INDY Week 12.06.17

durham . chapel hill 12|6|17

INDIES ARTS ALSO Bow D ow City C n to Ama zo ou Perfe ncil’s New n p. 6 ct Gif ts for Class p. 10 Lazy Cooks p. 2

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AWARDS

ARCA THE D NA IS A W UDE B OMAN ARS O -RUN F DOW OASIS NTOW AMON N DUR G HAM

2017 p. 18

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WHAT WE LEARNED THIS WEEK VOL. 34, NO. 49 6 New Jersey will give Amazon $7 billion to locate its HQ2 in Newark. A city in Georgia offered to rename itself “Amazon.” How is the Triangle going to compete?

8 In 2007, a state rep proposed a bill to investigate North Carolina’s role in the Bush administration’s extraordinary rendition program. It went nowhere.

10 There won’t be an election, but a handful of people are still campaigning for a Durham City Council seat.

13 Because improv comedy is often based upon pinpointing something unusual and heightening it, stereotyping and harassment are common.

18 Arcana’s owners started with the simple goal of creating a place that was not a dude bar.

20 Apparel fittings often trigger body insecurity among dancers, but at Empower Dance Studio, they are opportunities for self-affirmation.

27 The Room, a 2003 film by Tommy Wiseau, is widely regarded as one of the worst movies ever made.

DEPARTMENTS 6 Triangulator 8 News 12 Indies Arts Awards 24 Food 27 Arts & Culture

Nicole Oxendine, founder of Empower Dance Studio, in her Durham studio space (see page 20).

PHOTO BY MADELINE GRAY

30 What to Do This Week 33 Music Calendar 37 Arts & Culture Calendar

ON THE COVER

PHOTO BY MADELINE GRAY

INDYweek.com | 12.6.17 | 3

NCDOT TO HOLD PUBLIC MEETING FOR THE PROPOSED LOUIS STEPHENS DRIVE EXTENSION (S.R. 1632) FROM O’KELLY CHAPEL ROAD (S.R. 1628) / LITTLE DRIVE (S.R. 2153) IN RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK TO POPLAR PIKE LANE IN MORRISVILLE, WAKE COUNTY TIP PROJECT NO. U-5827 The N.C. Department of Transportation will hold a public meeting regarding the proposed project to extend Louis Stephens Drive (S.R. 1632) from O’Kelly Chapel Road (S.R. 1629)/Little Drive (S.R. 2153) in Research Triangle Park to Popular Pike Lane in Morrisville. The meeting will take place on Thursday, December 7, 2017 from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Morrisville Town Hall located at 100 Town Hall Drive.

The public may attend at any time during the above mentioned hours. NCDOT representatives will be available to answer questions and listen to comments regarding the project. The opportunity to submit comments will also be provided at the meeting or via phone, email, or mail by December 22, 2017. Comments received will be taken into consideration as the project develops. Please note that no formal presentation will be made.

Project information and materials can be viewed as they become available online at http://www.ncdot.gov/projects/publicmeetings.

For additional information, contact Roger Kluckman, NCDOT Division 5 Project Manager by mail: 2612 North Duke Street, Durham, NC 27704, by phone: (919) 220-4717, or by email: rkluckman@ncdot.gov.

NCDOT will provide auxiliary aids and services under the Americans with Disabilities Act for disabled persons who wish to participate in this meeting. Anyone requiring special services should contact Caitlyn Ridge, P.E., Environmental Analysis Unit via e-mail at ceridge1@ncdot.gov or by phone (919) 707-6091 as early as possible so that arrangements can be made.

Persons who speak Spanish and do not speak English, or have a limited ability to read, speak or understand English, may receive interpretive services upon request prior to the meeting by calling 1-800-481-6494.

Aquellas personas que hablan español y no hablan inglés, o tienen limitaciones para leer, hablar o entender inglés, podrían recibir servicios de interpretación si los solicitan antes de la reunión llamando al 1-800-481-6494.

4 | 12.6.17 | INDYweek.com

Raleigh Durham | Chapel Hill PUBLISHER Susan Harper EDITORIAL

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f x

backtalk

The Dark Side of the Funny Business

form there—which, thankfully, isn’t that We got a lot of feedback on Katie Jane Fermany (and includes none of the Triangle’s nelius’s story in last week’s paper about the best improvisers and comics). Maybe in six PIT, the improv company that has moved months, the theater’s staff will make good on into the Franklin Street space that once their promises to make it a more respectful housed DSI Comedy, which shut down in and responsive environment, and we can all August following a series of sexual misreassess. But they have something to prove to conduct allegations against its owner, Zach our community, and so far their efforts have Ward. Here’s a sampling: been disappointing.”

“As someone who studied and performed Phil Warren, meanwhile, says Farahnakian at the PIT for five years,” writes Brian86, is an improvement: “The new owner’s super“I knew of many of the incidents reportopen, honest, and altruistic; the old guy was ed. I also knew firsthand what an unprea narcissist alcoholic abuser. Don’t let one dictable, moody, bully Ali Farahnakian was man’s actions and liberal PC cognitive dissoand is. You could fill a small town with the nant ideology fuck up a good thing.” improvisers who have left the PIT because of Moving on to a story we ran two weeks ago its many toxic qualities. I loved doing improv on Raleigh pastor John Pavlovitz, who is advothere—the theater is beautiful—but I have cating a more inclusive version moved on because I could no of Christianity. Angela Britt longer deal with so many negtakes exception to this line in ative aspects of this theater “Did this douche the story: “Some simply know and many of its staff.” seriously say ‘my in their gut, [Pavlovitz] says, Yesandnothanks asks, “Did that a religion of in-groups and this douche [Farahnakian] radical self-truth’ out-groups isn’t what Jesus seriously say ‘my radical selfto talk about why was preaching.” truth’ to talk about why he he should get to “Funny,” she writes. “Since should get to tell jokes about tell jokes about when did ‘knowing in their raping his wife? I also like how gut’ replace reading the actual he said that he’s always dealt raping his wife?” text? Knowing in our gut what with these issues in the past— the author might have/have and then also said he’s realnot said is much more conly bad at dealing with these venient than actually reading what he really issues. Classic. I’m not sure that building is said. Matthew 10:34–36: ‘Do not think that worth saving at this point. Does anyone know I have come to bring peace to the earth. I who owns it? Should probably turn it into a have not come to bring peace, but a sword.

Planned Parenthood or a women’s shelter or For I have come to set a man against his something.” father, and a daughter against her mother, Again Again adds: “The Pit was already and a daughter-in-law against her motherunnecessary. In the wake of the collapse in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of DSI, wonderful shows (and educational of his own household.’ These are the words of programs) are being selflessly produced at Jesus. There are many more written on the the Varsity by Mettlesome (who just celepages of scripture for anyone to read. These brated their one-year anniversary), at Comwords don’t fit a particular political party and edyWorx, upstairs at Goodnights, and by a never have. To think that one political party number of other independent presenters. represents the Jesus of the Bible is naive at It’s actually a bit of a DIY golden age for combest and self-serving at worst. Read him for edy and improv in the Triangle. The PIT has yourself. Believe him or reject him, but please a fine performance space, but this glaring don’t misrepresent him.” blind spot—especially in the wake of Ward’s transgressions—is difficult to forgive, espeWant to see your name in bold? Email us cially with so many other quality opportuniat backtalk@indyweek.com, comment on our ties right now.

Facebook page or indyweek.com, or hit us up “For now, I’m very suspicious of anyone on Twitter: @indyweek. choosing to partner with the PIT or to per-

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triangulator

RDU, MEET YOUR COMPETITION Last week, The News & Observer reported that, as part of a $92,000 campaign, the Department of Commerce and the Economic Development Partnership of N.C. have begun placing ads on the sides of Seattle buses, hoping to lure Amazon’s multibillion-dollar HQ2 to either Charlotte, the Triad, or Raleigh-Durham. But there are 238 cities in 43 states (as well as Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico) with their eyes on the same prize, and Amazon is less likely to be swayed by clever marketing than cold hard cash.

The Triangle’s first response to Amazon’s request for proposals—handled by the Research Triangle Research Partnership—didn’t include any talk of incentives. Those will come later, if the region makes it through the first round of vetting. Still, the city and county of Durham alone have incentive policies that could pay Amazon $50 million over twenty-four years. But even that may be nowhere even close to enough.

The FOIA warriors at Muckrock.com and a

Seattle Times columnist have been filing public records requests, seeking information on what various cities are bidding. (Because RaleighDurham’s bid was handled by a private agency, it is not public record.) So far, thirty cities’ bids have been revealed in full—and those that include financial incentives show that Amazon has this country’s municipalities over a barrel.

Let’s take a look at a sample of what the competition is offering.

LONDONBERRY, N.H.

For this city in the Boston suburbs, the state argues that its income-tax-free environment could save Amazon workers $300 million a year.

But no straight-up bribes.

FRESNO, CALIF.

Fresno has offered to essentially allow Amazon to help decide how its taxes are spent; 85 percent of taxes and fees would go into a special account managed jointly by the city and company. This is on top of state subsidies.

BOSTON, MASS.

Mayor Marty Walsh says the city is holding off on incentive talks until Amazon expresses interest but will create an “Amazon task force” of city employees to work on the company’s behalf.

DENVER, COLO.

The city’s bid doesn’t mention incentives, but it previously gave a $286 million subsidy to Forest City Enterprises.

CALIFORNIA

Several Cali cities, including Los Angeles, Irvine, and San Francisco, are bidding. California governor Jerry Brown has offered hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks and other incentives, including $100 million for employment training funds and $200 million in tax credits, as well as local property tax abatement for fifteen years.

CHICAGO, ILL.

Amazon would be able to pocket $1.32 billion in income taxes from its own workers. Instead of paying for schools or roads, workers’ local taxes would line the company’s pockets.

NEWARK, N.J.

New Jersey offered Amazon $7 billion in tax credits to build in Newark.

The state of Pennsylvania has offered more than $1 billion in incentives should Amazon pick one of its cities. Philly is also considering waiving city business income taxes.

STONECREST, GA.

The city has offered to rename itself “Amazon.”

CHULA VISTA, CALIF.

Amazon would receive 85 acres for free (worth $100 million) and be allowed to skip out on property taxes for thirty years ($300 million).

Sources: Muckrock.com, Seattle Times, Citylab.com 6 | 12.6.17 | INDYweek.com

AUSTIN, TEX.

No incentives were included in its bid.

The city previously awarded Samsung subsidies worth $233 million.

PHILADELPHIA, PA.

TAMPA BAY, FLA.

Tampa and St. Petersburg haven’t released figures but say they will produce a “competitive” incentive package.

MARYLAND

Three Maryland municipalities are bidding, including Baltimore. While he didn’t provide specifics, Maryland governor Larry Hogan said, “I can tell you that the state has never put together an incentive package like this before.

It’s going to be mindboggling for the folks at Amazon.” The Baltimore Sun says the package could be worth billions in tax cuts and incentives.

N

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A.

vania an es one also city es.

+WHOSE ENDORSEMENTS MATTER?

Every election cycle, candidates for office in Durham line up to seek the endorsements of the city’s major PACs—the People’s Alliance, the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People, and Friends of Durham—as well as this newspaper. But how much do those endorsements actually matter?

A new study from a UNC professor published in Urban Affairs Review seeks to answer that question, using data from a 343voter exit poll conducted after Durham’s 2015 municipal election. The survey asked voters not only for whom they voted but also how endorsements affected their vote. In that article, Andrea Benjamin and graduate student Alexis Miller found that “awareness of endorsements explains voter choice better than issues.”

In other words, the endorsements candidates receive can matter more than the issues they stake out. And from interviews with local politicians, the authors conclude that would-be council members are very aware of that fact. Consider this quote, from Jillian Johnson, who won her at-large seat in that election: “We sort of ran two campaigns. We ran a campaign to get the PA endorsement and then we ran a campaign for the election.”

“Although we are unable to provide evidence of the causal effects of endorsements in this article,” Benjamin and Miller write, “we provide evidence of an important precondition for such a causal effect: voter awareness of endorsements. We argue that for endorsements to matter in real-world elections, voters must be aware of these endorsements.”

Indeed, their analysis showed that knowl-

edge of one of Steve Schewel’s endorsements translated to a twenty-percentage-point increase in support; for Johnson, twenty-five points; for Charlie Reece, twenty-four points.

Also, some endorsements matter more than others in this town, the study found.

Between 2009 and 2015, fifty-nine candidates ran for Durham City Council, and twenty-nine of them made it to the general election. In the primaries, the PA endorsed all eight winners; the DCABP endorsed five winners and two losers; and the Friends of Durham endorsed four winners and two losers. The INDY endorsed five winners and no losers. In the general, the same story played out: the PA endorsed ten winners and one loser; the DCABP and Friends of Durham had more mixed records; and the INDY went six for six.

“In particular,” the authors write, “endorsements from the People’s Alliance and the Independent Weekly translated into wins for this election.”

Ahem.

+ FRIENDLY SUGGESTIONS

Wake County commissioners took a swipe at the Raleigh City Council Monday by encouraging Wake towns to embrace accessory dwelling units, also known as granny flats.

In November, Raleigh City Council members turned back the latest of several years’ worth of proposed ordinances to allow the dwellings, called ADUs. The little houses are widely seen as one means of trying to reduce the growing need for affordable housing; towns in California must allow them under state law. But some residents, as well as council members, worry that homeowners could put up backyard dwellings that would tower over their patios, attract undesirable renters,

and add to parking woes.

“Whereas, Wake County desires to partner with municipalities to reduce obstacles to ADU construction, as well as increase public awareness of ADUs and their benefit; now therefore be it resolved, that the Wake County Board of Commissioners encourages municipalities to join Wake County in allowing development and reducing obstacles for accessory dwelling units as-of-right in single-family and low-density residential neighborhoods,” the resolution says.

