INDY Week 12.02.15 by Indy Week

raleighâ&#x20AC;˘cary

12|2|15 Last year, Sofia and 57,000 other undocumented minors made the dangerous trek from violence-ravaged areas in Central America to the U.S. More than 2,000 settled in North Carolina.

Would You Send Her Back? by Billy Ball, p. 12

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DECEMBER 2, 2015

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“WHAT A GREAT IDEA TO ENCOURAGE LOCAL GIVING! I was referred here by one of my ‘regular’ charities, and when I got here I found two other organizations I wanted to make donations to. Thanks for putting this website together.”

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2015

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DURHAM

INSIDE 7

TRIANGULATOR: In which we very

NEWS: New political magazine Scalawag aims to tell the South’s untold stories CITIZEN: How to save Wake schools from

the scourge of resegregation

WHERE WE’LL BE: The best arts and

culture events of the week

sincerely welcome The Donald to Raleigh 41

MUSIC CALENDAR

ARTS CALENDAR

FILM CALENDAR

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DECEMBER 2, 2015

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The invisibles

By Billy Ball 17

Chowder rules At Saltbox, Ricky Moore wants to change chowder expectations By Alex Boerner

FOOD: A bartender’s succesful, solitary quest to start the state’s first bitters company

So many soliloquies Triangle theater companies are too insular. Here’s how they can fix it.

MUSIC: Goner’s brilliant new digital turn

By Devra Thomas

PERFORMANCE PREVIEW: Isabella

Rossellini’s Green Porno at the Carolina 36

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Last year, 57,000 Central American minors sought refuge in the U.S. Should we send them back?

as GNØER 35

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F E AT U R E S

A R T S , C U LT U R E , F O O D & M U S I C 18

CHAPEL HILL

VOLUME 32 NUMBER 48

CALENDARS & EVENTS

NEWS & COLUMNS

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R.I.P. Whatever Brains and Daddy Issues; we enjoyed your exists.

THEATER: Burning Coal Theatre Company

has championed Middle Eastern artists. So why did its director deride them on Facebook?

Last splash

The INDY’s Act Now and Food/Farmers Markets calendars can be found at indyweek.com.

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COMING UP NEXT

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DECEMBER 2, 2015

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Raleigh Cary Durham Chapel Hill A ZM INDY, INC. COMPANY PUBLISHER Susan Harper

JAN

FEB

SAT 16

Compagnie Marie Chouinard

FRI 22

Melissa Aldana, saxophone with Pablo Menares and Allan Mednard

FRI 5

Jason Moran & The Bandwagon

Throw Me on the Burnpile and 18 & 19 Light Me Up –Lucy Alibar

THU & FRI SAT 20

TUE & WED

The Count Basie Orchestra with Diane Schuur and New York Voices Alvin Ailey American

23 & 24 Dance Theater THU 25

MAR

DEC

5/6

APR

THE NUTCRACKER CAROLINA BALLET

The Knights with Gil Shaham, violin

FRI 4

Fred Hersch and Julian Lage

TUE 22

The Ghost Of Montpellier Meets the Samurai – Trajal Harrell

TUE 29

An Evening with Garrison Keillor

THU 7

Leif Ove Andsnes, piano Christian Tetzlaff, violin Tabea Zimmermann, viola Clemens Hagen, cello The Brahms Piano Quartets

SAT 9

Gabriel Kahane and Timo Andres

WED 13

FRI & SAT

Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra with Mariss Jansons, chief conductor and Leonidas Kavakos, violin Lil Buck @ Chapel Hill

15 & 16 A Jookin’ Jam Session SUN 17

WED 20

FRI & SAT

Abigail Washburn and Friends Les Arts Florissants with William Christie, harpsichord And director Martha Graham

22 & 23 Dance Company

WED & THU

La Verità

27 & 28 Compagnia Finzi Pasca

EDITORIAL

EDITOR IN CHIEF Jeffrey C. Billman MANAGING+MUSIC EDITOR

Grayson Haver Currin

ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR Brian Howe STAFF WRITERS

Billy Ball, Jane Porter

CALENDAR EDITOR Allison Hussey COPY EDITOR David Klein STAFF PHOTOGRAPHERS

Alex Boerner, Jeremy M. Lange OPINION Bob Geary THEATER AND DANCE COLUMNIST Byron Woods VISUAL ART COLUMNIST Chris Vitiello CHIEF CONTRIBUTORS

Spencer Griffith, Corbie Hill, David Klein, Jordan Lawrence, Craig D. Lindsey, Jill Warren Lucas, Glenn McDonald, Neil Morris, Sylvia Pfeiffenberger, Bryan C. Reed, V. Cullum Rogers, David A. Ross, Dan Schram, Zack Smith, Eric Tullis

ART+DESIGN

PRODUCTION MANAGER Skillet Gilmore ART DIRECTOR Maxine Mills GRAPHIC DESIGNER Christopher Williams

OPERATIONS

BUSINESS MANAGER Alex Rogers WEB CONTENT MANAGER Reed Benjamin OFFICE MANAGER William Kumpf

CIRCULATION

CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Brenna Berry-Stewart DISTRIBUTION: Joseph Lizana, Anne Roux,

Richard David Lee, James Maness, Laura Bass, Jeff Prince, JC Lacroix, Gloria McNair, David Cameron, Chris Taylor, Timm Shaw, Freddie Simons

ADVERTISING

ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Ruth Gierisch SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Dara Shain ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES

Kellie Allen, Ele Roberts, Sarah Schmader CLASSIFIEDS SALES MANAGER Leslie Land

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back talk

eigh y ham pel Hill Pragmatism, not values

There are all kinds of cooperatives, including consumer-owned, workerowned, farmer-owned and multistakeholder (“Disappointed, frankly,” Nov. 11). We love them all! CDS Consulting man Co-op is a shared-services cooperative owned by our member consultants. As owe consultants committed to supporting other cooperators, we often base our recommendations on what we have seen ey work for other co-ops. While we are intrigued with multie stakeholder models, we know of only one example of successful implementation of n Woods a worker/consumer hybrid food co-op— iello Weaver Street Market. Given the rarity of this model, it’s not one we have a strong Klein, sey, reason to recommend. eil Morris, Starting a new food co-op is a very eed, complicated and challenging endeavor Schram, that takes several years to implement. In order to survive, new co-ops require an intense focus on building sales, improving more operations and achieving profitability. We think the more complicated multiilliams stakeholder model makes it even more challenging and therefore do not advise

ers jamin mpf

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it at the start-up stage. This is a more a matter of practicality than of values. We support the Durham Co-op Market’s board decision to take more time to discuss the organizational structure with the co-op’s members. If they decide to implement the multi-stakeholder model, we will offer the best consulting support we can to help them move forward with their decision. Marilyn Scholl, manager, CDS Consulting Co-Op, via indyweek.com

Practice what you preach

It is easy to criticize what others are doing with their resources and under their responsibilities (“The most dangerous [political] game,” Nov. 25). Question: How many Syrian refugees did you invite to live with you? Another question: Did you drive car today and add more of the deadly global destroying pollutant, CO2, into the atmosphere? You are supposed to go along with the totalitarian fist of collective conformity because … well, just because we say you must. We’ll try to guilt you into it at first

because that is easier and cheaper. But, if needed, you will comply after we hit you a few times. ProudlyUnaffiliated, via indyweek.com

Human landfills

This guy gets off the hook for more than half a million dollars in illegal dumping fines, and these people can’t even get running water when they’re paying their rent and doing everything right (“Family feud,” Nov. 18). Another sad example of our archaic justice system and the human landfills it protects. MissMallibu, via indyweek.com

Durham needs a poet laureate Durham’s history is so rich and unique within North Carolina that our city needs its own Poet Laureate program. This place has a vibrant identity, and I can’t think of anyone who voices it more eloquently than [poet] Dasan Ahanu (Indies Arts Awards, Nov. 18). Durham Mighty Pen has done a lot of research about the growth of citywide Poet Laureate programs (and

-Stewart Roux, ura Bass, Nair, m Shaw,

risch Shain

hmader e Land

702 .C. 27701

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The INDY’S GUIDE to ALL THINGS TRIANGLE

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Youth Poet Laureate programs!) and has started a Facebook page to gather support for a petition to the mayor and City Council. If you are interested in signing the petition to create a Poet Laureate program for Durham, please follow the movement here: https://www.facebook. com/APoetLaureateforDurham/. K.G., via indyweek.com

Honestly surprised

I’m honestly surprised that Roy Cooper took that stand on the transgender K-12students issue (Triangulator, Nov. 25). Though there isn’t much history to go by, he has taken at least one strongly anti-trans position in the past (in late 2010.) AgentDani, via indyweek.com

If you would like to respond to something that appeared in the INDY’s pages, please send an email to backtalk@indyweek.com. The INDY reserves the right to edit letters for space and clarity.

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DECEMBER 2, 2015

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news triangulator

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DECEMBER 2, 2015

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WELCOME TO RALEIGH, MR. TRUMP

Also: Who needs environmental protections? And do we really need judicial elections? BY BILLY BALL AND JANE PORTER

h, goody: On Friday, Raleigh’s Dorton Arena will be awash in a sea of graying racist-chain-email enthusiasts and DUCK DYNASTY types with vague notions of the South rising again. No, it’s not the Dixie Gun and Knife show; it’s worse. Congenital liar, quasi-fascist and professional hairpiece DONALD TRUMP is coming to town. And just in time for Christmas. Say it with us: FUCK OFF, DONALD TRUMP. The last time Trump was here, in June, he all but announced he would be running for president in 2016— we’re still half-betting this is all grand performance art, a brilliant long-con commentary on the depressing state of American politics, in which case disregard everything below—while also accusing rivals JEB BUSH and MARCO RUBIO of “[making] asses of themselves.” (True, but: pot, meet kettle.) And while making an ass of oneself in public is generally considered a political liability, being the biggest public ass of all the GOP presidential candidates—no small feat in a field that at peak clown car included Scott Walker and Bobby Jindal, and still counts Ted Cruz and Carly Fiorina—has translated into dominance in the polls. In the interceding months, the BEWIGGED BLOVIATOR has made headlines week after week for his inflammatory statements and ridiculous “policy” ideas. Remember his feud with TV journalist Megyn Kelly, after she called him out for making disparaging statements about women? Remember when he called Mexican immigrants “RAPISTS

ILLUSTRATION BY SKILLET GILMORE

2015

AND CRIMINALS”? (Nearly 9 percent of North Carolina’s population is Hispanic, BTW.) Remember when he said he wanted a registry to keep track of U.S. Muslims, or when he said he saw nonexistent video of New Jersey Muslims cheering 9/11, or when he posted DUMB INSTAGRAM MASHUPS of ISIS attacks and Obama laughing? Of course you do, because that was last week. This rally is sure to feature more of the same. And while we can’t build a wall in Raleigh to keep out Trump and his supporters—although we’d love to—it’s nonetheless gratifying to know that as much as he infuriates us, he aggravates and terrifies the GOP establishment even more. There’s also the fact that, because we have some common sense, Raleigh’s never going to vote for him anyway. That should speak louder than even THE DONALD.

olling back environmental regulations and wrecking the state’s clean-energy economy: These were the two big themes of the 2015 General Assembly session, according to the N.C. LEAGUE OF CONSERVATION VOTERS, which released its legislative scorecard this week. The results were … disheartening, to say the least. Then again, what did we expect? To recap, state lawmakers voted to let the RENEWABLE ENERGY TAX CREDITS expire. And then Gov. Pat McCrory signed House Bill 765, which essentially lets air and water polluters off the hook, scales back protections for wetlands and streams and shuts down half of all the state’s air quality monitors. Throw in an (ultimately unsuccessful) attack on Renewable Energy Portfolio Standards, a plan to not comply with the federal Clean Power Plan, budget and staffing cuts to the Department of Environmental Quality and a sweetheart coal-ash deal with DUKE ENERGY, and you’ve got a recipe for environmental devastation. As it does every year, the League looked at the environmental voting records of each state senator and representative. Only four of 16 state lawmakers from Wake County (Reps. Rosa Gill and Grier Martin and Sens. Dan Blue and Josh Stein) got a perfect score. Three lawmakers—Reps. Marilyn Avila, Chris Malone and Gary Pendleton—scored a big, fat GOOSE EGG. This was a trend: Republicans got low scores, while Democrats fared better. Since there are quite a few more Republicans than Democrats at the state level, well, you do the math. There’s some good news, though, at least for the western part of the Triangle. In Durham, none of the county’s six state lawmakers dipped below 70 on the 0–100 scale. And in Orange County, Rep. Verla Insko and Sen. Valerie Foushee scored 100, and Rep. Graig Meyer got 90. And there’s a potential upside for Wake residents, too.

Due to another legislative maneuver, the state’s PRIMARY ELECTIONS will be held in March this year, so you’ll have your first chance to vote these people out of office in three short months.

nyone who’s ever voted in a judicial election in North Carolina knows the morass of sussing out a candidate’s actual positions. Given that most voters depend on party endorsements and other heuristics to make up their minds, it would seem to make sense for North Carolina to join 19 other states in approving retention referendums for state SUPREME COURT JUSTICES, rather than holding full-fledged campaigns every eight years. You don’t know anything about these guys in the first place, so what’s the point? Of course, there’s more to it than that. North Carolina’s new law, written and pushed by chamber Republicans, is, naturally, politically motivated. Given voters’ general disinterest in judicial elections, in fact, it’s basically a surefire way to grant incumbents an easy re-election. More important, it will also strengthen the conservative-leaning justices who are more likely to uphold the QUESTIONABLE LEGAL UNDERPINNINGS of recent GOP-driven legislation, including the redistricting of Wake County commissioners and school board members, which was done solely to secure Republican seats on those increasingly progressive bodies. At least one prospective candidate isn’t going to take it lying down. On Monday, former N.C. General Assembly staff attorney SABRA FAIRES, a Supreme Court hopeful in 2016, joined two Wake County voters in challenging the constitutionality of North Carolina’s law. In the complaint filed in Wake County Superior Court that names the N.C. State Board of Elections, its members and executive director KIM STRACH as defendants, Faires’ lawyers point out that all 19 of the other states with a retention referendum have authorization in their state constitutions for it. Not so in North Carolina, which says specifically that voters will elect justices, the complaint says. It’s worth noting that Faires—who works for Raleigh firm Bailey & Dixon—once served as chief of staff for former state House co-speaker RICHARD T. MORGAN, a Republican trashed for disloyalty by his GOP colleagues in 2003 for going along with Democrats to install joint speakers in the evenly split House. The controversial move granted broad redistricting and appointment powers to Morgan and his co-speaker, famously corrupt Democrat JIM BLACK. There’s a messy history here, and it’s about to get messier. ▲ Reach the INDY’s Triangulator team at triangulator@indyweek.com.

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2015

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MAG ON A MISSION

Scalawag aims to tell the South’s untold stories BY CHRIS VITIELLO

f you heard federal legislators shouting overtop one another about Hillary Clinton’s emails last month, you might believe that American political discourse is completely broken. But that’s only true if we let it be, say the editors of Scalawag, a new, Durham-based magazine devoted to political and social narratives about the South told by Southerners. Following a successful Kickstarter campaign this spring, the quarterly’s first issue was unveiled in June. “Stories are one of the most fundamental ways to speak across constituencies,” says co-founder and Atlanta native Sarah Bufkin. “What makes the South so great is that our political discourse has always been a bit different, and that storytelling has always been a way of other getting people on board with a political vision and telling how struggle and change happen. That’s going to be a basis of what Scalawag will do.” The second issue was released in September, with the third slated for this month. A glance at September’s table of contents immediately differentiates Scalawag from the hard-edged, left-leaning Jacobin or the well-heeled blend of cultural critique and consumption of Oxford American and Garden and Gun. A personal yet conflicted essay on living in the West Virginia mountains. An interrogative history of Berlin’s obsession with blues and roots music. A photo essay of post-Ferguson protests. Poems about Southern gender politics by an NEA fellowship winner and racial justice from a spoken-word activist in Atlanta. Bufkin and co-founders Jesse Williams and Evan Walker-Wells are shooting for something different—serious political discourse that’s readable, too. “We focus a lot on the idea of untold stories in the South,” says Williams, who was born and raised in Winston-Salem. “Those are present in first-person narrative as well as in academia.” National media sources still rely on old stereotypes to tell a narrow, outdated story about the South, Bufkin and Williams say. Along with the rest of Scalawag’s editorial board, they wrote an editorial in

their debut about the disconnect between North Carolina’s conservative turn, with its “reckless and downright mean” legislative actions, and the genuinely progressive development they saw all around them. Looking at lively, innovative commercial and cultural efforts, they committed the magazine to telling tales of “braver folks than we [who] had formed the backbone of a moral, populist movement unparalleled in the modern history of the region.” “Scalawag is for the South and from the South,” Williams says. “But it’s important that it exist in the national conversation as well. It’s not only looking into the future to imagine how it might be different, but it’s looking backwards and realizing that the past is probably different from what we think we know. We would speculate that you can’t really imagine the future properly unless you have a detailed and honest view of the past.” The print publication is just one plank in the Scalawag platform. The editors are planning a diverse range of panel talks, film screenings and reading groups, starting in central North Carolina and spreading throughout the South. A film series at Winston-Salem’s a/perture cinema debuted last month with a screening of the documentary Old South. The Durhambased editors have held open-invitation pitch parties at Motorco Music Hall to hear the most diverse set of voices possible. Williams sees that openness as an essential part of the Scalawag mission: “If we as a country are going to be having honest conversations about our problems and our future together, there have to be strong voices from the South that force the rest of the country to deal with it on its own terms.” s Chris Vitiello is the INDY’s visual arts columnist. Respond to this story at backtalk@indyweek.com.

SCALAWAG’S FIRSTYEAR CELEBRATION The Power Plant at American Tobacco Campus; Saturday, Dec. 5, 8 p.m., free, www.scalawagmag.com

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DECEMBER 2, 2015

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Seeking Duke cardiology patients to participate in an 8-week study on medication compliance using digital tools to track progress. You may be eligible for this research study if you: • are over 18 years old • have a personal iOS or Android device • are currently prescribed and taking heart medication, one or two times per day Participation includes: • Coming to our office to enroll in the study and take a survey • Taking part in brief surveys daily and weekly during the study on your mobile device for 6 weeks • Coming back to our office to take one final survey and complete the study You will be compensated for your study participation. To sign up, email BEresearch@duke.edu or call 919-681-9521 Protocol # Pro00064774

news PERIPHERAL VISIONS • V.C. ROGERS

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RESEGREGATION, NEVER

A group of local leaders seeks to live up to the promise of no bad schools in Wake County BY BOB GEARY

his falls in the category of “not news,” I suppose. The Wake County Board of Education is not fighting with the Wake County Board of Commissioners. I know. This isn’t normal. Normally, these boards push and pull like whiny kids and their parents—the school board wants a bigger budget, the commissioners cut it. But these are not normal times for Wake, an urban county fighting for its quality of life against a rural-dominated General Assembly. And the central battlefield is public education. Wake prides itself on its public schools. At the General Assembly, at least for the current crop of Republicans in charge, hostility to public schools is fierce. Against this backdrop, Wake school board members and commissioners have been plotting together of late in a church basement in Raleigh at forums organized by WakeUP Wake County, a civic group. The forums were open to the public. I attended two of the three, including the wrap-up session last Monday. I don’t think I’m exaggerating the significance of these discussions by calling them remarkable. They were what our elected officials should do routinely but, given the bitter partisanship of the times, don’t. That is, they were trying out some bold ideas for reshaping Wake’s schools and making plans to bring the public and municipal leaders into their conversations. Contrast that with state and national politics, where no good idea goes unbashed—and few are even offered. Indeed, Raleigh’s Tom Bradshaw remembers similarly gutsy talks in the early 1970s, culminating in city and county leaders deciding to merge their separate, racially segregated school systems. That farsighted, extremely controversial decision helped transform Raleigh and Cary from sleepy towns into a booming New South metro. Bradshaw, a banker and former state transportation chief who was Raleigh’s “boy mayor” from 1971–73, remains one of Wake’s most respected leaders. He was proud to be in the room then, he says, and proud of what he’s seeing now.

he problems facing Wake’s schools today are a 21st-century counterpart to integration. Our schools are resegregating, now by income as well as race. Meanwhile, the traditional tools for pushing back— magnet schools in Raleigh’s historically black neighborhoods, and assigning some children to schools away from their homes—don’t work as well anymore. Why? Geography. Wake’s low-income kids are concentrated in South Raleigh and eastern Wake County. Affluent kids live in the rest of the county; more and more, they live at its edges. The resulting distances— and traffic congestion—mean the magnets are harder to reach, and bus rides that used to be viable no longer are. Consequently, Wake’s claim that, as one national expert put it in his book’s subtitle, There Are No Bad Schools in Wake County isn’t as true as it used to be. Good numbers overall mask lesser outcomes in schools with high percentages of low-income students. And there are more such schools. From a handful just a decade ago, Wake had 42 schools in 2014–15 in which 50 percent or more of students receive a free or reducedprice lunch. That’s out of 171 schools. At the final forum, Commissioner Matt Calabria presented a list of “action steps” the boards are considering. These are “ideas for exploration,” Calabria emphasized. Nothing’s decided. But the objectives are clear: Reduce the number of high-poverty schools; give every child a high-quality education; add enough school capacity to accommodate Wake’s amazing growth. Some possible steps: l Links to transit. Wake is about to roll out a transit plan, which depends on getting voters to approve a half-cent sales tax for transit next November. The plan will feature bus rapid-transit routes out of Raleigh to the east (New Bern Avenue), southeast (Route 70), west (Western Boulevard-N.C. 54) and north (Capital Boulevard, possibly Glenwood Avenue). The idea here is to locate new schools along the BRT routes so that middle- and high-school kids can take transit to and from school and to downtown Raleigh

venues for special programs. l Zoning. Municipal governments could be asked to help identify and acquire such BRT-linked school sites, and to require nearby development to include affordable housing. No affordable housing, no new school. l Magnetize the rim. New magnet schools and small “theme” schools could be located on transit routes just outside the Raleigh Beltline, i.e., “the rim.” Such schools would be convenient to affluent suburbs and lower-income city neighborhoods alike. l Pre-K for all. The General Assembly won’t fund pre-kindergarten programs for all 4-year olds, but Wake might—if money can be found. Studies show that good pre-K helps close the achievement gap between rich kids and poor, saving on future remediation costs.

l Lift up the strugglers. Add new resources—counselors, teachers and teacher assistants—in low-performing schools with high-poverty numbers. l Wake Fellows. The General Assembly canned the much-lauded N.C. Teaching Fellows program. Wake could start its own as a way to cultivate top teachers. Other ideas followed, but the final one was key: To have a great school system, Wake’s citizens and leaders, including the business community, need to get together, figure out what to do and decide it’s worth paying for. Because, let’s face it, the General Assembly isn’t coming to our rescue. s

Bob Geary is an INDY columnist. Email him at rjgeary@mac.com for a copy of the vision document developed in the forums.

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THE INVISIBLES Last year, 57,000 unaccompanied minors made the dangerous trek from violence-ravaged areas in Central America to the U.S. More than 2,000 settled in North Carolina. The state’s leaders want them to go back where they came from. BY BILLY BALL PHOTOGRAPHS BY ALEX BOERNER

NO GOING BACK: Sofia, who immigrated to the U.S. after gang members terrorized her school, wants to stay at her home in Durham.

