8 minute read
THE TO-DO LIST
BY STEPHANIE SMITTLE AND LINDSEY MILLAR
The omicron variant has yet to fade out of view, and continues to suspend artists and hospitality industry workers in a state of calendar limbo. If you’re staying in, now’s a great time to buy a gift certificate from your favorite bar (buy your future self a beer!) or order merch from your favorite local musician. If you’re going out, may we suggest that you booster up, mask up, have that vaccination card ready and tip well? Gathering safely for live performance is a work in progress; be on the lookout for cancellations, policy changes or date changes, and handle them with all the grace you can summon.
SULAC’S “THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM”
‘SULAC: NEW ARTWORK FOR THE NEW YEAR’
THROUGH SATURDAY 5/28. GALLERIES & BOOKSTORE AT LIBRARY SQUARE.
Local visual artist Sulac has managed to build an entire universe with marker, paper and colored pencil — one populated with donkeys ferrying giant eggs and cats named CATherine O’Hara and overly ambitious water towers and women wearing tiny houses as hats. To call the work whimsical is to understate its bite; Sulac’s smiling suns and heavy-lidded flowers often seem one click away from mischief, macabre deeds or flat-out existential crisis. Or maybe they’re just suns and flowers to be taken at face value? You be the judge; this show of new work is up through May at Central Arkansas Library System’s Library Square in the River Market. SS
THROUGH WEDNESDAY 3/16. UA PULASKI TECHNICAL COLLEGE. FREE.
This exhibit in the Windgate Gallery at UA Pulaski Tech’s Center for Humanities and Arts comes from the camera of Jeanine Michna-Bales, a photographer who meticulously researched and documented over 2,000 square miles of the Underground Railroad, routes traveled by an estimated 100,000 freedom-seeking enslaved people between 1830 and 1865, “guided from one secret, safe location,” the press release states, “to the next by an ever-changing, clandestine group.” SS
JEANINE MICHNA-BALES’ “WADING PIOR TO BLACKNESS”
‘SCHOOL GIRLS; OR, THE AFRICAN MEAN GIRLS PLAY’
Just before the pandemic darkened theaters across the globe, Jocelyn Bioh’s comedy about teenage girldom in Ghana was eliciting big belly laughs from audiences in packed playhouses. Now, the tale of schoolgirls clamoring to define beauty and to seek acceptance is headed to the beloved stage at the Arkansas Repertory Theatre, with Shá Cage directing and a dream team — local theater cornerstones Verda Davenport and Crystal C. Mercer — working on costuming; consulting; Mercer’s artwork adorns the lobby. Get tickets at therep.org. SS
PICASSOS
SATURDAY 3/12. THE MUSEUM OF DISCOVERY. $30. 6:30-9 P.M.
Local art aficionados know all about Pulaski Heights Elementary’s long-running biennial art auction benefit. The money from ticket sales and auction proceeds goes to support the Hillcrest elementary school (full disclosure: my kids go there), in particular the school’s garden program, annual visits to the Children’s Theatre at the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, student academic competitions and free extracurricular books for every child. Baxter Knowlton, John Kushmaul, Tonya McNair, Jennifer Perren, Sulac and Emily Wood are among the artists whose work will be on sale. The ticket price covers food and drink. LM
COURTESY OF ROADRUNNER RECORDS
SLIPKNOT
If your psychic ever gazed into her crystal ball and uttered the unthinkable — “In the 2020s, Slipknot becomes cool” — it’s time to get her on retainer. While you’re doing that, we’ll take a moment to hoist our jaws from the floor. Highly anticipated in certain metal circles, the nine masked Midwestern dark lords of nu metal are about to release a follow-up to 2019’s “We Are Not Your Kind,” foreshadowed with the single “The Chapeltown Rag,” which frontman Corey Taylor described as “a punisher,” saying “it documents what happens when the distortions of mass media circulate within the echo chambers of social media.” (The dystopia thing works even better now than it did in 1999, right?) They appear in North Little Rock with openers In This Moment and Jinjer. Get tickets at simmonsbankarena.com. SS
BEYOND THE EATS: ALTON BROWN LIVE
WEDNESDAY 3/30. ROBINSON CENTER. 7 P.M.
If, like me, you learned from Alton Brown how to make beef jerky with a box fan and some air filters, or about the virtues of marinating red potatoes in a little vinegar before using them in a potato salad recipe, you’re the target audience for this Alton expansion pack, a live variety show that features, Brown’s website trumpets, “audience interaction, maybe a gameshow segment, strange devices, and other generally foodie stuff.” Get tickets at celebrityattractions.com. SS
DAVID ALLEN
HOT SPRINGS INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S FILM FESTIVAL
SATURDAY 3/12-SUNDAY 3/13. CENTRAL THEATRE, 1008 CENTRAL AVE., DOWNTOWN HOT SPRINGS. $10-$50.