There’s no force of law in the resolution, just a reminder from county commissioners that they’d like to see ADUs sprouting throughout Wake’s towns. The suggestion seems aimed at Raleigh, where urban density could make backyard cottages more viable, although the resolution’s wording includes Zebulon, Rolesville, Garner, and other towns as well.

Commissioners also voted unanimously for Jessica Holmes to serve as chairwoman for the next year, replacing Sig Hutchinson, who became vice chairman. Holmes has been outspoken in her advocacy for affordable housing, behavioral health care, and education funding.

Also Monday, Mayor Nancy McFarlane was sworn in for a fourth term, along with city council members including newcomers Stefanie Mendell and Nicole Stewart. Will the newly constituted council be more likely to follow the commissioners’ helpful advice on granny flats and other hitherto delayed changes, such as short-term rentals?

Watch this space. triangulator@indyweek.com

YOUR WEEK. EVERY WEDNESDAY. FOOD • NEWS • ARTS • MUSIC

This week’s report by Jeffrey C. Billman and Thomas Goldsmith.

PERIPHERAL VISIONS | V.C. ROGERS

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indynews

Tortured Explanations

A NORTH CAROLINA COMPANY PLAYED A BIG ROLE IN THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION’S EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION PROGRAM, BUT THERE’S NEVER BEEN A STATE INVESTIGATION

BY ERICA HELLERSTEIN

I

n 2002, Abou Elkassim Britel, an Italian citizen, was traveling for business in Pakistan when police in Lahore apprehended him on immigration charges. The authorities detained and interrogated Britel, who was born in Morocco but married to an Italian woman, and accused him of being a “terrorist fighter,” subjecting him, he says, to sleep deprivation and beatings with a cricket bat. After weeks of abuse, the authorities turned Britel over to the Pakistani intelligence services in Islamabad, where he was interrogated

by U.S. intelligence agents and brought to the airport handcuffed and blindfolded by men dressed in black.

Britel landed in Morocco and was brought to the Temara prison, where he was interrogated, tortured, and imprisoned for more than eight months before he was released without explanation or charge. In 2003, Britel was released and then recaptured and ultimately imprisoned for eight years, with a confession obtained under torture serving as the basis for his conviction. In 2011, amid international outcry, Britel was finally released, but he remains deeply scarred by the experience.

“I look at him, but he is not Kassim any longer,” says Britel’s wife, Khadija Anna Pighizzini. “He gets irritated for the slightest thing. He cannot go out. He suffers and suffers and won’t talk about it. He sleeps hours every day, but nothing seems to get him out of this state. Crowds cause him anxiety. He avoids people. He prefers solitude.”

Although Britel’s plight sounds worlds away, it’s more connected to North Carolina than you might think.

According to a 2012 report by the UNC School of Law, the fifty-year-old former detainee was transported to Morocco via Aero Contractors, a North Carolinabased aviation company that transferred dozens of terrorist suspects to secret CIA 8 | 12.6.17 | INDYweek.com

Christina Cowger leads an N.C. Stop Torture Now demonstration at Johnston County Airport in January 2013.

The picture she’s holding is of Britel. FILE PHOTO BY BOB GEARY black sites—a practice known as “extraordinary rendition.”

The UNC report says the company “aided in the kidnapping, extraordinary rendition, secret detention, and torture” of Britel and others, while relying on and benefitting from state and local resources.

According to media reports, the two North Carolina airports that housed Aero’s planes were essentially used as a base for CIA flights; a 2005 New York Times investigation called the company “a major domestic hub of the Central Intelligence Agency’s secret air service.” Critics called the operation a “torture taxi.”

At least forty-four people were rendered

to torture on planes operated by Aero, which was founded in 1979 by a CIA officer, according to the North Carolina-based Commission of Inquiry on Torture, or NCIT, an organization that seeks to investigate the state’s involvement in extraordinary rendition. At least thirty-four of those cases appear in a 2014 declassified summary of the Senate torture report.

Aero’s planes, investigators found, were housed at the Johnston County airport in Smithfield, where the company is based, and at the Trans Park Authority, in Kinston—both public facilities, supported by taxpayer funds.

Despite public outcry following the rev-

elations, North Carolina has yet to investigate its role in the rendition program.

Since the story of Aero’s connections to the Bush-era War on Terror came to light, not one of the state’s four governors—Mike Easley, Bev Perdue, Pat McCrory, or Roy Cooper—have heeded calls to look into or at least publicly acknowledge the program.

Cooper, as attorney general, declined to call for a state investigation, and Senator Richard Burr, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence committee, fought the release of the Senate torture report.

The state’s inaction compelled Christina Cowger, a professor of agriculture at N.C. State, to found North Carolina Stop Tor-

ture Now, a grassroots coalition dedicated to ending torture, and create NCIT in 2005 and 2015, respectively.

“When we found that our state officials showed a clear desire to do nothing, and did nothing, we realized, in times when government fails its duty and just really refuses to abide by the rule of law, then it’s up to citizens to step into the breach,” Cowger says.

The organization’s advocacy culminated last week with a two-day public hearing on Aero Contractors and the torture program. The hearing featured testimony from a range of activists, human rights workers, and scholars, including the wife of Abou Elkassim Britel, the former UN special rapporteur on torture, a career military intelligence officer, and a former CIA official.

Witnesses testified about the planes that rendered terrorism suspects as well as the torture detainees endured.

“Their captors sliced off their clothes, put them into diapers, and hooded them,” said Deborah Weissman, a law professor at UNC and the lead author of the 2012 report on rendition. “They were restrained, immobilized, prohibited from moving, and, if they did move, they were beaten. If they asked to be able to change positions, their mouths were taped shut.”

Mohamedou Ould Slahi testified about his treatment while in detention. Slahi, a Mauritanian citizen, was kidnapped from his home in 2001, rendered by Aero Contractors, and detained at Guantanamo Bay from 2002–16 without charge. (He was finally released in 2016, after years of litigation.) Slahi, who later wrote the best-selling memoir Guantanamo Diary, spoke about the long-lasting impact of the imprisonment and torture on his daily life.

“Ever since my release, I could not get a good night’s sleep. I have so much pain,” he told the commission. “I have hypertension that I developed in prison during my detention. Every time I go to sleep, I find myself in the same cell.”

To date, there’s been no significant investo inves- tigation into the rendition program, but program. not for lack of effort on Verla Insko’s part. ctions to In 2007, the Democratic state representae to light, tive, introduced the first and only bill to ors—Mike address the post-9/11 rendition and torture y, or Roy program. ok into or Insko introduced the bill after unsucprogram. cessfully calling for a state investigation ned to call following the 2005 NYT report, she testiator Rich- fied last week. Insko and a group of legate Intel- islators wrote to Robin Pendergraft, the ase of the director of the State Bureau of Investigation, asking for an immediate examination Christina of Aero’s activities; Pendergraft said she re at N.C. lacked jurisdiction. The group then wrote Stop Tor- to Attorney General Roy Cooper; Cooper

also responded with concerns about a lack of jurisdiction.

The bill would have amended state law to identify torture and kidnapping as felonies, give the state jurisdiction to investigate, and empower the convening of a grand jury to investigate the program. It never received a vote.

“Unfortunately, our state government has never summoned the political will to investigate allegations of torture-related rendition flights or to ban them from public North Carolina airports,” Insko said. “I urge you to call upon our governor and attorney general to investigate cases in which Aero Contractors was involved.”

The role of both the Kinston and Johnston County airports is significant. Both are publicly operated political subdivisions of the state; according to Weismann, North Carolina extended credit to Aero to construct a hangar at the Global TransPark in Kinston, and Johnston County provided the company with permits for construction work and conducted safety inspections on its premises.

“Aero could not exist but for engaging in contracts and other transactions with the Johnston County airport,” Weismann said.

“It relies on the public airport for permits and inspections, and so of course our tax dollars are very much implicated in facilitating these flights and the torture.”

In 2014, North Carolina Stop Torture Now delivered a letter to then-governor McCrory’s office asking him to launch an SBI probe into the program and calling on Johnston County commissioners to ban the company. Commissioners turned down the group’s request. One told The News & Observer: “I’m not going to touch that thing, not as long as they are a good job provider.”

NCIT says it also invited Aero Contractors, the Johnston County Airport Authority, and Burr, Attorney General Josh Stein, and former governors Easley, Perdue, and McCrory to testify last week, but all refused. Cowger says Cooper was asked to send a representative to the meeting but declined. (Cooper’s office did not respond to an email seeking comment.)

Aero did not respond to a request for comment. A decade ago, Aero’s president, Norman Richardson—“a North Carolina businessman who once ran a truck stop restaurant called Stormin’ Norman’s”—told the Times, “Most of the work we do is for the government. It’s on the basis that we can’t say anything about it.”

The commission hopes to publish a report detailing its findings next summer, Cowger says, and use that to raise awareness about the rendition program and push state and county officials to act. ehellerstein@indyweek.com

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news T

he Durham City Council bid farewell on Monday to longtime mayor Bill Bell and three members—Cora Cole-McFadden, Eddie Davis, and Don Moffitt—as new officials were welcomed to each of their seats.

DeDreana Freeman was sworn in to the Ward 1 seat, Mark-Anthony Middleton for Ward 2, Vernetta Alston for Ward 3, and Steve Schewel took the mayor’s seat, opening up the at-large position he has held on the council since 2011. The new council is expected to quickly set about filling Schewel’s position through an application-andinterview process.

At least five people have made it known that they are interested in the job.

Pierce Freelon announced first.

The 4,059 votes Freelon won in the primary election for mayor weren’t enough to advance to the general but still constituted a respectable showing for a political newcomer. Freelon ran a grassroots and social-media-focused campaign for mayor and has continued to do the same in his bid for a council seat, encouraging supporters to email the council.

Freelon met with city manager Tom Bonfield and police chief C.J. Davis while working on his mayoral platform, which included a jobs guarantee, ending cash bail, and encouraging co-ops and entrepreneurship. He thinks he’d be a natural fit among the council members he spent many nights with during pre-election forums and would make an already progressive council even more so.

“We’ve been to different corners of Duham together, we’ve been on stages together and been scrutinized,” he says.

“We’ve been through some stuff.”

Three women are also hoping to represent the Latinx community on the council: Javiera Caballero, Sheila Arias, and Yesenia Polanco-Galdamez. All decided to apply at the urging of their communities. They were connected recently through mutual friends and are supporting one another’s candidacies with a larger goal of making Durham’s elected bodies more representative of the people they serve. That said, they’re aware they may be tokenized, and hope to be supported for their qualifications rather than their identities. (The city council hasn’t had a Hispanic member in recent memory. If one of them is appointed, 10 | 12.6.17 | INDYweek.com

Who Wants to Be a City Council Member?

WITH STEVE SCHEWEL ASCENDING TO THE MAYOR’S CHAIR, THE DURHAM CITY COUNCIL HAS TO PICK HIS REPLACEMENT

BY SARAH WILLETS

the council will have a majority of women.)

Caballero, who moved to Durham in 2010, is the program coordinator for an educational consulting firm and a former teacher. A mother of three, she’s served on the Club Boulevard Magnet Elementary School PTA, including two years as presi-

dent, and also on the school improvement team. She sits on the Durham Open Space and Trails Commission.

Caballero grew up in a political home.

Her family came to the United States when she was two from Chile, where her father’s career as a math professor was being sty-

mied in the anti-academic dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

If appointed, Caballero wants the council get more involved with Durham Public Schools and make city government more accessible to the Hispanic community. The city website should be available in multiple languages and interpreters should be available at meetings, she says.

“The immigrant community is rather invisible at large,” she says. “It’s a growing population. Are we actually doing the work in local government to make sure we’re including these people?”

She wants to invest more in affordable housing, create incentives for worker cooperatives, and be more transparent about how Durham police interact with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“We know that Durham police are not doing checkpoints, but they have to do things in collaboration with the sheriff’s department and state troopers, so I think we have to be clear in our messaging,” she says.

Arias came to Durham twenty years ago, at age twelve, from Mexico. She says she knows firsthand what it’s like for non-English-speaking immigrants to try to navigate Durham; there was no ESL program at her school when she arrived.

She works as a parent advocate with the state Department of Health and Human Services, works part-time with grassroots group MomsRising, operates a cleaning business, and is studying psychology at Durham Tech.

Arias has two children, including a daughter with special needs. Through MomsRising, she’s advocated for expanding health care for children with special needs, and more recently she started doing outreach with the organization’s Spanishlanguage branch, MamásConPoder.

Arias also wants more clarity from the police department on immigration enforcement. “People here in Durham are living under fear and don’t know who to trust,” she says.

And she too would like to expand language access to city government, with an emphasis on “meeting people where they are” by participating in community events.

“There’s so many other nationalities in Durham, and we need to give them a voice and include them in our city,” she says.

Polanco-Galdamez practices immigra-

tion law and criminal defense, and is the principal attorney at Polanco Law. “To me,” she says, “families are important, and when I think of families, I think of issues around housing, I think of a fair, affordable, and inclusive plan to make sure our communities aren’t displaced from their homes.”

Polanco-Galdamez was born in El Salvador and moved to Durham when she was in the fifth grade. She says she became an activist “as soon as I learned how to drive,” organizing around the DREAM Act, sex education, and other issues affecting her peers at Southern High School, where she was student body president. She worked as a youth organizer at El Centro and decided to go to law school “to acquire more skills to be a better advocate in the community,” she says.

Polanco-Galdamez says she wants to see the at-large seat filled by the most qualified candidate and the best fit for the council.

“I’m a people person. I’m a great listener and advocate,” she says. “One of my strengths, I think, is strategic planning, planning in ways that are inclusive and responsible and honor the many individuals involved. I do this on a day-to-day basis in my job for the last nine years.”

Carl Rist, a white man, concedes that he wouldn’t bring diversity to the council, but he says he would bring experience and deep Durham roots.

“I think someone with a little more experience who has been around twenty-five years would be a good addition to the new, exciting members we have,” he says.