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omewhere between the gang-riddled streets of Honduras and the Rio Grande River, Jessica*, a 13-year-old with long, curly hair, a pretty face and dreams of being a model, seemed to fall into a black hole. The men who’d promised to deliver her to the U.S. border had abandoned her in a warehouse populated by drunks, drug addicts and other desperate children fleeing violence in Central America. Jessica hoped to make it to the border, where she figured American officials would reunite her in Durham with her mother, who’d fled Honduras a decade ago to escape an abusive partner. Her mother, Claudia, an undocumented immigrant, lost all contact with her daughter after Jessica was dumped at the bodega in the fall of 2012. She didn’t hear from her for days. Then Jessica phoned her sometime after midnight, crying. A man from the bodega had taken her to an abandoned home, where he planned to have sex with her. When he went to the bathroom, Jessica stole his phone and called her mom. “She was screaming, crying, she wanted to go home,” Claudia would later recall. “It was just horrible. I felt like I was dying here.” When the man returned, Claudia, still on the phone, pleaded with him: “Don’t touch my daughter.” Furious, he threatened to imprison Jessica for the next two weeks, then hung up. He didn’t make good on his threat. A few hours later, a woman called Claudia to tell her that Jessica was with her at the bodega. The woman promised to look after her. Claudia heard nothing for days, until the woman dropped off Jessica at a bridge over the Rio Grande. Jessica was quickly apprehended by border guards and eventually flown to reunite with her mother. Those empty stretches, where there was no contact or explanation for Jessica’s disappearance, still haunt Claudia. And Jessica isn’t talking about it, has never talked about it, not even to her own mother. “I always live with this doubt,” says Claudia. “Did they abuse her? I ask her and I ask her and she doesn’t say anything. She cries and says, ‘Mom, don’t ask me that.’”

families back home. Most come from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, a few from Mexico. Their journey is marked by kidnappings, sexual abuse and worse. Some make it. Others, advocates say, are never seen or heard from again, sold into international sex trafficking schemes, raped or murdered by vicious Central American crime syndicates. “There are so many of them who are victimized,” says Luke Smith, executive director of El Futuro, a Durhambased nonprofit that provides mental health care for Latino immigrants. As it’s doing now with the Syrian refugee crisis, the media last year shined a spotlight on the plight of these children. But much of the attention’s gone now. The calls to address what President Obama called a “humanitarian crisis” have faded. And in North Carolina, these children are often left without access to social programs they need: They are denied Medicaid assistance and struggle to fit into their new schools, which typically don’t offer specialized teaching programs or outreach. Meanwhile, federal deportation courts, which do not guarantee undocumented immigrants legal representation, are speedy and brutal. Court hearings sometimes last only

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Last July, in a letter to the White House, Gov. Pat McCrory and the Republican governors of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Utah, Kansas and Alabama urged federal officials to speedily return the children to their homes. “We are concerned that there will be significant numbers who will end up using the public schools, social services and health systems largely funded by the states,” the letter read. “More importantly, we are concerned that the failure to return the unaccompanied children will send a message that will encourage a much larger movement towards our southern border.” (Many of these same critics, including McCrory, are today pushing to deny asylum to Syrian refugees fleeing a devastating civil war.) Earlier this year, the N.C. General Assembly approved the Protect North Carolina Workers Act, its key tenet being to outlaw so-called sanctuary cities, municipalities such as Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Durham that order their local police officers not to ask about an individual’s immigration status when responding to emergency calls. Without that guarantee, advocates say, many immigrants are afraid to call police, regardless of the need. For immigrants, documented or otherwise, this is a toxic moment. But to Smith, the important thing isn’t the right and wrong of how the kids got here. Rather, it’s about treating their ailments once they arrive, a score on which America has failed. In October, El Futuro held training seminars at Triangle universities to prepare local mental health professionals and family doctors to identify and treat these traumatized children. Several area nonprofits, meanwhile, have led concerted efforts to connect unaccompanied minors with badly needed legal representation and health care. And a scant few school systems in North Carolina have unveiled pioneering attempts to address this cohort’s needs, including hiring de facto social workers to track and monitor the children in school. It’s not enough, but minus any substantial show of compassion or planning for America’s refugee-besieged borders, advocates say, these piecemeal efforts are all they have. “Now that they’re settled, they’re not feeling unaccompanied,” says Smith. “They’re feeling invisible.”

“I always live with this doubt.

Did they abuse her? I ask her and I ask her and she doesn’t say anything. She cries and says, ‘Mom, don’t ask me that.’”

here’s a not-insignificant segment of America that believes Jessica—and thousands of children just like her, colloquially known as ”unaccompanied minors,” who’ve made the fraught journey from dangerous environs in Central America—needs to be sent home, the sooner the better. These teens and children—more than a quarter are younger than 14, according to federal data—have been making the trek for years. But 2014 saw an unprecedented spike: A reported 57,000 minors flooded across the southern border. Since then, the feds have delivered more than 2,000 of them to sponsors in North Carolina, mostly parents who’d left their kids behind to earn money for their *To protect the immigrants interviewed for this story, some of whom have pending deportation cases, the INDY has changed their names.

minutes, says Derrick Hensley, a Durham immigration attorney who represents dozens of unaccompanied minors. “It’s the government’s job to take apart the claim of the other side, whether it’s an adult or an infant,” says Hensley. “It’s just stacked. The government always has a strong advocate.” Nevertheless, empathy can seem in shortly supply. Last July, protesters in Murrieta, California, blocked busloads of detainees, many of them women and children, who were being shipped from overcrowded immigration facilities in Texas to California, where they would be reunited with loved ones. “Go home!” they chanted. “We want to be safe!” The same animus was seen in the Triangle, too. Responding to the Obama administration’s calls for spare clothing for undocumented detainees, one Raleighbased political action committee, Americans For Legal Immigration, asked its followers to mail dirty underwear. William Gheen, the group’s president, argues that the wave of unaccompanied minors is an invasion cooked up by liberals and President Obama to turn the United States into a socialist state. “‘Refugee’ and ‘asylum’ are just code words for the president,” says Gheen. “It’s just another way to flood America with illegal immigrants.” This sort of sentiment isn’t confined to the far-right fringe.

his isn’t a movie. It’s real life.” Tears well in Marissa’s eyes when she recalls the three weeks her daughter, Christine, spent last summer with Los Zetas, a gang of Mexican cutthroats who’ve made a business out of kidnapping unaccompanied minors and ransoming them back to their parents. Last year, partway through Christine’s arduous expedition from Honduras to the U.S., Los Zetas kidnapped her and threatened to kill her if Marissa didn’t hand over $3,000. Marissa knew they weren’t bluffing.

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INDYweek.com “If I had known everything that would happen, I would have never come here,” Marissa says. She immigrated more than five years ago to earn a better living in the United States. (In Honduras, she worked 15-hour days for as little as $40 to $50 a week.) She didn’t want her daughter to make the trip—it was too dangerous—but Christine begged to join her mother in Durham. Back in Honduras, local gang members had set their sights on the then-12-year-old. They said they wanted to make her their “girlfriend,” code for sex slavery. “If they like a girl, they will follow her,” says Marissa. “They will be on her until she’s part of them. That’s not what I wanted for my daughter.” Finally, after a gang member groped Christine on the way to school, Marissa relented. A cousin volunteered to lead Christine to the border, but they were intercepted by the Zetas. Marissa had no choice. She paid the gang to release Christine. But for two weeks, she heard nothing. “I thought they killed her,” Marissa says. Then Marissa received a phone call from a man who offered to drop Christine at the border in exchange for another $500. Marissa paid once again, and the man deposited Christine at the Rio Grande. When border guards found her, she was taken to a holding cell in Texas, dubbed the “ice box” for its cold evening temperatures. Marissa says her daughter contracted pneumonia and was hospitalized before the two were reunited. She won’t let her daughter talk publicly about the experience. The trauma was too much for her, she says. Christine’s still afraid to be touched, Marissa says. God knows what Los Zetas did to her.

Syria and Central America are very different places, no doubt, but the two groups of immigrants have at least one thing in common: They’re escaping violence. “These refugees are trying to find a safe place,” says Bedrija Jazic, director of refugee services for Lutheran Services Carolinas, a Salisbury nonprofit that connects

These people have come here seeking safety.”

errick Hensley, a broad-shouldered attorney with slightly askew glasses, rolls his eyes when Syria comes up. Syria is not his area of expertise, he admits, but, as one of Durham’s leading immigration attorneys, he knows the arguments all too well. “I don’t know how people have come to their point of view,” he says. “It’s still just mind-blowing.”

immigrants with legal assistance and medical resources. “They’re running away from exactly the same things people here are afraid of, violence and murder, except they experienced it firsthand. These people have come here seeking safety.” Jazic knows their struggle intimately. She arrived in the United States in 1996 after escaping Bosnia during its war with Herzegovina. Jazic was a high school English teacher in Sarajevo when the war began. Since the late 1990s, Jazic has directed immigrant

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policy at Lutheran Services. She says treating the Central American children will require a comprehensive approach, but because they don’t qualify for Medicaid, and because most local governments are unreceptive to the notion of local programs aimed at this population, finding support is a major difficulty. This is especially important in Durham and Raleigh. Officials with the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement—tasked with housing and sheltering unaccompanied minors while the courts settle their future—estimate that at least 650 unaccompanied minors have been shuttled into Durham and Wake counties since last summer. Right now, however, both Wake and Durham rely heavily on nonprofits to bear the load. “We have not sat down as a body to discuss these children,” says Michael Page, chairman of the Durham County Board of Commissioners. “But all children who enter into our community and enter our public schools should have their needs and concerns addressed. We will bend over backwards.” Page says the lack of social programs for undocumented children is a problem across North Carolina. “We really do not believe we are addressing the mental health needs of our children,” he says. Unaccompanied children have been crossing the border for about two decades, El Futuro’s Smith points out. The ones who are still here are adults now, dealing with trauma they’ve kept to themselves for fear of being exposed as undocumented. “Mental health is one of the biggest concerns that we have,” adds Jazic. “The kids might be healthy otherwise, but we have to help heal those mental wounds that they are not guilty of.” Despite federal laws that require public education regardless of immigration status, North Carolina school systems have, for the most part, been slow to embrace programs targeted to this vulnerable population. These children require intensive monitoring, in addition to the

“They’re running away from exactly the same things people here are afraid of, violence and murder, except they experienced it firsthand.

REUNITED AT LAST: Patricia (left) was separated from her daughter, Sofia (right), for more than a decade.

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English-as-a-second-language programs offered in most schools, says Helen Atkins, ESL coordinator for Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools. “It’s hard to articulate,” says Atkins. “It’s not that they’re not equipped. It’s just a particular subset of needs that many of our kids face. It takes a lot more time and a lot more tracking.” To that end, this year, Chapel HillCarrboro schools created a new position, known as a student success advocate, to act as a de facto in-school social worker. The advocate, Atkins says, will track children arriving from war-torn places to assess whether they’re in need of mental health care. If a principal or teacher spots a red flag, the advocate is notified immediately. In the Triangle’s other school systems, it’s more of a mixed bag. Orange County Schools has hired ESL outreach and support staff members to work with unaccompanied minors. Durham Public Schools does not offer specialized programs for this group, but schools offer courses and after-school programs to help Latino youth. In Wake County, says Darlene Johnson, lead social worker for the school system, all 171 schools utilize a social-worker liaison whose responsibilities include treating and monitoring unaccompanied youth along with the rest of the student body. Advocates, meanwhile, say this population needs more. “I hear people saying, ‘We need a plan for the Syrian refugees,’” Smith says. “It makes me crazy. What’s our plan for the immigrant population that’s been here for 20 years? They’re here. Now. And we’re putting our heads in the sand.” Even if these services are put in place, many of the children who crossed the border last year won’t be around long enough to use them. Navigating language barriers and labyrinthine laws, oftentimes by themselves, and depending on overwhelmed nonprofits and charities for assistance, they face an uphill legal battle. While the number of undocumented children resettling into North Carolina is relatively small, their cases nonetheless clog up immigration courts. Crowded dockets produce speedy, aggressively prosecuted cases, sometimes against infants and toddlers, says Hensley. Without legal representation, just 15 percent of these minors are allowed to remain in the United States. When attorneys intervene, nearly three-quarters are granted a stay on deportation, many through a complicated application process

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for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status. SIJS requires proof that these children will be persecuted at home based on their race, religion, nationality, political views or for being a member of a particular social group. It’s not an easy argument to make, says Hensley. He’s represented both Christine and Jessica in their deportation cases. They’re in different stages of the process, and Hensley isn’t sure if either will be granted SIJS. The courts are not set up for such a humanitarian crisis, so it’s up to policymakers to change the laws, he says. “It’s as fair or unfair as Congress deems it to be.”

atricia fled her native Honduras a decade ago in search of opportunity, but she hasn’t forgotten her home. A red-and-black tapestry of the Virgin Mary christens her living room. Faith, it seems, is necessary these days. Last summer, Patricia’s 17-year-old daughter, Sofia, traversed the border to join her mother after a gang of gun-toting men terrorized her school. The potential for violence had always been there. But when the gangs threatened to shoot children, presumably as recompense for some gang warfare, Patricia decided she’d had enough. Her daughter’s neighbors in Honduras, friends of the family, promised to help Sofia. They took her all the way to the U.S. border in Mexico. When she was apprehended by border guards, Sofia was transported to a refugee resettlement camp in California before she joined her mother in Durham. Sofia’s legal case is ongoing. Patricia, meanwhile, is watching the news. She’s livid at how politicians, including McCrory, are treating Syrian refugees. “It’s like he isn’t a father,” Patricia says. “Some people, they’ve never been in our shoes. They’ve never been apart from their children, like us.” Sofia was one of the lucky ones who escaped kidnappers and murderers preying on unaccompanied minors, Patricia says. But her daughter still requires regular psychological therapy, partially due to the violence she experienced back home. Now, Patricia says, she hopes Sofia will get the treatment she needs. And she hopes Sofia will have the chance to get used to her new home in Durham. “She always eats so quickly,” Patricia says. “Like it’s not going to stay. I tell her, you’re not in Honduras.” s Billy Ball is an INDY staff writer. Reach him at bball@indyweek.com. Twitter: @billy_k_ball.

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icky Moore wants to change perceptions of what chowder can be. “Everybody’s reference point is that chowder is creamy and thick,” explains Moore, the chef and proprietor of Durham’s Saltbox Seafood Joint. “I just take the essence of what the seafood is and enhance it. There’s no reference point at all.” To wit, he’s made Indian-inspired chowders, some with bouillabaisse and others with curry. But there are two maxims for the dish—the chowder must be “chock-full of seafood,” he says, and the star of the dish needs to stand tall. That is quite literally true for Moore’s current offering: clam and tomato chowder. When I lifted off the lid after a recent visit, I found myself staring at four top-neck clams with their thick, healthy, heavy shells popped open to show off the seafood inside. They sat high above the dish’s colorful mixture of broth, vegetables and spices. That first impression was instantly assuring, a testament to the thoughtfulness of Moore’s dishes. “I started with the shell because I want you to know that they’re fresh,” Moore explains.

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He begins with a sofrito, or paste, made by pureeing celery, shrimp, peppers, garlic, leeks, parsley and other spices, and allows it to dry. Moore then fries the mixture in hot oil. Once it’s nearly caramelized, he adds the clams, which open under the heat. The fried paste coats the clams before Moore pours white wine and crushed tomatoes into the pot, which he brings to a simmer. He finishes off the dish with chunks of celery, fennel and onion. “A lot of times when I do a chowder, I stay away from any additional fillers,” says Moore. “I just want people to taste the seafood.” Moore gets his clams from a trusted source in the eastern Carolinas. Whatever it has available is what he’ll work with, so his clam and tomato chowder may not be here to stay. “It’s always whatever I have,” says Moore. “I may not have some ingredient on hand, so I have to riff on it. I just call them freestyle chowders.” —Alex Boerner Eat This is a recurring column about great new dishes and drinks in the Triangle. Had something you loved? Email food@indyweek.com. PHOTO BY ALEX BOERNER

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ARDUOUS EXTRACTION

Craig Rudewicz’s solitary, successful mission to become North Carolina’s first bitters manufacturer BY CURT FIELDS

Piping in the product: Craig Rudewicz PHOTO BY ALEX BOERNER

bout a year ago, Craig Rudewicz told his family he was going to quit his job behind a bar to put all his time behind a business that made bitters, the highly concentrated, highly alcoholic extracts used to flavor cocktails. His start-up company would be North Carolina’s first, meaning it was a concept so nebulous state regulators didn’t even know what to do with it. They seemed understandably skeptical. “I had family ask, ‘Is that really a thing? You’re just going to make bitters? You’ve got nothing else to do?’” Rudewicz recalls. “And I said, ‘Yeah, we’ll try it.’ It was a nervewracking time to just dive into something that was kind of obscure, to make that your full-time job.” But it worked: In early December, Raleigh’s Crude Small-Batch Bitters & Sodas will celebrate its third anniversary while marking the end of the first year for ABV, Crude’s relatively new retail extension. You can now spot Crude Bitters in Oregon and California, scattered locations throughout the Midwest, in the New England area, in Washington, D.C. and New York. Rudewicz has started to increase appearances on the trade show circuit, too, and he often teaches popular classes about crafting

cocktails and enhancing flavors at ABV. Crude’s reputation rose quickly after the company nabbed a Good Food Award at a San Francisco gala in January. Crude is the first bitters business to win the honor, which is designed to promote quality food products that are small-batch and sustainable from community-conscious companies. “A year ago, we were making four gallons of each yearround flavor and then dividing them into 4-ounce bottles, so each batch of each flavor was maybe about 150 bottles,” Rudewicz says. “Now, for our year-round flavors, we’re doing close to about 400 bottles of each flavor.” For Rudewicz, bitters have actually proven pretty sweet.

tepping through ABV’s front door feels like entering a temporal rift: An old case emblazoned with an RC Cola logo holds a bundle of bottles. A popcorn machine rescued from a movie theater rests against a wall, and a turntable plays ’70s rock from a distant corner. The wooden back bar, built by Rudewicz, is rough and functional. The front bar was salvaged for its second life after years of service as the counter at Person Street Pharmacy. Standing next to it, though, Rudewicz appears to be a

thoroughly modern artisan—a bearded 33-year-old with tattoos on both arms and the physique of a recreational hiker. He is the Triangle’s evangelist of bitters. “Bitters round out a drink,” Rudewicz proselytizes. “They help cut the sugar and the sweetness of a drink. It wakes your taste buds up a little bit. If you’re using certain syrups or certain liquors and you’re going to complement that with bitters, it bolsters whatever flavors are in there.” In ABV, a tasting station boasting an array of flavors runs the length of a wooden long box. An aged label on a tiny jar proclaims the contents to be “Rhubarb and Soda,” part of a series of bottles dotting a wooden shelf high on the wall. Crude’s very first bottle of bitters holds prime position at the display’s center. “People think whiskey, bourbon, Old Fashioneds, Manhattans, because those are the classic drinks that call for Angostura bitters, the very first bitters,” he continues. “That’s what people are used to. That’s what your grandfather drank.” Times have changed though. Crude now makes a variety of flavors, including lighter ones. “We make some that go better with gin or vodka or

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eat & drink tequila. And we make some that go better in bourbon and whiskey,” Rudewicz says. “At the front, we have a little bitters tasting bar. People can dash it in a cup or dash it right on their hand and just get a sense of what it is. Also, if you have a drink in mind or if you like a certain type of liquor, light or dark, we can steer you.” Though bitters now seem almost like an obsession for Rudewicz, making them began as a mere hobby. As a film major at the University of Pittsburgh, he had the typical collegiate phase of drinking whatever happened to be cheap. But then he discovered that the act of crafting meticulous cocktails could be fun. When he and his wife, Lindsay Lasserre, moved to the Triangle almost five years ago, he started making bitters at home in Mason jars. He would give them away as birthday or Christmas presents. “I just started making too many of them,” he admits. “They were taking over the cupboards.” When Rudewicz began running the bar at the Little Hen restaurant in Apex, he suddenly had a ready-made focus group for his bitters-making experiments. He could make larger batches using the restaurant’s kitchen, too. The process and the enthusiasm of the patrons at Little Hen motivated him to launch Crude. There were obstacles aside from familial doubt; the biggest might have been becoming the first such company seeking state permits. (Bull City Bitters has since opened in Asheville.) “The state, being a controlled state, with

alcohol, bitters fall into this kind of weird gray area between a food product similar to vanilla extract and an alcoholic product,” Rudewicz explains. “I would contact the ABC, and they had no idea what to do with the idea of a bitters company. I talked with the Small Business Administration and got help from them, but they also had no idea whether bitters were going to be classified as alcohol or classified as a food.” He downloaded the state’s ABC statutes and read the tome from front to back. Unfortunately, what he needed was toward the end of the voluminous set of rules and regulations. “The front of it is all actual alcohol, and the back end is all kind of throwaway ideas they had,” he says with a laugh. “I just sat there and read every single one of them until we found the exact sentence that said bitters do not require an ABC license. So they’re a food product, and that’s all written in the ABC statutes.” With that settled, Rudewicz began visiting farmers markets and anywhere else that offered him the chance to show people how to use bitters in something other than Manhattans. After more than a year, Rudewicz left Little Hen and devoted himself full-time to Crude. Finally, he needed a production space of his own. He felt like Raleigh’s food scene understood his idea. Having scouted Durham and Chapel Hill before deciding to live in Raleigh, he knew he wanted the business to be based there, too. He found a spot next to a construction company in a warehouse on West Cabarrus Street, near

SHRUB LIFE Crude doesn’t just make bitters; Rudewicz also makes syrups for sodas and “shrubs.” Farmers used to make shrubs by chopping fruit, throwing it in a barrel and covering it with a thin layer of vinegar and cane sugar. The resulting syrup was mixed with water to create a thirst-quenching drink for farmers sweating in the fields. “The reason that we took the dive into shrubs is that I’m not a proponent of using heat in anything I do, especially the bitters. When you boil something or you heat something, you’re just burning the essence and oils and flavor out of whatever you’re doing,” he says. “So shrubs are a very nice way to preserve something without using heat. It fit into the same line of thinking as our bitters.” You can now find Crude’s shrubs in several places, but to sample the true sodas, your best bet is Person Street Pharmacy. It uses an old-fashioned soda fountain with metal pull taps. Choose your flavor, and then watch the syrup mix with soda water from the tap. Or you could have a mix of bitters and seltzer, another refreshing option for Rudewicz. “They just dash a bit of whatever flavor you’d like into seltzer water, and it makes a sugar free soda,” he says. “Old-fashioned soda fountains called it a hangover cure, using just a couple of dashes of Angostura and seltzer water. It settles your stomach a little bit, makes you feel a little better.” —Curt Fields

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downtown Raleigh. Its layout led to ABV, as Rudewicz thought of ways to use the space at the front. ABV sells Crude’s bitters and those from companies across the country. Rudewicz produces Crude’s bitters behind the ABV retail area. A set of shelves holds large glass bottles where the ingredients—pecans and peppers, grapefruits and rosemary, coffee and cacao—macerate in high-proof alcohol. Every so often, he will give the bottles “a good shake” to make sure everything steeps at the same rate. Each batch takes at least a month and a half to make, a period that fluctuates based on the environment. “That’s just a straight maceration [of the] herbs and peels in there. It depends on the

machine, Rudewicz was a using a funnel to fill 4-ounce bottles while cradling a large production bottle in one arm. The machine fills just one tiny bottle at a time, but it has been a huge relief for his forearms, he says, shaking out his right arm as if to rid it of a bad muscle memory. He then affixes the labels and packs and ships out-of-state orders or delivers to customers across the Triangle.

humidity in the room, the temperature in the room,” he explains. “That can either shorten the maceration process or lengthen it. Then, once that’s good and ready and potent, we can start the bottling procedure.” Rudewicz remains Crude’s sole employee, meaning that this final step can be a bit tedious, as he must handle all the liquid himself. He strains to produce a pure liquid and then dilutes it slightly with water. Sometimes, he has to doctor it carefully with honey or sorghum to counterbalance the bitterness. “Then,” he says, “we just take gallons and gallons of bitters and put it all into very tiny bottles.” To help with that step, Rudewicz has at least gotten a tabletop bottling machine. Before buying the bottling

“If you see a bottle of our bitters,” Rudewicz says, “I have done everything it takes along the way to get it on the shelves.” At least he’s a little more comfortable about being in a field of (almost) one, three years later. s

“Since bitters are a pretty old product, we tried to get kind of an antique or homey feel to the store,” says Craig Rudewicz. PHOTO BY ALEX BOERNER

Curt Fields is a freelance writer. Twitter: @BeyondBama

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DECEMBER 2, 2015

American Brewmaster Wine Making Kits This year, Winexpert™ has sourced superior quality juice from Italy, California and Australia to bring you five impressive wines that will be a welcome addition to your finest wine cellars. Featuring unique blends and sought after varietals, the LE15 collection offers something for every palate. Limited Edition wine kits are released during the first four months of the new year, and are AVAILABLE ONLY by pre-order by Sunday, December 7th, 2015. Want something under the tree? Come into the shop now & check out our selection of wine kits! 3021 Stonybrook Dr, Raleigh | 919-850-0095 1008 SW Maynard Rd, Cary | 919-289-4090 www.americanbrewmaster.com

GIFT

GUIDE

Atomic Empire

Splendor Card Game | $31.99 Freshen up family game night with a fast-paced card game that changes with every re-play. Drop by Atomic Empire and let our staff make a recommendation, or test-drive one of our 100 demo games! 3400 Westgate Dr #14B, Durham 919-490-7900 | www.atomicempire.com

Bluetique

Monogrammed Heathered Fleece Pullover | $67.00 This Monogrammed Heathered Fleece Pullover is the perfect everyday layer for the winter season! Combining the appeal of a sweater with the durability of fleece, you can wear it under your winter jacket or throw it on over a tee on cool nights. Monogram it to ad that personal touch! 318 West Franklin St., Chapel Hill 919-903-9047 www.shopbluetique.com

Barnes Supply Co.

