Nights: A new Downtown home for Crykit’s Playhouse

PLAYING HOUSE

DJ Crykit’s Playhouse makes its long-awaited Downtown return

BY AMBER SAMPSON

Eclectic doesn’t even begin to describe Vegas scenester Michelle Kolnik, better known as DJ Crykit.

“I’ve been a raver, a b-girl, a sneaker and vinyl toy collector, an avid art show attender, a vintage clothing reseller, a full-time DJ,” she says, and for the past three years, she’s been the curator for Crykit’s Playhouse, a “nightlife experience that’s a melting pot of all the cultural scenes I’ve been a part of throughout my life.”

Kolnik’s open-format DJ style has landed her gigs opening for everyone from Bruno Mars and Duran Duran to Anderson .Paak and Tove Lo. But before she became DJ Crykit, Kolnik grew up in Wisconsin and relocated in the early 2000s to San Francisco, where she discovered a passion for art, style and sound.

She locked into the Vegas scene with DJ gigs at the former Insert Coin(s) Downtown and then at Fremont East favorite Commonwealth, where Crykit’s Playhouse first debuted. The concept started as an online shop for vintage clothing and evolved into one of Downtown’s favorite parties—a place to listen to premier DJs, interact with art installations and, most importantly, experience fashion on an urban runway.

“[It’s about people] feeling that they’ve been able to put time and thought into their outfit, how they’re showing up, seeing how others are dressed and being inspired,” Kolnik says. “My favorite takeaway I hear … is that they were able to connect with someone they’re creatively inspired by. I hear all the time they’ve met their new best friend or they’re now working on a shoot together for a creative project. I love having the platform to bring creative people together and feel something electric.”

The pandemic stalled Crykit’s Playhouse for a year, but the event returned in August at a new location, Fergusons Downtown, in conjunction with the DTLV Field Trip series.

Vintage collectors, stylists and artists came out in full force. Kolnik dressed the part, wearing overalls with rare Kubrick toys sewn into a clear pouch by designer Wavymonii, felt flowers added by Velveteen Rabbit bar owner Pamela Dylag and custom nail designs by Arielle Moses.

The switch to Fergusons allows Kolnik to put fashion on full display, she says. “It’s an adult playground. I love having access to a stage, to lighting, to

CRYKIT’S PLAYHOUSE

October 15, 8 p.m., free (through online guest list). Fergusons Downtown, bit.ly/3ArkdDY.

Lío Ibiza (Courtesy Pacha Group)

NIGHTS

DJ Crykit (Courtesy Mason Quick)

the different layers and levels that community space holds,” she explains.

It also allows a shift to an 18-and-over format. The next party on October 15 will showcase local curator AXGQZ, who will style a fashion show with pieces from his ’90s-inspired Y2K collection. LA-based DJ Falcons will headline with support from Ralph Cinema, A.C. Esme and JDHD, and Kolnik will play a set while salon artists from the Noise Project and stylist Ira Pope Sage handle live haircuts onstage.

Next up, the Playhouse will become a quarterly event, giving Kolnik time to “really execute and create more of a festival feel,” she says.

Bringing Ibiza to Bellagio

Dancer and actress Ariadna Hafez has been performing at the Lío Ibiza restaurant and cabaret for seven years, so she knows better than anyone how this unique entertainment experience affects its guests.

“The moment you go inside, a lot of things are happening that bring out different feelings,” she says. “You arrive shy and calm, not knowing what to expect. And then we warm you up, chat with you, make you feel at home, make you feel like you’re part of the show. Soon you start singing and dancing with us. The night is getting warmer while you’re eating and watching acrobats, singers, dancers, comedy.

“It’s dramatic and erotic, a bit of everything,” she continues, “and at the end of the night you’ll have a lot of different emotions. A lot of people say it’s one of the best nights of their life.”