Rist has a master’s degree in public policy and has worked for twenty-five years with a D.C. think tank on issues of economic inequality and wealth building in lowincome communities. He helped launch the People’s Alliance economic inequality team and the Durham Living Wage Project, which encourages employers to pay at least $13.35 per hour as of 2017. He has twice been president of the People’s Alliance board and works on the finance task force of the city’s poverty reduction initiative. Through those experiences, he says he has gotten to know most of the council well.

If appointed, Rist says he would look carefully at the tax incentives the city extends to developers, advocate for taxes rather than fees to raise city funding, and look for “wise and strategic” ways to accomplish the city’s goals in spite of preemptive state laws.

An online petition is asking the council to appoint John Rooks Jr. to the seat.

Rooks, who ran for the Ward 2 seat but lost to Middleton, says he wasn’t behind the petition, but he hasn’t ruled out applying. swillets@indyweek.com

What’s in a Name?

ADVOCATES WORRY THAT A PROPOSED CHANGE TO RALEIGH’S ZONING CODE COULD LEAVE SOME OLDER RESIDENTS VULNERABLE TO UNSCRUPULOUS CARE FACILITIES

BY THOMAS GOLDSMITH A developer could set up a Raleigh home for twenty older people per acre with no special-use permit or waiting period and no need to locate such a project on five acres— as current law dictates—under proposed changes in Raleigh’s zoning language.

Called a “text change” to Raleigh’s unified development ordinance, or UDO, the measure would rename congregate care, life care communities, and rest homes as “community care retirement communities,” or CCRCs. These CCRCs are typically highly regulated centers for older people, with spots often sold for large chunks of money to people who want guaranteed care for a lifetime. Under the proposed ordinance, that term would extend beyond the facilities traditionally considered CCRCs and take in a new class of developments, some of which might not be regulated by the state.

Two questions have arisen about the change, which will get a hearing before the Raleigh City Council on January 2. The most important centers on whether the new language could result in the crowding of older people into low-end and even unsafe dwellings that now get to call themselves CCRCs. “I’ve got concerns about it,” says Bill Lamb, executive director of the nonprofit Friends of Residents in Long-Term Care. “Having affordable housing alternatives is an important consideration, but we also have to be very careful about identifying the providers. That’s completely under the radar now.

Those things are popping all over.”

Meanwhile, some consumers may be confused by the use of the phrase “community care retirement communities.” While CCRCs licensed by the state are regulated by the departments of insurance and health and human services, some homes set up under Raleigh’s ordinance would require little to no oversight.

As of October, the Department of Insurance listed fifty-nine licensed CCRCs in North Carolina. The DHHS lists six hundred adult care homes, or assisted living facilities, in the state, along with about seventy facilities in a category called “multi-unit assisted housing with services,” where only the work of outside caregivers is licensed.

In a 2015 RTI International report on unlicensed care homes, researchers said no state level estimates were available for North Carolina.

A Department of Insurance spokesman referred questions about the facilities to the Department of Health and Human Services.

A DHHS spokeswoman sent the INDY back to the insurance department, with no result.

While critics worry that the terminology may lead some older adults to contract with less-reputable companies, David W. Owens, the Gladys H. Coates professor of public law and government at the UNC’s School of Government, writes in an email that the language change “does not have any impact on social services licensing or any aspect of the management of the facilities.”

Allowing the development of these facilities in dense areas, without permits that can take a year to obtain, also seems sensible to Owens. “Changing the requirement to get a special-use permit in the [highdensity] districts simplifies the approval process in those districts,” he writes.

State- and federally regulated CCRCs, such as Springmoor Life Care Retirement Community and SearStone in Wake County, include some or all of these elements: independent living, assisted living, and highly skilled care or nursing homes.

Because a CCRC contract is in large part a health insurance policy, the Department of Insurance keeps and makes public highly detailed information about them. After

all, a person who spent six figures for a place in a CCRC might, after decades have passed, have lost the ability to determine the quality of his or her care.

A study released in July by researchers from RTI and Texas A&M produced troubling, though preliminary, findings about unlicensed care homes, called UCHs. “Many informants described conditions in UCHs as abusive, financially exploitative, and neglectful of residents’ basic needs,” the researchers found.

The study also cited accounts of unsanitary and uncomfortable places to live, with bedbugs and a lack of utilities; unsafe and inaccessible housing; bad medication management; and failure to meet codes resulting in unsafe wiring and a lack of smoke detectors.

If the city allows unregulated developers to build CCRCs with no oversight, the same sort of thing could happen here, critics warn.

Travis Crane, Raleigh’s assistant director of planning and zoning, says city staff crafted the ordinance at the request of real estate developer Joe Whitehouse. It was Whitehouse who suggested that the city use the term CCRCs, calling it the “term of art.”

Whitehouse did not return a call for comment Monday. tgoldsmith@indyweek.com INDYweek.com | 12.6.17 | 11

INDIES

ARTS AWARDS 2017

I

t’s been about three hundred and twenty days since Donald Trump was inaugurated as president of the United States, but boy, it feels like a whole lot longer. Every day brings a seemingly infinite parade of awful stories of corruption, moral bankruptcy, and general villainy in government chambers. It’s all been terribly exhausting.

But amid all the clouds, many people have channeled their righteous anger and frustration into something fruitful, through small and major acts of civic engagement—and through art. This week, we celebrate those whose work in the latter category makes life in the Triangle better and more just. Though the Indies Arts Awards have honored local artists who make a positive impact for nearly three decades, we are more grateful for them than ever this tumultuous year.

The winners include Mettlesome, a comedy

troupe that is redefining the culture of stand-up and improv, and Tim Walter, an adventurous patron who’s helped meet needs for unconventional art spaces in Durham. Ruby Deluxe and Arcana are a pair of bars keeping their spaces queer-friendly, while Empower Dance Studio uses dance to foster inclusion and confidence in people of all ages and races. We also salute Blackspace, whose work encourages youth of color to imagine and pursue radical futures, and the Saving Space Showcase, which is breaking up the logjam of white men’s bands.

These people and organizations offer far more than a fun time or food for thought. They provide comfort, refuge, encouragement, and affirmation when we need it desperately. We’re proud to call these people our community members, and we thank them for moving us toward brighter horizons. —Allison Hussey

PHOTOS BY M ADELINE GR AY 12 | 12.6.17 | INDYweek.com

p n rt e y, er d k e e, ’s

e e n o d er

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ALL IN, GOOD FUN

With the comedy world’s white supremacy and toxic masculinity in the spotlight, Mettlesome is a new kind of organization for a new South

O

ne of the first events Mettlesome staged was almost rained out. The show, in honor of local comedian Paula Pazderka, took place in Ashley Melzer and Jack Reitz’s Durham garage, where they hung black shower curtains from the rafters. A makeshift tarp sagged under the deluge, threatening to drench the audience seated below. Melzer stopped the show to flip the stage perpendicular and move the audience inside the garage. It was hot and stuffy, but the show not only went on; it was a resounding success.

“Those weren’t Mettlesome shows; they were just our community getting together,” Melzer says. “But they made me realize the need for community-organized theater.”

Mettlesome—which means “full of spirit”—began in 2016, when Melzer, formerly a performer and an employee at DSI Comedy, saw the need for a safe, positive space for local storytelling. (DSI infamously closed this year, following sexual-misconduct allegations against owner Zach Ward.) Comedy, in particular, seemed to exist only in partitioned communities: there was little overlap between theaters like DSI and ComedyWorx. Melzer wanted to connect different creative people through shared projects.

“Too many people who were in power were running comedy theaters like it was a gym system,” Melzer says. “You pay your dues, you get your weekly show. For better or worse, it was life coaching in the form of improv. My hope is that, with Mettlesome, we can recognize that we have strong perspectives and creative possibilities, and we can begin to tell a story about the new South.”

Melzer began working with Rose Werth, also formerly of DSI, and Reitz, who is now Melzer’s husband. They reached out to people throughout the Triangle to talk about collaborating on new projects and hosted whiteboard meetings where they discussed new ways to build artistic communities, including giving more power and flexibility to performers, unty-

BY K AT I E J A N E F E R N E L I U S

Rose Werth, Ashley Melzer, and Jack Reitz ing them from a single theater.

Now, what started in a home garage has grown into a full-fledged collective and small business that produces eleven ongoing shows, podcasts, and projects in the Triangle.

“Mettlesome is at the forefront of redefining comedy in the Triangle,” says Shane Smith, one of the hosts of The Dangling Loafer, a stand-up showcase in Raleigh.

“Not only that, they all have an enormous heart. They are all smart, compassionate, good people.”

Mettlesome regards itself as a bold voice redefining the front porch, with a commitment to both diversifying the stories they tell and cultivating a distinctly regional voice of North Carolina and the South.

“People have found power in being where they are from and having a regional voice.

Merge Records is Merge Records because they are in Durham,” Melzer says. “Comedy has that same power!”

Mettlesome is not tied to a physical

space. Instead, it works across a host of venues, ranging from Monkey Bottom Collaborative to The Vault at Palace International, from the Pittsboro Youth Theater to Kings in Raleigh. This is a deliberate strategy to draw in different communities, a thoughtfulness that is apparent in everything Mettlesome undertakes. The Racket is a monthly showcase for improv teams, where Werth tries to book a team from each of the major cities. In Golden Age, Melzer and Werth invite special guests from outside of the comedy scene, including bands such as Hardworker and writers such as Crystal Simone Smith, to perform alongside an improv team. These shows draw eclectic audiences.

This summer, in the wake of DSI’s closure, Mettlesome organized a “Yes, And No” panel at Manbites Dog Theater to discuss how to create safer, more equitable spaces in comedy. It also hosts a monthly show called Improv Noir at the Vault that features an all African-American team.

“The root of why [stereotyping and harassment] happens is that so much of improv is based upon pinpointing and identifying something that is unusual, then heightening it,” Reitz says. “And if the base palette is straight, white, and male, then anyone who doesn’t fit that is going to come off as unusual. We need to make sure our palette is diverse enough that we are able to identify actual unusual things, not act like being a woman or being black is unusual.”

Reitz says they drew a lot of inspiration from places like Backroom Shakespeare in Chicago, which takes untraditional approaches and lets performers control their own projects.

On September 2, 2016, Mettlesome hosted its first show outside of their garage, the Racket, at The Shed in Durham. Since then, they’ve produced it every month on First Friday.

This year, Mettlesome has produced seventy-nine shows at ten different venues. Next year, they plan to go even bigger: while continuing their high volume of shows, they want to offer more classes and facilitate a network for improv performers who want to join teams, find coaches, and get stage time.

“We’re creating it as we go,” Werth says.

“Not everybody has to have a single building that they go to in order to feel like they are part of the collective that is Mettlesome.”

It is an exciting time for comedy in the Triangle, as old silos fall away and new ones emerge. Mettlesome has taken the lead in facilitating the Triangle’s independent comedy scene at a time when it is healing from the DSI debacle and warily eyeing newcomer The PIT, which has some of the same problems (see the INDY’s exposé from last week). Still, Mettlesome’s core team is too humble to say they’re here to save local comedy, even though they probably are.

“We’re not here to be the saviors or caretakers of a community,” Reitz says. “We’re just trying to do good work.” arts@indyweek.com INDYweek.com | 12.6.17 | 13

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INDIES ARTS AWARDS 2 0 1 7

SPACE CADET

Saving Space parts the sea of white dude bands while raising cash for local nonprofits

BY E L I Z A B E T H B R AC Y Editor’s note: Sarah Schmader, who runs the Saving Space Showcase, is a senior advertising account executive at the INDY. While we’re not in the habit of awarding our own staff, we would commit a greater disservice by not recognizing her hard work with Saving Space.

W

hen Sarah Schmader first moved to the Triangle five years ago, she was immediately blown away by the local arts scene.

“I was just overwhelmed by all of the options here. Like most people say—it’s a pretty special place in that sense,” she says.

“You kind of have this ownership of the Triangle music scene, because it’s so tight-knit and there are so many options all of the time.”

This year, Schmader has leveraged that tight-knit atmosphere with her own skills as a concert promoter to book shows that do some extra good. In February, feeling shocked and powerless following the presidential election, she launched the Saving Space Showcase, a local concert series devoted to raising money for nonprofits and featuring diverse voices that are not heard often enough.

“After the election, I realized that I had to focus a little bit. Trump’s the president and everyone’s kind of looking around to find out how they can be helpful—no one’s able to really give that much money because we’re all broke and young,” she says. “I was like, OK, how can I use what I know how to do to help this situation? So that’s how the showcase came to be. I wanted to do a local series that raised money for smaller nonprofits that are really not getting enough help, and that these shows would also raise awareness and exposure for bands that are nonbinary, queer, female, and people of color.”

As a longtime college d.j. and occasional show promoter at her alma mater, Longwood University, Schmader had been familiar with the Triangle area’s propensity for producing and nurturing talent in droves.

What surprised her was the kindness, reciprocity, and the unity of purpose that seemed to characterize the local community.

“No one’s going for one big role or a big

“Sarah’s showcase, intentionally uplifting queer/femme/ persons of color/nonbinary folks is so necessary for the music scene to fully thrive.

Saving Space Showcase is giving a platform to folks who are often and easily overlooked, then adding another layer of impact by donating proceeds to amazing causes that benefit us all,” Qatr says, adding, “It’s been a gift working with Sarah, cocreating more radical spaces for folks like us to be seen and heard, quite literally.”