Stella & Chewy’s Pet Food

Barnes Supply is your one-stop shop for the pet lovers on your Christmas list. Huge selection of top-rated foods, treats, beds, leashes and collars as well as wild bird feeding and backyard chicken supplies. Buy any Stella and Chewy’s frozen or freeze dried raw pet food, receive the second for 25% off! 774 9th St, Durham, NC 27705 | 919-286-2750 www.barnessupplydurham.com

Bull City Homebrew

Brewers Beast Equipment Kit | $179.99 The perfect gift for any beer lover that wants to make beer at home. This equipment kit contains all the equipment a beginning brewer needs to make beer except bottles and caps. It’s easy and we can show you how. Just mention this ad and we will give you 15% off the kit price AND 2 tickets to our beer brewing 101 class worth $25 each! Offer good until Dec. 24th. 1906 NC-54 #200b, Durham 919-682-0300 www.bullcityhomebrew.com

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DECEMBER 2, 2015

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Burlington Aviation

Discovery Flight Gift Card | $119 Does your loved one dream of flying? Buy a Discovery Flight Gift Card online from Burlington Aviation and give them the gift of flight. Get a 45 minute flight in which they will get to take the controls under the supervision of an experienced instructor. 3510 Alamance Rd., Burlington 336-227-1278 | www.burlingtonaviation.com

Bullpin Apparel Locally Made Kids Clothes

Cedar Creek Gallery

Bullpin Apparel makes small things with great love. Each onesie and children’s t-shirt is hand screen-printed in Durham in small batches and features original designs inspired by our kids and our city. We find joy in crafting heartfelt, comfy, durable goods for your littlest loved ones. bullpinapparel@gmail.com www.bullpinapparel.etsy.com

Blown Glass Ornaments $17-$125 A destination for treasures. Choose from over 200 local, regional and national craftspeople working in pottery, glass, metal wood fiber and more. 20 Minutes from Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill. Open 10AM-6PM 7 days a week. 1150 Fleming Road, Creedmoor 919-528-1041 | www.cedarcreekgallery.com www.shopcedarcreek.com

Fred Astaire Franchised Dance Studios Cameron’s

French Chocolate Truffles Handmade chocolate truffles from one of the last family owned chocolatiers in Paris, France. These chocolates are destined to become your go-to gift for the holiday. 370 E Main St #130, Carrboro 919-942-5554 | www.camerons-gallery.com

Freda’s Workshop Gift basket

Enjoy a large selection of local, all natural handcrafted soaps, lotions, sugar scrubs, skin care products, bath bombs, massage candles, and essential oils. We’ll create a gift basket or help you choose the perfect, unique gift for anyone on your list! 821 Bass Pro Lane, Cary 919-535-3111

Give the gift of social dance! Gift certificates starting at $40

Ballroom, Latin, and swing. Couples, singles, and teens welcome. Wedding programs available. Friendly interactive environment. No partner necessary. New customers enjoy 3 sessions for only $40: includes 2 private dance lesions and 1 group lesson. DURHAM • 4702 Garrett Rd. 919-489-4313 • www.dancingfads.com RALEIGH • 6300 Creedmoor Rd. #122 919-872-0111 • www.carolinadance.com

Devolve Moto

Chippewa Boots: $267-$298 Anyone who says that craftsmanship is dead doesn’t own a pair of Chippewas. These rugged boots are hand crafted in the USA using only premium raw materials for a timeless look and modern American style. 304 Glenwood Ave., Raleigh 336-687-2445 www.devolvemoto.com

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The Glass Jug

Craft Beer, Gift Certificates, & Apparel

Give the gift of craft beer with a gift certificate good for draft beer, growler fills, or anything from our huge selection of beer to go! The Glass Jug also has beer coolers, growler carriers, bottle openers, and other great stocking stuffers for the beer lover in your life! 5410 Hwy 55, Suite AF, Durham 919-813-0135 | glass-jug.com

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DECEMBER 2, 2015

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Goldworks

Mokume Gane Band Give her something unique this Christmas, jewelry from Goldworks. Fine jewelry, casual jewelry and everything in between, including one of the Triangle’s best selections of American handmade glass. Pottery, Glass, Silk Scarves, gifts to delight and inspire. Classic to contemporary. Casual to Steam-punk. Goldworks has something for everyone this Christmas. University Mall, 201 S. Estes Dr, Chapel Hill 919-932-1771 | www.goldworks-nc.com

Great Outdoor Provision Co.

Women’s Patagonia Down Sweater | $229

The perfect warmth for just about everything, this classic Down Sweater features 100% Traceable Down. We know the goose down supply chain from farm to jacket. This 100% recycled ripstop polyester shell provides you with the best in lightweight, windproof protection. Cameron Village, Raleigh 919-833-1741 Eastgate Shopping Center, Chapel Hill 919-933-6148 GreatOutdoorProvision.com

Kamiya Furniture Gallery Glass on Teak | $99 + up

The Triangle’s best kept secret. Specializing in handmade, sustainable, Indonesian teak furniture and decor, this is the best place to find that one-of-a-kind gift. Discover their “Glass on Teak” collection - Each is as lovely and unique as you are. Gifts Cards available. 2611 Durham-Chapel Hill Blvd. Durham, NC 919-401-5338 | www.kamiyaco.com

Light Years

Semi-Precious Stone Jewelry Sets Light Years is proud to be locally owned and operated for 30 years! We are fully stocked with tons of beautiful and unique semi-precious stone sets at unbeatable prices! Come by and see our elegant selection and find the perfect gift for everyone on your list! 121 E. Franklin Street, Chapel Hill | 919-942-9265 Streets at Southpoint Mall, Durham | 919-806-5992 Cameron Village, Raleigh | 919-754-8555 www.lightyearsjewelry.com

Jewelsmith

Necklace with Tahitian Pearl and 18K yellow gold We have numerous new designs combining sterling silver, 18K yellow gold and Tahitian pearls. Prices range from $500 to $2500. Create a coordinated look with threader style earrings and on-trend long necklaces that can be wrapped multiple ways. You can shop in the store or online! Erwin Square 2200 W. Main St., Durham 919-286-2990 www.jewelsmith.com

Knights Play Golf Center Gift Certificates

Make your golfer smile all year! Our gift certificates are good for green fees, driving range, golf lessons/clinics and the Pro Shop. Knights Play is a top golf practice facility - fully illuminated driving range and 27-hole course are open 8 AMMidnight, weather permitting. Give the gift of golf. 2512 Ten Ten Rd., Apex www.knightsplay.com | 919-303-4653

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DECEMBER 2, 2015

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Lynne Blanchard

Framed With Google Maps | $10.79

Locally Grown Art

Glassblowing workshop | $265 Our glassblowing school offers a variety of workshops for beginners. Students will create a number of ornaments, beads, and paperweights in this two- day workshop. Learn the basics of glassblowing and gain a technical framework to set up a home studio or rent time through ours. No experience necessary. 407 Rock Rest Rd. Pittsboro 919-200-1957 www.locallygrownart.com

Framed With Google Maps exposes the horrifying details of the botched investigation into Nancy Cooper’s murder. A corrupt investigation and unfair trial resulted in a verdict that outraged the community, leaving lasting doubt that the crime had been solved. Includes information never before shared with the public. Available at Amazon.com

NOFO @ the Pig

Little Shop of Horror

Soaps by Sucreabeille $6 each or 4 for $20

Horror inspired soaps by Sucreabeille. Most are Vegan, a few are Goat Milk blends. Exorcist, Camp Crystal Lake, Coven, Night of the Living Dead, Halloween & some Stephen King themes also available. 506 N Mangum St #103 Durham 919-688-1237 | www.littleshophorror.com

Oak City Soap Company Handmade Shaving Soap | $6

Handmade in NC by a husband and wife team, these shaving soaps create superior lather for a gloriously close shave - perfect for men or women! Their proprietary recipe delivers long-lasting soap that nourishes the skin. Available in multiple fragrances and as a gift set with a ceramic shaving mug. 919-373-5505 www.oakcitysoap.com

Smartphone Projector

These tech accessories make a great gift for everyone! The Smartphone Projector fits most smartphones and magnifies your screen up to 8x. The Smartphone Speaker is a perfect compliment, providing over 30 hours of playback from a single set of batteries. 2014 Fairview Rd., Raleigh 919-821-1240 | www.nofo.com

Posh the Salon

Dermalogica’s Overnight Retinol Repair $80.74 Gift the gift of gorgeous skin this holiday season! With this brand new Overnight Retinol Repair, gain radiant, smoother, younger looking skin all over your face! Use the included buffer cream to ease your skin into a new regimen and watch your wrinkles disappear! 610 W Main Street, Durham NC 27701 919-683-2109 | poshthesalon.com

PNC Arena Gift Cards

Give the Gift of Live Entertainment! PNC Arena Gift Cards are the perfect gift for Family, Friends, or Clients. Carolina Hurricanes hockey, NC State Men’s basketball, concerts, family shows, comedy, and more - something for everyone! Redeemable for event tickets,* at participating concession stands, the Eye Team Store, and more. *excluding NC State Men’s Basketball and select events. 1400 Edwards Mill Rd., Raleigh, NC | 919-861-2300 www.ThePNCArena.com

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DECEMBER 2, 2015

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Holiday Gift Guide

Quail Ridge Books

Wonderful Selection of Books Featuring carefully selected fiction, non-fiction & children’s books, as well as signed copies of books by local and national authors. Ask about our Signed First Editions Club! “Books make great gifts because they have whole worlds inside of them. And it’s much cheaper to buy somebody a book than it is to buy them the whole world!” ~Neil Gaiman 3522 Wade Ave, Raleigh 919-828-1588 www.quailridgebooks.com

Reliable Jewelry & Loan Jewelry

We have a large selection of jewelry, accessories, and all sizes of looses diamonds and settings. Since 1949, Reliable Jewelry has been the trusted name in luxury all over the triangle. Three generations have been providing the best jewelry at the most affordable prices. 307 S. Wilmington St., Raleigh 919-832-1240 | reliablejewelry.com

Runologie

Holly Aiken Runner Girl Bag Made and designed in Raleigh, NC the Holly Aiken Runner Girl Bag is perfect year round. Haul your fitness gear, your daily essentials and/or groceries (if that’s your thing) all in one place. Available exclusively at Runologie. 401 Hillsborough St, Raleigh, NC Phone:(919) 664-8865 www.runologieraleigh.com

The Root Cellar Gift Baskets

Our custom-made Gift Baskets feature specialty food items and more from our market, including pickles, spice rubs, dry pastas, marmalades and jams, peanut and almond butters, gourmet mustards, hand-crafted chocolates, local honey, wines, and more! The perfect holiday gift for the food lover in your life! 750 Martin Luther King Jr Blvd, Chapel Hill 919-967-3663 | rootcellarchapelhill.com

TWIG

Hardwood Playable Art Ball

For the big or little kid in your life. Twig is a local, eco-boutique specializing in environmentallyfriendly home goods, clothing, and toys. We bring you the best most exclusive brands, improving your life and preserving the earth for future generations. Stop by and see what we have for you and your loved ones. 99 S. Elliott Rd, Chapel Hill 919-929-8944 | www.twigliving.com

Ten Thousand Villages Angel Ornament $10

Nepal Knotcraft Center trains, employs and empowers socially and economically underprivileged women in Nepal, giving them opportunities to earn an income and support their schooling. Simple corn husk is used to create a lovely angel ornament. This piece comes complete on a blue paper backing that reads, “Friends are kisses blown to us by angels.” 1357 Kildaire Farm Rd, Cary 919-821-1100 | www.tenthousandvillages.com

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DECEMBER 2, 2015

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Vert & Vogue Femme Sawtooth Desert Scarf by Block Shop Textiles

Vert & Vogue

Arlene Tote by Mill and Bird

This gorgeous, hand-sewn tote is made in Durham of soft American bison leather. The Arlene Tote unites a timeless, classic design with exquisite quality and utility. It features a magnetic snap and interior pocket making it a great gift for work, travel, or everyday. Brightleaf Square | 905 West Main Street Downtown Durham | 919-251-8537 | vertandvogue.com

Marrying the traditional Indian hand block printing process with a modern California aesthetic the Sawtooth Desert Scarf is truly a one of a kind piece. Featuring feather-light cotton and silk, a distinctive color palette, and natural dyes makes this a unique gift they’ll never want to take off. Five Points | 353 West Main Street Downtown Durham | 919-797-2767

Women’s Birth & Wellness Boutique Baltic amber necklaces

Amber Monkey’s 100% certified Baltic amber necklaces have been a traditional baby teething remedy for centuries. We also sell amber with hazelwood, along with bracelets and adult-size necklaces as it’s known to relieve migraines, head, neck, throat congestion, and acid reflux. Non-profit | Open 7 Days a Week Chapel Hill | 919-537-7055 ncbirthcenter.org

POP-UP

SHOP NOVEMBER DECEMBER PILOTED BY

Virtuoso Jewels

Symphony Engagement Ring The only North Carolina jewelry shop owned and run by a Certified Master Jeweler. Owner Larry Seiger is a second generation goldsmith, a multiple international jewelry design award winner and the third jeweler in the nation to be awarded the prestigious JA Certified Master Bench Jeweler Certification. 114B North Salem Street, Apex 919-805-5111 | www.facebook.com/virtuosojewels

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DECEMBER 2, 2015

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FINE GROOMING & BATHING SERVICES

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www.orangecountync.gov/departements/animalservices

This dog has heart, and a whole lot of soul! Meet TRENTON, one of the SPCA’s most huggable adoptables. This gorgeous boy is ready to start the holiday season off on the right foot with his new family. He will do whatever it takes to please his owners, and is loyal beyond measure. Trenton is currently being treated for heartworms, which the SPCA is committed to finishing prior to his final adoption (but he is ready to go home with you today)! This means when he is due for his next treatment, his family will just bring him back in for an overnight procedure! This is all included in Trenton’s $95 adoption fee! He’s already been fixed, vaccinated, microchip and is ready to go. Looking for a brown-eyed love bug for the holidays? Look no further! Visit www.spcawake.org or call 919-772-2326 for more information. To feature a pet for adoption, please contact rgierisch@indyweek.com

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Trenton

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America

This do Meet Tr adoptab the holi new fam his own is curre the SPC

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DECEMBER 2, 2015

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CULTURE

STAGE FRIGHT

A regional theater expert thinks Triangle companies are too insular to thrive. Here’s how they can fix it. BY DEVRA THOMAS

n February, Hands Up: 6 Playwrights, 6 Testaments, a series of monologues on the experiences of people of color with the police, came to Durham’s Common Ground Theatre, where I was executive director until last June. The project was a collaboration between several theater groups across the Triangle. We weren’t collaborating in order to win recognition, but rather because we knew our individual skills and our companies’ unique strengths would enrich the production and foster discussion in a wider community. But most local theater shows, including the ones I supported at Common Ground, don’t have that level of community building at the center. With rare exceptions over the past 25 years, theaters and artists in the Triangle have not been interconnected with one another or their communities. The region is home to more than 40 active companies, but there’s little focus on building a foundation to support the art form as a whole. Lack of communication and community access are the underlying reasons why Triangle theaters are not finding the kind of audiences or critical success they say they want. When Triangle ArtWorks conducted a needs survey for local theater companies in 2014, the top response was some variant of “communication”: between theaters, with audiences, to artists. Despite annual growth in the number of producers over the past 25 years, audiences and funding remain stagnant. I hear the lament from theater producers: Why don’t more people attend theater the way they do concerts; why isn’t there more professional (that is, full-time wage) theater; why can’t we get more press coverage? In my time at Common Ground, I observed that local theaters and companies are too focused on shortterm project management and the funding they need to put on their next show. Relationship building takes time and effort, yet artists, who are focused on the art itself, run most companies here. Without a long-term outlook on the health of the local field, the Triangle theater scene will always lack the robust support needed to achieve wider appreciation. Theaters pay lip service to a tax-exempt organization’s ILLUSTRATION BY CHRISTOPHER WILLIAMS

mandate of community service but often rest on the “quality” argument: Technical expertise drives quality product. But “an aesthetic that dismisses the value of hands-on artistic expression is one that runs the risk of spiraling toward irrelevance,” argues Doug Borwick in his book, Building Communities, Not Audiences: The Future of the Arts in the United States. While most Triangle theaters have been somewhat successful in finding enough patrons to keep making shows, they have not shown any serious inclination to embrace the broader community by inviting them to participate, in the way poetry readings and spoken-word performances are often open to the public. Communication is sorely lacking among Triangle theaters. The Women’s Voices Theater Festival in Washington, D.C., came about because the artistic leaders of the area’s “Big 7” theaters have lunch together once a month. For a too-brief time in the early 1990s, a communication network existed within the Triangle theater scene. The Triangle Network of Theatres brought together companies and artists with the mission of increasing dialogue and public awareness. But without a dedicated staff, the network fell apart, and local theater reverted to artists doing their best to create and promote by themselves. In July 2014, local theater artists gathered to discuss the state of the field with the help of Triangle ArtWorks. Again, after much talking, nothing happened, because no one championed the kind of network-building that was needed. For the most part, artistic directors are not full-time paid employees of their organizations in the Triangle. As is true for most of our area’s artists, they live middle-class lives and rely on other means to pay their bills, such as spouses or jobs outside of the arts. That means less time to build the relationships necessary to support full-time paid work, a negative reinforcement loop. Better internal and external communication could simply amount to regular conversations among theaters about season selections, technical jobs and auditions, show calendars for audiences and educational opportunities, either professional or in schools. Making theaters more accessible would also help foster community. Accessibility is a loaded term, especially among performing arts nonprofits. But I’m talking about the public perception that not just anyone can attend or join in the

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culture creation of local theater. There is no true ensemble company theater in the Triangle; PlayMakers Repertory Company comes closest. There are only a handful of actual community theaters (Raleigh Little Theater, Cary Players, North Raleigh Arts & Creative Theatre). The rest fall in between, tending to pick the same artists for most shows and holding season auditions that don’t always garner diverse attendance or create opportunities for community involvement. Then there’s cost. Discussing it in the realm of nonprofit theater is like handling a live snake: You can’t charge too much because you may get bitten asking for donations; you can’t charge too little because the perception of value decreases. For the final show in its University Mall home, Deep Dish Theater Company charged $30, more than PlayMakers’ average price. While the value of the show was adequately reflected in the price, it drove away potential audiences, including other theater artists. But no one bats an eye at paying more than $60 for seats at Carolina Performing Arts. The cost reflects the perceived value. Contributors— whether ticket buyers, taxpayers through government funding or foundations—want to know their money is well spent. Accessibility also hinges on public relations. Last season, through a happy coincidence, many Raleigh theaters were able to jointly market their Shakespeare shows with financial support from the Greater Raleigh Convention & Visitors Bureau. While tourists do not make up more than a handful of local theater’s patrons, that kind of marketing power drives awareness. It doesn’t take the place of community building, though. A lot of theater artists wish they had more advertising dollars and time or that they could garner more free publicity in local media, but general audiences don’t go see something just because of an ad or a calendar listing. They attend because someone they trust (a friend, a participant, a critic) told them it’s worth their time. To that end, local theater needs to broaden its audience, and companies could benefit from more board members. The boards of Burning Coal Theatre Company and Theatre in the Park are both dominated by participating artists; Manbites Dog Theater has only six board members. Do the boards of the Justice Theater Project or NRACT adequately reflect their communities, missions

and needs? Raleigh Little Theatre and NC Theatre each have dozens of board members from a broad cross section of their communities and a few internal artistic representatives. The community support they enjoy reflects this breadth of executive oversight. More isn’t always better, but more diverse ideas can reach a broader audience. If you are a theater artist thinking, “I want to keep producing my art with my friends,” by all means, go right ahead! Your work is important; it has an audience and has value in the cultural health of the region. Just don’t clamor for greater visibility and community engagement (or tax exemption) if you’re functioning like an after-school theater club. Only when Triangle theaters stop treating productions like one-offs and embrace the interconnected network they could be part of will companies and artists begin to achieve broader recognition and financial stability. Dance artists in Durham recognized this need when they formed Durham Independent Dance Artists in 2014, which has turned an archipelago of independent productions into a curated season that has resulted in many sold-out houses and increased press coverage. Local theaters, faced with similar challenges, might benefit from a similar innovation. The Stoneleaf Festival—a short-lived project of the North Carolina Theatre Conference, the organization that purportedly supports independent theater across the state—had the mission to bring local artists together in front of a wider audience. It’s been 10 years since Stoneleaf happened. What could have been a new beginning for regional theater is instead a lovely memory. What will it take for something collective to take hold? Artistic expression is not opposed to social engagement; the Triangle’s theater companies and artists need to find the intersection of the two to sell their product and change the world. s After 12 years designing and managing in Triangle theaters, Devra Thomas was executive director of Common Ground Theatre from January 2014 to June 2015, when she relocated to Morehead City with her family. She is an arts systems analyst with a graduate degree in arts administration and is currently writing Mushrooms on a Log: 25 Years of Theater in the Triangle.

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• DECEMBER 2, 2015 • Thu Dec 3

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DUKE PERFORMANCES I N D U R H A M , A T D U K E , A R T M A D E B O L D LY

www.lincolntheatre.com DECEMBER

We 2 DEGREES NORTH Film presented

Love Canon & Big Daddy Love

by THE NORTH FACE w/ Ralph

Backstom / Xavier De Le Rue + 7:30P

T h 3 BIG DADDY LOVE/LOVE CANON F r 4 THE STEELDRIVERS 8p w/ The Black Lillies

Sa 5 KIX w/Automag /The Fifth /21st

Century Goliath/Last call Messiahs

Su 6 JOHN KADLECIK BAND 7p We 9 SAMANTHA FISH 7p Th 10 CORROSION OF CONFORMITY

Pepper-Reed-Mike-Woody + 7p w/Brant Bjork/Saviors/Mothership Fr 11 DOPAPOD w/ Nth Power 8p Sa 12 OLD HABITS (Christmas Bash!!) w/ Old Man Whickett 8p

| ICONIC AMERICAN SONGWRITER |

ROSANNE CASH

THE RIVER & THE THREAD

We 16 HOLIDAY RAWk 7p Th 17 HOPE FOR HAITI w/People’s

T H U R S D AY, D E C E M B E R 1 0 | 8 P M PA G E A U D I T O R I U M GET TICKETS: 919-684-4444 • DUKEPERFORM ANCES.ORG

Durham

Holiday Fun Fest Saturday, December 5, 2015 1 p.m. - 5 p.m.

ROCK QUARRY PARK, 701 Stadium DR. Featuring sLEDDING AND A SNOW PLAY AREA , pONY rIDES, sANTA CLAUs, TRAIN RIDES, iNFLATABLE OBSTACLE COURSE, TODDLER PLAYLAND, FACE PAINTING, ARTS AND CRAFTS, CAMPFIRE AND S’MORES, MUSIC, Food & More!

peppermint plunge North Pole

Train Rides Kandy kane kids’ korner Holiday eats-n-treats

See our website for more details! www.DPRPlayMore.org

www.DPRPlayMore.org • (919) 560-4355

The Steeldrivers

Free!

18 19 27 31

Blues of Richmond/Peak City Blues REBEL SON w/Dave Schneider 8p YARN w/ The Dune Dogs 8p NANTUCKET w/Monika Jaymes+ 7p BIG SOMETHING w/Groove Fetish

Sa 2 8&9 Fr 15 Sa 16 Sa 23 Th 28 Su 31

WINTER METAL FEST ZOSO Ultimate LED ZEPPELIN exp STRUTTER (A Tribute to KISS) THE BREAKFAST CLUB 80’s 8p ANI DIFRANCO w/Hamell on Trial LUKE COMBS 7p GRAVEYARD w/Spiders 7p

Mo 1 5&6 Th 11 Fr 12 Fr 13 Th 18 Fr 19 Sa 20 Tu 23 Su 28 3 - 1 3 - 2 3 - 9 3-17 3-31 4 - 3

EPICA w/ Moonspell/Starkill 6:30 AMERICAN AQUARIUM 8p CHERUB w/Bibbz @ THE RITZ THE SHAKEDOWN (Mardi Gras) WHO’S BAD Michael Jackson Trib. THE MACHINE performs PINK FLOYD MOTHER’S FINEST + 7p NEVER SHOUT NEVER + 6:30p SISTER HAZEL 7p MIKE GARDNER BENEFIT 7p Y&T 7p RANDY ROGERS BAND + JUDAH AND THE LION 7p MAC SABBATH STICK FIGURE 7p THE INFAMOUS STRINGDUSTERS

Fr Sa Su Th

Fri Dec 4

JANUARY

DECEMBER

Advance Tickets @Lincolntheatre.com & Schoolkids Records All Shows All Ages 126 E. Cabarrus St. 919-821-4111

KIX

Sat Dec 5 Sun Dec 6

John Kadlecik Band Formerly of Further & Dark Star Orchestra

Thu Dec 10

Corrosion of Conformity

015

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music visual arts performance books film sports

JAMMED SIGNAL

As the new electronic trio GNØER, Goner forgets rock ’n’ roll BY SPENCER GRIFFITH PHOTOGRAPHS BY ALEX BOERNER

ore than two years have passed since Goner released its last record, Faking the Wisdom. But do not expect an album-release party in the near future from the keyboard-led Raleigh trio, which has crafted Springsteen-like rock epics without so much as a guitar for the last decade. Goner is done. Well, kind of: With the same three members, Goner has rebuilt and rechristened itself as GNØER, pronounced “knower.” Though the group will soon issue its excellent debut EP, Tethers Down, the members are less concerned with celebrating those five songs in public than with creating new ones and side-stepping traditional band roles—like recordrelease shows or familiar rock ’n’ roll instruments. Where Goner was a drums-bass-and-keys band, GNØER consists only of sequencers, synthesizers and laptops. “We’re having so much fun in here that, at the end of the day, we’re like, ‘Should we do a show?’” says singer and keyboardist Scott Phillips inside the band’s rectangular, posterlined, cord-strewn practice space just outside downtown Raleigh. “The focus of the band has become so much more about how much fun we’re having in here, which might not be very career-oriented.” “We used to joke about having a castle to go record in for weeks at a time—something that someone who had a lot of money to spend would have the luxury of doing,” bassistturned-producer Greg Eyman adds. “This is kind of like our weird version of that. We come here, and we’re creating new stuff every single practice.” After almost 15 years as Goner, Phillips, Eyman and drummer Chris Dalton decided to reconfigure the band, thanks, in part, to a financial motivation. During a spring 2012 Kickstarter campaign meant to finance much of Faking The Wisdom, its fourth LP, Goner raised more than $8,500. More than a dozen backers ponied up $100 for Phillips to record a cover song of their choice; another half-dozen paid $200 for Goner to write and record their personal theme song. That meant a lot of work, so Phillips needed a little help and ingenuity to write and record those songs without much time and money. Goner couldn’t afford a proper studio treatment for the sponsored recordings and the 10 tracks that ended up on Wisdom; that would deplete the capital the band had raised. “Greg came up with the idea of doing some of them right here in the practice space,” Phillips recalls. “He had GarageBand and could produce beats, so we started doing stuff like that.” For years, Eyman had been making tracks by himself at home, influenced by the rhythmic work of European electronic Helping hands not needed: Chris Dalton, one third of GNØER, in his band’s Raleigh practice space

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music visual arts performance books film sports acts Joakim, Hot Chip and Mitch Murder, plus stateside counterparts such as LCD Soundsystem and Lazerhawk. At first, Eyman’s productions had nothing to do with the band. “Occasionally, we would try to throw them into something,” Eyman says. “This process really brought that to the forefront, as far as using a lot of those beats in what we were recording.” Eyman initially tried to use an Akai MPX8 for samples, but he became frustrated by how long it took to load each beat into the system. He spent as much time tinkering with the instrument as he did playing it. After observing the way Sylvan Esso’s Nick Sanborn incorporated electronics into live performances, Eyman rigged up an old Mac Mini to use with the more advanced Akai APC40 controller. The approach suddenly started to bleed into everything Goner touched.

