to aptly prepare me for such a musical journey.

Presented by Earshot Jazz and Town Hall Seattle, Earshot listed Duende’s inspiration as including “Afro-Cuban Jazz to Brazilian Samba.” The result was a creative and authentic concert that was exciting to behold. This jazz band truly explored the vastness of the many cultures they draw from through their own melodies, and produced a work that displayed their creative talent. Unfortunately, the health concerns that we are all too familiar with resulted in this concert being performed in a livestream format, affectionately referred to as a “digital stage.”

Historically, art has been used to interpret surroundings, and reflect those surroundings back to us in an encouraging, enlightening, or thought provoking way. This type of art allows for introspection, discussion, and a sense of resonance. A more immediate type of art, without a topical focus, can simply please the aesthetic part of our minds, distracting from the gloom of our surroundings and ourselves. A chance encounter with art, in these distressing and occasionally dull times, can add a small pocket of reflection or joy to one’s day.

In this period of pandemic and glaring inequity, creativity has flourished in many corners. When businesses were forced to close to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and board up their windows to protect their vacant properties, Seattle-area visual artists saw these expanses of plywood as an opportunity to create community-centered public art..

Behold the wonder of art this Summer with the following classes, workshops, and opportunities from TeenTix's Arts & Community Partners, as well as other members of the local arts community! The Residency 2020 Summer Workshop Series

This Summer Workshop Series is a FREE, one-week intensive summer music program where young people will have the opportunity to make music and learn about the music business while centering social justice issues. Participants will receive a $300 stipend, a certificate of completion signed by Macklemore and the teaching artists, and access for other year round opportunities as members of the 2020 Class.

The world of Tangerine starts in a donut shop. It’s Christmas Eve in L.A., and Sin-Dee Rella has just been released from a month in prison, only to discover her boyfriend, Chester, has been cheating on her in the short time she’s been gone. Sin-Dee and her best friend, Alexandra, set off on a vibrant and emotional journey through West Hollywood, looking for revenge on Chester and his side piece—if they can find them.

Directed by Sean Baker (most recently known for The Florida Project), Tangerine is a hilarious and emotionally resonant buddy comedy about the lives of two Black transgender sex workers. Famously filmed on an iPhone 5S, the film creates a beautiful, saturated world populated by an authentic and talented cast, including first-time actors Kitana Kiki Rodriguez and Mya Taylor as Sin-Dee and Alexandra. Both Rodriguez and Taylor contributed hugely to the story and tone of Tangerine, informing the film with their experiences as Black trans women and their knowledge of L.A.’s sex work community. Tangerine’s main plot is inspired by a conversation overheard by Rodriguez about a trans woman whose boyfriend cheated on her with a cisgender woman, or a “fish”, while she was in prison. During the movie’s development, Rodriguez made a particular request of Baker: to “show the harsh reality of what goes on out here… I want you to make it hilarious and entertaining for us and the women who are actually working the corner.” Baker credited Rodriguez for changing his original vision of a bleak drama into something “that would present these characters to mainstream audiences in a pop culture way, so that they could identify with them.” Mickey O’Hagan and Kitana Kiki Rodriguez in Tangerine, a Magnolia Pictures release. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

Climate change is scary. There’s no way to mince words with this one. We’re constantly being bludgeoned with articles and news headlines and cynical documentaries about how the end is nigh. It’s overwhelming—but there’s still hope.

Award winning Australian filmmaker Damon Gameau shares his hope with us in the optimistic, but not unrealistic documentary 2040. It’s rare to find climate-focused films that aren’t completely devoid of hope, but those that do often propose hypothetical solutions that would cost billions of dollars and require outlandish inventions. What sets 2040 apart from the myriad of other doomsday documentaries is that Gameau’s proposed solutions are ideas and inventions that already exist in the world today. No false promises or far fetched ideas. He calls it “fact-based dreaming.”

This is a time of wonderful and long-awaited change. First, quarantine unceremoniously uprooted our traditional forms of creative expression, cracking open the sidewalks of artistic freedom to uncover inventive new ways of creating and sharing art amidst the concrete and gravel.

Now, the Black Lives Matter movement is tearing down institutional oppression, making room for an even bigger and more inclusive garden, and watering all new shoots with the promises of freedom and equality.

You might’ve heard the name Min Jin Lee most recently from the enthusiasm surrounding her novel Pachinko, finalist for the National Book Award. Yet the title “writer” doesn’t quite capture the extent of her talent. Her hour-long Seattle Arts and Lectures talk on June 15, demonstrated that she is also an eloquent speaker, a vocal activist, a loving teacher, a passionate feminist, a proud Korean-American, and the brilliant author of Free Food For Millionaires, various short stories, and essays. Lee says that what interests her more than being a writer is having something meaningful to say, which explains the many roles that she takes on.

At the start of the virtual event, Seattle Youth Poet Laureate Bitanya Giday read her poem “Hyphenated Identity Crisis”. The poem echoes the intersectional identity struggles dealt with in Lee’s writing and in her own life. Lee spent the first half of her talk acknowledging the current civil unrest and pandemic in America. She also recounted her journey, as a Korean-American woman from working-class roots, that led her to the success she has today. In the second half of the talk, Lee entered a Q&A session with E.J. Koh, a fellow Korean-American writer and author of The Magical Language of Others and poetry collection A Lesser Love.

As we adjust to these unprecedented times, quarantine can feel very isolating. Especially for art lovers and museum enthusiasts, exploring museum-quality art has been a big challenge given that most galleries are inaccessible. Thankfully, Tacoma Art Museum (TAM) has created a public website where their collections and exhibitions can be viewed digitally. Although the physical museum setting is absent, their website is an opportunity to continue to connect with art while being physically disconnected. As someone who is not tech-savvy, TAM’s website’s clear tabs and simple design made navigation effortless. The tabs were organized into different categories which made my exploration more focused. TAM’s high quality pictures of art and detailed descriptions gave me a mock museum experience through my computer. While I could talk extensively about all the resources they offer on their page, I found “TAM at Home” and the “TAM Blog” the most interesting. Both pages included an abundance of information about ways you can get involved with art while staying at home.

To start, the “TAM at Home” page gives you access to fun art projects anyone can make. The art projects were very simple and required minimal materials which made me feel motivated to create a piece of my own. There was also a specific hashtag for social media which would give anyone an opportunity to be featured on the Tacoma Art Museum Instagram. I thought that this was a really cool idea, as it gives viewers incentive to engage in their own creativity and share their product with a community as well. In addition, I could also view videos of other artists sharing their processes of creating art, which was inspiring, while I perused the fun project ideas. Overall, I thought this page provided realistic, child friendly, and yet fun art projects which could be very useful if you find yourself bored during quarantine.

To give people at home the opportunity to enjoy live music while maintaining social distancing, the Kirkland Performance Center brings us KPC at Home, a series of videos showing past live performances at KPC. While I enjoyed watching these throwback performances from the comfort of my own home, the two videos I watched inspired me to go see live music once quarantine ends.

The band Long Live Rock’s performance of Aerosmith’s “Dream On” exceeded my expectations. Each band member contributed to the performance and made the concert sound like a record. For example, the guitarist played difficult riffs throughout the song with ease, and the vocalist sang confidently and skillfully throughout the entirety of the extremely vocally challenging song. My favorite part was the falsetto at the climax of the performance, where the lead vocalist’s voice filled with passion as he put his full effort into the most difficult part of the piece. The band definitely had technical skills strong enough to play “Dream On” accurately, but they also had good stage presence, especially the vocalist, who engaged the audience by walking to the very front of the stage and moving his arms with the rhythm.