Even with an increasingly hectic schedule, SchmadSarah Schmader has raised nearly $4400 for nonprofits through Saving Space shows. er expects to keep the Saving Space Showcase a priority going forward. Animated goal. No one’s like, Oh, I’m gonna go out and manifest as her ambitions grew larger. by a restless idealism, an unflagging complay these shows with my friends because She ran her own boutique booking agency, mitment to community, and a tireless work I’m trying to get signed. Everyone is friends, Burn Sweet Booking, to help local acts like ethic, Schmader envisions a future for the and there’s just a passion for what they’re Body Games and Shirlette Ammons set up Saving Space Showcase that includes bigdoing,” she says. national tours. But Schmader still felt like ger bands, greater genre representation, Grateful to have been accepted into the she could do more. She saw a need for better and an opportunity to remake an already Triangle scene, Schmader didn’t take the representation of bands that weren’t entireproud and thriving scene into something good fortune for grantly made up of straight even more diverse and accepting. ed. Instead she set about white guys, as well an SAVING SPACE “I think a big challenge for promoters is wondering what she opportunity to support SHOWCASE booking stuff that you’re not super comfortmight do to contribute nonprofits in need. And so Wednesday, Dec. 20, 8 p.m., $7 able with. When you have benefit shows and enhance things. At the Saving Space ShowThe Pinhook, Durham or queer-concentrated shows, it’s generalLocal 506, she cut her case was born. www.thepinhook.com ly associated with punk, and I think that teeth booking local acts The showcases were excludes a lot of people,” Schmader says. and familiarizing herself an immediate success, “I’m not personally into bluegrass, but I had with the diverse personalities and talents attracting audiences and raising $1500 a bluegrass showcase. I had a power violence that populate the region. During her tenure, for various nonprofits within the first few showcase. We can’t exclude the queer kid she prioritized the placement of area talent months. To date, she’s raised $4392. Bands that plays in a metal band or a folk duo. My alongside bigger national acts, in an effort to featured on the bills have been thrilled with goal is to make sure everyone has an opporcreate the greatest amount of exposure. Her their experiences—Laylatul Qadr, who tunity to be a part of this.” commitment to championing both the local fronts Durham-based agit-punks The Musarts@indyweek.com and the underdog would grow steadily more lims, was effusive in assessing the series.

INDYweek.com | 12.6.17 | 15

INDIES ARTS AWARDS 2 0 1 7

Blackspace volunteers with founder Pierce Freelon (far right)

THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME Instead of compromising with white supremacy, the Afrofuturist youth center Blackspace provides a visionary alternative

“E

BY B R I A N H OW E

verything was white,” Pierce Freelon says. He’s talking about the original walls in Blackspace Durham, but he could also be describing why he founded the Afrofuturist youth center—first in Chapel Hill, now expanded into the American Underground start-up hub.

Tarish Pipkins, aka the visionary puppeteer Jeghetto, was a key player in the informal think tank that birthed Blackspace.

When Freelon opened the AU location last year (and got busy with others things, like, you know, running for mayor of Durham), Pipkins became creative director in Chapel Hill. On Friday night at Blackspace Durham, their regular hip-hop cypher in CCB Plaza is about to start, but they’re not sweating it— the kids can run it themselves. Three young men are already gathering beats downstairs, where formerly white walls are now covered by an Afrocentric cosmology of paintings and comic books and computers with nicknames like Octavia (as in Butler, the AfricanAmerican science-fiction writer).

16 | 12.6.17 | INDYweek.com

Blackspace offers a wide variety of free programs, which it calls “wokeshops.” Mariah Monsanto runs a poetry program, while Josh Rowsey (disclosure: Rowsey is an INDY account executive) teaches freestyle and theater performance; this year, they took six young women to the Brave New Voices youth slam in San Francisco. Street gRIOT is a puppetry workshop, while Conscious Code and Digital Storytelling teach 3-D printing and video production. But, just as important, Blackspace is a safe place in which to incubate ideas or just hang out.

“You can work on beats, read a comic book, or just chill,” Freelon says. “A lot of kids just like being in the space, with African art around and Jeghetto’s portraits of Bob Marley and Jimi Hendrix.”

But if Blackspace is about giving kids shelter, that’s not the same as sheltering them.

Pipkins recently had his nine-year-old son, Tarin, operate the KKK puppets in a show about lynching, and he practices the same radical openness with his students.

“They’re going to be aware of things I didn’t learn till I was an adult,” he says. “This is racism, this is how far it goes back.”

“That’s deeper than learning your history. You’re performing your history,” Freelon adds. “Some kids come in super woke because they have parents like Jeghetto. A lot of kids don’t have that luxury, but they recognize things they don’t have words for.”

Focused equally on imparting skills and self-esteem, Blackspace shows young people of color not how to assimilate into whitedominated arts and tech worlds, but how to redefine them. As a true alternative to, rather than a workaround for, white supremacy, there’s nothing else like it in the Triangle.

Its origins lie in Beat Making Lab, a hiphop production course Freelon taught at UNC. Pipkins was among the artists involved in the conversation about black liberation and Afrofuturism that swirled through the space. Beat Making Lab eventually became a more overtly political entity called Artivism, which started evolving toward becoming Blackspace in the crucible of 2014. That summer, Artivism hosted its first Black Liberation Youth Cypher, a black-power summer camp. In its second week, Michael Brown was killed by a police officer.

“That really lit a fire in our building sessions, especially working with the kids and hearing their reflections,” Freelon says. “Our whole curriculum shifted. The first week it was hip-hop, the second week it was revolution, freedom, liberation. The first week the kids were doing graffiti and designing sneakers, the second, they were making placards for our rally.” That rally accelerated Artivism’s evolution; the Blackspace brand, which puts Afrofuturism front and center, became ety of free official in early 2016, the day the police offips.” Mari- cers who killed Cleveland twelve-year-old am, while Tamir Rice got off scot-free. sey is an “[The rally] was a big shift,” Freelon says. s freestyle “In Durham there’s always been an active, year, they civically engaged black community, but it rave New coalesced different groups into organized sco. Street solidarity, especially millennial activists.” while Con- Outside of the poetry program, in which ling teach African-American writers need to be vuln. But, just nerable in a way white participation would e place in impede, all races are welcome at Blackspace.

“The space is black,” Freelon explains. ng out. d a comic “The programming facilitators are black lot of kids as often as possible, and the curriculum is African art black. If you’re secure and unapologetic in Bob Mar- that aspect, then anybody can come in and it’s still going to be Blackspace.” kids shel- The Blackspace Chapel Hill studio is ring them. owned by the town, which staffs it with two ar-old son, employees. One is program director Brentton in a show Harrison, who says that at Blackspace, stuthe same dents can discover their true affinities.

“I see the youth realizing that older peo.

F ME futurist

ive

ple are interested in what they do, and they start taking the initiative to work on their art,” Harrison says. “We have conversations about school systems that don’t teach critical thinking or challenge the status quo. People can get stuck on having the right or wrong answer to a question, but life is full of gray areas. You start to see a different swagger when they walk through the world.”

The Durham space is owned by American Underground. Blackspace doesn’t pay rent at either, which is crucial in running it with a mostly volunteer staff and virtually no operational expenses. But don’t mistake this for charity.

“It’s mutually beneficial,” Freelon says.

“We fill the space with equipment and dope programming at no charge to the town of Chapel Hill. In AU, we’re training kids in the tech sector that they want minority participation in so badly. If diversity is important to them and getting free is important to us, there’s some shared space in that Venn diagram. Technology can be and has been used to oppress us, so getting in on the front end of this stuff is a survival mechanism.”

Blackspace recently launched a crowdfunding drive (patreon.com/fundafrofuturism) to further its mission of providing concepts, language, space, and solidarity to people who were Afrofuturists long before they ever heard the term.

“I was an Afrofuturist all my adult life and had no idea,” Pipkins says.

“Alexis Pauline Gumbs talks about Harriet Tubman being an Afrofuturist because she envisioned a world that was science fiction for her time—black people being free,” Freelon adds. “You are Marty McFlying the game right now!” He frequently talks about black liberation in terms of superheroes. To him, it’s a short line between the X-Men versus the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants to Martin versus Malcolm, W.E.B. Du Bois versus Booker T. Washington, Biggie versus Tupac.

“Whether it’s enslaved Africans or those brothers, when all the skill sets on those squads step up, that’s a problem [for white supremacy],” Freelon says. “Black people have been exploited with the tactic of pitting black talent against each other. Our liberation depends on working through that.”

At Blackspace, young people are encouraged not only to be proud of their powers, so often dismissed or feared by a white supremacist culture. They’re encouraged to combine them in a way that can reshape, not just react to, the future.

“Very much in the tradition of Octavia Butler, we shape change,” Freelon says. “Her whole thing is ‘God is change,’ and we manifest things. That, to me, is the true power of Blackspace.” bhowe@indyweek.com

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INDIES ARTS AWARDS 2 0 1 7

RAISING THE BAR

DECE M B E R

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18 | 12.6.17 | INDYweek.com

BY H A N N A H P I T S T I C K

ender-neutral bathrooms, affirming signs, and diverse bookings all help make a space more inviting, but the process of creating a truly inclusive space is a bit more elusive. But two bars—Arcana in Durham and Ruby Deluxe in Raleigh—have decided they’re up to the challenge. The two subterranean enclaves have managed to establish themselves as models of inclusivity over the course of their relatively short existences, dedicating themselves to ensuring a good time for all, but especially those who are marginalized.

When Lindsey Andrews and Erin Karcher decided to open Arcana in Durham, they knew they wanted to incorporate tarot and give the space a lounge feel with plenty of couches and soft elements, but the rest evolved Arcana’s Lindsey Andrews and Erin Karcher over time.

“We just wanted to make a just want a space to play that’s one step up space that feels welcoming to everyone and from their living room,” Karcher says, “Maybe definitely making a place that’s not a ‘dude they’re not ready for a big show—it’s a space bar,’” Karcher says. “And the idea of the esowhere experimentation is welcome.” teric already draws a certain set of clientele Since opening two years ago, Arcana has that has almost a softness to it.” hosted some fairly experimental perforKarcher adds that because Arcana hosts mances ranging from people playing cello tarot readings, the space has to be amenable while rolling around on the ground with My to vulnerable experiences.

Little Pony dolls to artists dancing with a “The tarot can create this instant intimabed of nails and plenty of rituals involving cy, where you might open up more to your burning sage. tarot card reader than to a therapist or a best “Even Jess Dilday coming in on a Sunday friend, and all the sudden get cut to the quick night and playing some of their own original about what’s going on in your life or what’s music, I think was a big deal for them,” Karchtroubling you or where you need guidance,” er adds. “It’s amazing to see d.j.s who play out Karcher says. all the time feel that sense of humility about Andrews and Karcher didn’t inisharing their own creations.” tially intend for Arcana to be a perforDilday, aka DJ PlayPlay, has been supportmance venue, but as more and more acts ive of Arcana since the beginning. approached them, they decided the space “With Arcana I think it’s more like they should be a place where artists could try don’t even need to say they’re inclusive new things out and experiment. because they’re inclusive; it’s just a diverse “I think it’s great that we’re catching some group of people who go,” Dilday says. bands as they’re on their way up and they

Arcana, which is one of downtown Durham’s only woman-owned bars, achieves that aura by setting the stage with an all-female staff. Its staff also seeks out and encourages music collectives like Mamis and the Papis, which is made up of womxn and femmes, and regular events like Super Secret Dance Party and Four on the Floor, which make of point of featuring diverse lineups.

“While we’re proud of our cocktails, our beers, and our staff, I think this sort of encapsulates a lot of our vision for the bar,” Andrews says.

W

hen Tim Lemuel opened Ruby Deluxe in Raleigh, he knew from the beginning he wanted the space to be actively geared toward everyone under the LGBTQIA umbrella, but when he asked Daniel Tomas to come on board to handle booking, the space became an epicenter for queer artists and performers.

Tomas had lived in Barcelona and Madrid

says he’s seen bands that played their earliest shows at Ruby Deluxe successfully step up into bigger venues around the Triangle. Aside from booking a diverse slate of performers, Lemuel and Tomas work daily to provide an inclusive atmosphere.

“It’s a daily thing we do,” Lemuel says.

“We work every day to try and make it queer-friendly and safe and also inclusive at the same time, so it’s a daily fight and chore to make sure that it gets done.”

Part of that action happens through the bar’s décor. A sign near the entrance reads, “This Is a Queer Space,” the interior is decorated in shimmering red glitter, and the lighting is dominated by Ruby Deluxe’s Daniel Tomas and Tim Lemuel soft blues, purples, and pinks. for a few years, and lamented the lack of “It’s standard things, but when all of it big queer dance parties in Raleigh that he comes together, it looks like something is enjoyed in large European cities. Shortly going to happen in this space tonight,” Tomas after opening the bar, Lemuel readily offered says. up Ruby Deluxe to host Tomas’s dream Like Arcana, Ruby Deluxe wasn’t initialdance party and the result was a huge sucly intended to be a music venue, but now cess, paving the way for its organizers have found many more Viz Queer themselves in the happy Dance parties over the predicament of being ARCANA past couple of years.

331 W. Main St., Durham approached by more great “I myself am queer, www.arcanadurham.com bands than they can hanand if you talk to anydle. They’ll soon be bookRUBY DELUXE body in the queer commuing even more bands at 414 Fayetteville St., Raleigh nity that’s not a gay man The Wicked Witch, a new www.rubydeluxeraleigh.com you’ll find out very quickmusic venue in Raleigh. ly that there are not spots “We’re opening The for other people that fall Wicked Witch because under the realm,” Tomas says. “There’s nothwe have, in a positive way, outgrown our ing wrong with gay clubs, but what you have space and are getting invitations and dates in a lot of your bigger cities, and even here in from bands that Ruby is not big enough to North Carolina, are clubs that just cater to gay house,” Tomas says. “And now we’ll be able to men, when you have all these other people cast a bit of a wider net since we can put more under the umbrella. So it’s really important people in that venue.” for me when we’re booking that we get bands The more people these missions reach, that are nonbinary and queer.” the more these inclusive atmospheres conTomas says he gives everybody a shot to tinue to grow, fostering a bigger, better play at Ruby Deluxe as long as they’re sericommunity for all. ous and responsive. Lemuel, meanwhile, arts@indyweek.com

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INDIES ARTS AWARDS 2 0 1 7

STREET LEVEL

Empower Dance Studio teaches not just dance, but also an inclusive, diverse vision of downtown Durham

BY M I C H A E L A DW Y E R

I

n a street-level dance studio on West Parrish Street, where the new City Center development rises ever higher, Empower Dance Studio’s students are trying to get their lines right. Under the watchful eye of Empower’s directors, Nicole Oxendine and Jessica Burroughs, the girls are prepping for two upcoming performances, including the Durham Holiday Parade the next morning.