Not a goner: Chris Dalton, left, and Greg Eyman

“We got good at it near the last half [of those recordings],” Dalton chimes in. Once dominated by drums, his corner of the practice space now includes both microKORG and Alesis Micron synthesizers. The hardware reveals the more recent inspirations that Dalton—a heavy-metal obsessive who often played Goner’s drums like he was backing a much heavier band—found in the vintage sounds of modern electronic acts like M83 and The Knife. He also rediscovered the work of German electronic composer Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream. But really, it was the pop of Haim that pushed him to the microKORG. “This [instrument] is horrible, cheesy and not cool at all—it’s not a Moog or anything fancy,” he says. “But I’d seen a live video of Haim and one of the Haim sisters was playing a microKORG. She’d go do her parts and I’d hear all those sounds that I wanted to hear in my head. I thought, ‘That’s got to be an easy way of getting my foot in the door and fiddling around.’” After only a few practices, Eyman and Dalton

fully shifted from a traditional rhythm section to one of electronic experimentation. They never openly discussed the transition as a trio; it’s just that their momentum didn’t stall. And for Phillips, the move has also meant a new, more collaborative songwriting method for the three-piece. “It’s a lot more democratic. For me, I like that because a lot of the pressure is off,” he says. “We get along very well, and we always have. We can withstand some changes creatively.” While “Reunion Show”—a holdover from the end of Goner’s run—follows Phillips’ preferred narrative structure, the four other tracks on GNØER’s debut EP are still rife with imagery, but more abstract than his writing in Goner. Like Dalton (who also drums in metal duo New Light Choir), Phillips maintains another project, the solo act Monologue Bombs. It’s an outlet for work more in line with Goner’s prior songs. “The stuff we’re doing is a lot denser and more expansive, so I was inspired to write more impressionistically,” he says. “The hope is that I can get my more overtly character-driven, singer-songwriter tics out via Monologue Bombs, and I can have a tabula rasa when I come in here, so I’m not as tethered.” GNØER manages to avoid being confined by genre rules or restrictions, too. For Dalton, that comes from not carrying the baggage of being huge electronic music fans in the distant past. Their expectations are open, their possibilities endless. When they step into this practice space now as GNØER, they can simply explore. The five tracks on the new Tethers Down never feel circumscribed, instead bounding between the twinkling pop of “Unpreventable Crash” and the industrial thrum of “Reunion Show.” “We just started building songs from scratch, which was something we had never really done before,” Eyman says. “The ability to come in here with nothing, or just a couple of beats, and start layering stuff on top and building these songs collaboratively, it just became so immediately fun.” Phillips echoes the sentiment, describing how much it excites him now to layer “weird sounds” atop Eyman’s beats for a quarter-hour during GNØER’s twice-weekly rehearsals. “I used to make fun of bands that jammed. It seemed so silly. Do your songs, you know?” he confesses. “But this is great. I guess it just took the change in instrumentation for me to see the joy in it.” s Spencer Griffith lives in Raleigh and has written about music for the INDY since 2008.

GNØER TETHERS DOWN (self-released) During its 14 years as a band, Goner released four remarkable LPs. The last, 2013’s Faking the Wisdom, cut a memorable line between the poignant narratives of late-period Joe Strummer and Big Star’s insistent power pop, peppered by bits of R.E.M. and Springsteen. Trapped in dreary towns and surrounded by losers, the tragic characters of keyboardist Scott Phillips seemed so well developed that they threatened to step out of the music to share sad stories over cheap beer. Though the five-song EP Tethers Down isn’t a Goner record, it’s the same songwriter and the same musicians, stamped now with the joke-Scandinavian name GNØER. The band has dropped the power-trio approach in favor of songs that are darkly danceable and heavily digitized. Goner may be gone, but the songwriting, the soaring hooks and the chemistry have evolved as GNØER. “Gravity wins tonight/the speakers set to stun/the walls exposed and dripping with the poorly painted young,” Phillips sings in the brutal, possibly autobiographical “Reunion Show.” Phillips universalizes the experience of playing an apathetically received gig, zeroing in on the ache of age and the passage of time. “We’re overlooked/ flat dismissed/a reunion show of no one’s favorite band.” Greg Eyman makes a noisy, cathartic mess from his menacing bass line. It sounds as though GNØER is paving over the place Goner once stood. On “Tonight’s the Word,” above pulsating electronica, Phillips explores the bleak parallels between kids staring out the window, “in love with the aching for a cinematic something,” and the dejected adults they become, faces pressed to windows overlooking droning interstate traffic. Joyless urban imagery weaves throughout Tethers Down— the city, the beltline, the commuters. Escape seems an unattainable ideal. “There’s molecules and galaxies/our birthright’s infinity and cowboy chords and symphonies,” Phillips sings over the trip-hop hints of closer “Cowboy Chords.” But the song switches into a driving, euphoric insistence, its Krautrock love allowing this magnificently tense record to end with a tenuous ray of hope. No, GNØER’s not exactly a new start. Instead, it’s a remarkable reinvention of a band we thought we knew, learning something new about itself. —Corbie Hill

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THE LAST SPLASH

Two new LPs offer the final testimony from two great, late area bands WHATEVER BRAINS LP (Sorry State Records) The club was packed before the openers even began. In early May, Raleigh’s Whatever Brains took the second slot on a threeband bill at Kings. This wasn’t an exceptionally rare circumstance: Whatever Brains had expressed few qualms about overplaying their own market, sometimes stepping onto a few Triangle stages per month and often opening for out-of-town pals on tour. But in the weeks leading up to Whatever Brains’ shared bill with Lightning Bolt, the band had quietly told some of their most steadfast supporters that— for an accumulation of small reasons—this would be their last show after seven busy years. They would record one more album of mostly finished songs, put it out and step away without any fanfare for one of North Carolina’s absolute best bands of the last two decades. That night, fans and family members nodded their heads a little bit harder to the band’s double-drum blasts and sheets of synthesizer noise, maybe chuckled a bit more to Rich Ivey’s caustic between-song banter. Whatever Brains exited stage right in a final blaze of feedback. The Brains finally broke the news five months later with a solitary sentence shared on Facebook: “ALSO WHATEVER BRAINS ISN’T A BAND ANYMORE.” But the otherwise private nature of the band’s end fits their larger narrative. With 16 releases in less than a decade, including a ream of singles and four LPs, Whatever Brains have long opted to let the work speak for the band behind it. The members always avoided taking a press photo and, despite steadily mounting national attention, never really sought a bigger label or publicist beyond what the locals of Sorry State Records (and, before that, Bull City) could provide. And rather than roam far and wide on loss-heavy

tours, Whatever Brains went on only a few runs, mostly sticking close to home to write and record. Making music always seemed to matter more than the proverbial goal of “making it.” In fact, the band’s electrifying fourth and final LP, recorded in the month after that last live stand, proclaims that

perspective from the start with biting opener, “An Object.” It’s an unqualified send-up of peers who use the machinations of the industry to prop up a lack of ideas. “We constructed an object to travel the earth and convince it that we are great men,” Ivey deadpans over barbed guitars and marching drums. “Now our friends and families are oh so impressed.” It’s a delirious, dissonance-undergirded pop song, written from a perspective drunk on self-satisfaction. That is a problem Whatever Brains have never had. In recent years, Whatever Brains have steered increasingly from their early guitar-bass-drums approach. They’ve shaken off stereotypical rockband strictures in favor of carousel-like synthesizer melodies, noise-damaged electronics, lurid harmonies and complicated interlocking rhythms. William Evans, Evan Williams, Matt Northrup and

Josh Lawson have all brilliantly expanded their reach as instrumentalists, fashioning a warped fortress around Ivey’s nasal sneer. Whatever Brains push the upper limit of that approach for these nine numbers by using guitars for accents and tricks, not the substance of the tunes themselves. The change allows them to add force to these lyrical attacks—on bad cops and national surveillance, on selfie society and grumpy old men, on posers and whiners. To wit, a three-song suite about belligerent police begins with “Let’s Find a Cop,” a drumand-keys romp that empties into a climax of obliterative noise. Part two, or the violent “Pluries,” rides a blown-out bass line into an ambient passage that suggests the sound of ringing bells and fired guns as reimagined by electroacoustic composer Christian Fennesz. “Tape” zigs and zags through an ecstatic, maze-like rhythm section that might as well sample Steve Reich’s Clapping Music. Here, even Ivey’s voice seems to yield to cyborg control, losing its humanity to pronounce: “I gave birth once to a modern idea. They can keep it. I’ve got more.” Whatever Brains do pick up guitars en masse for one song, “What Happened to All the Destructionaires.” Back in 2008, on the debut Whatever Brains cassette and on a subsequent 2009 single, that title came with a question mark at the end. The song was a fuzzy acoustic shamble about mean people and punks with fancy cellphones. Despite the criticism, it felt soft. Here, though, it’s a blown-out electric beast, the rhythm plodding along like a doom-metal monster and the screaming guitars causing Ivey to fight for space in which to sing. Seven years ago, this song seemed like a humorous, almost-apologetic lament. Not here: It is the indictment just before the exit, the middle finger thrown in the air one last time—a perfectly Whatever Brains way to end an argument that their willfully defiant and restless output always wanted to start, anyway. —Grayson Haver Currin

2014 IBMA Momentum Award BAND OF THE YEAR

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The INDY’S GUIDE to ALL THINGS TRIANGLE

DADDY ISSUES FUCK MARRY KILL (self-released) Women keep secrets that we like to share only with one another. There are things we’ll talk about together but rarely, if ever, in mixed company—feelings, a horrifying range of bodily functions and yes, the partners we love and hate. But Greensboro’s Daddy Issues have never minded addressing these grievances and delights in public. In fact, their first, and farewell, LP, Fuck Marry Kill, hits on all of these “taboo” topics and pays no mind to who may or may not be listening. On Fuck Marry Kill, Daddy Issues serves up gleeful helpings of sass, surf-driven riffs and real talk for an infectious and attitude-heavy romp about the concerns of being a woman. Daddy Issues played their last show in August, splitting after only two years due to a few members’ cross-country moves. Wasting no time, Fuck Marry Kill rips from the start with “Glue Sniffer,” an anti-ode to a shitty dude and the woman who can do better than him. It’s an extension of TLC’s “No Scrubs,” updated for the modern age thanks to a reference to Tinder matches. “Pissed” is a hilarious, quick tune about

peeing your pants, spotlighting Daddy Issues’ sense of humor while proving they never let it trump a great hook. Daddy Issues has plenty of fun throughout Fuck Marry Kill, but they’re hardly just jokesters. “Wild Thing” is a sexy, slinky appreciation of a partner, and “Riot Grrrl” boasts a frank and breezy chorus about sex in the backseat of a car. Closing track “All My Girls,” however, cements the best thing about girl talk and female friendship, and perhaps what was best about Daddy Issues during their short, productive life: When you’re surrounded by your girlfriends—the women who keep your secrets and whose secrets you guard, too—you feel like you don’t need anything else in the world. The song’s chorus serves as a mission statement for the LP, the band, maybe even life itself: “I don’t need anyone to tell me what to do when I’m young/I don’t need anyone to have me when I’ve got all my girls.” For all its tongue-in-cheek lightness and unabashed attitude, Fuck Marry Kill cuts to the core of what life can be like as a young woman—fun and frustrating, vibrant and strange. Most of us wouldn’t trade it for anything. —Allison Hussey

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KNOCKIN’ BRUTES

Isabella Rossellini’s Green Porno is funny and informative on the science of animal sex BY CHRIS VITIELLO

here’s dark comedy in the violent end of praying mantis intercourse, fascination in frustratingly mismatched duck genitalia, a titillating joy in the knowledge that dolphins do oral—and blowhole. In her stage show, Green Porno, prolific screen actor Isabella Rossellini not only brings offbeat humor to zoological hardcore, she also makes it scientifically educational and, somehow, safe for kids. “I do like to laugh. But there wasn’t any moral intention,” Rossellini says. “I could have done the digestive system, which is also very funny, but maybe not as appealing. I just thought sexual because everybody’s interested in sex.” Arriving at the Carolina Theatre this week, the show builds on the popular Sundance Channel web series Rossellini wrote, directed and produced: Green Porno on animal intercourse, Seduce Me on courtship and Mammas on motherhood. With a bare-bones budget, she collaborated with puppeteer Andy Byers and co-producer Rick Gilbert, who made human-size creatures from colorful paper and augmented leotards that transform Rossellini into a bee, a shrimp, a duck—a whole menagerie. “With Rick and Andy, I give the basic solution,” she says. “Let’s say that I’m a fly and I want to fly. I say, ‘OK, I can fly by tipping the camera so it looks like I’m attached to the ceiling.’ I am not very technical, so my big inspiration is Georges Méliès, who made the first science-fiction films. Silent movies, to me, are a big inspiration.” But the fanciful staging doesn’t take liberties with sound science. Rossellini, an actor perhaps best known from David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, has also been undertaking graduate studies in animal behavior and conservation at Hunter College. A five-foot-tall, spiraling duck phallus she sidles up to in the show is physically accurate. “I wanted my films to be scientifically correct, because otherwise they’re not funny—otherwise I was going to be a mad old woman who was just talking about whatever came into her mind,” she says. “The biggest time I spend is to read and

make sure that I understand it scientifically and then digest and retranslate everything into something funny.” The result is delightful mischief. In the videos, Rossellini physically demonstrates the mating habits of scores of creatures, mounting or being mounted by paper puppets. Narrated in a breathy voice on an intimate sound stage, it’s funny and weirdly romantic. The live show is more a monologue built around the videos than a stage adaptation of them—although its star does don a few animal costumes onstage. Rossellini credits Sundance with giving her the artistic freedom to realize Green Porno. Seeing the instant popularity of YouTube in the late 1990s as a proof-ofconcept for experimental shorts, Sundance offered filmmakers small budgets to bring their ideas to the screen. Rossellini, who had been mulling over how to turn her interest in animal behavior into a performance, saw her opportunity.

“Generally, when there is less money invested in a project, they allow the artist to take a little more freedom,” she says. “Sundance always believed that one of the great things about America is diversity, so it’s important to keep the voices of experimental filmmakers because maybe one of these experiments might develop and become something else. This is the case with Green Porno—40 films, a monologue and a book.” It has also become a collaboration with the Durham-based company Burt’s Bees. In 2012, Rossellini did a series of whimsical yet informative web shorts called Burt Talks to the Bees as part of the company’s campaign to encourage beekeeping and raise awareness about environmental threats to bees. While she continues her graduate studies, she is embarking on a new series of short films on animal cognition—their intelligence, feelings, thoughts and communication practices.

“I just thought sexual because everybody’s interested in sex”: Isabella Rossellini in Green Porno PHOTO COURTESY OF THE CAROLINA THEATRE

“It’s a subject that’s full of controversy,” she explains. “People say, ‘Animals are just full of instinct,’ and other people say, ‘Oh, my dog totally understands me.’ So wherever there is controversy, it’s interesting to write.” s Chris Vitiello is the INDY’s visual art art columnist. Twitter: @ChrisVitiello

ISABELLA ROSSELLINI: GREEN PORNO Saturday, Dec. 5, 8 p.m., $34–$54 Carolina Theatre 309 W. Morgan St., Durham 919-560-3030 www.carolinatheatre.org

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ABOUT FACE

Apologizing for a derisive Facebook comment about Middle Eastern culture, Burning Coal Theatre Company’s Jerome Davis insists his aims remain progressive BY CAITLIN WELLS

oger Ebert said that movies are like a machine that generates empathy. I feel the same way about theater. But one local theater director’s empathy failed him after the terror attacks in Paris. On the night of Nov. 13, Jerome Davis, artistic director of Raleigh’s Burning Coal Theatre Company, took to Facebook to laud Parisians as “beautiful, intelligent, artistically inclined people.” Meanwhile, he derided Middle Eastern culture for “generation after generation of incompetence, stupidity and failure.” Like many in the theater community, I was flabbergasted, especially because Davis has often staged highly political pieces with heroic Middle Eastern characters. Just last year, he brought in Palestinian activist Abdelfattah Abusrour to direct The Diary of Anne Frank. I followed the resultant stream of outrage on Facebook and Davis’ apology the next morning. Then I got in touch to ask how his outburst squares with his stated views. While he didn’t really explain it, the conversation became a springboard into urgent issues of diversity and the responsibilities of artistic leadership. INDY: What was going through your mind when you posted that Facebook comment? JEROME DAVIS: I turned on the television, saw the news, made the posting and then went to bed. When I got up the next morning and saw a number of negative responses to it, I immediately realized what I had said and posted an apology, and then deleted [the original post]. It was a stupid thing to say; it doesn’t make any sense. It’s diametrically opposed to what I believe, which is that people have this terrible habit of trying to pigeonhole people by group, good guys and bad guys. Life would be very simple if it were that easy, but it’s not. I wish I had a better answer. Is it fair to say that was a simplification of your understanding of the Middle East? It doesn’t represent my understanding at all. I don’t want to make excuses; I literally do not know why I said it. It was a stupid mistake and I wish I hadn’t done

it. It doesn’t reflect what I hold valuable and true. I believe people should be judged by their actions, characteristics and talents, not collectively. I have said that many times, both on Facebook and in the work I’ve done over my life. How do you see your role in the community as the director of Burning Coal? I think an artistic leader has three responsibilities to the community: Know everything one can about one’s art form, know everything one can about everything else and then put that knowledge into action. We’re very fortunate to live in a community where there are a lot of small, forward-thinking arts groups, especially in the theater. A large number of theaters are inclusive and have a diverse worldview, and that has been at the core of our company’s work. In fact, it’s our mission statement. We’re interested in global issues.

very low rent to nonprofits, school groups and artistic endeavors. We’re trying to be inclusive, and it’s difficult, when you’re a small arts organization, to get out into the world and also maintain a high level of excellence. One way we can do that is by partnering with other organizations. There’s a lot of stuff we do that doesn’t get a lot of publicity but I think goes in the direction that you’re talking about.

Jerome Davis

How do you see Burning Coal as fitting into the theater community here? Professionalism is something we’ve been interested in from the start—the question of how an artist can live in a place distant from the great metropolitan areas but still do work that will have an impact on the world. One way to do that is to be able to put your entire focus on it. We don’t ask the banker or the butcher to do that after they’ve earned their living elsewhere, but we do ask artists to do that. I think that’s a gross oversight in our society, and one Burning Coal has been working on incrementally. What kind of work does Burning Coal do to fight racism, hatred and ignorance? Our space is situated on the borderline between historically black and historically mainstream Raleigh culture, in the building where the vote to desegregate the school system took place in 1960. We have made that story the forefront of our work. We only have two salaried employees.

PHOTO COURTESY OF JEROME DAVIS

But one of our first salaried positions was an African-American woman as director of education. A gay man held that position for a number of years; a Jewish-American woman holds it now. So within the narrow confines of our staff, that’s some level of diversity I think we have a right to be proud of. We do a lot of plays by and for minority populations. In the last three or four years, we have hired a Muslim or Latino director on a number of occasions. We did a play by a Spanish playwright bilingually, not just so that one community could hear a play in their native language but also so that the rest of the community could hear it in the language in which it was originally written. When you bring people with different worldviews into the room, then, almost by definition, you’re changing your own. We have worked with Arts Access and were one of the first companies to offer with every production an audio-described performance for the visually impaired. We work with an organization that provides scholarships for homeless children to participate in our summer camps. We also make our space available for a

It’s difficult to separate the personal from business. How do you navigate that as the public face of Burning Coal? I don’t know how to separate them. If I were running a large organization where I could turn things over to other people, then possibly I could leave some of myself at the door, but when you’re the overseer of everything, you’re going to be part of everything and it’s going to be part of you. You have to bring the world into the theater; you can’t seclude yourself. Some artists become so engrossed in the minutiae of putting a play together that there’s an impulse to shut everything else out. But if you do that, you’re not fulfilling your responsibility to the community, and then you’re not fulfilling your responsibility to the art form. Even for a nonprofit, do you think there’s a different standard of responsibility to the community for a theater company that gets money from government agencies? Absolutely. It means we have the awesome burden of presenting work that’s meaningful to that community. I think that really is the reason why public subsidy is so critical. What you are looking for in a theater is what’s happening in the actor’s eyes, face and body. But to pay for it, you need more seats, which means pushing the audience further away from that value. It’s a lousy delivery system. That’s the tension of the larger community and the nonprofit sector. We’re essentially asking for tax dollars to pay for something we believe is foundational to the human experience, but it’s very difficult to convince people of that.

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Moving forward, what are the big issues you want Burning Coal to focus on? The environment is the big issue. Another critical concern is the Syrian refugees and other refugees. We’re seeing this incoherent but far too common desire to segregate people based on the accident of their birth. Over and over again, we are reminded that this is not the way to judge people, and yet when crises happen, that old saw gets trotted out again. Nuclear proliferation is another major concern, as is overpopulation. And the Citizens United law is contorting our political process. That’s a U.S.-based idea, versus these other, more global things. But we are, for better or for worse, the strongest country on Earth, so how we behave affects everybody else.

Caitlin Wells is a local actor, producer, director, designer, stage manager and teacher. She currently works with Delta Boys Theater Company, Haymaker, Little Green Pig Theatrical Concern and Burning Coal .

DECEMBER 2, 2015

POTTERY & SCULPTURE SALE WORKS BY SIGLINDA SCARPA IN CLAY & MIXED MEDIA

23rd Annual Chatham Artists Guild Studio Tour

So these are issues that we’re going to start seeing in the next few seasons? I think you have already. The first play we did, in 1997, was Rat in the Skull, which deals with the issue of people who segregate themselves and work out complicated narratives of why the other is responsible for all the bad things happening in the world. In April, we’re doing Spoonface Steinberg, which is about looking at the world through the eyes of the other. That’s what theater does at its best. You’re asked to enter a world that you don’t know and engage with people you have not understood. I’m concerned about the question of quality versus political action, but I think one leads to the other—art that fully engages its audience is art that will most thoroughly impact its audience. Has the controversy over your Facebook comment led to new ways to hold Burning Coal accountable? I’m still mulling that over, and certainly our board will be involved in that process. But the community is the major barometer through which I think any artist would judge the decisions that they make. Any time you make a mistake of this magnitude, you realize that you’re human, and it is bound to call you to question every other decision that you’re making. That has certainly been the case with me over the last few weeks. s

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Reality of My Surroundings THE CONTEMPORARY COLLECTION On view through July 10, 2016

2001 Campus Drive, Durham I nasher.duke.edu Ebony G. Patterson, ...shortly after 8- beyond the bladez (detail), 2014. Museum purchase with additional funds provided by Blake Byrne (T’57) and Marjorie and Michael Levine (T’84, P’16, P’19, P’19). Courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago. © Ebony G. Patterson.