Organized by Women in Film Arkansas, this two-day film festival in Hot Springs features a variety of films from directors who are women, including this year a dual portrayal of Cleopatra and Mary Wollstonecraft (Berite Labelle’s short, “Time Is Eternal”); journalist Dina Amer’s directorial debut drama (“You Resemble Me”); Susan Kucera’s expose on money and climate change, produced by Jeff Bridges (“Hot Money”); and Melissa Jo Peltier’s “The Game Is Up: Disillusioned Trump Voters Tell Their Stories.” With the embarrassment of film riches Arkansans get from bigger events like the Bentonville Film Festival, Arkansas Cinema Society’s Filmland and the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, it’s a delight that smaller fests like this are still going, and still finding compelling work to put up on the big screen. Follow the festival at facebook.com/HSWFF for updates, and find tickets at hotspringswomensfilmfestival.com. SS
ADIA VICTORIA
FRIDAY 3/18. WHITE WATER TAVERN. 9 P.M. $18-$20.
South Carolina native Adia Victoria has been calling white Southern nostalgia on its bullshit for years now, but 2020’s “South Gotta Change” distilled those ideas into a 4-minute manifesto: “The veil before your face is falling, and it’s falling fast/I won’t go blindly in the night/I would drag you to the light.” Her latest, “A Southern Gothic,” channels her unblinking ethos and wickedly smart sensibilities into her own humid, menacing brand of blues, on full display in the video for “Magnolia Blues,” which Victoria filmed at Little Rock’s White Water Tavern with Joshua Asante as producer (and with cameos from a bunch of Little Rock locals). When we spoke to Victoria in 2017, she pointed out that she’d grown up only “about a 20-minute drive away” from Nina Simone’s home of Tryon, North Carolina, and in the interim years it’s been stirring to watch Victoria disrupt the music industry’s expectations in sorta the same way as did Simone. Get tickets at whitewatertavern.com. SS
JOSEPH ROSS SMITH
YOLA
TUESDAY 3/22. THE HALL. 8 P.M. $25-$50.
Meet Yolanda Quartey, better known mononymously as Yola — native of Bristol, England, and current vocal powerhouse of Nashville, Tennessee. If you’ve missed her 2019 track “Ride Out in the Country” on SiriusXM radio, give it a spin and catch her later this year when Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis biopic drops, with Yola in the role of Cotton Plant (Woodruff County) native and rock godmother Sister Rosetta Tharpe. After Yola performed at the Newport Folk Festival in 2019, word of her live performance spread like wildfire, and you’re likely to discover exactly why at this Little Rock stop on her 2022 tour. Get tickets at littlerockhall.com. SS
WEDNESDAY 3/2. REYNOLDS PERFORMANCE HALL, CONWAY. 7:30 P.M.
Combining music by Toshi Reagon, spoken word, and video projection, Donnetta Lavinia Grays and Tamilla Woodard’s stage play “Warriors Don’t Cry” positions Little Rock Nine member Melba Pattillo Beals in conversation with a contemporary young activist, grappling with themes of social justice, responsibility and social media’s power and pitfalls. The play is followed by a performance from Writeous Poets, a spoken word collective from Central High School founded by 2019 Arkansas Teacher of the Year Stacey James McAdoo. Get tickets at uca.edu/ publicappearances. SS
ARKANSAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA: TRIBUTE TO THE QUEEN OF SOUL, ARETHA FRANKLIN
SATURDAY 3/12-SUNDAY 3/13. ROBINSON CENTER. 7:30 P.M. SAT., 3 P.M. SUN.
Brooklyn-born singer and actor Capathia Jenkins was the powerhouse behind “Caroline, or Change” on Broadway, and she’s landing in Arkansas in March for an Aretha Franklin tribute, joined by the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra and by Grammy-nominated soul musician Ryan Shaw. On the program are Aretha’s cornerstones “Respect,” “Think,” “A Natural Woman,” “Chain of Fools,” “Amazing Grace” and more. Get tickets at arkansassymphony.org. SS
ERIC CHURCH
With a legion of fans that refers to itself devoutly as “the Church Choir,” CMA’s 2020 Entertainer of the Year Eric Church was one of the first country superstars to return to touring during the pandemic, accompanied by, he told CMT last year, an all-vaxxed stage crew and COVID-sniffing dogs Church swears are more accurate than rapid tests. Sporting aviators and spreading the gospel of cannabis with tunes like “Smoke a Little Smoke,” Church’s swagger is part and parcel of his stage appeal, crafted over the course of nearly 20 years in Nashville and on the road. Here, for the “Gather Again” tour, Church will perform in-the-round from the center of the arena, surrounded by choir members undoubtedly crooning in unison: “Dig down deep/ Find my stash/Light it up/Take me back!” Get tickets at simmonsbankarena.com. SS
FAMILY FUNERAL HOMES