For the parade routine, the dancers need to form three parallel lines.

For that, Oxendine instructs them to hone their peripheral vision, their awareness of multiple “fronts.” After all, tomorrow morning, there will be no studio mirror, no familiar brick walls. Each second, the dancers will have to anticipate the next move, and the next, and the next.

“You always have to be dancers,” Oxendine reminds them.

Like Durham’s preexisting dance studios, Empower, which opened its Parrish Street location about a year With Jessica Burroughs, Nicole Oxendine (pictured) runs Empower Dance Studio. ago, trains students in concert dance, nique, technique,” Oxendine says. “I’m like, and Burroughs’s desire to run a studio pushed including ballet, modern, and jazz. But what let’s plié into a tendu, but to a song you like. If them to strike out on their own to serve the sets Empower apart is its work to expand you come out of the space feeling good about community of dancers they’d gotten to know the notion of what being a dancer means. yourself, that’s more important than, is your in Durham Public Schools. In 2015, EmpowEverything about the studio, starting with tendu correct. We’ll get it!” er rented space at the Hayti Heritage Cenits name, expresses its commitment to incluBurroughs says she aims to model a “nurter; Oxendine hired Hillside dancers to teach sivity and affirmation: the high visibility of turing, safe, express-yourself-freely family thirty young students once a week. But the dancers of color in its promotional materials; space for dancers.” demand quickly outpaced the space. After a its wide variety of courses, from tap to “trap “They really do want to uncover elements sold-out 2016 summer session, Oxendine and aerobics,” for all age groups; and its rootof disempowerment that endure because Burroughs found their own studio. They had edness on Durham’s historical Black Wall of the ritual of how dance has always been it gutted and rehabbed after buying it from Street. taught,” Empower ballet instructor ShaLeigh Elaine Curry and Dawn Page of Empress “We are definitely trying to give someFairbanks says. “Nicole came into one of my Development, another duo of female Africanthing different,” Oxendine says. “Part of our ballet classes and asked all of the students to American business owners. mission is to nurture and to uplift. We accept sit in a circle, so we could chat about [what] Whether the classes are for children or you, no matter your size, what your skin the history and etiquette of ballet looked like, adults, serious dancers or low-stakes advenis, what your hair texture is. Everything is especially for women of color.” turers, the Empower ethos emphasizes accepted, and everything is dance.”

These types of exchanges are key to groundedness and personal connection.

Empower is a from-Durham, for-DurEmpower’s curriculum. “Without underRecent initiatives include “M-Power,” which ham enterprise. Oxendine and studio direcstanding the institution, [you can’t underaims to break stigmas surrounding men in tor Burroughs both attended Hillside High stand] the subtleties that make a person of dance, and the Empower Dance Foundation, School. (Burroughs was Oxendine’s first color feel like, Well, maybe they don’t want which provides student scholarships. dance student when she began teaching at me. Or they just want me to do the hip-hop “A lot of studios teach technique, techthe school after college.) Changes at Hillside 20 | 12.6.17 | INDYweek.com

or tap piece, not the ballet piece,” Oxendine says.

At Empower, routine activities like dance apparel fittings, which are apt to trigger body insecurity, especially for young women, are opportunities for self-affirmation instead. “[The girls] love when I match their tights,” Oxendine says.

“Everybody’s not this one color. It’s gives that little sense of empowerment, without me verbally saying, You’re beautiful.”

That little sense of empowerment is carefully folded into Empower’s web and print materials, where you’ll see young women of color clad in matching dancewear, beaming for the camera.

You’ll also notice the pink of the studio’s branded apparel—not the pale pink of ballet slippers, Oxendine clarifies, but a “power pink.

An empower pink.” It makes the studio instantly recognizable. This visibility aids its involvement with Third Friday Durham, whether it’s hosting visual art exhibitions or Proxemic Media’s dance series. Proxemic founder Myra Weise says Empower’s presence downtown represents the ongoing integration of dance into Durham’s infrastructure.

“It’s helping to solidify the idea that dance isn’t intimidating,” Weise says, “that it can be a part of our everyday life.”

At the Durham Holiday Parade, you can spot the pink banner from half a mile away.

As Empower dancers zip by with chassés and battements, wearing big smiles and lined up perfectly, their presence seems to linger, as if to say, Pay attention, we’re here to stay.

“I have a lot of pride in my city. I have pride in what the historical black middle class created here,” Oxendine says. “I’m interested in what that history means to what I’m doing now, and I do feel like there’s a new Durham arts movement. It’s [important to] recognize what the arts look like for people of color. Or just to recognize that we’re here.” arts@indyweek.com

INDIES ARTS AWARDS 2 0 1 7

BEARING FRUIT

Tim Walter’s long push to give downtown Durham a venue it needed pays off in the nick of time

BY BY R O N WO O D S

I

f the photographer and arts patron Tim Walter is breathing a little easier these days, so is a significant portion of Durham’s arts community.

The Durham Fruit & Produce Company—a 22,000-square-foot warehouse at 305 South Dillard Street that Walter renovated into a gallery, performance, and workshop space—is finally legal, following a three-and-a-half-year odyssey of construction delays and red tape as the downtown development craze siphoned off local architects and contractors.

During that time, the Fruit hosted enough underground visual art, dance, and theater to inspire the INDY to call it the “best venue that doesn’t exist” in last year’s Best of the Triangle issue.

But, more than a bid for outlaw cred, these events constituted a series of selfadministered tests to determine how the space could accommodate various artists and forms—a long-term effort to study and then meet, rather than Tim Walter at the Durham Fruit & Produce Co. dictate, the needs of an arts ecosystem.

The venue’s first show, Nicola Bullock’s dance-theater-art hybrid Undone, “One point of alternative arts spaces is addressed race relations and power dynambeing able to serve a community that doesn’t ics in Durham. It plunged Walter into a feel at home elsewhere,” he says. The experivibrant community of grassroots performence gave him “a deeper understanding for ing artists who took their craft seriously and the variety we would have in our arts scene if were hungry for a large, flexible, affordable more places were available for this.” place to develop and perform their work. He Walter was also studying how the space noticed that Bullock’s work, as well as perand the community would accommodate formances at the Fruit by the likes of Leah world-class artists. He hosted residencies Wilks and Little Green Pig, also provided and installations by internationally recogcrucial exposure for a host of affiliated artnized photographers, including France’s ists in areas including sound, painting, lightGeorges Rousse and political activist Zanele ing, set design, and costuming.

Muholi, whose work was exhibited at the After visual artist Kai Barrow spent a gruNational Museum of South Africa after its eling seventy-two hours at the Fruit creating Durham premiere. figures related to Hurricane Katrina and the Gradually, Walter solidified plans for speAfrican diaspora, Walter watched her host cific renovations and the principles by which an artist talk with a group of young, queer The Fruit would run—so gradually, in fact, activists of color. As he noted the intense that onlookers wondered if it would ever interest the twenty- and thirtysomethings officially open. But Laura Ritchie, director of took in what she had to say, Walter couldn’t the Carrack Modern Art, says that patience picture the same conversation taking place is key when tailoring a venue for an existing in a more conventional or formal venue. arts community.

“You have to take your time, invite folks in, and listen to what they have to say,” she says.

“You have to know the artists first to build a model that’s going to serve them.”

The Fruit passed its biggest prime-time test in its official opening this fall, when Duke Performances tapped it as headquarters for Monk@100, an international tenday festival devoted to North Carolina-born jazz composer Thelonious Monk. Because of the aesthetics and flexibility of the space, Monk@100 “would not have been nearly as successful if we’d done it on campus or any other venue in town,” says Duke Performances director Aaron Greenwald.

The space got a shout-out in The New York Times’ festival review—but only after Walter and Greenwald averted disaster one night by keeping a surging stream of rainwater from a botched renovation at bay behind the curtains as Chilean saxophonist Melissa Aldana finished her final set some thirty feet away.

The moment had a certain resonance.

Walter, whose arts patronage in the Triangle is widespread, helped bail out The Pinhook, behind the scenes, after a 2015 crisis over unpaid taxes threatened the venue. His long history of mentorship has also benefited the Carrack, where he serves on the board.

“He’s there to staff the space, be there if the alarm goes off, and help balance the books,” Ritchie says.

According to Greenwald, Walter has worked hard to “figure out the flashpoints of the grassroots arts scene” and support organizations doing mission-driven work across the city. But his greatest contribution may be snagging a derelict downtown warehouse building, mere months before the city and real-estate speculators began snatching up its East Durham neighborhood, placing the arts in downtown Durham in a squeeze play. After the 2016 closing of Common Ground Theatre and the scheduled 2018 departure of Manbites Dog Theater, companies like Little Green Pig, whose Lake Placid just closed at the Fruit, would otherwise face a severe venue drought in Durham.

“It’s sort of miraculous that someone like him comes on the scene in a moment of massive gentrification in Durham, where all these warehouse spaces have been transformed so they’re no longer usable by artists,” Greenwald says. Rehabilitating a 1926 building that was orginally a produce warehouse for local grocers, “yet at the same time keeping it rough, where artists can work, is kind of unbelievable.”

If Walter is a visionary, as Bullock and others have called him, he’s a decidedly cautious one who checks his figures twice; a dreamer who meticulously studied and rooted himself in the strata of Durham’s arts scenes. Small wonder that, after such extended contemplation, his efforts are now bearing real fruit. bwoods@indyweek.com INDYweek.com | 12.6.17 | 21

Counter Culture

GIFT

GUIDE

Coffee Gift Subscriptions starting at $13.50/month Counter Culture gift subscriptions are the perfect way to share your favorite local coffee roaster with friends and family this holiday season. Easy, fresh, and convenient. A Counter Culture gift subscription makes sure they never run out of coffee. Join us Fridays at 10 a.m. for free coffee tastings!

812 Mallard Ave, Durham counterculturecoffee.com

Cedar Creek Gallery

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.

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Fred Astaire Franchised Dance Studios

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 lessons and 1 group lesson.

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SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Southern Elegance Candle Company

100% Soy Candle $26

The candles of Southern Elegance Candle Company are poured deep in the heart of North Carolina. Each small batch of candles is meticulously poured to ensure you receive the highest quality candle. Our highly fragrant candles are designed to engulf you in the beauty and essence of true southern living. www.Secandleco.com

Museum Store at the North Carolina Museum of Art

NCMA Rainbow Journal | $7 NCMA “Paintbrush” pen | $6 NCMA “shopping bag” mints | $5 Raleigh’s most artistic shopping destination has gifts for the art aficionado…and everyone else on your list!

NCMA West Building, next to Iris restaurant 2110 Blue Ridge Rd, Raleigh 919-664-6784 | ncartmuseum.org

INDYweek.com

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DECEMBER 6, 2017

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22

Hol iday Gift Guid e

RUNAWAY®

New Carolina Hoodie - $65 Tobacco Leafs Tee - $28 Moonrise Beanie - $30 RUNAWAY® is an apparel and lifestyle brand empowering you to run from convention. Through a combination of apparel, art exhibitions, concerts, filmmaking and more, our company is pioneering a new wave of creative hustle in North Carolina and beyond. Our space serves as both a retail store and a gallery for like-minded artists and creatives.

212 W Main St #102 Durham, NC runawayclothes.com

Vert & Vogue

Peppertrain Polymer Clay Earrings Each Peppertrain piece is made by hand in Raleigh, NC by Kaitlin Ryan. Big, small, statement, subtle, Kaitlin’s beaded necklaces and earrings can help you take it over the top. Kaitlin plays with color and shape to create a sense of joy with her pieces, which are each unique.

353 W Main St, Durham | 919-797-2767 www.vertandvogue.com | @vertandvogue

Glazed Expectations PNC Arena Gift Cards

Give the gift of live entertainment! Carolina Hurricanes hockey, NC State men’s basketball, concerts, family shows and more – there’s something for everyone. PNC Arena Gift Cards are perfect for Family, Friends or Clients. Redeemable for event tickets*, at participating concession stands and The Eye team store. *excluding NC State men’s basketball and select events 1400 Edwards Mill Rd, Raleigh, NC 919-861-2300 | www.ThePNCArena.com

Paint-It-Yourself Ceramic and Sculpture Studio.

Create your favorite dish! We have all the tools and instructions needed to help you with your ceramic projects. No reservations are necessary for groups under 6. Clay summer camps and afterschool classes.

Parties, events, and all day ceramic painting for children and adults. Gift cards available!

205 W Main St #104, Carrboro 919-933-9700 glazedexpectations.com

Women’s Birth & Wellness Boutique

Oxytocin Molecule Necklace by Science & Sorcery | $45.99 Show your loved ones what they mean to you on a molecular level with an Oxytocin Molecule Necklace. Oxytocin is the love and bonding hormone - it’s that feeling when you hug someone you love.

Let your loved ones wear your hug all day long!

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Scarffish.com

Carrboro Cottage | $79 Scarffish.com offers a dazzling array of starfish-themed items: Scarffish, the Scarf with the Starfish; Moby Infinity Scarf; Starkler Garlands; KidsCaps. All made by hand in Chapel Hill. $39-$99. It’s not just a scarf: it’s a Scarffish! www.scarffish.com | mrosen@scarffish.com

Contact your ad rep or advertising@indyweek.com to be part of next week’s Gift Guide!

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

INDYweek.com

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DECEMBER 6, 2017

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23

indyfood

Kitchen Island A GIFT GUIDE FOR THE HOME COOKS IN YOUR LIFE

BY MADDY SWEITZER-LAMME

D

are more than just kitchen tools.