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Where we’ll be

CALENDARS MUSIC 41 VISUAL ARTS 46 PERFORMANCE 47 BOOKS 48 SPORTS 48 FILM 49

THEATER | THE WIZ

MURPHEY SCHOOL AUDITORIUM, RALEIGH THURSDAY, DEC. 3–SUNDAY, DEC. 20

One reason we were so perplexed by Jerome Davis’ derisive Facebook comment about Middle Eastern culture (see story, p. 36) was that Burning Coal Theatre Company, which he directs, has a strong record of producing geopolitically wide-ranging and progressive works focused on nonwhite people. (Last year, for instance, the Raleigh company’s decision to bring in a Palestinian director made for a controversial staging of The Diary of Anne Frank.) Keeping with its drive for cultural diversity in a theater region where black voices are still lamentably outnumbered, Burning Coal mounts a holiday run of The Wiz, Charlie Smalls and William F. Brown’s 1974 inner-city revision of L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and the MGM film classic that followed. You at least know it from 62.7529 the 1978 film version (by Sidney Lumet!), with a cast including Diana Ross, Michael Jackson and Richard Pryor and an Oz redolent of ground-down ’70s New York City. This pop-soul powerhouse eases on down the road until Dec. 20, with Carly Jones as Dorothy, in a production directed by Randolph Curtis Rand. 7:30 p.m. Thurs.–Sat.; 2 p.m. Sat. and Sun., $5–$25, 224 Polk St., Raleigh, 919-834-4001, www.burningcoal.org. —Brian Howe

MUSIC

REVERBNATION HOLIDAY PARTY MOTORCO, DURHAM FRIDAY, DEC. 4

Ask a dozen bands for an opinion about ReverbNation, and you’re bound to get at least a half-dozen different perspectives. The Durham-based tech company serves not just as a syndicate for streaming sounds but also as a source for industry connections and audience analytics, allowing acts opportunities to license songs or, say, ferret out markets that warrant a club play. Some swear by the platform, and others, well, simply swear at its complexity. Nonetheless, the company employs a wonderful panoply of local musicians, and it knows how to throw a free hometown holiday party: The three-band bill of Zack Mexico, Birds of Avalon and Mac McCaughan is an exceptional one. McCaughan, of course, helped foster audiences via Superchunk and Merge Records long before web portals offered isolated market intel; his new batch of solo songs, Non-Believers, is fantastic. Likewise, Raleigh favorite Birds of Avalon is a flock of rock ’n’ roll lifers, all of whom have helped build scenes—and still manage to put on an incredible, magnetic show. The relative upstarts of Zack Mexico have sharpened and refined their psychedelic take on post-punk in recent years to emerge as one of the state’s thrills. Craig Powell spins songs between sets. (Note: Just before press time, this show shifted to a fundraiser for the children of Sandi Sanderlin, a ReverbNation employee who died last week. Please donate at the door.) 8 p.m., donations, 723 Rigsbee Ave., Durham, 919-901-0875, www.motorcomusic.com. —Grayson Haver Currin

THEATER | DANCE

THE EMOTIONS OF NORMAL PEOPLE SWAIN HALL AT UNC, CHAPEL HILL THURSDAY, DEC. 3–SATURDAY, DEC. 19

On a night ride in East Germany, a woman remembers what her family called “Our Radioactive Christmas.” Later, a German man notes the moment, during the Cold War, when he realized he’d save his sister first if the A-bomb fell: “Now, many years later, my sister has grown up. She has had many personal A-bombs in her life, and I have not been able to protect her from a single one. And I have a daughter of my own. We’ll see how I do.” More than a year in the making, this Little Green Pig Theatrical Concern production mixes original narrative and movement with live music and a score by Kraftwerk and others to explore domestic life and other psyops in the German Democratic Republic. Can its characters can find the Stasi agent in their homes—or their beds? What’s it like to be a spy in the house of love—and be in love in a house of spies? Find out in this production, a part of the UNC Performance Studies season. 8 p.m., $5–$17, 101 E. Cameron Ave., Chapel Hill, 919-542-5406, www.littlegreenpig.com. —Byron Woods

MUSIC

LOCAL BAND LOCAL BEER THE POUR HOUSE, RALEIGH THURSDAY, DEC. 3

Given the closing of downtown Raleigh staple Tir Na Nog two weeks ago, are you confused about the status of the Irish pub’s long-running, free Thursday night rock shows, Local Band Local Beer? Don’t be: The series simply moved two doors down, relocating to The Pour House but maintaining the same organizers, sponsors and setup. This week’s eclectic and odd fourband bill, for instance, should allay any fears you may have that it’s changed. Opening Raleigh quartet Roar the Engines makes throbbing alt-rock

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that stops somewhere on the dial between the commercial and collegiate stations of the ’90s. Headliners Dead Girls, however, drift back to the ’80s, with beat machines and hazy textures undergirding hooks that echo the Bunnymen. The highlight, though, should be Durham four-piece Wailin Storms. The band’s new LP, One Foot in the Flesh Grave, delivers a thrilling mix of Danzig horror, proto-punk zeal and heavy metal heft. Troy Brian Hancock, of Wool, joins with his new Essex//Muro. 9:30 p.m., free, 224 S. Blount St., Raleigh, 919-821-1120, www.the-pour-house.com. —Grayson Haver Currin

COMEDY | DOUG BENSON

GOODNIGHTS COMEDY CLUB, RALEIGH THURSDAY, DEC. 3 AND SATURDAY, DEC. 5

Doug Benson loves only two things in this whole wide world: weed and movies. The comedian and marijuana advocate has starred in several cannabis-themed documentaries, including Super High Me and The Greatest Movie Ever Rolled. He has a weekly video podcast, aptly titled Getting Doug with High, where he and a couple of guests consume some kind bud and attempt to do a talk show. He also has the popular podcast Doug Loves Movies, an episode of which will be recorded at Goodnights (at 4:20!) Saturday, following a stand-up set Thursday night. This probably goes without saying, but he will very likely be baked out of his mind during both shows. 10 p.m. Thurs.; 4:20 p.m. Sat., $20, 861 W. Morgan St., Raleigh, 919-828-5233, www.goodnightscomedy.com. —Craig D. Lindsey

MUSIC | CARRACK F.I.T.

THE CARRACK MODERN ART, DURHAM TUESDAY, DEC. 8

The existence of the Triangle’s tightly wound improvisational community hinges on the actions of a few impresarios, or musicians who so desire such a scene in their own backyard that they’re willing to put in the time, money and energy to recruit shows. Following the departure of Polyorchard leader David Menestres in May, the area will lose its second such organizational force in less than a year come January. Trombonist and Raleigh native Jeb Bishop, who returned to the area in 2012 after making a name for himself in Chicago’s free jazz community, will move to Boston early next year. During his time here, he’s been active both as player and promoter, putting on concerts seemingly as often as he participated in them. His exit will certainly leave a gap. Before that, though, he plays two farewell shows in Durham, including this latest installation of the engaging and open-ended series Carrack F.I.T. Look for Bishop in a most appropriate context—exploring surprising sounds and shapes in the company of those who revel in the same endeavor. 8 p.m., donation, 111 W. Parrish St., Durham, 919-2948605, www.thecarrack.org. —Grayson Haver Currin

JEB BISHOP

PHOTO BY JEREMY M. LANGE

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SA 12/5

MADISEN WARD & THE MAMA BEAR 614 N. WEST ST RALEIGH | 919-821-0023 FR 12/4 SA 12/5

DRIVER / JOHN HENRY BAND ANOHAT

FR 12/11 CHRISTMAS WITH THE CAB!

RUNAWAY CAB

LAUREN NICOLE / ROAR THE ENGINES

SA 12/12 BOOM OR BUST PRESENTS

STAR WARS BURLESQUE

TH 12/17 REGGAE CHRISTMAS PARTY! 12/18

THE AMATEURS UNKNOWN HINSON

HANK SINATRA ACOUSTIC CRAVIN’ MELON / THE ROMAN SPRING WE 12/22 SMELL THE GLOVE / MIDNIGHT SPECIAL SA 12/19

COMING NEW YEAR’S EVE:

YO MAMA’S BIG FAT BOOTY BAND

BOOK YOUR PRIVATE PARTY HERE! southlandballroom.com

SU 12/6 THE ACADEMY IS... ALMOST HERE 10TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR

MO 12/7 @ CAT'S CRADLE BACK ROOM

CAS HALEY

SA 12/5 MADISEN WARD & THE MAMA BEAR ($15/$18) SU 12/6 THE ACADEMY IS... ALMOST HERE 10TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR W/ PARTY BABY ($25)

SA 12/12 SOUTHERN CULTURE ON

THE SKIDS W/ BAD CHECKS AND THE KREKTONES ($13/$15) TU 12/15 SAN FERMIN W/ SAM AMIDON ($15) WE 12/16 THE GET UP KIDS 20TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR W/ INTO IT. OVER IT., ROZWELL KID ($19.50/$23)

SA 12/19 BOMBADIL

SA 12/12

SOUTHERN CULTURE ON THE SKIDS CAT'S CRADLE BACK ROOM

1/23: LARRY CAMPBELL & TERESA WILLIAMS ($17/$20) 1/27: JULIEN BAKER ($10) 1/29: JON STICKLEY TRIO 2/7: THE PINES 2/13: HEY MARSEILLES ($12/$14) 2/21: HONEYHONEY ($15) 2/22: THE SOFT MOON ($10/$12) 3/11: PORCHES / ALEX G W/YOUR FRIEND ($13/$15)

W/ KINGSLEY FLOOD ($13/$15) 12/2: RUN RIVER NORTH W/ CAMERON STENGER ($10) SA 1/16 ABBEY ROAD LIVE! -- 2 SHOWS ( 4 PM, 8:30 PM) 12/6: ATTALUS, GREAVER, FS ($8) MO 1/18 SCOTT STAPP (THE VOICE OF 12/7: CAS HALEY W/COLIN HAUSER FROM CREED) ($22/$25) ($12/$15) FR 1/22 AARON CARTER 12/8: ENERGY RELEASE PARTY ($15/$17) W/ FLESH WOUNDS, NATURAL SA 1/23 PHIL COOK W/ THE DEAD CAUSES, DOOM ASYLUM, TONGUES ($12/$15) BUDDYSHIP ($5) WE 1/27 KEYS N KRATES W/ THE ARTSCENTER (CARRBORO) STOOKI SOUND, JESSE SLAYTER 12/9-10-11 THREE NIGHTS!: ($20/$22) 12/12: DELTA RAE'S WINTER ACOUSTIC RED CLAY RAMBLERS & THE UT SPARROW TH 1/28 YONDER MOUNTAIN TOUR W/ PENNY AND SOLD O COASTAL COHORTS STRING BAND **($25) 12/12 (EARLY SHOW): MARTI MEMORIAL HALL (UNC-CH) SU 1/29 COSMIC CHARLIE JONES & DON DIXON ($15/$18) 12/12: STEEP CANYON RANGERS PERFORMING "WORKINGMAN'S DEAD" ($10/$12) (LATE SHOW): HANK SINATRA AND JERRY DOUGLAS MO 1/30 REV HORTON HEAT, 12/13: DON DIXON'S MEDICARE CARD CAROLINA THEATRE (DURHAM) UNKNOWN HINSON, NASHVILLE PUSSY BIRTHDAY BASH 2/25: JOSH RITTER & THE ROYAL CITY WE 2/3: LOW **($20) FEATURING ME & DIXON! BAND FR 2/12 MUTEMATH ** 12/15: MELISSA FERRICK**($18/$20) ($23/$25) DPAC (DURHAM): 12/18: WYATT EASTERLING TH 3/3 KURT VILE & THE 11/27: GLEN HANSARD W/ SPECIAL VIOLATORS ($20) W/LAURELYN DOSSETT ($20) GUEST RICHARD THOMPSON MO 3/28 JUNIOR BOYS 12/19: RED COLLAR, TEMPERANCE W/JESSY LANZA, BORYS ($15/$17) HAW RIVER BALLROOM LEAGUE, HAMMER NO MORE THE 12/19: CHATHAM COUNTY LINE: TH 3/31 G LOVE AND FINGERS ($10) SPECIAL SAUCE ** ELECTRIC HOLIDAY TOUR 12/21: 15TH BIG FAT GAP ($25 / $30) 1/16: BRIAN FALLON AND THE HOLIDAY HOMECOMING SA 4/2 DAUGHTER CROWES W/ CORY BRANAN NEW YEAR'S EVE PARTY ($16/$18) 4/3: ANGEL OLSEN WITH WILD FUR & SKYLAR SA 4/9 THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS ($17/$20) GUDASZ **($23/$25) 1/9: AU PAIR ($12) MO 4/18 THAO & THE GET THE RITZ (RALEIGH) DOWN STAY DOWN ($15/$17) 1/13: JUCIFER 1/19:: RATATAT TH 4/28 POLICA W/ MOTHXR 1/22: DANGERMUFFIN W/BAKED W/ JACKSON AND HIS ($16/$18) GOODS ($10/$12) COMPUTERBAND

CATSCRADLE.COM ★ 919.967.9053 ★ 300 E. MAIN STREET ★ CARRBORO **Asterisks denote advance tickets @ schoolkids records in raleigh, cd alley in chapel hill order tix online at ticketfly.com ★ we serve carolina brewery beer on tap! ★ we are a non-smoking club

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music WED, DEC 2

CAROLINA THEATRE: Kathy Mattea; 8 p.m., $27–$79. See indyweek.com. CAT’S CRADLE (BACK ROOM): Run River North; 9 p.m., $10. See indyweek.com. DUKE’S BALDWIN AUDITORIUM: Duke Symphony Orchestra; 8 p.m., free. DUKE’S REYNOLDS INDUSTRIES THEATER: Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets; 8 p.m., $10–$48. See indyweek.com. IRREGARDLESS: Mebanesville; 6:30 p.m. KENAN MUSIC BUILDING: Miho Hazama and Brad Linde; 7:30 p.m., $10–$15. See indyweek.com. LOCAL 506: Hippie Speedball; 9 p.m., $5.

MOTORCO THE MYSTERY LIGHTS

The Mystery Lights are a presentday New York band who make blown-out, psychedelic protopunk like they were beamed ($12/$14) from Cleveland circa ’74. Earlier this year, they put out their deY ($15) ($10/$12) but, At Home w/ the Mystery Lights, as a cassette, in shades EX G of purple and lime. The sound is /$15) nothing new, but these are pretty RBORO) fun mistakes to make again. R ACOUSTIC The Chickenhawks and Happy ARROW Abandon open. $8–$10/8 p.m. —JK NC-CH) RANGERS POUR HOUSE: Cyhi The Prynce, AS Rome Jeterr, Nyck Newz, Rasta B; URHAM) 9:30 p.m., $11–$25. OYAL CITY See indyweek.com. STATION AT SOUTHERN RAIL: ): Fin The DJ Presents: Golden Era W/ SPECIAL Music; 9 p.m. Yeaux Katz Trio; MPSON 6 p.m. ROOM

TY LINE: OUR ND THE ANAN

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RBORO

apel hill king club

INDYweek.com

Contributors Jim Allen (JA), Grant Britt (GB), Grayson Haver Currin (GC), Spencer Griffith (SG), Corbie Hill (CH), Allison Hussey (AH), David Klein (DK), Jeff Klingman (JK), Jordan Lawrence (JL), Bryan C. Reed (BCR), Dan Ruccia (DR), David Ford Smith (DS), Eric Tullis (ET), Chris Vitiello (CV), Patrick Wall (PW)

What do you mean you don’t like Friday?

THU, DEC 3

2ND WIND: 2 fer; 7:30-9 p.m. BEYÙ CAFFÈ: Michael Jones Trio; 7 p.m. BLUE NOTE GRILL: Pinky & Duke; 7 p.m. Nash Street Ramblers; 7-9 p.m.

CAROLINA THEATRE JOHN SCOFIELD & JON CLEARY Innovative guitarist John Scofield and masterful pianist Jon Cleary previously worked together in 2009 as part of the six-piece on Scofield’s Piety Street. They now team for soulful renditions of classic rhythm and blues, with an emphasis on numbers from Cleary’s New Orleans home. Scofield and Cleary make a surprisingly complementary pair, with Scofield’s angular, bluesy licks crossing over from his jazzier work and into Cleary’s funky domain. This is a rare chance to see the duo, who put together this East Coast jaunt after a dozen dates in Europe last spring. $28/8 p.m. —SG

THE CAVE PENA AJENA The first song on Pena Ajena’s short demo collection is called “Dumb Mummy.” It’s an apt summation of this Carrboro trio, whose cleverly primitive garage rock pounds and scrapes, with twisting guitar tones and loopy wordplay that shifts from English to Spanish. Durham’s Youth Warrior opens with indie rock that’s comfortable by comparison. $5/9 p.m. —JL DUKE’S NELSON MUSIC ROOM: Duke Collegium Musicum; 8 p.m., free. THE DURHAM HOTEL: John Dee Holeman, Harvey Dalton Arnold; 7 p.m., free. IRREGARDLESS: Angela Bingham Trio; 6:30 p.m. KINGS: Extra Pulp, Will Daube; 9 p.m., $5–$7.

LINCOLN THEATRE LOVE CANON The target demographic of Charlottesville’s Love Canon can be found in the Venn diagram of newgrass obsessives and aficionados of quintessential

REBECCA BLACK

DIGITOUR SLAYBELLS ICE SATURDAY, DEC. 5

THE RITZ, RALEIGH—In February, “Friday” will turn five. To say that the cereal-and-vocal-fry-celebrating anthem about the end of the week, warbled by the then-13-yearold Rebecca Black, became a viral sensation would be an injustice to its actual trajectory. It was a bona fide hit, written and produced by the Los Angeles-based teen pop machine ARK Music Factory. The song’s combination of banality and catchiness made it the single of early 2011, with listeners confused as to whether they loathed or loved it—and if they could do both at once. Black settled well into the weird, nebulous type of fame that comes with being trollgazed. In the months that followed, she appeared on Glee and in a Katy Perry music video, and she ended the year with the most-streamed video on YouTube. (Thanks, in part, to those million-plus people who took time out of their days to register their displeasure by clicking “dislike.”) She’s since become more of a vlogger than a musician, posting clips about her hair and her trips to the ER with eye-roll-studded references to social media drama. Black is back now, headlining the awkwardly named package “DigiTour SlayBells Ice,” one of two traveling carnivals featuring teen stars, born online and ready for eternal looping. The Internet has become a new breeding ground for male teen idols, with Lou Pearlman’s star-making savvy overtaken by the masses. Black will hold court as the bill’s lone woman, surrounded by guys who trend bland. Minnesotan Jonah Marais is a boilerplate-cute musician who hopes to follow in the footsteps of Bieber, while Louisiana-born Dylan Dauzat breathed life into a questionnaire from Tiger Beat with the 2013 video series “Cute Things Girls Do.” There’s a crew of rubber-faced comedian-musician-dancer-broadcaster types, too, known collectively as 5quad. (Read the 5 as an S.) The whole thing will be over in two hours, which gives each individual attendee just enough time to create approximately 1,200 Vines. 4 p.m., $25, 2820 Industrial Drive, Raleigh, 919-424-1400, www.ritzraleigh.com. —Maura Johnston ’80s rock. They bring banjos, hot acoustic picking and a high lonesome sound to tunes by the likes of ZZ Top, Loverboy, Thomas Dolby and Cyndi Lauper. Purists on both sides might be put off, but an open mind and a sense of humor go a long way here. With Big Daddy Love. $12/8 p.m. —JA

LOCAL 506 DOLLAR SIGNS Some listeners hold heavily ingrained prejudices against punk

bands that indulge pop sensibilities. Charlotte’s Dollar Signs might still do you right. Their energy is sneering and manic, never saccharine or cloying. And while they do use horns, the brassy swells are never ironic. They buttress the tender moments and frantic catharses and recall the intuitive touch of Yardwork, another Charlotte band that excelled at such alchemy. With Brian McGee, Logan Carpenter and Almost People. $6–$8/9 p.m. —JL

MOSAIC WINE LOUNGE: Femme Fatal All Female DJ Night: DJ Vouis Luitton and Guests; 10 p.m., free. PIOLA: Chris Reynolds Trio; 6:45-8:45 p.m. PITTSBORO ROADHOUSE: Jason Damico; 6 p.m. POUR HOUSE: Local Band Local Beer: Dead Girls: Essex//Muro, Wailin Storms, Roar the Engines; 9 p.m., free. See page 39.

SLIM’S SECRETS SHE KEPT Secrets She Kept may come from Florida, but the trio delights more in the scorched sounds of black metal than the snaps, strikes and bellows of the death metal its native state helped make famous. That’s not to say that the band ignores its backyard for complete Scandinavian oblivion; they squeeze in bits of death metal with the breakdowns and even furtively nod toward its technical ends with riffs wedged between verse and chorus. Last year’s La Fin Absolue du Monde even drifted into the atmospheric. But heavy, fast and mean—that’s Secrets She Kept’s preferred mode. Greensboro’s Dreaded keeps it much more basic and belligerent, while Raleigh’s Grooms of the Stool fashions a broad, aggressive chimera from all those aforementioned niches, even dropping a hint of doom into the best of their deeply foreboding songs. $7/9 p.m. —GC STATION AT SOUTHERN RAIL: The Dagmar Bumpers; 10 p.m.

FRI, DEC 4 BERKELEY CAFÉ: Prose of Khan; 9 p.m. BEYÙ CAFFÈ: Jua; 8 & 10 p.m., $8. BLUE NOTE GRILL: Idlewild South; 9 p.m., $7. Duke Street Dogs; 6-8 p.m., free.

CAROLINA THEATRE DAVID SANBORN ELECTRIC BAND Think saxophone in ’80s rock. There’s the overblown cheese of Clarence Clemons with The Boss, the understated elegance of Branford Marsalis with Sting and the tart perfection of David Sanborn’s solo on David Bowie’s “Young Americans.” You can hear new wave smacking up against Wall Street—and coke scattered all over glass tabletops—in Sanborn’s tight horn. But if that’s your point of reference for Sanborn, take a listen to the rest

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of his nearly four-decade career, which includes a lot of late-night television and a lot of albums with the biggest names in jazz, rock and pop. His electric band joins here. $36–$79/8 p.m. —CV THE CAVE: Colin Sneed; 9 p.m. DEEP SOUTH: Jump Mountain; 8 p.m., $5. DUKE’S BALDWIN AUDITORIUM: Duke Jazz Ensemble; 8 p.m., $5–$10, students free. DURHAM ARMORY: Durham Symphony Orchestra; 7 p.m., $10–$35, 12 and under free. IRREGARDLESS: Foscoe Philharmonic; 6:30 p.m.

KINGS JOSH MOORE Carrboro’s Josh Moore delivered his long-awaited full-length debut this summer, and it’s one of the best local LPs of the year. A strong collection of folk-leaning songs, Parted Ways features an array of talented locals, but Moore’s voice and songwriting make these minutes special. The songs are tender and thoughtful, hopeful without relying on clichés. Humanize—the condensed new name of The Human Eyes— opens. $8/9 p.m. —AH THE KRAKEN: Orange County All-Stars, Doug Davis and the Solid Citizens; 8 p.m.

LINCOLN THEATRE THE STEELDRIVERS If the recent solo success of Chris Stapleton has gotten more people to pay attention to his former band The Steeldrivers, all the better. Though Stapleton is long gone from the group, its trenchant combination of bluegrass roots and rock energy remains vital. Its latest album was recorded in Muscle Shoals, home turf for singer Gary Nichols, and boasts plenty of the raw, rootsy edge that’s become The Steeldrivers’ stock in trade. With Black Lillies. $20–$30/9 p.m. —JA

LOCAL 506 KNURR AND SPELL Sean Parker once led Pleasant, a beguiling Chapel Hill group whose slanting melodies and oblong instrumental lines should have pushed the group to the audiences that greeted Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, The Oxford Collapse or even The New Pornographers. Pleasant split years ago, and Parker has finally brought his uncanny sense of twisting time and tone back to bear with the quartet Knurr and

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great records as The Strugglers during the previous decade; Paro, his second album under his own name and first in four years, should be out in 2016. $7/10 p.m. —GC

ACT ONE ACT NOW PRESENTS: FR 12/4

SA 12/5

SU 12/6

PITTSBORO ROADHOUSE: Joe Bell and The Stinging Blades; 8 p.m.

TRANSACTORS IMPROV ELF FAIR

PLAN B WILL MCBRIDE GROUP Will McBride’s power trio dishes out funky jazz originals that often sound like Carlos Santana fronting Steely Dan. The band also stirs up its set lists with covers of Sly and the Family Stone and Billy Joel. $7/10 p.m. —GB

HOLIDAY CRAFT MARKET

CLAIRE LYNCH BAND

POUR HOUSE: Spiritual Rez, Down By Five; 8 p.m., free. QUAIL RIDGE BOOKS: The Raleigh Boychoir Resident Choir; 7 p.m.

HOLIDAY SHOW FR 12/11

SA 12/12

FLASH CHORUS NO SHAME THEATRE – CARRBORO

TH 12/17

SA 12/19

ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL “MERRY TEXAS CHRISTMAS Y’ALL!”