Plenty of travelers spend time in Las Vegas and Ibiza, particularly club hoppers and dance music aficionados. The Ibiza party scene has influenced Strip nightlife for years, but it has never really been transplanted in Las Vegas— until now, when Lío takes over Bellagio’s lavish Mayfair Supper Club for two weeks starting on October 18. It isn’t just a different show. Mayfair’s menu will be switched over as well, adding Spanish flair to complement the interactive performances running late into the night. “Lío is indescribable, in a way. It’s a mélange of all kinds of things,” says Pacha Group CEO Nick McCabe, who served as longtime

LÍO IBIZA Las Vegas nightlife exec before his

AT MAYFAIR current Ibiza gig. “It’s such a creative SUPPER CLUB experience … and it just builds and October 18-31, builds throughout the night.” themayfairlv. com/lio. Since Mayfair opened in 2019, the Strip has added innovative supper club experiences with Delilah at Wynn and Superfrico at the Cosmopolitan. The Lío partnership advances the Vegas trend in a natural way. “We know how to connect with the audience. It doesn’t matter where we are,” Hafez says. “In Ibiza you have incredible views and the beach and the place is just insane, but Mayfair is an incredible restaurant with the fountains of Bellagio in front. People will have the same feeling and experience, for sure.” –Brock Radke

VOICED VISUALS

ART

The Barrick Museum’s ‘I Am Here’ lets the artists speak for themselves

BY C. MOON REED PHOTOS BY CHRISTOPHER DEVARGAS

The new exhibition in the East Gallery of UNLV’s Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art is vastly different from nearly every other art exhibit you’ve seen.

Walking into I Am Here, it might at first be difficult to spot what makes it unique. As with many shows, the room is filled with art and sculpture by a variety of talented national and Las Vegas-based artists. But look closely at the little signs accompanying each piece, and you’ll see something unusual. Rather than the standard write-up—generally a description of the work written by a gallerist or curator—the art in I Am Here features the artists’ own words.

For example, Chase R. McCurdy’s black and white photograph of a sparkler, an American flag and a block tower (“Don’t Say I Didn’t WARN You…,” 2018) could be a patriotic still life. But the image is transformed by his words: “It’s a reflection in the work of my contending with the everyday realities of this world. So, there are those … times when it feels as though things are about to come down.” Rather than Fourth of July celebrations, the sparkler could represent an implosion of the American Dream.

The artists’ quotes enhance the show’s stated goal: “Taking its cues from a textbased artwork by the visual storyteller Ashley Hairston Doughty, I Am Here invites us to think about what it means to use art as a vehicle for personal narratives,” the show’s description reads. “What stories do artists choose to tell about themselves, and who is invited to talk?”

How better to know what artists would say than to share their own words? The idea is so obviously perfect, it’s a wonder it’s not common practice.

The series of cartoonish face prints by visual and performing artist Heidi Rider are a delightful and discomfiting example of art as personal memoir. Rider “started working on [her] face” after catching COVID and becoming too weak to draw standing up. Instead, she would don clown makeup, do a photo shoot in character and then press her made-up face into a handkerchief, preserving it as a sort of clown death-mask.

She writes, “This is an emotion-based practice that allows me to process whatever I’m feeling. In a creative way. And then wash it off. And send it down the drain.” The titles of her faces reveal a radical vulnerability: “Tell me I’m pretty,” “U used 2 want me,” “F*ck this sh*t,” and “2020.”

As for who has been invited to talk, the team at the Barrick Museum, led by Executive Director Alisha Kerlin, put together a list of vital artists, whose work is either on loan or in the museum’s permanent collection. They include Catherine Angel, Tomoko Daido, Claudia DeMonte, Justin Favela, Carla Jay Harris, Brent Holmes, Krystal Ramirez, Lance L. Smith, Dr. Brenda E. Stevenson and Mikayla Whitmore.

The installation by the late, great Cuban-born American artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres is a show highlight. The 1991 work “Untitled (L.A.)” consists of 50 pounds of wrapped green candies piled on the floor. The weight of the candy represents how much Gonzalez-Torres’ partner weighed at the time, as he was dying of AIDS.

Taken from a 1993 interview, Felix-Torres’ quote reads: “Above all else, it is about leaving a mark that I existed: I was here. I was hungry. I was defeated. I was happy. I was sad. I was in love. I was afraid. I was hopeful. I had an idea and I had a good purpose and that’s why I made works of art.”

On the other end of the spectrum is Jay Sarno. The late creator of Caesars Palace and Circus Circus is not known to be an artist, but his concrete “Sarno Block” says otherwise. The playful mid-mod architectural piece was used in his iconic Las Vegas building facades. Sarno’s quote is hilariously self-aware: “In your opinion, do I look like any designer you ever met? I would rather hang up by my thumbs!”

Work by Claudia DeMonte

I AM HERE

Through January 22; Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; free. UNLV’s Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art, 702-895-3011.