“We believe that knives are an intimate object,” Stephenson says. “A personalized balance of form and function that can serve as an extension of yourself. We believe that you deserve to know everything that there is to know about your knife—the design, use, materials, care, and construction.”

Focusing on the intimacy of the object.

Stephenson and Rayson talk with clients about the specific purpose of each knife, how customers will use it, and how their exact habits should influence the design of the piece.

“Aside from a knife meeting its requirements—it cuts stuff—the value of a knife is personal and subjective,” Stephenson says. Chefs across the Triangle, including Ullom at AC Restaurants and Kevin Ruiz at The Cortez, are using the knives.

uring the holidays we spend more time in the kitchen. When we’re stretching ourselves to feed twenty, a few touches of luxury and functionalism can help us push a little further. This holiday season, treat the chef in your life to something special for the kitchen, and I’ll bet you’ll benefit, too. Here are five locally made products we’re really digging this season.

HAAND

www.haand.us

For a delicate yet definitively artistic touch to food presentation at home, look no further than Haand ceramics, started in 2012

by Mark Warren and Chris Pence. They began selling in retail shops like Southern Season and West Elm, but now Warren estimates that ninety percent of their work is in the hospitality market. You’ll find Haand ceramics at restaurants all around the Triangle, including Raleigh’s Death & Taxes (chef-proprietor Ashley Christensen was the first restaurateur to start buying from Haand), M Sushi and Motto in Durham, and several other restaurants in North Carolina.

“The pieces for home kitchens and restaurants are pretty similar, and we like that they can go back and forth,” Warren says.

“We try to create a canvas or theater or architecture for the chef to react to, and the seamless harmony between our ware and the food is what ultimately adds to a meaningful experience for the diner.”

Haand’s pieces are simple and dreamy, with a strong balance between sharp corners and soft edges. The pieces are perfect for a home cook who wants to add artistry and grace to the table.

HAWKS AND DOVES

www.shophawksanddoves.com

Jessica Ullom started Hawks and Doves by making pillows and purses in her Raleigh home. But she quickly brought her designs into the kitchen when she made her chef24 | 12.6.17 | INDYweek.com

ELIJAH LEED Leather knife roll from Hawks and Doves COURTESY HAWKS AND DOVES

husband, Andrew Ullom, his own custom knife roll. Andrew is an executive pastry chef for AC Restaurants (Christensen’s restaurant group). Several other cooks in the group quickly began asking for rolls, and Ullom began working with Christensen to design The Greyhound, a waxed canvas knife clutch that holds significant tools without becoming bulky.

“I’m lucky to have so many hard-working chefs and cooks in the area to test out new styles and make sure they are functional in a high-volume kitchen,” Ullom says.

Hawks and Doves’ new knife roll has space for four to five knives and a sharpening steel, plus extra pockets for thermometers, spoons, and Sharpie pens. The leather that Ullom uses is oil-tanned and, she says, nearly water-resistant, so it works well in almost any environment, including the kitchen.

“It’s super tough and ages well with daily

use,” she says. Ullom also designs custom leather aprons, which are used at restaurants like FIG in Charleston, South Carolina, as well as Death & Taxes, lucettegrace, and Raleigh Raw.

HORN & HEEL

www.hornandheel.com

Duncan Stephenson is the metalsmith at Horn & Heel, where he makes custom knives, jewelry, and other metal goods.

He received a BFA in small metal design from East Carolina University, where he made his first knives as part of an independent study.

“I was enamored by the idea of making a tool,” Stephenson says. “Something that has utility and at the same time can be aesthetically pleasing.”

He started Horn & Heel in 2014 with his friend Luke Rayson, out of his backyard.

The underlying philosophy was that knives

www.elijahleed.com

On the higher end, Elijah Leed’s serving boards are the perfect gift for the cheeseboard-inclined friend or family member.

Though he focuses primarily on furniture design, Leed regularly reuses scraps and extra pieces from his larger works for smaller home goods, like oxidized oak or walnut serving boards and trivets made from leather and brass. Leed’s designs are elegant and spare, but sure to make a visual impact on anyone’s holiday table.

SOUTHERN SEASON COOKING SCHOOL

www.southernseason.com

For the food lover who can’t sit still, a cooking class at Southern Season in Chapel Hill is a great option. From kidfriendly classes on Christmas cookies to classic French recipes led by local chef and writer Sheri Castle, there’s something for everyone. Prices range from $25 for kids’ classes to $55 for classes with wine pairings. food@indyweek.com

A GIFT GUIDE FOR (LAZY) FOODIES

. an intimate ersonalized at can serve believe that g that there the design, ction.” the object. with clients each knife,Big Spoon Roasters FILE PHOTO BY D.L. ANDERSON how their e design of Some of you might just not want to cook ts require-this holiday season. So go ahead, eat up and of a knifelet others take the reins in the kitchen. But tephensonshouldn’t you return the delicious favor? , includingOr maybe you’re just perpetually that dude evin Ruiz atwho shows up to a dinner party with yet another bottle of Yellow Tail merlot. This . list isn’t exhaustive, it’s just a couple of our sure-to-please, ready-to-serve gifts for the foodies in your life. d’s serving Sweets that won’t spoil right away and he cheese-come in individual, easy-to-eat servings y member.are sure to get gobbled up fast. Chocolate on furni-is a safe bet, and we love our local makers. uses scrapsMatthew’s Chocolates in Hillsborough are r works fordelightful, classic truffles in the French zed oak ortradition. In Raleigh, Escazu (www.escavets madezuchocolates.com) started the bean-to-bar designs arephenomenon. Pick up one of a selection ake a visualof their gorgeous, glossy truffles and peek behind the scenes to watch the magic hape. pen in the production room, where vats of cacao churn into cocoa butter and chocolate. Videri (www.viderichocolatefactory. com), too, has beautiful truffles, or you can sit still, agift a monthly subscription.

Season in For snackers, gift a bag of Tonya’s CookFrom kid-ies (www.tonyascookies.com), made by cookies to“Mama Dip” Mildred Council’s grandlocal chefdaughter, Tonya Council. Secret family re’s some-recipes from a legendary family of cooks? e from $25Can’t get any more special than that. asses with For foodies in the family who feign a gourmet touch, why not make it easy on dyweek.comthem with local condiments. Say, Lil Farm

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Queen George’s ginger syrup (found at Durham Farmers Market), which goes great with anything from sticky rice and sautés to molasses cookie recipes. To make it even easier, there’s beloved Big Spoon Roasters (www.bigspoonroasters.com) nut butters, which everyone has heard of but we don’t always think to treat ourselves. Let someone remember you fondly over breakfast when biting into toast smeared with Chai Spice, or when tucking into homemade dinners with a dollop of Hot Peanut.

Your favorite co-worker or hippest professor is most likely addicted to caffeine.

And the Triangle is no stranger to amazing coffee, sourced ethically from small farmers around the world and roasted right here.

Bags of Counter Culture and Joe Van Gogh whole beans are ubiquitous in local grocery stores. For newer roasters on the scene, try Black & White (www.blackwhiteroasters.com) out of Wake Forest (helmed by national barista champions Lemuel Butler and Kyle Ramage) or hit up one of Durham’s Cocoa Cinnamon locations for bags of beans roasted right in Lakewood, under the name 4th Dimension.

Parker & Otis in Durham and Southern Season in Chapel Hill are excellent places to shop for these gifts. If you’re not sure what to get but still want to go a little nuts, the lovely folks at Raleigh Provisions downtown will fix you up a nice gift basket of local goods. food@indyweek.com

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INDYweek.com | 12.6.17 | 25

DER FINDER THE INDY'S GUIDE TO THE TRIANGLE

YOUR WEEK. EVERY WEDNESDAY.

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FOOD • NEWS • ARTS • MUSIC

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INDYWEEK.COM 26 | 12.6.17 | INDYweek.com

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THE DISASTER ARTIST HH Opening Friday, Dec. 8

Room Without a View

TANDS JAMES FRANCO DOES A SUSPICIOUSLY GOOD IMPRESSION OF A

W!

BAD ARTIST, BUT THE POINT ELUDES US In 2003, a shady Hollywood creature named Tommy Wiseau wrote, directed, and starred in an independent film called The Room. It’s generally considered to be one of the worst films ever made, in both concept and execution. Still, in the years since its release, The Room has achieved cult status in the manner of other famously bad movies, like Showgirls or the entire output of Ed Wood.

The Disaster Artist is the story of the making of The Room, and it’s essentially an extended goof by director and star James Franco, who plays Wiseau with a long black vampire wig and a bizarre accent. He sounds like a Slavic James Dean on barbiturates. The story is told

BY GLENN MCDONALD

from the perspective of Greg Sestero (played

by Franco’s brother, Dave), a nineteen-yearold Hollywood wannabe who meets the fortysomething Wiseau in an L.A. acting class. (The screenplay is partly based on Sestero’s memoir on the making of The Room.)

It’s all very meta and wink-wink, operating on a frequency of smug irony popularized in the nineties, the “so bad it’s good” thing Generation X inflicted upon popular culture. That was fun for a minute, but celebrating garbage gets old fast. You could make the case that the saga of The Room is a kind of off-Hollywood outsider art. The problem is that, while Wiseau may be an outsider,

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James Franco as Tommy Wiseau PHOTO BY JUSTINA MITNZ/COURTESY OF A24

he’s not much of an artist. He’s a terrible actor who’s not interested in learning. He just wants to be famous.

If Wiseau is a disaster in front of the camera, he’s a tyrant behind it, throwing temper tantrums clearly modeled on internet clips of

actual Hollywood tantrums.

Everything he does is a cheap facsimile, a grotesque sketch of the Hollywood aesthetic America has been exporting to the world for a hundred years.

As portrayed in this movie, Wiseau is impossible to like.

He’s just weird and mean, a rich hack with delusions of grandeur. So all we can really do is laugh at him, and on that level, The Disaster Artist is a pretty good time. Franco’s impression is very funny, Seth Rogan contributes some heroic straight-man work, and half of L.A. drops in for cameos. See if you can spot Sharon Stone. As a celebration of a bad movie, The Disaster Artist is OK, but the pointlessness of it all is hard to get past. arts@indyweek.com

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indystage

Peter Pan & Wendy PHOTO BY MINA VON FEILITZSCH PHOTOGRAPHY

Child’s Play

BURNING COAL PLUMBS THE STRANGE, PARTIALLY FORMED HUMANITY OF KIDS IN ITS DEVISED PETER PAN & WENDY

BY BYRON WOODS author J.M. Barrie’s words, “gay and innoDoes the uncanny valley—that anxious cent and heartless.” relationship between humans and almostOn at least one level, children and their human simulacra—run through Neverparents are caught in a fundamentally land? I’m asking after seeing Burning Coal’s one-sided relationPeter Pan & Wendy, ship. Each sees in the second notable the other things devised theater work PETER PAN & WENDY he or she wants to we’ve seen locally in HHHH emulate, traits that the last month (after Through Sunday, Dec. 17 disgust or horrify, Little Green Pig’s Burning Coal Theatre Company, Raleigh and a record of cerLake Placid). Leadwww.burningcoal.org tain loss: a combiing a talented cast of nation that makes each a distorted mirror eleven to adapt and perform the famous for the other. But science has confirmed 1910 novel for the stage, guest director Lilthat something is uncanny in the incomlian White probes the darker sides of childplete neurology of children. While they’re hood—the parts that make children, in 28 | 12.6.17 | INDYweek.com

STAGE BRIEF IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE: RADIO SHOW HHH Through Sunday, Dec. 17 North Raleigh Arts and Creative Theatre, Raleigh www.nract.org My eyes were open during most of It’s a Wonderful Life: Radio Show, a curious holiday offering at North Raleigh Arts and Creative Theatre, for one reason only. Audience responses—particularly those of critics—are so easily misinterpreted in live theater. With that said, I wish I’d kept them shut for much longer than the brief intervals I experimented with; I sincerely recommend you do the same should you check it out.

Theater about radio is a tricky business, as evinced by shows like The 1940s Radio Hour and Talk Radio.

As anyone who’s ever listened to Ira Glass knows, audio is intimate; much of the magic of the airwaves lies in its ability to use sound to supplant—or, actually, surpass—the visual. In radio’s golden age, fine actors and Foley effects replicated almost any human activity, charging psychological thrillers like Arch Oboler’s legendary series Lights Out. But that spell is largely broken here when the visual overrides the audio, and when that visual, frankly,

still developing a broad range of emotional processes and responses, they can’t be said to fully possess them, at least, not in the ways mature people do. Their incomplete capacities for empathy, love, and insight beyond their own immediate wants puts them on the road to being fully human, but not entirely there.

We see more than glimpses of this throughout a mostly deft adaptation. The ruthlessness of Tinker Bell (an animated Holly Holmes) in her dislike for Wendy (a doughty Shawn Morgenlander) could only come as a surprise to those who’ve never witnessed or can’t recall the passions stirred in childhood games of war. More disturbing than the total lack of gratitude displayed by Peter (a strong Alec Silver) is his tendency to forget about people when they stop fulfilling his needs.

Burning Coal’s adaptation removes several key characters from the mix. Wendy Darling has only one brother, the inquisitive John, and with the erasure of Neverland’s vivid but offensive Indian tribe from

isn’t nearly as compelling as the story adapted from Frank Capra’s immortal 1946 film. So close your eyes. Let Christian O’Neill’s crisp take on George Bailey take you to a very different time in this culture.

Marvel at the cast of characters Steve Migdon is able to convey with his delicious vocal range (starting with that Great Gildersleeve shout out at the top). Let Del Flack and Alicia Whitley’s sound effects fill in a world of white and take you running down abandoned streets.

Listen closely to Rhonda Lemon’s persuasive take on George’s wife, Mary. Trust me, it’s a better show that way. —Byron Woods

Barrie’s original text, Tiger Lily has been replaced by a new character, Tsi-La. Kayley Morrison portrays this poignant character, a mother figure who tends to the birds populating the island.