THE CHUCKLE & CHORTLE COMEDY SHOW A Celebration of Holiday Music & Song: FEATURING JOSH MOORE CHRISTA WELLS SKYLAR GUDASZ MARK WILLIAMS JEFF CRAWFORD

Gift Certificates available for the holidays! Find out More at

www.ArtsCenterLive.org 300-G East Main St. Carrboro, NC Find us on Social Media

@ArtsCenterLive

THE RITZ DUSTIN LYNCH

Josh Moore plays at Kings in Raleigh Friday night with Humanize. PHOTO BY JEREMY M. LANGE Spell. The band’s exciting debut, Ought, takes what was great about Pleasant and decorates it in fancier clothes, fostering a tension between the hard angles of Murphy’s writing and the softer approach of the veteran players around him. And bassist Betty Rupp is a righteous vocal foil for Parker, especially on the rising, redeeming “Oh My God, You Are Insane.” Hectorina, Sunnyslope(s) and The Wyrms all fill opening slots. $5/8:30 p.m. —GC

THE MAYWOOD SUPPRESSIVE FIRE The first hint of Suppressive Fire’s debut LP, Bedlam, is the fourand-a-quarter minute rush “The Hellwraith.” The rest of Bedlam won’t emerge until January, but the Raleigh band’s preview single excites the appetite. Mingling the surging pace of thrash with death metal deliberation, it suggests Celtic Frost’s momentum and Toxic Holocaust’s enthusiasm. While last year’s Hellwraith demo showed Suppressive Fire’s reverence for its influences, it felt like heavy metal comfort food— satisfying but not particularly adventurous. Bedlam suggests a next step, where old sounds start to take on new life. With Nemesis and Enigmatic Path. $7–$9/9:30 p.m. —BCR

MEYMANDI CONCERT HALL N.C. SYMPHONY: A BAROQUE CHRISTMAS Before diving into the heart of Nutcracker season, the N.C. Symphony joins the Master Chorale for a concert of baroque Christmas music. Expect four sections of Handel’s Messiah (including the ubiquitous “Hallelujah Chorus”) and a potpourri of Bach. $18–$75/12 & 8 p.m. —DR MOTORCO: Zack Mexico, Birds of Avalon, Mac McCaughan; 8 p.m. See page 39.

THE PINHOOK BRICE RANDALL BICKFORD, JOHN DAVIS Their names might seem unfamiliar at first, but Triangle songwriters John Davis and Brice Randall Bickford should have big news next year. Alongside Lou Barlow, Davis co-founded Folk Implosion. He relocated to Durham in 2013, around the time he released the delicate and experimental Spare Parts. He’s just completed a new album that “focuses on issues of food justice in ways that relate to [his] current work as an educator.” This show will include many of the record’s collaborators, including the Mountain Goats’ Peter Hughes. Bickford, on the other hand, released several

With his cowboy look and deep pipes, Dustin Lynch seems like he’s out to become the Randy Travis of modern-day pop-country. He’s considerably less “bro” than many of his current chart mates, opting more often for big ballad moves. Chris Lane and Tyler Rich open. $22.50/8 p.m. —JA SHARP NINE GALLERY: Kate McGarry and Keith Ganz; 7 p.m., $10–$15.

SLIM’S SEE GULLS With this summer’s You Can’t See Me, See Gulls delivered five punchy songs about relationships. Don’t expect mere breakup ballads, as Sarah Fuller and company offer sharp, sometimes scathing lines. “Long Gone” serves up a swishy, wistful “fuck you,” while the title track slinks through a powerful rhythm section. See Gulls back their barks with bite. Midnight Plus One and Miracles open this great bill. $7/9 p.m. —AH SOUTHLAND BALLROOM: Driver, John Henry Band; 8:30 p.m., $10. STATION AT SOUTHERN RAIL: Stammerings; 7 p.m. THE SHED JAZZ CLUB: Triangle Improvisers’ Collective; 8 p.m.

SAT, DEC 5 BERKELEY CAFÉ: Donna Blue; 8 p.m.

BEYÙ CAFFÈ RHONDA THOMAS Rhonda Thomas, a former background singer for the late Isaac Hayes, occupies part of the same adult-contemporary R&B space that solid-yet-unheralded vocalists like Maysa, Avery Sunshine and Ledisi have found over the years. But on Thomas’ fifth and most recent album, Vinyl Daze, the Atlanta-based vocalist throws out convention for experimentation. She harmonizes over 4hero-esque soundscapes, sings in Portuguese and stretches out her musical purview by collaborating with Daz-I-Kue of the U.K. production collective Bugz in the Attic. The change has given her sound the right amount of lift to get you out of your seat for a dance or two. $12/8 & 10 p.m. —ET

PHOTO COURTESY OF DPAC

INDYweek.com TUESDAY, DEC. 8

CAT’S CRADLE MADISEN WARD AND THE MAMA BEAR Mama Bear is Madisen Ward’s guitar-playing mother, Ruth, who accompanies her singersongwriter son in this Kansas City duo. Together, they create a stripped-down, dual-acoustic sound that draws on folk, blues and early country. Lately, they’ve been getting a lot of buzz in Rolling Stone and on late-night TV, but whether they’re appearing on the tube or recording (dig their appropriately titled debut album, Skeleton Crew), Madisen and his mama remain true to a raw, rootsy, welcoming approach. $15–$18/8 p.m. —JA THE CAVE: Jordan and the Sphinx, Pretend I’m a Genius; 9 p.m., $5. DEEP SOUTH: Flimsy, Veronica V, Electrick LadyLand; 9 p.m., $5.

HALL & OATES

DUKE’S BALDWIN AUDITORIUM RUSKE-FRAUTSCHI-CHIEN HORN TRIO The horn trio (violin, horn, piano) is not a particularly common ensemble, so its small repertoire shouldn’t be a surprise. Still, within it, there are some truly fantastic works. Brahms’ trio, written for the death of his mother, brims with soaring melodies. And Ligeti’s marks the beginning of his later style, where European modernism fuses with minimalism and triadic harmonies. It’s a monstrously difficult work that doesn’t get performed often enough. $10–$38/8 p.m. —DR IRREGARDLESS: Eli Wittmann; 11 a.m. John Bass and Greg

DPAC, DURHAM—Three decades past their early-’80s peak, Daryl Hall and John Oates still trail only The Carpenters as the second-most commercially successful duo in pop history. But their big hits now exist in a tough-to-parse nether zone between earnest and ironic appreciation. Their best-selling single, “I Can’t Go For That (No Can Do),” is Philly soul cream cheese, a weird mix of too-stiff funk, hammy singing and flagrant sax fouls that doesn’t deserve to come back around and resonate with the hip and young people. Nevertheless, on Pitchfork’s recent “Top 200 Tracks of the 1980s,” the tune arrived at No. 58, ahead of Pixies’ “Gigantic,” AC/DC’s “Back in Black,” Eazy-E’s “Boyz-n-the-Hood,” Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” Stevie Nicks’ “Edge of Seventeen” and so many other less dorky songs. Revisited, the song’s open, emotive singing dwarfs its use of once-novel drum machine beats. In this, our year of Adele, smooth commercial singing simply carries more weight than compositional eccentricity. But holding on to skepticism about Hall & Oates doesn’t totally kill the fun of revisiting them. “Rich Girl” is uncomfortably patronizing, but it joins the better class-war anthem of Pulp’s “Common People” in the songbook of spiteful karaoke classics. Dark, thoughtful Baltimore rock band Lower Dens have long held a cover of 1982’s “Maneater” in their set list, revealing its genuinely foreboding feeling. And the best of the duo’s smashes, 1980’s “You Make My Dreams,” crucially packs the power pop guitars just as tight as the backing vocal “oohs.” When Hall exclaims “Listen to this,” it’s the riffs that have him so jazzed up. This is where their silliness escalates into real glee. We’ll just happily consider this tour that song’s 35th-anniversary run. 8 p.m., $60–$135, 123 Vivian St., Durham, 919-680-2787, www.dpacnc.com. —Jeff Klingman

Brink; 6 p.m. The Second Line Stompers; 9 p.m.

THE KRAKEN: Twilighter, Bellflower; 9 p.m.

KINGS DRAGMATIC

LINCOLN THEATRE KIX

With a new LP, At Least We’re Not Dead Yet, Raleigh’s Dragmatic builds a bridge between alt-country and pop-punk. Songs brim with urgency only a few degrees removed from punk, but churning guitars supply determined twang. Pounding drums buttress Hammond organ swells and silvery pedal steel. Singer Ryan Kennemur’s voice—more husky than gravelly—is perhaps better suited to smoother pop-rock, but it fits Dragmatic’s approach (think Weezer playing alt-country) just fine. Old Quarter and Amigo open. $10/9 p.m. —PW

Last year, Raleigh promoter Marty Burns celebrated his birthday with a rock concert at Southland Ballroom. This year, with some of the same bands in tow, he steps up to the Lincoln Theatre—and with bygone glam stars Kix. Nearly three decades have passed since the band urged listeners not to close their eyes, and Kix is no longer for the kids. But as these things go, their first album in nearly 20 years, 2014’s Rock Your Face Off, did restore their reputation, and, well, it’s a birthday party. Automag, The Fifth, 21st Century Goliath

and Last Call Messiahs join this faith-keeping bill. $29.50–$75/8 p.m. —GC

LOCAL 506 DARWIN DEEZ Darwin Smith is a stringy-haired, mustachioed goof who relocated to Asheville before boomeranging right back into the arms of New York. As the leader of his band, Darwin Deez, he briefly captured a sort of lo-fi indie insouciance that played well in the late ’00s, especially in the UK. His latest record, Double Down, does what it promises, but positive utility wanes. Openers Charly Bliss— modern Brooklyn’s best possible approximation of an MTV “Buzz Bin” band circa 1994—are much better and a fine reason to show up early. With Humanize. $12–$14/9 p.m. —JK

TH 12/3 FR 12/4 SA 12/5 SA 12/6

www.baxterarcade.com

919.869.7486

DECEMBER 2, 2015

•

THE MAYWOOD THRASH CAN

HALL & OATES

BLUE NOTE GRILL: The Nighthawks; 9 p.m., $12.

•

Raleigh’s Thrash Can shares a name with the 2004 demo of Colorado thrash revivalists Havok. That’s instructive. The band’s third-generation thrash revival sticks close to the mold, diverging only slightly for proglike guitar fills. With WinstonSalem’s White Knuckle Black Out, New Bern’s Gladiator and Knightdale’s Grody Jones. $8–$10/8:30 p.m. —BCR MEYMANDI CONCERT HALL: N.C. Symphony: A Baroque Christmas; 8 p.m., $18–$65. See Dec. 4 listing. MOTORCO: Let There Be Rock; 1 p.m., $8, 12 and under $5. Kollin Baer, Ryan Hutchens, Josh Gritter; 7:30 p.m., $7–$9.

NIGHTLIGHT VOLUME 16 This holiday edition of Volume groups together the heads of several key underground labels for a toasty celebration. When he’s not running W.T. Records or hosting his popular radio show, New York’s DJ Willie Burns produces clever dance music under a variety of monikers. Spinning alongside him is Dutch producer/DJ TLR, head honcho of esteemed labels R-Zone and Crème Organization. Together with DJ Chupacabras, they look to warm up the night with their singular takes on dance music. $10–$12/9 p.m. —DS

THE PINHOOK THE OLD CEREMONY & FRIENDS After an active year that has seen the release of the band’s sixth LP and a collaboration between leader Django Haskins and Jayhawk Gary Louris, The Old Ceremony is ready to bring it all back home. Billed as “a warm winter evening with The Old Ceremony & Friends,” the

PINKY & DUKE DUKE STREET DOGS IDLEWILD SOUTH THE NIGHTHAWKS TRIANGLE BLUES SOCIETY ROAD TO MEMPHIS FUNDRAISER

7PM 6-8PM 9PM $7 8PM $12

LIVE MUSIC • OPEN TUESDAY—SUNDAY THEBLUENOTEGRILL.COM

5PM

INDYweek.com show draws upon and celebrates the group’s deep roots in the Triangle music community. Expect a friendly, loose affair, with several pals coming in to lend their voices and/or instrumental talents, including longtime collaborator keyboardist James Wallace, the luminous-toned Skylar Gudasz and kora player Will Ridenour. “We have such an amazing extended musical family around here,” says Haskins, “and the holidays seem like the perfect time to get some of them together to play.” $12–$15/8:30 p.m. —DK

MON, DEC 14 | 6PM BABYLON, RALEIGH Enjoy a delicious multi-course meal and a festive, intimate performance by North Carolina Symphony musicians. Haydn: String Quartet in D Beethoven: Grosse Fuge Concert Sponsor

ncsymphony.org | 919.733.2750

CAROLINA THEATRE HOME FREE

• DECEMBER 2, 2015 •

Star Orchestra before joining Bob

Weir and Phil Lesh in Furthur, PROMOTE YOUR thanks to his uncanny knack for

CELEBRATIONS, DESTINATIONS & EVENTS!

No longer limited to eager re-creating both Jerry Garcia’s college ensembles, a cappella tone and style. Here, the talentgroups have gotten four seasons’ ed guitarist and vocalist leads his worth of spotlights on NBC’s The own outfit through two sets of Sing-Off. Season 4’s winners, originals and covers by the likes the all-male quintet Home Free, of Phish, Dylan and, of course, have hit the road, offering a wide the Dead. $15/8 p.m. —SG range of country hits like Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5” and more curLOCAL 506 rent fare like Sam Hunt’s “House Party.” They’ve got a record of 3@3: STRAY OWLS For songs, more rgierisch@indyweek.com Christmas too,info: so prepare The point of lo-fi minimalism for some instrument-free cheer. isn’t to play good music and $30–$61.50/8 p.m. —AH sound bad doing it. In part, it forces you to pay closer attention to the song itself, noticing what’s CAT’S CRADLE PITTSBORO ROADHOUSE: there with extra appreciation. Handsome Al and the Lookers; THE ACADEMY IS... Stray Owls nails this, producing 8 p.m. Sure, Fall Out Boy tricked out The the jangling acoustic guitar and POUR HOUSE: Runaway Gin; 9 Get Up Kids’ emo-pop formula seething effects of postmodern p.m., $10–$12. with bratty song titles and even noise-folk, all minus the skitterbrattier junior high lyrics. But THE RITZ: DigiTour 2015; 4 ing Animal Collective rhythms. there was something inexplicap.m., $25. See box, page 41. If you ever wanted to hear the bly immediate about the group’s demos behind Grandaddy’s SHARP NINE GALLERY: big, propulsive pop-rock hooks. The Sophtware Slump, they Stephen Anderson Trio; 8 p.m., The same cannot be said for the likely sounded like this. With The $10–$15. bands that aped Fall Out Boy’s Smoothrays and Slingshot Cash. SITAR INDIAN CUISINE: inexplicably powerful inanity, Free/3 p.m. —CH DanielPROMOTE Chambo; 6-9 p.m. CELEBRATIONS, especially The Academy Is... The YOUR For more info: group’s feeble pop-rock is overSLIM’S: The Dinwiddies, The MEMORIAL AUDITORIUM: rgierisch@indyweek.com DESTINATIONS & EVENTS! glossed and made of emotional Art Department, Other Colors; 9 One Body of Christ Gospel pyrite. But there’s always an p.m.,For $5.more info: rgierisch@indyweek.com Explosion; 5 p.m., $32. emerging market for overSOUTHLAND BALLROOM: produced, overwrought teen Anohat; 9 p.m. N.C. MUSEUM OF ART anthems, one supposes. Party Baby opens. $25/8 p.m. —PW OLGA KLEIANKINA STATION AT SOUTHERN RAIL: Chatterin Teeth, The N.C. State piano professor Olga Lemon Sparks; 7 p.m. DJ Petey Kleiankina presents a recital CAT’S CRADLE Green; 10 p.m. featuring music by Chopin, De(BACK ROOM) bussy and Scriabin to track the TEMPLE BAPTIST CHURCH: ATTALUS evolution of the prelude. In their The Durham Community Raleigh’s Attalus plays a problemhands, the prelude became an Chorale; 3:30 p.m., $10. atic game. Lifting their approach open, exploratory form. Chopin’s to melodies and vocals from book of 24 preludes (one in each radio alt-rock, then swirling them key) set the standard with its with tones and textures imdiscursive asides and compact The INDY’s Guide to Dining in the Triangle ported from post-rock and black THE ARTSCENTER structures. A half-century later, metal, they recognize and exploit Scriabin wrote his own set of 24, CLAIRE LYNCH BAND the propulsive potential of these PUBLICATION DATE setting Chopin in Technicolor. More casual bluegrass fans may less-than-mainstream influences, He went on to write another MAY 26, 2016 well mistake Nashville’s Claire even if this instrumental poten60 of increasing harmonic and Lynch for one of our own, thanks tial is often wasted on predictconceptual density. Debussy’s 24 RESERVE to her frequent area appearable tunes. With Greaver and FS. go in another direction entirely ances at PineCone events or YOUR SPACE $8/7 p.m. —JL by offering a series of imagistic the IBMA’s World of Bluegrass vignettes. $12–$14/3 p.m. —DR NOW! festival. The latter organization DEEP SOUTH: Live & Loud has perpetually nominated and Weekly; 9 p.m., $3. PITTSBORO ROADHOUSE: thrice crowned Lynch as Female DUKE’S BALDWIN Daniel Stanislawek; 11:30 a.m. Vocalist of the Year, thanks to a AUDITORIUM: Duke University sparkling soprano that mostly POUR HOUSE: School of Rock; String School; 3 p.m., free. graces tender ballads. Lynch’s 2 p.m., $8. band, featuring bassist extraordiFAIRVIEW RESTAURANT: Paul naire Mark Schatz, has the chops Holmes; 10 a.m.-2 p.m. POUR HOUSE to match. Expect this show to IRREGARDLESS: Larry GRACE & TONY, LOWLAND lean heavily on holiday cuts from Hutcherson; 10 a.m. Zach Wiley; HUM Lynch’s 2014 album of seasonal 6 p.m. Most contemporary folksters classics and originals. THE KIRK OF KILDAIRE: Cary seem to prefer taking it easy, $18–$25/7 p.m. —SG Community Choir: Handel’s offering mid-tempo songs meant Messiah; 7:30 p.m., donations. mostly to please. But Grace BEYÙ CAFFÈ: Gary Brunotte; & Tony, a married duo out of 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Loretto, Tennessee, aren’t afraid LINCOLN THEATRE BLUE NOTE GRILL: Kelly to break ranks with their speedy For more info: rgierisch@indyweek.com JOHN KADLECIK BAND Howerton, Fat Bastard Blues licks on guitar and mandolin. Band; 5 p.m., $5. John Kadlecik is best known for Songs like “The Chameleon” his associations with the Grateful stomp and swing for a refreshing Contact your rep or advertising@indyweek.com Dead, having co-founded Dark change of pace. Greensboro’s

PROMOTE YOUR

CELEBRATIONS, DESTINATIONS & EVENTS!

SUN, DEC 6

INDYweek.com Lowland Hum opens. Their self-titled record is a collection of intimate and gentle tunes, quiet in a way that’s warm and inviting. With Wilson & Lodge. $6–$8/9 p.m. —AH STATION AT SOUTHERN RAIL: Singer Songwriter Showcase; 9 p.m. DJ Petey Green; 10 p.m. STEEL STRING BREWERY: Bluegrass Battleship; 4 p.m. THE SHED JAZZ CLUB: Enjoy Sunday with Danny Grewen; 6-9 p.m., $5.

MON, DEC 7 BEYÙ CAFFÈ: Bo Lankenau; 7 p.m.

CAT’S CRADLE (BACK ROOM) CAS HALEY In 2007, Texas singer-songwriter Cas Haley came in as the first runner-up on the variety show America’s Got Talent. Eight years later, he’s still at it on smaller stages. Songs like his “La Dah” are acoustic-driven pop fluff, though at least they’ll sound beachy and breezy as we approach winter. Colin Hauser opens. $12–$52/8:30 p.m. —AH HAYTI HERITAGE CENTER: Cayenne The Lion King; 10:30 p.m., $7.

KINGS TERROR In an August interview with the metal news site Blabbermouth.net, Terror guitarist Martin Stewart explained the name of his band’s sixth album, The 25th Hour. “When it comes to the amount of work and dedication we put into this band, into hardcore music in general, we go beyond the normal 24 hours in a day,” he said. “Hardcore music is still DIY, so it’s up to everyone involved to keep it moving.” The band is, indeed, tenacious. After 13 years and six albums, Terror hasn’t changed much. The hardcore band volleys consistently between sprint-paced verses and half-time breakdowns. Frontman Scott Vogel’s tough-guy platitudes about self-reliance echo Youth Crew sloganeering. At this point, though, Terror’s strict purism feels less like moving forward than treading water, no matter the time it takes. With Code Orange, Incendiary, Take Offense and Malfunction. $16/7 p.m. —BCR

PITTSBORO ROADHOUSE: N.C. Revelers Big Band Orchestra; 7 p.m., $5. QUAIL RIDGE BOOKS: Jim Wann, Bland Simpson and Don Dixon; 7 p.m. STATION AT SOUTHERN RAIL: SHAM (Tiger Room); 8 p.m., free. THE SHED JAZZ CLUB: Sessions at the Shed with Ernest Turner; 8 p.m., $5.

TUE, DEC 8 THE CARRACK: Carrack Free Improv Tuesday: Jeb Bishop Going Away Party; 8 p.m., free. See page 39. CARY ARTS CENTER: Really Terrible Orchestra of the Triangle: Seasons in Time; 7:30 p.m. DURHAM PERFORMING ARTS CENTER: Daryl Hall & John Oates; 7:30 p.m., $60–$85. See box, page 43. IRREGARDLESS: Marilyn Wienand; 6:30 p.m. MEYMANDI CONCERT HALL: N.C. Master Chorale; 7:30 p.m., $27–$38. PITTSBORO ROADHOUSE: Brien Barbour; 6:30 p.m. ROOKIES SPORTS BAR: Buzzuka Joe; 7 p.m.

WED, DEC 9 BEYÙ CAFFÈ: Beyù Jazz Playhouse featuring Kobie Watkins; 7 p.m. BIG EASY-RALEIGH: Glen Ingram; 6 p.m. BRASA STEAKHOUSE: Josh Colton; 6 p.m. CARY ARTS CENTER: The General Assembly Chorus: Songs of the Season; 7:30 p.m.

CAT’S CRADLE (BACK ROOM) THE RED CLAY RAMBLERS For more than four decades, The Red Clay Ramblers have played bluegrass accented with ragtime and other forms of folk flair. They’ve tackled traditionals and originals with bits of western swing, old-time and Celtic sounds. And though they’re a North Carolina institution whose contributions to the state’s own musical roots are significant, their musical reach extends far beyond state lines. This mid-week show is the first of a three-night residency in the Cat’s Cradle Back Room. The Costal Cohorts, another roots-oriented outfit of locals whose roster includes the Ramblers’ Bland

Simpson and Arrogance’s Don Dixon, open. $10–$30/7:30 p.m. —AH THE CAVE: Jason Merritt: Araleigh; 9 p.m. CORNER TAVERN: Chris Overstreet; 9 p.m. DUKE’S BALDWIN AUDITORIUM: Duke Medicine Orchestra: City Trees; 7:30 p.m., free. HIBERNIAN-DOWNTOWN RALEIGH: Singer-Songwriter Showcase Hosted by Jason Adamo; 9 p.m.-1 a.m., free. HUMBLE PIE: Sidecar Social Club; 8:30 p.m., free. IRREGARDLESS: The Zinc Kings; 6:30 p.m.

LINCOLN THEATRE SAMANTHA FISH Tottering around on black stilettos, rattling out a version of the Stones’ “Dead Flowers” on her oil can guitar, Samantha Fish made a big impression during her last appearance in town with Tab Benoit and Tommy Castro. Returning as the headliner, the 25-year-old Kansas City native will stir things up on her custom Fish-o-Caster with a fish-shaped sound hole during originals like “Go To Hell” or a blistering cover of Howlin’ Wolf’s “Who’s Been Talking” from her latest release, Black Wind Howlin. $12–$18/8 p.m. —GB THE ORIGINAL Q SHACK: Leroy Savage Group; 6:30-8:30 p.m., free.

THE PINHOOK NE-HI Ne-Hi is a young garage rock band that comes from the same Chicago basement show scene that just saw another of its denizens, Twin Peaks, enjoy a minor breakout. If your specific sort of winter sadness can be fooled by slightly sideways rock reminiscent of lazy summer days, Ne-Hi might do the trick. $8/9 p.m. —JK

•

DECEMBER 2, 2015

•

BAR OPEN DAILY STARTING AT 4 we 12/2 th 12/3

HABITAT FOR HUMANITY BENEFIT:

HIPPIE SPEEDBALL DOLLAR SIGNS / BRIAN MCGEE / LOGAN CARPENTER / ALMOST PEOPLE

9pm $6/$8

KNURR AND SPELL (ALBUM RELEASE SHOW)

fr 12/4

HECTORINA / SUNNYSLOPE(S) THE WYRMS 8:30pm $5 sa 12/5 su 12/6

DARWIN DEEZ

CHARLY BLISS / HUMANIZE 9pm $12/$14 3@3: STRAY OWLS THE SMOOTHRAYS / SLINGSHOT CASH 3pm FREE

ECHH UKELELE ORCHESTRA HOLIDAY SHOW 7:30pm $8 th 12/10 fr 12/11 su 12/13 tu 12/15 we 12/16 fr 12/18

sa 12/19

MIC THE PROPHET

919.821.1120 • 224 S. Blount St THE PRYNCE

WE 12/2 POVIC NATION PRESENTS: CYHI

ROME JETERR / NYCK NEWZ / RASTA B & MORE LOCAL BAND LOCAL BEER DEAD GIRLS ESSEX//MURO / WAILIN STORMS / ROAR THE ENGINE FR 12/4 FOOTHILLS FREE FIRST FRIDAY FEATURING: SPIRITUAL REZ / DOWN BY FIVE SA 12/5 RUNAWAY GIN: A TRIBUTE TO PHISH SU 12/6 SCHOOL OF ROCK 2PM GRACE & TONY LOWLAND HUM / WILSON & LODGE TH 12/3

TU 12/8

XOXOK / PARALLEL LIVES 9pm $5 MATT HECKLER / DRIFTWOOD SOLDIER ELLIS DYSON (SOLO) 9pm $5/$7 3@3: PORCH LIGHT APOTHECARY MAP THE SKY/EMPTY DISCO 3pm FREE BARONESS / EARTHLING 9pm $20 SOLD OUT!

