November 7, 2019
ArtsUW Roundup: Olmstead in Seattle, the Music of Somalia’s Disco Era, Artist Talk with Kameelah Janan Rasheed, and more
This week in the arts, see a mind-blowing troupe of wildly creative and physically daring dancers at Meany Center, learn about Somali funk, disco, soul and reggae of the 1970s and 80s, and more!
Olmstead in Seattle
November 12, 7 pm | Center for Urban Horticulture
Seattle has one of the most extensively developed Olmsted park systems in the United States, yet the story of how it came into existence has never been fully explored or described – until now, that is.
Olmsted in Seattle: Creating a Park System for a Modern City, by Jennifer Ott, traces the story of how, in the midst of galloping growth at the turn of the twentieth century, Seattle’s city leaders seized on the confluence of a roaring economy with the City Beautiful movement to hire the Olmsted Brothers landscape architecture firm. Their 1903 plan led to a supplemental plan, a playground plan, numerous park and boulevard designs, changes to park system management, and a ripple effect for the firm, as the Olmsted Brothers were subsequently hired to design public and private landscapes throughout the region.
Free with a suggested donation of $5 | More Info
Pilobolus: Come to Your Senses
November 14 – 16 | Meany Center
This “mind-blowing troupe of wildly creative and physically daring dancers” (NY Newsday) tests the limits of human physicality. Performing for 300,000+ people each year, Pilobolus has been honored with a TED Fellowship, a Grammy nomination, a Primetime Emmy Award and several Cannes Lion Awards. In their new show, Come to Your Senses, the company unravels the mystery of the origin of life, explores the beauty and strength of human connection, and celebrates our orientation in the biosphere.
Tickets are $61 | More Info
$10 tickets for UW students when you show your Husky ID in advance at the ArtsUW Ticket Office or on the night of the show at the Box Office at Meany Hall.
Funky Mogadishu: The Music of Somalia’s Disco Era
November 15, 2:30 pm – 4 pm | Denny 221
In the 1970s and 1980s, Mogadishu’s airwaves were filled with Somali funk, disco, soul and reggae. Musicians rocking afros and bell-bottom trousers performed at the city’s trendiest nightclubs. But this era of creative fusion was short-lived. With the outbreak of war in the late 1980s, musicians fled to all corners of the world, and Somalia’s vibrant music scene fell apart. This presentation will explore the music and style of Somalia’s most popular bands during this era and the impact of their music elsewhere in East Africa and beyond.
Simon Okelo is the founder and executive director of One Vibe Africa, a non-profit which promotes African culture in the Pacific Northwest and runs arts and music education programs through its center in Kisumu, Kenya’s third largest city. Raised in the slums of Manyatta in Kisumu, Simon first encountered Somali music and musicians while working as a DJ and political activist in Kenya.
Artist Talk w/ Kameelah Janan Rasheed
November 15, 6 – 7 pm | Jacob Lawrence Gallery
The Black Embodiments Studio is bringing in Kameelah Janan Rasheed to give a talk about her practice. Rasheed is a Brooklyn-based learner from East Palo Alto, CA. In her work, she inquiries about the deeply intertwined spiritual, socio-political, ecological, and cognitive processes of learning/unlearning. She is interested in how proclamations of certainty, containment, and coherence assert themselves through language, institutional structures, and architecture.
Free | More info
Three Sisters
November 16 – December 8 | Glenn Hughes Penthouse Theatre
In a room in a house in a provincial town, three sisters, Olga, Masha, and Irina, wait for their lives to begin. This is the deceptively simple premise of Chekhov’s tragicomic masterpiece, Three Sisters. UW Drama faculty member Jeffrey Fracé, an expert in devised performance who spent 10 years as an Associate Artist of Anne Bogart’s SITI company, brings us a spare reimagining of this sublime study of human longing.
Tickets are $5 – $20 | More info
MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora
November 16, 2:00 pm | Frye Museum, Auditorium
As a part of the Seattle presentation of MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora taking place across three institutions—Frye Art Museum, Jacob Lawrence Gallery, and Photographic Center Northwest—co-authors Laylah Amatullah Barrayn and Adama Delphine Fawundu will be joined by artist Berette Macaulay and photography specialist Michelle Dunn Marsh in a discussion about the global trajectories of the MFON project, and the works and practice of contemporary African diasporic women photographers.
Free | More Info