White constructs significant mirrors in the double casting of particular roles.

After stage veterans Mark Filiaci and Julie Oliver get at the love between—and the occasional childishness of—Edwardian-era parents the Darlings, they explore those characters’ shadow sides.

In Katy Werlin’s imaginative costumes, Mom swashbuckles as a dastardly Captain Hook, while Dad becomes Hook’s nemesis, a robotic steampunk crocodile intent on devouring her. (Sigmund Freud, please phone in.)

Strong supporting work from Juan Isler as Smee and Ben Apple as both the faithful Nana and the faithless pirate Starkey reinforce the glee and partial development of those small beings who are near to us, but not quite us yet. bwoods@indyweek.com INDYweek.com | 12.6.17 | 29

WHAT TO DO THIS WEEK 12.6– 12.13

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 7

ANDREW MARLIN

What’s up with all these local music residencies? Over the past few months, venues and artists have taken to the weekly residency format in increasing numbers. (The Cave has two booked for December.) This month, Carrboro’s The Station has a good one: Andrew Marlin. In addition to spending most of his time fronting the folk outfit Mandolin Orange with Emily Frantz, Marlin is a voracious performer and collaborator. He seems to play almost as much as he breathes, and, in casual settings like this one, he is prone to picking for hours on end. The first installment features Seattle songwriter Eli West, and future guests include guitarist Tommy Edwards, the band Big Fat Gap, and singer-songwriter Josh Oliver. Expect originals, plenty of covers, a generous helping of jokes, and some extra surprises, just for the hell of it. —Allison Hussey THE STATION, CARRBORO | 8:30 p.m., $8–$10, www.stationcarrboro.com

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 13

TIG NOTARO

Tig Notaro has become an increasingly relevant and powerful voice in comedy over the last few years, earning Emmy and GLAAD award nominations and writing a best-selling memoir. The tumult of recent months has only expanded her profile. After severing ties with the disgraced Louis C.K., whose promotion of her 2013 live album helped propel her into the public eye, Notaro based an episode of her excellent Amazon series, One Mississippi, on C.K.’s now-welldocumented sexual harassment of women. She’s a multi-hyphenate threat: comedian, storyteller, actress, writer, activist, and more. Her comedy comes from a combination of astonishing honesty—from revealing her double mastectomy onstage to heartbreaking confessions from her past—and deadpan hilarity. Now one of Rolling Stone’s “fifty best comics of all time” comes to Raleigh, courtesy of Bob Nocek Presents. —Zack Smith FLETCHER OPERA THEATER, RALEIGH | 8 p.m., $38, www.dukeenergycenterraleigh.com

Tig Notaro PHOTO

BY BOB CHAMBERLIN

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 8 & SATURDAY, DECEMBER 9

WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER: THE MUSICAL (SORT OF)

Like musicals but sick of the glossy, predictable Broadway production values on sale at DPAC and Memorial Auditorium? Then dip down the grungy alley into Nightlight this weekend for Wet Hot American Summer: The Musical (Sort Of), a musical theater monstrosity by the same scrappy crew that previously brought unruly lo-fi rave-ups based on Labyrinth and The Big Lebowski to the same space. The 2001 film Wet Hot American Summer, set in a summer camp in 1981, is a sendup of classic teen comedies, staffed by alums of MTV sketch-comedy show The State and featuring a cracking comedy cast (Janeane Garofalo! David Hyde Pierce! Molly Shannon! Paul Rudd!). In the last couple of years, Netflix’s prequel and sequel miniseries verified the film’s cult status. The Nightlight gang will take the source material and—well, who knows what the hell they’ll do to it? That’s part of the fun of this intermittent tradition, which evokes a sort of anarcho-punk Waiting for Guffman. —Brian Howe NIGHTLIGHT BAR & CLUB, CHAPEL HILL | 8 p.m., $15, www.nightlightclub.com

30 | 12.6.17 | INDYweek.com

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FRIDAY, DECEMBER 8–SATURDAY, DECEMBER 23

THE GIFT OF THE MAGI

In recent years, some local theater companies have brought an interesting innovation to their holiday programming, abandoning the concept of the December blockbuster—overinflated, over-the-top spectacles before hundreds or thousands of spectators—in favor of much smaller, more intimate experiences. Since last winter, for example, the Women’s Theatre Festival’s Little Women has addressed the reversals faced by a resourceful Civil War-era family at Christmas while serving a holiday tea to small houses. And you won’t feel lost in the crowd when Sonorous Road presents its new immersive adaptation of O. Henry’s The Gift of the Magi.

Only twenty seats are available for each show, which plunges the audience into a Jazz Age New York speakeasy where the barflies, bartenders—and, just possibly, the ancient sages of the title—witness a struggling young couple trying to express their mutual love with a perfect Christmas gift. —Byron Woods SONOROUS ROAD THEATRE, RALEIGH | Various times, $5–$25, www.sonorousroad.com

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RECYCLE THIS PAPER Wynton Marsalis PHOTO

BY JOE MARTINEZ

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 9

JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA WITH WYNTON MARSALIS

Anyone who spends decades immersed in jazz rightfully ascends to the status of jazz emissary to the world at large. Wynton Marsalis wears that title gladly, but when he presides over the nimble Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra in a lighthearted program of holiday favorites, he’s more like a storytelling uncle who plays a mean trumpet. Marsalis’s skills as a raconteur became known to the wider world from his cogent analysis, spiced with occasional scat singing, in Ken Burns’s celebrated jazz documentary. Returning to Memorial Hall, Marsalis, his elite crew, and a few top-notch guest vocalists bring dazzling skills and palpable playfulness to holiday mainstays ranging from the sacred to the secular, and even to the occasionally banal (last year’s repertoire included Paul McCartney’s execrable “Wonderful Christmastime”). But mostly you’ll hear soulful renditions of chestnuts like Count Basie’s silky take on “Jingle Bells” and other tasteful fare, interspersed with Marsalis’s New Orleans-inflected patter and yarn spinning. —David Klein

DPAC nd for Wet UNC’S MEMORIAL HALL, CHAPEL HILL | 8 p.m., $10–$159, www.carolinaperformingarts.org e scrappy wski to the s a sendWHAT ELSE SHOULD I DO? and CHATHAM COUNTY LINE ELECTRIC HOLIDAY TOUR AT THE LINCOLN THEATRE (P. 35), n! Paul IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE: RADIO SHOW AT NRACT (P. 29), ilm’s cult L7: PRETEND WE’RE DEAD & DON’T BREAK DOWN: he hell A FILM ABOUT JAWBREAKER AT MOTORCO (P. 40), of TATSUYA NAKATANI AT KINGS (P. 33), NOIR AT THE BAR AT 106 MAIN (P. 40), PETER PAN & WENDY AT BURNING COAL (P. 28), A TRAILER PARK CHRISTMAS AT MANBITES DOG (P. 39), ELY URBANSKI AT DUKE (P. 37) INDYweek.com | 12.6.17 | 31

SU 12/10

KRS-ONE FR 12/15 & SA 12/16 @CAT’S CRADLE BACK ROOM

LYDIA LOVELESS 12/9 SOUTHERN

CULTURE ON THE SKIDS

W/ IT'S SNAKES!, DEX ROMWEBER ($13/$15)

SA 12/9

SOUTHERN CULTURE ON THE SKIDS

12/10 KRS-ONE W/ KAZE, REUBEN VINCENT ($26/$30) 12/15 HEARTBROKEN: AN ALL-STAR TOM PETTY TRIBUTE TO BENEFIT THE VICTIMS OF THE LAS VEGAS SHOOTING ($10) 12/16 ROLLER RACES TO BENEFIT LOCAL CHARITIES 12/17

HORTON’S HOLIDAY HAYRIDE

3/21/18 MOOSE BLOOD W/ LYDIA, MCCAFFERTY ($18/$22; ON SALE 12/8)

1/31/18 THE DANGEROUS SUMMER W/MICROWAVE, THE BAND CAMINO ($15)

1/6/18 "BEAR IT ALL" KARAOKE

3/28/18 CRANK IT LOUD PRESENTS:

OUR LAST NIGHT

W/ I THE MIGHTY, DON BROCO, JULE VERA

2/2/18 BAT FANGS RECORD RELEASE PARTY W/ PIPE ($10)

TO BENEFIT CARRBORO CUBS ($10/$15)

3/30/18 CIGARETTES AFTER SEX ($20/$23; ON SALE 12/8)

2/13/18 TINY MOVING PARTS W/ MOM JEANS, OSO OSO ($13/$15)

1/12/18

YONDER MOUNTAIN STRING BAND

W/ THE SOUTHERN BELLES ($25/ $30) 1/15 THE WOMBATS W/ BLAENAVON, COURTSHIP ($22/$25) 1/18

THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS ($25/$28) 1/22 AND 1/23/18

TWO SHOWS!

SAY ANYTHING

IN DEFENSE ANNIVERSARY TOUR W/ AARON GILLESPIE, BACKWARDS DANCER ($22/$27; $40 FOR 2-NIGHT PASS) 1/26 ENTER SHIKARI W/MILK TEETH, SINGLE MOTHERS ($18/$20)

4/2/18 UDO DIRKSCHNEIDER 4/11 AND 4/12/18

TWO SHOWS!

YO LA TENGO ($22/$24) 4/27/18 SUPERCHUNK ($16/$18) 5/8/18 BAHAMAS ($16/$18) 5/18/18 DAVID BROMBERG ($23/$26)

2/7/18 WILLIE WATSON ($18/$20)

2/16/18 NORA JANE STRUTHERS ($12/ $14) 2/17/18 HANK, PATTIE AND THE CURRENT ($7/$10) 2/20/18 MAGIC GIANT W/ THE BREVET ($12/ $14)

3/9/18 VUNDABAR W/ RATBOYS 5/25/18 PETER HOOK & THE LIGHT ($28/$31) 3/13/18 JESSICA LEA MAYFIELD ($15) 3/19/18 BORN RUFFIANS

CAT'S CRADLE BACK ROOM 12/8 THE STARS EXPLODE ALBUM RELEASE PARTY W/LEMON SPARKS, BRETT HARRIS ($10)

3/20/18 SHAME / SNAIL MAIL ($12) 3/26/18 S CAREY W/ GORDI 4/6/18 GRIFFIN HOUSE

1/30/18 DESTROYER W/ MEGA BOG ($20/$23

12/9 COLESLAW W/ RAGWEED BRASS, THE NITROGEN TONE ($7)

4/23/18 DURAND JONES & THE INDICATIONS ($13/$15) CAROLINA THEATRE (DUR)

2/1/18 TYPHOON ($18/$20)

12/14 JUANITA STEIN ($8/$10)

12/6 THE MOUNTAIN GOATS W/ JENNY BESETZT

2/10/18 WHY? ($16/$18)

12/15 AND 12/16 SHOWS! LYDIA LOVELESS (SOLO) W/ CASEYMAGIC, TODD MAY ($15)

1/27/18 TENNIS W/ OVERCOATS

2/11/18 NOAH GUNDERSEN ($15/$17) 2/12/18 DECLAN MCKENNA ($15/$17; ON SALE 12/9) 2/13/18 SONS OF APOLLO ($25/$28) 2/17/18 THE BLACK LILLIES W/ SAM QUINN 2/20/18 PHILLIP PHILLIPS ($27.50/$30)

32 | 12.6.17 | INDYweek.com

REVEREND HORTON HEAT

STARRING REVEREND HORTON HEAT, WITH THE BLASTERS, JUNIOR BROWN, BIG SANDY ($25/ $28)

PARTY

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SU 12/17 HORTON’S HOLIDAY HAYRIDE STARRING

2/21/18 PEDRO THE LION ($20/$22; ON SALE 12/8) 2/22/18 LIGHTS W/CHASE ATLANTIC, DCF ($20/$23) 2/24/18 ANDREA GIBSON W/CHASTITY BROWN ($18/$21) 3/1/18 QUINN XCII W/ CHELSEA CUTLER ($18/$20) 3/2/18 JOYWAVE ($15/$17) 3/6/18 WALLOWS ($15) 3/7/18 LP W/ NOAH KAHAN ($22/$25) 3/13/18 J BOOG W/JESSE ROYAL, ETANA ($20) 3/16/18 DIALI CISSOKHO & KAIRA BA ($10/$12)

TWO

12/26 THE MERCH HOLIDAY DANCE PARTY

3/24/18 LUCIUS ARTSCENTER (CARRBORO) 1/27/18 AN EVENING WITH LLOYD COLE ($20) 3/3/18 AN EVENING WITH COWBOY JUNKIES

12/31FTMF'S 2018 NYE BASH: J GUNN, YOUNG BULL, ZOOCRÜ ($20/$25)

3/21/18 NEIL HILBORN ($15/$20)

1/4/18 MELODIME W/ THE BREVET, THE ROMAN SPRING ($12/$14)

4/20/18 GREG BROWN ($28/$30) THE RITZ (RAL)

1/10/18 BEN GERBER (COMEDY) 1/12/18 HEAVEN / ORGANOS / FAULTS ($5/$8)

2/17/18 SNARKY PUPPY W/ SIRINTIP HAW RIVER BALLROOM

1/13/18 THE STRAY BIRDS

12/16 CHATHAM COUNTY LINE ELECTRIC HOLIDAY TOUR

1/17/18 YUNG GRAVY

2/1/18 THE DEVIL MAKES THREE

1/20/18 CHARLIE MARS

3/23/18 GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR ($27/$30)

1/28/17 1ST ANNUAL CARRBORO DJANGO FEST FT. STEPHANE WREMBEL (RELEASING HIS LATEST ALBUM, THE DJANGO EXPERIMENT III) AND ONYX CLUB BOYS; & GYPSY JAZZ GUITAR WORKSHOP WITH STEPHANE WREMBEL

NORTH CHARLESTON PAC (CHARLESTON, SC) 2/25/18 STEVE MARTIN & MARTIN SHORT W/ THE STEEP CANYON RANGERS AND JEFF BABKO

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**Asterisks denote advance tickets @ schoolkids records in raleigh & chapel hill order tix online at ticketfly.com ★ we serve carolina brewery beer on tap! ★ we are a non-smoking club

WED, DEC 6

CAROLINA THEATRE: The Mountain Goats, Jenny Besetzt; 8 p.m., $31. • THE CAVE: Nest Egg Residency; 9 p.m. • DUKE’S BALDWIN AUDITORIUM: Duke Symphony Orchestra with Cicilia Yudha; 8 p.m. • DURHAM PERFORMING ARTS CENTER: Fantasia: Christmas After Midnight; 7:30 p.m., $40+. • KINGS: DJ Earl, Nick Hook, Blursome; 9 p.m., $13–$15. • MOTORCO: Rapsody, Don Flamingo, GQ, Deante Hitchcock; 8 p.m., $15–$20.