SA 12/12

HEATHER WOODS BRODERICK 8pm $10

SU 12/13

BITTER RESOLVE / PIPE / DYNAMITE BROTHERS JPHONO1 / BEAU BENNET 9pm $10

WE 12/16

JESSE MARCHANT

TOYS4TOTS BENEFIT SHOW: THE AFFECTIONATES

FASHION BATH / SEABREEZE DINER 9pm $8 COMING SOON:

JOY ON FIRE • BENJI HUGHES • 1349 WILD ADRIATIC • DR. BACON

www.LOCAL506.com

WE 12/9 TH 12/10 FR 12/11

SOUND SYSTEM SEVEN / BOOM UNIT BRASS BAND THE SHAKEDOWN PRESENTS: FRANK SINATRA’S

100TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION FREDFIN WALLABY

ABSENT LOVERS / ARMY OF DOG FREE SHOW! INPUT ELECTRONIC MUSIC SERIES FREE SHOW! TH 12/17 NOAH GUTHRIE / RADIO BIRDS / SAM BURCHFIELD

FR 12/18

RAIMEE

KNIGHTMARE / THE HELL NO / THE SEDUCTION SA 12/19 FR 12/25

BETTER OFF DEAD A TRIBUTE TO THE GRATEFUL DEAD IDLEWILD SOUTH CHRISTMAS WITH

NUCLEAR HONEY

facebook.com/thepourhousemusichall @ThePourHouse

thepourhousemusichall.com

TEASERS 15th Annual Christmas Party

11 7 W MAIN STREET • DURHAM

Saturday Dec. 12th

FRIDAY 12.11

Join us for special entertainment, door prizes and heavy hors d'oeuvres Members in FREE 7-9

PINHOOK’S 7TH ANNIVERSARY!

TROPHY WIFE BAD FRIENDS / FISH DAD 12.02 12.04 12.05

POUR HOUSE: Cosmic Superheroes, The Pseudo Cowboys; 9 p.m., $5–$7. STATION AT SOUTHERN RAIL: Yeaux Katz Trio; 6 p.m.

12.07 12.08 12.09 12.10

An Adult Nightclub TeasersMensClub

CRANFORD HOLLOW COSMIC SUPERHEROS / THE PSUEDO COWBOYS 9TH WONDER & THE ART OF COOL PRESENT CARAMEL CITY: AL STRONG / HEATHER VICTORIA BLACK MASALA

12.11

@TeasersDurham

919-6-TEASER

www.teasersmensclub.com for directions and information

Open 7 Days/week • 7pm-2am 156 Ramseur St. Durham

12.12 12.14

STAR WARS: ALL THREE MOVIES FREE! BRICE RANDALL BICKFORD / JOHN DAVIS A WARM WINTER EVENING WITH

THE OLD CEREMONY & FRIENDS MONDAY NIGHT SHOWCASE :

A VARIETY SHOW OF TRIANGLE AREA ARTISTS

TUE. NIGHT TRIVIA: WIN A $50 BAR TAB OR TIX NE-HI KENNETH WHALLUM / ZOOCRU PINHOOK’S 7TH ANNIVERSARY! TROPHY WIFE BAD FRIENDS / FISH DAD / SOLAR HALOS BIGGBRAD / OZ THE HIT MAKER KEMOSABE / EVO THE ARTIST MONDAY NIGHT SHOWCASE : A VARIETY SHOW OF TRIANGLE AREA ARTISTS

12.15

SPEEDY ORTIZ / NO LOVE / AYE NAKO

COMING SOON: PINK FLAG RELEASE PARTY / BULLY

17TH ANNUAL FREEZE YOUR BALLS OFF SCOOTER RALLY ROWDY SQUARE DANCE TEARIN’ UP XMAS

INDYweek.com

•

DECEMBER 2, 2015

•

visualarts 3610, www.raleighnc.gov/arts.

Galleries OPENING ARTSPACE: Dec 4-Jan 16: The

Forest for the Trees. Free. 201 E Davie St, Raleigh. 919-821-2787, www.artspacenc.org.

CARY ARTS CENTER: Dec

9-Jan 21: Synesthesia: Connecting the Senses. 101 Dry Ave. 919-4694069, www.townofcary.org.

CARY TOWN HALL: Dec 5-Jan

25: Getting to Know Me, work from the LeTouquet and Town of Cary Children’s Cultural Exchange. 316 N Academy St. 919-469-4000, www.townofcary.org.

DAYLIGHT PROJECT SPACE:

Fri, Dec 4, 6-9 p.m.: Sylvania, onenight-only exhibition of photos by Anna Beeke. Free. 121 W Margaret Ln, Hillsborough. www. daylightbooks.org.

ENO GALLERY: Dec 4-Jan 15: Celebrating 40 Years, work by Nancy Tuttle May. — Fri, Dec 4, 6-9 p.m.: Reception. 100 S Churton St, Hillsborough. 919-883-1415, www. enogallery.net. HERBERT C YOUNG COMMUNITY CENTER: Dec 5-Jan 25: Serenity in the South, work by H. Lee Dawson. 101 Wilkinson Ave, Cary. 919-4604965, www.townofcary.org.

LIGHT ART + DESIGN:

Dec 4-Jan 16: Metal V, Annual exhibition of metal artists with works from sculpture to jewelry. — Fri, Dec 4, 6-9 p.m.: Reception. 601 W Rosemary St, Chapel Hill. 919942-7077, www.lightartdesign. com.

LOCAL COLOR GALLERY:

Dec 4-31: Let It Snow!. — Fri, Dec 4, 6-10 p.m.: Reception. 311 W. Martin Street, Raleigh. 919-8195995, www.localcoloraleigh.com. INDYPICK

LUMP: Dec

4-28: Urchins, work by Amanda Barr, Kelie Bowman, Archie Lee Coates and more. — Fri, Dec 4, 6-9 p.m.: Reception. 505 S Blount St, Raleigh. 919-889-2927, www. teamlump.org.

MIRIAM PRESTON BLOCK GALLERY: Dec 3-Jan 14:

National Arts Program, works by City of Raleigh and Wake County employees and their families. 222 W Hargett St, Raleigh. 919-996-

MORNING TIMES GALLERY: Dec 4-30: I give up., photos by rkOliver. 10 E Hargett St, Raleigh. 919-459-2348, www. morningtimes-raleigh.com.

NATURE ART GALLERY:

Dec 4-Jan 31: Rock Transformed, handmade felt works by Sharron Parker. — Fri, Dec 4, 6-8 p.m.: Reception. 11 W Jones St, Raleigh. 919-733-7450 x369, www. naturalsciences.org.

ROUNDABOUT ART COLLECTIVE: Dec 4-31:

King Nobuyoshi Godwin, paintings. — Fri, Dec 4, 6-9 p.m.: Reception. 305 Oberlin Rd, Raleigh. 919-747-9495, www. roundaboutartcollective.com.

SKYLIGHT GALLERY: Fri, Dec

4, 6-9 p.m.: Abandoned, onenight-only show of mixed media based on an E.M. Forster quote. 102 W King St, Hillsborough. 919644-8637, www.skylightgallerync. com.

TIPPING PAINT GALLERY:

Dec 5-31: Y’Alltide. — Fri, Dec 4, 6-10 p.m.: Reception. 311 W Martin St, Raleigh. 919-928-5279, www.tippingpaintgallery.com.

VILLAGE ART CIRCLE: Dec 4-31: Art for the Holidays. 200 S Academy St #130, Cary. www. villageartcircle.com.

ONGOING ARTSOURCE FINE ART GALLERY: Thru Dec 31:

ArtSource 25th Year Celebration, new works by James P. Kerr. 4351107 The Circle at North Hills St, Raleigh. 919-787-9533, www. artsource-raleigh.com.

BULL CITY ARTS COLLABORATIVE: UPFRONT GALLERY: Thru Dec 25: Penland

School Inspired Pottery, work by Peter Dugan. 401-B1 Foster St, Durham. 919-949-4847, www. bullcityarts.org.

This untitled work by Amandine Urruty is on view in the group show Urchins at Lump Dec. 4–28. THE COTTON COMPANY:

Thru Dec 6: Richard Tardell. 306 S White St, Wake Forest. 919-5700087, www.thecottoncompany. net. INDYPICK CRAVEN ALLEN GALLERY: Thru Jan 9, 2016:

Moving Pictures/Figure and Forest, work by Dan Gottlieb. — Thru Jan 9, 2016: Animal, Vegetable, Mandible, work by Iris Gottlieb. 1106 1/2 Broad St, Durham. 919286-4837, www.cravenallengallery. com.

DUKE CAMPUS: CENTER FOR DOCUMENTARY STUDIES: INDYPICK

Thru Feb 27, 2016: South Side, photographs and writings by Jon Lowenstein. — Thru Feb 28, 2016: Aunties: The Seven Summers of Alevtina and Ludmila, photographs by Nadia Sablin. 1317 W Pettigrew St, Durham. 919-660-3663, www. cdsporch.org.

DUKE RUBENSTEIN LIBRARY: Thru Dec 13:

Dec 24: Christmas at Captain White’s, multimedia art by various artists. 213 S Main St, Graham.

Dreamers and Dissenters, books, manuscripts, photographs, recordings and artifacts that document human aspirations, including Virginia Woolf’s writing desk. Free. 411 Chapel Drive, Durham. 919-660-5822.

CARY ARTS CENTER: Thru

DURHAM ARTS COUNCIL:

CAPTAIN JAMES & EMMA HOLT WHITE HOUSE: Thru

Jan 24, 2016: Cary Photographic Artists. — Thru Dec 2: Red Ribbon Student Poster Contest. — Sat, Dec 5, 2-4 p.m.: Reception. 101 Dry Ave. 919-469-4069, www. townofcary.org.

Thru Jan 3, 2016: I Am Quixote - Yo Soy Quijote, work by North Carolina artists celebrating the 400th anniversary of El Quixote. Free. — Thru Dec 26: Illustrations for the Volcano Book, illustrations from I Built My House on a

Volcano by Stacye Leanza. 120 Morris St. 919-560-2787, www. durhamarts.org.

Dramas: Puppets, Proxies, and Spirits. 2 Broughton Dr, Raleigh. 919-515-3364, www.lib.ncsu.edu.

ENO GALLERY: Thru Jan 15, 2016: Fine Southern Clay, studio ceramics and sculptural clay by Southern artists. 100 S Churton St, Hillsborough. 919-883-1415, www. enogallery.net.

PAGE-WALKER ARTS & HISTORY CENTER: Thru Jan 2,

ERUUF ART GALLERY: Thru Dec 10: Images of Outer Bans, photos by Peter Aiken. 4907 Garrett Rd, Durham. 919-4892575, www.eruuf.org. GALLERY C: Thru Dec 31: A

NeOn NOel, works by Louis St. Lewis and Nate Sheaffer. — Fri, Dec 4, 6-9 p.m.: Reception. 540 N Blount St, Raleigh. 919-828-3165, www.galleryc.net.

LITMUS GALLERY: Thru Dec 4: Anything Goes, multimedia works by 40 different artists. 312 W Cabarrus St, Raleigh. 919-5713605, www.litmusgallery.com. LITTLE ART GALLERY & CRAFT COLLECTION: Thru

Dec 31: The Classics, work by Stephen White. 432 Daniels St, Raleigh. 919-890-4111, littleartgalleryandcraft.com.

NAOMI GALLERY AND STUDIO: Thru Dec 19: Amistad, work by Emily Eve Weinstein and Trudy Thomson. 0. — Sat, Dec 5, 5-7 p.m.: Reception. 711 Iredell St, Durham. www. naomistudioandgallery.com/.

NCSU DH HILL LIBRARY: Thru Jan 4, 2016: Life’s Little

PHOTO COURTESY OF LUMP

Chapel Hill MFA in Art alumni, curated by Jina Valentine, in the John and June Allcott Gallery. 101C E Cameron Ave, Chapel Hill. 919962-2015, art.unc.edu.

UNC WILSON SPECIAL COLLECTIONS LIBRARY: Thru

2016: Fine Arts League of Cary’s Annual Member Exhibition. — Thru Jan 2, 2016: Functional Art Pottery, work by Kenneth Neilsen. — Sun, Dec 6, 2-4 p.m.: Reception. 119 Ambassador Loop, Cary. 919-460-4963, www. friendsofpagewalker.org.

Jan 10, 2016: Chronicles of Empire: Spain in the Americas, featuring more than 50 early printed volumes from UNC’s Rare Book Collection. 201 South Rd, Chapel Hill. www.lib.unc.edu/wilson.

THE SCRAP EXCHANGE:

VISUAL ART EXCHANGE:

Thru Dec 12: Pauli Murray: Imp, Crusader, Dude, Priest, exhibit exploring the life and legacy of human rights activist Pauli Murray. 2050 Chapel Hill Road, Durham. 919-688-6960, www. scrapexchange.org.

THROUGH THIS LENS:

Thru Jan 9, 2016: Industrial Blues, photographs by Gunther Cartwright. — Thru Jan 9, 2016: Trees, photographs by JJ Raia. 303 E Chapel Hill St, Durham. 919-6870250, www.throughthislens.com.

TYNDALL GALLERIES: Thru Dec 31: Lynn Boggess, new landscape paintings. 201 S Estes Dr, Chapel Hill. 919-942-2290, www.tyndallgalleries.com. UMSTEAD HOTEL & SPA:

Thru Dec 31: Orr Ambrose, paintings. 100 Woodland Pond, Cary. 919-447-4000, www. theumstead.com. INDYPICK UNC HANES ART CENTER: Thru Dec 11:

Eureka!, new works by UNC-

Thru Dec 13: Shelter, work by Leila Ehtesham. 309 W Martin St, Raleigh. 919-828-7834, www. visualartexchange.org.

Museums

ACKLAND ART MUSEUM:

Thru Jan 3, 2016: Testing Testing, survey of paintings and sculpture since 1960. 101 S Columbia St, Chapel Hill. 919-843-1611, www. ackland.org.

CAM RALEIGH: Thru Jan 3, 2016: The Imaginary Architecture of Love, mural by Sarah Cain. 409 W Martin St. 919-261-5920, camraleigh.org. HISTORIC STAGVILLE: Sat, Dec 5, 12-4 p.m.: Christmas in the Big House, Christmas in the Quarters, This event will showcase the 1850s holiday experiences of the enslaved and white communities on the plantation. $3–$5. 5002 Old

INDYweek.com Oxford Hwy, Durham. 919-6200120, www.stagville.org.

audience volunteers brought onstage to join in. $10. 431 Peace St, Raleigh. 919-829-0822, comedyworx.com.

p.m.: A Colonial Christmas Open House. 160 S Saint Mary’s St, Raleigh. 919-833-3431, www. joellane.org.

NASHER MUSEUM OF ART:

Thru Sep 18, 2016: The New Galleries: A Collection Come to Light. — Thru Feb 28, 2016: Reality of My Surroundings: The Contemporary Collection. — Thru Jan 10, 2016: Richard Mosse: The Enclave. — Thursdays, 5-9 p.m.: Free Thursday Nights, Admission is free to all. 2001 Campus Dr, Durham. 919-684-5135, nasher. duke.edu.

performance THE TRAMP’S NEW WORLD

NC MUSEUM OF ART: Thru

Mar 20, 2016: Chisel and Forge: Works by Peter Oakley and Elizabeth Brim. — Thru Jan 17, 2016: Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex Leicester and the Creative Mind. — Thru Jan 31, 2016: Robin Rhode Video Installations. — Thru Jan 17, 2016: The Worlds of M. C. Escher: Nature, Science, and Imagination. 2110 Blue Ridge Rd, Raleigh. Info 919-839-6262, tickets 919-7155923, www.ncartmuseum.org.

PHOTO BY ED HUNT/COURTESY OF MANBITES DOG

JOEL LANE MUSEUM HOUSE: Sat, Dec 5, 11 a.m.-4

DSI COMEDY THEATER: Fri, Dec 4, 7 p.m.: Adult Spelling Bee, presented by the UNC Program in the Humanities. $6. — Fridays, 10 p.m.: Mister Diplomat. Free. — Fridays, 11 p.m.: The Jam. free. — Saturdays, 10 p.m.: Pork, 5 NC comics perform. Free. 462 W Franklin St, Chapel Hill. 919-3388150, www.dsicomedytheater.com. FLEX NIGHTCLUB: Thursdays,

midnite: Trailer Park Prize Night, comedy drag show with gag prize giveaways. 2 S West St, Raleigh. 919-832-8855, www.flex-club.com.

GOODNIGHTS COMEDY CLUB / THE GRILLE AT GOODNIGHTS: Wed, Dec 2,

8 p.m., Thu, Dec 3, 7:30 p.m. & Fri, Dec 4, 7:30 & 10 p.m.: Orny

Adams. $15–$28. — Thu, Dec 3, 10 p.m.: Doug Benson. $20. — Sat, Dec 5, 4:30 p.m.: Doug Love Movies Live Podcast. $20. — Wed, Dec 9, 8 p.m., Thu, Dec 10, 8 p.m., Fri, Dec 11, 7:30 & 10 p.m. & Sat, Dec 12, 7:30 & 10 p.m.: Alonzo Bodden. $15–$32. — Saturdays, 10:30 p.m.: Anything Goes Late Show. free. 861 W Morgan St, Raleigh. 919-828-5233, www. goodnightscomedy.com.

MOTORCO MUSIC HALL:

Tue, Dec 8, 7 p.m.: Periodic Tables: “Rational Comedy for an Irrational Planet”. free. 723 Rigsbee Ave, Durham. 919-901-0875, www. motorcomusic.com.

TJ’S NIGHT LIFE: Fri, Dec 4,

9 p.m.: Tone-X. $10. 4801 Leigh Dr, Raleigh. 919-672-1094, www. tjsnightlife.com.

TOOTIE’S: Saturdays, 7:30 p.m.: ComedyMongers Open Mic. $5,

•

DECEMBER 2, 2015

•

free for comedians. 704 Rigsbee Ave, Durham. 984-439-2328.

Dance PA R T I C I PATO RY DURHAM DANCE WAVE:

Mondays, 7:30-9 p.m.: $7. www. durhamdancewave.com. The Murphey School at the Shared Visions Retreat Center, 3717 Murphy School Rd, Durham. 919616-2190, www.sharedvisions.org.

SHAG DANCING: First Fridays,

8-11 p.m.; Thru Jan 1: Free. 919-8334527, davidpdj@yahoo.com. High Park Bar & Grill, 625 E Whitaker Mill Rd, Raleigh. 919-833-4527.

SUNDAY AFTERNOON BALLROOM DANCING: First

THE NUTCRACKER

Thru Jun 19, 2016: Treasures of Carolina: Stories from the State Archives, public records and private archival materials from the state archives. — Thru Feb 28, 2016: Hey America!: Eastern North Carolina and the Birth of Funk. — Thru Jul 10, 2016: North Carolina’s Favorite Son: Billy Graham and His Remarkable Journey of Faith. 5 E Edenton St, Raleigh. 919-807-7900, www.ncmuseumofhistory.org.

THEATER THE TRAMP’S NEW WORLD

Art Related

BOYLAN HEIGHTS ARTWALK:

Sun, Dec 6, 5 p.m.: More than 100 artists will be showing and selling their work on porches and lawns in homes and artists’ studios.

CHATHAM STUDIO TOUR: Sat, Dec 5, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Sun, Dec 6, 12-5 p.m.: See website for maps and more information.

DURHAM PATCHWORK HOLIDAY MARKET: Sun, Dec

THURSDAY, DEC. 3–SATURDAY, DEC. 19, DURHAM MANBITES DOG THEATER—Some 20 years after the death of silent movies, author and film critic James Agee tried to persuade Charlie Chaplin to bring back his most iconic character for one last film. In it, the Tramp would be the sole survivor of an atomic blast over New York City. Though Chaplin rejected Agee’s screenplay, he accepted his friendship. Still, the screenplay was never produced, and it remained unpublished until 2005. Playwright and performer Rob Jansen has adapted the story of Agee’s cinematic vision into a multimedia work combining live action and original film. Joseph Megel directs. 8:15 p.m. Dec. 3–5, 10–12 and 16–19; 2 p.m. Dec. 6; 7:30 p.m. Dec. 13, $5–$25, 703 Foster St., Durham, 919-682-3343, www.manbitesdogtheater.org. —Byron Woods

6, 12-5 p.m.: Durham Armory, 220 Foster St.

THE EL QUIXOTE FESTIVAL:

Thru Apr 23, 2016: art exhibits, performances and more in various locations celebrating Don Quixote. See website for more details. www.iamquixote.com.

ELF FAIR: Sat, Dec 5, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.: holiday craft fair featuring work by local artists. The ArtsCenter, 300-G E Main St, Carrboro. 919-929-2787, www.

Comedy

THE ARTSCENTER: Fri, Dec 4, 8 p.m.: Transactors Improv: Holiday in Rio. $10–$15. 300-G E Main St, Carrboro. 919-929-2787, www.artscenterlive.org. BLACKJACK BREWING COMPANY: Every third

Wednesday, 7:30-10 p.m.:

Blackjack Comedy Night. Free. 1053 E. Whitaker Mill Rd., Raleigh. 919-424-7533.

COMEDYWORX THEATRE:

Fridays, 8 p.m. & Saturdays, 4 & 8 p.m.: ComedyWorx Improv Show, 2 teams of improv comedians earn points by making the audience laugh. $6-12. — Fridays, 10 p.m. & Saturdays, 10 p.m.: The Harry Show, Ages 18+. Improv host leads late-night revelers through potentially risque games, with

PHOTO COURTESY OF CHRIS WALT PHOTOGRAPHY

NC MUSEUM OF HISTORY:

THEATER | THE NUTCRACKER VS. NUNCRACKERS SATURDAY, DEC. 5–SUNDAY, DEC. 6, CHAPEL HILL/RALEIGH MEMORIAL HALL AT UNC/NORTH RALEIGH ARTS & CREATIVE THEATRE—Do you like your eggnog straight or spiked? (Do you like your eggnog at all?) Carolina Ballet’s The Nutcracker, which chassés over to DPAC (Dec. 12 and 13) and Raleigh Memorial Auditorium (Dec. 18–27) after this two-night stand with Carolina Performing Arts, is a beloved annual tradition marked by high-flying fantasy, magic-show set pieces and a cast of thousands (well, like 100). But if marzipan and sugarplums give you a toothache, North Raleigh Arts & Creative Theatre has a less reverent holiday tradition. Nuncrackers: The Nunsense Christmas Musical, directed by Jon Todd, cookie-cuts a Nutcracker riff, family-friendly song parodies and other gentle yuletide razzes into the setting of a cable-access Christmas special filmed at a convent. Do a very sincere show and a very silly one even out to a very merry Christmas? Find out by taking in these holiday harbingers on consecutive nights—if you think you can handle that much Christmas spirit. Forced to choose, we’d still take Tchaikovsky’s deathless music over nunsense like, “We three kings of orient are us / We came here on camels ’cause we missed the bus.” The Nutcracker: 2 p.m. Dec. 5–6; 8 p.m. Dec. 5, $49–$89, 114 E. Cameron Ave, Chapel Hill, 919-843-3333, www.carolinaperformingarts.org. Nuncrackers: 8 p.m. Thurs.–Sat. and 2 p.m. Sun. Dec.4–20, $12–$18, 7713-51 Lead Mine Road, Raleigh, 919-866-0228, www.nract.org. —Brian Howe

arts

INDYweek.com Sundays, 3:30-6:15 p.m.: $6–$10. 919-494-2300, wesleyboz@ musicanddance.com. Raleigh Elks Lodge, 5538 Leadmine Rd.

SUNDAY SALSA SOCIAL:

Sundays, 6:30-9:30 p.m.: Every Sunday social featuring mostly Salsa with sides of Bachata, Merengue, Cha Cha, and Kizomba. Lesson at 6:30 for beginners plus sometimes intermediate. DJ Dance at 7. $6. www.dancegumbo.com. Triangle Dance Studio, 2603 S Miami Blvd, Durham.

Saturdays, 8 p.m. & Sundays, 3 p.m.; Thru Dec 20: $18–$24. Theatre In The Park, 107 Pullen Rd, Raleigh. Office 919-831-6936, Tickets 919-831-6058, www. theatreinthepark.com.

224 Polk St, Raleigh. 919-8344001, www.burningcoal.org. See p. 39.

ONGOING

INDYPICK ONCE: Thru Dec 6, 7:30 p.m.: $25–$90. Memorial Auditorium, 2 E South St, Raleigh. 919-996-8700, www. dukeenergycenterraleigh.com.

PETER AND THE STARCATCHER: Tuesdays-

RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER: Fri, Dec 4, 6:30 p.m.,

INDYPICK

INDYPICK THE WIZ: Thu, Dec 3, 7:30 p.m., Fri, Dec 4, 7:30 p.m., Sat, Dec 5, 2 & 7:30 p.m., Sun, Dec 6, 2 p.m.: $5–$25. Burning Coal Theatre at the Murphey School,

Sundays, 7:30 p.m.; Thru Dec 12: $15–$44. UNC Campus: Paul Green Theatre, 120 Country Club Rd, Chapel Hill. 919-962-7529, playmakersrep.org.

PERFORMANCE DANCES OF THE NUTCRACKER: Sat, Dec 5, 3

p.m. & Sun, Dec 6, 2 & 4 p.m.: $6. Halle Cultural Arts Center, 237 N Salem St, Apex. 919-249-1120, www.thehalle.org. INDYPICK THE NUTCRACKER: Sat, Dec 5, 2

& 8 p.m. & Sun, Dec 6, 2 p.m.: $10–$89. UNC Campus: Memorial Hall, 208 E Cameron Ave, Chapel Hill. 919-843-3333, www. carolinaperformingarts.org.

Readings & Signing

ALEXANDER WOLFF: THE AUDACITY OF HOOP: Wed, Dec 2, 12:30 INDYPICK

Theater OPENING ALMOST, MAINE: Thu, Dec 3,

7:30 p.m., Fri, Dec 4, 7:30 p.m. & Sat, Dec 5, 2:30 & 7:30 p.m.: by One Song Productions. $8–$10. Common Ground Theatre, 4815-B Hillsborough Rd, Durham. 919384-7817, www.cgtheatre.com.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL:

Wed, Dec 9, 7 p.m.: $32–$84. Memorial Auditorium, 2 E South St, Raleigh. 919-996-8700, www. dukeenergycenterraleigh.com.

DASHING THROUGH THE SNOW: Thu, Dec 3, 7:30 p.m., Fri, Dec 4, 7:30 p.m., Sat, Dec 5, 3 & 8 p.m., Sun, Dec 6, 3 p.m. & Mon, Dec 7, 7:30 p.m.: Cary Arts Center, 101 Dry Ave. 919-469-4069, www. townofcary.org.

THE EMOTIONS OF NORMAL PEOPLE: INDYPICK

Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Thru Dec 19: $8–$15. UNC Campus: Swain Hall, 101 E Cameron Ave, Chapel Hill. See p. 39. INDYPICK ISABELLA ROSSELINI: GREEN PORNO:

Sat, Dec 5, 8 p.m.: $34–$74. Carolina Theatre, 309 W Morgan St, Durham. 919-560-3030, www. carolinatheatre.org. See story, p. 35.

NUNCRACKERS: Thursdays-

Saturdays, 8 p.m. and Sun., Dec. 6, 3 p.m. Continues through Dec. 20 North Raleigh Arts & Creative Theatre, 7713-51 Leadmine Rd. 919-866-0228, www.nract.org.

SANTALAND DIARIES: Fridays,

p.m.: with The Audacity of Hoop: Basketball and the Age of Obama. UNC Campus: Bull’s Head Bookshop, 207 South Rd, Chapel Hill. 919-962-5060, store.unc.edu. INDYPICK BARRY SAUNDERS: Wed, Dec 9, 7 p.m.:

with And the Horse You Rode in On, Saunders. Regulator Bookshop, 720 Ninth St, Durham. 919-2862700, regulatorbookshop.com.

DANIEL DE VISÉ: Thu, Dec

3, 7 p.m.: with Andy & Don: The Making of a Friendship and a Classic American TV Show. Quail Ridge Books & Music, 3522 Wade Ave, Raleigh. 919-828-1588, www. quailridgebooks.com. — Fri, Dec 4, 2 p.m.: McIntyre’s Books, 2000 Fearrington Village Center, Pittsboro. 919-542-3030, www. mcintyresbooks.com.

DANIEL WALLACE: Wed, Dec 2, 11:30 a.m.: with The Angelologia. Duke University Medical Center, 2301 Erwin Rd, Durham. www.

dukehealth.org/locations/duke_ hospital/location_details/.

DAVID KLEIN: Wed, Dec 9, 7:30 p.m.: with If 6 Was 9 and Other Assorted Number Songs. $5. Motorco Music Hall, 723 Rigsbee Ave, Durham. 919-901-0875, www.motorcomusic.com.

ELEANORA E. TATE AND NANCY TOLSON: Sun, Dec 6, 2

p.m.: discussing Tate’s children’s book Just an Overnight Guest and screening of the short film based on the book. NC Museum of History, 5 E Edenton St, Raleigh. 919-807-7900, www. ncmuseumofhistory.org.

JAMIE TWORKOWSKI: Wed, Dec 2, 7 p.m.: To Write Love On Her Arms founder discusses his book If You Feel Too Much: Thoughts on Things Found and Lost and Hoped For. Barnes & Noble, 760 SE Maynard Rd, Cary. 919-467-3866, www. barnesandnoble.com.

JOHNNY MOORE & ART CHANSKY: Thu, Dec 3, 7 p.m.:

with 100 Things Duke Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die and 100 Things North Carolina Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die. Regulator Bookshop, 720

$30–$145. Durham Performing Arts Center, 123 Vivian St. Info 919-688-3722, Tickets 919-6802787, www.dpacnc.com.

Sat, Dec 5, 11 am & 2 p.m., Sun, Dec 6, 11 am & 2 p.m.: $23–$55. Fletcher Opera Theater, 2 E South St, Raleigh. 919-996-8700, www. dukeenergycenterraleigh.com.

Ninth St, Durham. 919-286-2700, www.regulatorbookshop.com.

books

INDYPICK THE SOUND OF MUSIC: Thru Dec 6, 7:30 p.m.:

KEVIN WATSON, TAYLOR BROWN, MARIA INGRAM BRAUCHT AND DANNYE ROMINE POWELL: Wed,

Dec 2, 7 p.m.: with short stories and poems. Quail Ridge Books & Music, 3522 Wade Ave, Raleigh. 919-828-1588, www. quailridgebooks.com.

MEG WETHINGTON, PHIL MORSE, KITTY BERGEL AND ELIO SOLDI: Sat, Dec 5, 7 p.m.:

reading from Poems from the Heron Clan. Regulator Bookshop, 720 Ninth St, Durham. 919-286-2700, www. regulatorbookshop.com.

Favorites: 25th Anniversary Collection. Regulator Bookshop, 720 Ninth St, Durham. 919-2862700, www.regulatorbookshop. com. — Wed, Dec 9, 7 p.m.: Quail Ridge Books & Music, 3522 Wade Ave, Raleigh. 919-828-1588, www. quailridgebooks.com.

SUNDRY POETS: Sun, Dec 6,

2 p.m.: Grace Ocasio, Mary Kratt and Tony Morris in discussion, moderated by Jo Taylor. Quail Ridge Books & Music, 3522 Wade Ave, Raleigh. 919-828-1588, www. quailridgebooks.com.

TWO WRITERS #18: CRISTEL ORRAND AND CHRIS ABBATE: Tue, Dec 8,

ROB MCDONALD, DANIEL WALLACE, JILL MCCORKLE, ZELDA LOCKHART AND BRONWEN DICKEY: Fri, Dec 4,

CITY SOUL CAFE POETRY & SPOKEN WORD OPEN MIC:

p.m.: discussing Carolina Writers at Home. McIntyre’s Books, 2000 Fearrington Village Center, Pittsboro. 919-542-3030, www. mcintyresbooks.com.

SARA FOSTER: Wed, Dec 2, 7 p.m.: with Foster’s Market

READING | BARRY SAUNDERS WEDNESDAY, DEC. 9, DURHAM REGULATOR BOOKSHOP—In more than two decades as a columnist for the News & Observer, Barry Saunders has earned a reputation for telling it like it is with equal parts humor and outrage. Like many critics, this snazzy-hatted purveyor of righteous rants can come off as either the voice of reason or a bit of a scold, depending on your point of view. In recent years, he’s gone off on Beyoncé for her lack of sartorial modesty and cheekily chided Ben Carson for blinking “unnervingly slowly.” His new book, And the Horse You Rode in On, Saunders!, is a compendium of N&O columns from 1999 to 2005. If you’re clamoring to relive Saunders’ views on the news of the day circa the latter-Clinton and early-Bush administrations, this reading is for you. (But is that a time you really want to remember?) Just make sure to come attired properly, not like “some half-nekkie celebrity.” 7 p.m., free, 720 Ninth St., Durham, 919-286-2700, www.regulatorbookshop.com. —David Klein

•

sports HURRICANES VS. CANADIENS: Sat, Dec 5, 7 p.m.:

7:45 p.m. West End Wine Bar, 601 W Main St, Durham. 919-3814228, www.westendwinebar.com.

ROB MCDONALD, JILL MCCORKLE AND ALLAN GURGANUS: Sat, Dec 5, 2

DECEMBER 2, 2015

Spectator

NICOLE SARROCCO: Sun, Dec 6, 2 p.m.: with Lit by Lightning: An Occasionally True Account of One Girl’s Dust-ups with Ghosts, Electricity, and Granny’s Ashes. NC School of Science & Math, 1219 Broad St, Durham. 919-416-2845, www.ncssm.edu.

7 p.m.: discussing Carolina Writers at Home. Regulator Bookshop, 720 Ninth St, Durham. 919-286-2700, www.regulatorbookshop.com.

•

Literary Related

Wednesdays, 8-10 p.m.: Poets, vocalists, musicians & lyricists welcome. All performances a cappella or acoustic. $5. www. citysoulcafe.splashthat.com. Smokin Grooves Bar & Grill, 2253 New Hope Church Rd, Raleigh.

THE MONTI: Thu, Dec 3, 7:30

p.m.: $15. Motorco Music Hall, 723 Rigsbee Ave, Durham. 919901-0875, www.motorcomusic. com.

SACRIFICIAL POETS TOUCHSTONES OPEN MIC:

First Wednesdays, 6-8 p.m.: www. sacrificialpoets.com. Flyleaf Books, 752 Martin Luther King Jr Blvd, Chapel Hill. 919-942-7373, www. flyleafbooks.com.

SNOWY BUT SNUGGLY: WINTER STORIES FOR CHILDREN OF ALL AGES:

Thu, Dec 3, 5:30 p.m.: storytelling by UNC professor Brian Sturm and students. free. UNC Campus: Wilson Special Collections Library, 201 South Rd, Chapel Hill. www. lib.unc.edu/wilson.

PNC Arena, 1400 Edwards Mill Rd, Raleigh. Office 919-861-2300, Tickets 1-800-745-3000, www. thepncarena.com.

HURRICANES VS. COYOTES:

Sun, Dec 6, 5 p.m.: PNC Arena, 1400 Edwards Mill Rd, Raleigh. Office 919-861-2300, Tickets 1-800-745-3000, www. thepncarena.com.

HURRICANES VS. DEVILS:

Thu, Dec 3, 7 p.m.: PNC Arena, 1400 Edwards Mill Rd, Raleigh. Office 919-861-2300, Tickets 1-800-745-3000, www. thepncarena.com.

N.C. STATE VS. BUCKNELL (MEN’S): Sat, Dec 5, noon: PNC

Arena, 1400 Edwards Mill Rd, Raleigh. Office 919-861-2300, Tickets 1-800-745-3000, www. thepncarena.com.

Participatory

JINGLE BELL LEAP 5K RUN/WALK: Sat, Dec 5,

9 am: $20–$25. American Tobacco Campus, 324 Blackwell St, Durham. 919-433-1570, americantobaccohistoricdistrict. com.

OPEN TABLE TENNIS TOURNAMENT: Sat, Dec 5 &

Sun, Dec 6: triangletabletennis. com/programs-and-events/ tournaments/. Triangle Table Tennis, 2900 Perimeter Park Drive, Suite 200, Morrisville. 919-3880272.

RIVER RUN CLUB: Thursdays, 6:45 p.m.: The Hop Yard, 1141 Falls River Ave, Raleigh. 919-971-0631, www.thehopyardnc.com/. TEAM ON DRAFT BIKE RIDE: Wednesdays, 6 p.m.: To join, you should be able to hold a 15 mph pace for 18 miles, and have your own helmet, water, pump and spare tube. The Glass Jug, 5410 Hwy 55, Durham. 919-813-0135.

WEDNESDAY BIKE RIDE:

Wednesdays, 6 p.m.: Crank Arm Brewing Co, 319 W Davie St, Raleigh. www.crankarmbrewing. com.

WEST END RUN CLUB:

Tuesdays, 6 p.m.: DSI Comedy Theater, 462 W Franklin St, Chapel Hill. 919-338-8150, www. dsicomedytheater.com.

INDYweek.com

film Special Showings

STAR WARS: Wed, Dec 2, 6 p.m.: marathon of all three original movies. free. The Pinhook, 117 W Main St, Durham. 919-667-1100, www. thepinhook.com. DEGREES NORTH: Wed, Dec 2, 7:30 p.m.: $10. Lincoln Theatre, 126 E Cabarrus St, Raleigh. 919-821-4111, www. lincolntheatre.com. I’LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS: Wed, Dec 2, 7:30 p.m.: free. Halle Cultural Arts Center, 237 N Salem St, Apex. 919-249-1120, www.thehalle. org. SANTA CLAUS: Fri, Dec 4, 7 p.m.: free. NC Museum of Natural Sciences, 11 W Jones St, Raleigh. 919-733-7450, www. naturalsciences.org. LABYRINTH: Fri, Dec 4, 8 p.m.: $5–$7. NC Museum of Art, 2110 Blue Ridge Rd, Raleigh. Info 919839-6262, tickets 919-715-5923, www.ncartmuseum.org.

Film Capsules

Our rating system uses one to five stars. Signed reviews are by Brian Howe (BH), Laura Jaramillo (LJ), Kathy Justice (KJ), Craig D. Lindsey (CDL), Glenn McDonald (GM), Neil Morris (NM), Zack Smith (ZS) and Ryan Vu (RV).

Opening

CHI-RAQ—Spike Lee directed this interpretation of the ancient Greek play Lysistrata, transporting it to gang-violence-ridden Southside Chicago. Rated R. KRAMPUS—The Alpine Christmas folk figure comes to life in this scary story about a boy who turns his back on holiday spirit and the consequences his family faces. Rated PG-13.

Current Releases

 1/2 BRIDGE OF SPIES—In Steven Spielberg’s true-story spy film, co-written by Ethan and Joel Coen, Berlin’s Glienicke Bridge is the site of the 1962 prisoner trade involving captured American spy-plane pilot Francis Gary Powers (Austin Stowell) and convicted Soviet spy Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance). At first, it plays out like To Kill a Mockingbird, with attorney James Donovan (Tom Hanks) as a Cold War Atticus Finch, defending the vilified Abel before later negotiating the prisoner swap. Donovan is righteous, droll and likable. In other words, he’s Tom Hanks. Rylance shapes a reed-thin role into an award-worthy performance. Seeing Germans being gunned down trying to scale the Berlin Wall indicts today’s immigration debates, and the legal plight of Abel alludes to our current treatment of “enemy combatants.” The U-2 overflights of yesterday are the drones of today. This modern relevance is enhanced by grand, sometimes sentimental filmmaking. That this will be regarded as minor Spielberg testifies to his enduring talent. Rated PG-13. —NM  1/2 BROOKLYN—Irish director John Crowley and screenwriter Nick Hornby

capture the melancholy and nostalgia of Colm Tóibín’s novel in the kind of elegiac old-school melodrama that is seldom made anymore. Saoirse Ronan is Eilis, an Irish girl who goes to work in Brooklyn in the 1950s, thanks to the sponsorship of a U.S.-based priest (Jim Broadbent). Leaving behind a mother and sister she adores, she’s initially homesick, living in an all-female boarding house. That changes when she meets a sweet-natured Italian plumber who immediately falls for her good-girl ways. This is a colorful, confident portrait of the American Dream, with Eilis serving as a walking beacon of hope and optimism. Striking work by cinematographer Yves Bélanger and costumer Odile Dicks-Mireaux makes Ronan— with her moony, wholesome looks—the brightest thing in the movie. Things get complicated when she starts seeing a suave Irishman (Domhnall Gleeson), turning the story into an intercontinental torn-betweentwo-lovers affair and making Eilis wonder if heading back to the States is really a good idea. Like so many prior films about immigrants looking for a better life, this one lays out a wondrous, overwhelming and romantic (if oddly minority-free) vision of

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America’s past—the same vision that brought people here in the first place. Rated PG-13. —CDL  CREED—The boxing-film genre reached its narrative limits long ago. But by using conjoined character arcs, the Rocky series’ seventh film ably honors, updates and even deconstructs its legacy. Adonis Johnson (Michael B. Jordan), the son of late champ Apollo Creed—Rocky’s respected nemesis—is rescued from a delinquent childhood by Mary Anne Creed (Phylicia Rashad), Apollo’s widow. Haunted by her husband’s death in the ring, she discourages Adonis’ impulses. But he moves to Philadelphia to coax an aging Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) to train him. Balboa runs an Italian restaurant and doesn’t visit Mickey’s gym anymore. Still, he reluctantly agrees to train Adonis, though his guilt over failing to prevent Apollo’s death is a motivation the film doesn’t sufficiently explicate. Ryan Coogler, who also directed Jordan in Fruitvale Station, reclaims the blackness of a franchise originally framed through the prism of the Great White Hope. It’s not only the first Rocky film in which Rocky doesn’t fight, but also the first that doesn’t spotlight a white boxer. Jordan and Stallone, utterly at ease, conjure an alchemy of wit

and poignancy. The film doesn’t conclude with a celebration in the ring. Instead, a movie icon haltingly climbs the same steps he once galloped up to glory, in an elegy for a cultural phenomenon. Rated PG-13. —NM  THE GOOD DINOSAUR— The publicity materials for Disney and Pixar’s latest focus on the fact that it’s set in a world where an asteroid didn’t hit Earth and dinosaurs continued to evolve. What goes unmentioned is that the premise is an excuse for an old-fashioned children’s adventure story—a “boy and his dog” tale where the dog is the boy and the boy is a dinosaur. Set in an untouched American West, The Good Dinosaur is a simple story of a dino homestead where a four-legged Apatosaurus family is apparently quite good at irrigation and growing corn despite a lack of opposable thumbs. Family runt Arlo (voiced by Raymond Ochoa) is terrified of everything and despairs of never “making his mark,” a point the film illustrates literally. An encounter with a loin-clothed “critter” (Jack Bright) leads to a tragedy, and then Arlo is swept downriver, where he discovers that the cave-boy he resents is a surprisingly loyal companion on the long, danger-filled trip

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home. Like the Cars films, this one seems aimed at a tradition-loving Middle American audience. But there’s a darkness to this story that contrasts with the soft, toy-like pastel dinosaurs; Arlo suffers about every physical and emotional trauma possible in a Disney flick, dead parent included. It’s all a little old-fashioned for Pixar, which has done its best work breathing fresh life into tired ideas. It doesn’t feel particularly innovative, or even interested in exploring the dinosaur-based society it’s created. But it’s nice to see that old-fashioned children’s adventure stories aren’t, well, extinct. Rated PG. —ZS  THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY – PART 2— Drenched in violence and darkness, this last installment of the teenage wasteland franchise finds our heroine Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) wearily slouching to her final bloody victory over the Capitol. Bombs shred refugees, cannibals devour soldiers and children kill children in what is essentially a war picture marketed as YA sci-fi adventure. The heaviness that worked so well in Part 1, released last year, is unbalanced and off-kilter here. Lawrence is her usual bad-ass self and manages to hold the center

XMAS MEIER AND GEHRY’S VERTIGO THURSDAY, DEC. 3, RALEIGH HUNT LIBRARY AT N.C. STATE—Architecture can be a lofty enterprise in multiple senses of the term. The tallest towers often wind up being inhabited by the same wealthy souls that conceived of and constructed them. A pair of films screening in the MoHo Realty Architecture Movie Series take a look at the more populist consequences of monumental building after the ribbon is cut. If you’ve ever admired the soaring glasswork of Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, meet the laborers who maintain that perilous, undulant gleam in Gehry’s Vertigo (2013, 45 min.), a portrait of the Guggenheim’s window washers with vertiginous GoPro footage. Meanwhile, Xmas Meier (2013, 37 min.) surveys the charged reactions of a working-class suburb of Rome to a church built by renowned modernist Richard Meier. Together, the documentaries chart the fractures that emerge in the hermetic ideals of visionary architects when they crash into reality. 7:30 p.m., $10 (first 100 N.C. State students free), 1070 Partners Way, Raleigh, 919-515-7110, www.ncmodernist.org. —Brian Howe

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for a while, but the story finally collapses under its own weight. To be clear: That PG-13 rating has nothing to do with informing viewer discretion. It’s a marketing tag that says the Hunger Games are open for business one last time, to all teenagers and their parents’ credit cards. Rated PG-13. —GM  1/2 THE MARTIAN—Director Ridley Scott’s latest is one nerdy-ass science fiction movie—in a good way. In a recognizable near future, NASA Upstream color: Samuel L. Jackson in Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq sends interplanPHOTO COURTESY OF ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS/AMAZON STUDIOS etary space ships on regular trips to Mars. captive by her father in his cellar Rated PG-13. —NM Astronaut Mark Watney (Matt for 24 years. The film is inspired  SUFFRAGETTE—Those Damon) is separated, presumed by, not based on, the Fritzl story, expecting a proper period piece dead and left behind by his crew. but a few threads from the source will be sorely disappointed by But he survives, and most of the material beg to be tied. Keeping this restless, angry drama, which movie documents his ingenuity the captor incidental to the plot sometimes plays out like a violent in gathering and creating what avoids cliché at the cost of making political thriller. Set in 1912 he needs to stay alive. As you get his behavior seem inconsistent: If London and based on historical swept up in the story, it’s easy to he’s such a monster, why does he events, the film stars Carey Mulforget how amazing Scott’s visuals obey Joy’s demand that he never ligan as Maud Watts, a desperare—he has created a new world even see his son? We don’t know ately poor laundry worker in 1912 onscreen. The film has a few because Jack can’t. Rated R. —RV gradually radicalized by veteran weak spots: Some dodgy cloak SPECTRE—Until now, Ernst women’s suffrage activists. “We and-dagger elements toward the Stavro Blofeld and the rest of the break windows, we burn things,” end strain credulity. But overall, SPECTRE global crime syndicate Maud says. “Because war is the the film delivers what it should. hadn’t appeared in a James Bond only language men understand.” A thinking person’s big-budget film since 1971’s Diamonds Are The gritty, ground-level story sci-fi movie, it’s talky and intelForever. But after decades of moves with the verve and velocligent. The filmmakers worked rights-wrangling, MGM and the ity of a spy movie, and director with NASA to make the science estate of film producer Kevin Sarah Gavron makes bold choices as accurate as possible. The story McClory finally reached a legal throughout. It’s a bit of a stealth is compelling, the visuals are settlement, allowing Bond’s move, actually: Suffragette is spectacular and the movie even original infamous foes to return a provocative political drama manages to make math exhilaratto the franchise. The 24th Bond dressed as a British prestige ing. Rated PG-13. —GM film is overeager to reintegrate picture. Rated PG-13. —GM its birthright, shoehorning it into  1/2 ROOM—Emma  TRUMBO—This is the the narrative reboot that began Donoghue and Lenny Abrastory of the infamous Hollywood with Daniel Craig and temporarhamson’s film, adapted from blacklist seen through the biograily rejuvenated the franchise. Donoghue’s novel, is a cathartic phy of its most interesting victim. But the slapdash Spectre is a exploration of the trauma at the Bryan Cranston stars as the great nostalgic deviation that rolls back heart of the love between mother screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who, the Craig films from a reinvenand child. The horrific premise— in the late 1940s, was kicked out tion to a mere rehash. A power that young mother Joy Newsome of Hollywood and served time in struggle threatens to render the (Brie Larson) and her son, Jack prison for being a member of the 00 section obsolete. With the (Jacob Tremblay), are prisoners Communist Party. The drab first help of Q (Ben Whishaw) and in a psychopath’s shed—is kept half of the film plays like a History Moneypenny (Naomie Harris), in the background, intensifying Channel dramatization, but things Bond (Craig) goes rogue (again) uncomfortable emotions intrinsic pick up after that, thanks to the on a globe-trotting search for to parenting and early childhood. high-voltage supporting cast, the mastermind behind the Daringly, the film highlights how including John Goodman, Louis worldwide tentacles of criminal trauma can be deepened through C.K. and Helen Mirren. The second mayhem dogging him. A few a parent’s efforts to protect her half is like a whole different movie, moments prove memorable: An child. After letting Jack believe and it’s worth sticking around for. extended tracking shot through the room is all there is, Joy must As Trumbo makes his triumphant Mexico’s Day of the Dead festivishatter his illusions all at once. comeback, he uses a kind of politities, a train-car brawl between The pair’s performances in these cal jujitsu against his tormentors, Bond and henchman du jour Mr. wrenching sequences deserve leveraging Washington gutlessness Hinx (Dave Bautista). Otherwise, their Oscar buzz. Danny Cohen’s and Hollywood greed for his own the action scenes fall flat. The cinematography ties us to Jack’s crafty purposes. Rated R. —GM film does have a basic appeal point of view via tight closefor aficionados like me, with its ups, restricting spatial detail. copious callbacks to Bond lore, This works well for scenes of Find times and locations good and bad, but this distended suspense and tragedy. Underlying in our Film Calendar at 140-minute theme-park ride everything is the story of Austria’s www.indyweek.com. doesn’t leave us shaken or stirred. Elisabeth Fritzl, who was held