• NIGHTLIGHT: Bitchin’ Bajas, Nathan Bowles Trio; 9 p.m., $10. • POUR HOUSE: Roosevelt Collier; 9 p.m., $10–$12 • THE RITZ: Chevelle; 7:30 p.m.

THU, DEC 7 Khatia Buniatishvili

weekly December residency at The Cave features Joe Hall (Blanko Basnet, Hammer No More The Fingers) and Andrew Anagnost (Yandrew, Lost in the Trees). —PW [THE CAVE, $8–$10/9 P.M.]

The Effects With a quirky, D.C. FLAVOR polyrythymic style that spikes the same vein as nineties indie rock totems, Washington D.C.’s The Effects are spasmodic and humorous in equal doses.

Asheville instrumental stoner rock duo Albert Adams goes scuzzier with their sonics, though their breakneck noise rock also attempts to throw the listener off at every turn.

—DS [NEPTUNES PARLOUR, $5–$7/10 P.M.]

“ROCK” The first musical STAR superstars were virtuoso pianists. The nineteenthth century had Franz Liszt’s charisma, the twenty-first has Khatia Buniatishvili’s bravado. Posed on red carpets in even-redder dresses, or standing with her hands upon a piano, the stool kicked aside, photos of the pianist have constructed a rock-star image at odds with classical music’s conventional propriety. It is no coincidence that three of the four works she will play at Memorial Hall are by Liszt—perfect pieces for showcasing her captivating, swaggering style.—NR [UNC’S MEMORIAL HALL, $10–$59/7:30 P.M.]

STRINGS The JACK Quartet SHIMMER is a monster. Over the years, it’s established a reputation for bringing out the hidden beauty in the thorniest of modernist repertoire. Here, it brings together Ruth Crawford Seeger’s masterfully sonorous 1930 quartet and John Zorn’s flighty post-modern pastiche Necronomicon, Marcos Balter’s eerily glassy Chambers and Natacha Diels’s Nightmare for JACK (a ballet) which is as much theater as music. —DR [DUKE’S NELSON MUSIC ROOM, $10–$28/8 P.M.]

Canine Heart Sounds

Whose Hat Is This?

Here’s a wild idea: DOG GONE Maybe progressive rock bands are too good, too choked by chops and too dizzied by frenzied soloing at the expense of things like nuance and polish and nicety.

The moon-chasing space pop of Durham’s Canine Heart Sounds comes with serious Floyd and Flaming Lips vibes, but its elegance comes from its simplicity, an emphasis on form, not flash. The band’s first installement in its

JACK Quartet

TRUCKIN’ In their spare SIDES time, TedeschiTrucks band members bassist Tim Lefebvre, sax man Kebbi Williams, and drummers JJ Johnson and Tyler Greenwell mount up as Whose Hat Is This to play improvisational sets of acid jazz. But bassist Lefebvre, uncomfortable with that description of the music, leans more toward calling it nontraditional punk jazz.

—GB [LINCOLN THEATRE, $10/8 P.M.]

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CONTRIBUTORS: Elizabeth Bracy (EB), Timothy Bracy (TB), Grant Britt (GB), Spencer Griffith (SG), Allison Hussey (AH), David Klein (DK), Charles Morse (CM), Noah Rawlings (NR), Dan Ruccia (DR), David Ford Smith (DS), Patrick Wall (PW)

ALSO ON THURSDAY DEEP SOUTH: Car Crash Star, Atomic Buzz,; 8:30 p.m., $5. • LOCAL 506: ‘68, Whores, Alistair Hennessey; 6:30 p.m., $13–$15. • POUR HOUSE: Local Band Local Beer: Down By Five, Pseudo Cowboys, I Am Maddox; 9 p.m.

• THE STATION: Andrew Marlin Residency; 9 p.m., $8–$10. See page 30.

FRI, DEC 8 Clavicles FERVENT Clavicles is a New FOLK Jersey duo composed of cellist and violinist Daisy Castro and singer-guitarist Brian Lee. The pair’s music is hushed and heavy on soul-searching, and its string arrangements are often gorgeous, matched by heartfelt vocal harmonies.

—NR [ARCANA $10/9 P.M.]

Elizabeth Cook Elizabeth Cook ROOTS REBEL seems simultaneously too traditional—earning comparisons to Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn—and too offbeat for today’s Nashville, despite regular appearances at the Grand Ole Opry, which recently lifted a ban on her blunt feminist anthem “Sometimes It Takes Balls to Be a Woman.” —SG [STAG’S HEAD, $15–$18/8 P.M.]

Stephen Hough FLUTTERY Going from the POWER ethereal shimmer of Debussy’s Images to the visceral angst of Beethoven’s Appasionata sonata is the kind of wild leap that only pianist and MacArthur Fellow Stephen Hough would attempt, much less pull off. In all likelihood he will find a way to bring out the power in the Debussy and the floating ruminations hidden in the Beethoven. On the way, he’ll pass through Schumann’s fluttering Fantasie, splitting the difference between the works around it. —DR [DUKE’S BALDWIN AUDITORIUM, $10–$38/8 P.M.]

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 8

TATSUYA NAKATANI

PHOTO BY MAKOTO TAKUECHI

music 12.6– 12.13

FOR OUR COMPLETE COMMUNITY CALENDAR

Periodically throughout his career, the drummer Max Roach would unleash a solo just using a high hat. He would tap out crazy rhythmic patterns, adjust the tension between the two cymbals to modulate the color, and batter the metal stand holding the cymbals up for a nicely contrasting metallic thunk. The arcs of these solos were always a little different, but each iteration revealed the surprisingly wide range of sounds that a cymbal or two can create in the right hands.

Tatsuya Nakatani’s hands are the right hands. Give him a gong and a bow or two (preferably one of his own, custom-made Kobo bows), and he’ll spend twenty minutes teasing out volleys of all-encompassing overtones that vibrate every fiber of your being.

Give him the dozen gongs in his gong orchestra, and he’ll transport you to outer space, channeling the wails of alien whales, the collisions of stars, and the crackle of matter coming in and out of being. Give him some cymbals, and he’ll drag them across drum heads to create screeching wails or blow through the hole in the middle to produce sounds that either scare off demons or invite them for tea. Give him a drum or two, and he’ll cover them in bells and bowls, which he’ll keep in constant motion, skittering this way and that, emitting either a low, gentle hum or the clatter and crash of falling sheet metal.

A Nakatani drum solo is an architectural, sculptural experience, where he punctuates moments of stasis with hyperkinetic flurries of activity. The way he moves around his setup is equal parts dance and tectonic force. One moment he’ll be attacking a drum head with an egg beater, and the next, he’ll draw two cymbals across each other with exacting precision. Waves of emotion rise and fall as buildings of sound emerge and collapse.

As a collaborator, Nakatani takes a more subtle approach. Like all the best improvisers, he is, first and foremost, a listener, intuiting where his fellow musicians are heading and adding musical textures that propel the dialogue. His deep reservoir of power and timbre pushes any ensemble in fascinating directions. When he stops in Raleigh, he’ll be joined by two longtime Triangle improvisers: reed player Crowmeat Bob and keyboardist Jil Christensen. Over the course of three sets with three different permutations of players, the sonic possibilities are endless. —Dan Ruccia KINGS, RALEIGH | 8 p.m., $10, www.kingsraleigh.com INDYweek.com | 12.6.17 | 33

The Night Shades

is a great way to assuage the hurt from the recent loss of their aesthetic fellow traveler Tommy Keene. Lemon Sparks and Brett Harris open. —TB [CAT’S CRADLE BACK ROOM, $10/8 P.M.]

The band is new, OLD SCHOOL but its members are seasoned blues vets.

Former Joe Bell and the Stinging Blades drummer Ed Mezynski is the backbone for The Night Shades. Frontwoman Julia Vo often guests with Allman tribute band Idlewild South, and guitarist Tim Collins was in the Fat Bastard Blues Band with Mezynski.

Together, they’ll cook up something special. —GB [BLUE NOTE GRILL, $8/9P.M.]

Toys for Tots Benefit For the fifth year, HARD TIMES drummer Mike Glass has gathered an impressive slate of Triangle rock acts to raise funds for local Toys for Tots chapters, proving his heart is softer than the monolithic stoner metal and imposing space rock hybrids of Bitter Resolve.

Shelles set haunting Southern gothic themes to cosmic Americana sounds, while veteran indie rockers Ben Davis and the Jetts bring an aggressive, hooky spirit.

Scriblin’, Secret Hearts, and Beau Bennett round out the lineup. —SG [LOCAL 506, $10/8:30 P.M.]

The Stars Explode POWER Carrboro power POP poppers The Stars Explode are melodic true believers. The band’s investment in influences is powerful enough to merit a loving tribute titled “Matthew Sweet” but nimble enough to color outside the lines of the genre’s confining jangle-andharmony paces. Led by singer-songwriter Doug Edmunds and featuring contributions from the Wild Giraffes and the dB’s, an evening with this terrific band

TH 12/7

ALSO ON FRIDAY BEYÙ CAFFÈ: Connie McCoy and Mo’ Jazz; 7 & 9 p.m., $14. • THE CAVE: Night Battles, Slime, Roseclouds, Girl Werewolf; 9 p.m., $5. •

CRANK IT LOUD PRESENTS TH 12/7 : RANK IT Alistair LOUD PRESENTS ’68 w/ CWhores, Hennessey

‘68

W/ WHORES, ALISTAIR HENNESSEY FR 12/8

TOYS

FOR

TOTS BENEFIT SHOW

FEATURING:

SHELLES w/ Ben Davis and the Jetts, Bitter

Resolve, Scriblin’, Secret Hearts, Beau Bennett

SA 12/9

MICHAEL VM ‘THE HAPPIEST MAN ON EARTH ’ FR 12/9 ALBUM RELEASE SHOW w/ Al Riggs, Belle, Adair, Reese McHenry & The Fox

MICHAEL VM

‘THE HAPPIEST MAN ON EARTH’ ALBUM RELEASE SHOW W/ AL RIGGS, BELLE ADAIR, REESE MCHENRY & THE FOX SU 12/10 MO 12/11

RICO NASTY PRAWN w/ Slingshot Dakota, People Like You, Us and Us Only

WE 12/13

NERD NITE 4: Seeing is Believing COMING SOON:

DUSTY SLAY, THE NUMBER TWELVE LOOKS LIKE YOU

www.LOCAL506.com 34 | 12.6.17 | INDYweek.com

DEEP SOUTH: Apples and Airplanes, The Wormholes, The Antique Hearts; 8:30 p.m., $8. • KINGS: Tatsuya Natakatani, Jil Christiensen, Crowmeat Bob; 8 p.m., $10. See box, page 33. • LINCOLN THEATRE: Old Habits, Old Man Whickutt; 9 p.m., $10. • THE PINHOOK: Y2K Dance Party 5.0; 10 p.m., $5. • POUR HOUSE: Lowbrow, Jump Mountain, Sunroom Salvation; 7:30 p.m. • QUAIL RIDGE BOOKS: Ed Stephenson & The Paco Band; 7 p.m. • RUBY DELUXE: DJ LuxePosh; 10 p.m. • SHARP NINE GALLERY: Kobie Watkins “Philly Joe Jones” Tribute; 8 p.m., $10–$20. • THE STATION: Boom Unit Brass Band, Funktion; 9 p.m., $8.

SAT, DEC 9 Coleslaw COMPLEX A sterling local RIFFS bluegrass outfit featuring some of the Triangle’s finest players, Coleslaw boasts a surfeit of fine compositions, rendered with unhurried charm and plenty of chops. The group’s affable charm is fully displayed on tunes like the regionally themed “Hillsborough” and the cockeyed blues shuffle “Gracefully Whis-

RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE

THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS

PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER

keyed.” Ragweed Brass and the Nitrogen Tone open. —TB [CAT’S CRADLE BACK ROOM, $7/9 P.M.]

mathematically impressive thrash metal. Its tunes run the thematic gamut from “Waters of Despair” to “Absent Twilight” and chops that mostly make up for the relative lack of variety.

Vesterian and Rites of Sedition open. —TB [SLIM’S, $5/9 P.M.]

Escher String Quartet with Jason Vieaux TWO FOR This concert is, ONE essentially, two for the price of one. First, you get a short string quartet concert by the young Escher Quartet, playing Haydn’s buoyant quartet op. 76, no.1, and two recent works by György Kurtág, master of intense miniatures. Then, guitarist Jason Vieaux plays a solo guitar concert that ranges from Bach to Antonio Carlos Jobim. The outfits join forces to close the show with Boccherini’s stately Guitar Quintet from 1798. —DR [DUKE’S BALDWIN AUDITORIUM, $10–$42/8 P.M.]

KIFFmas The annual HELL’S BELLS KIFFmas party, hosted by lewd, rude Raleigh punk dudes KIFF, is wilder than your average Christmas celebration. The hosts are all about drinkin’, fightin’, and fuckin’, spewing out squalid speedballs like a foulmouthed Bad Religion. South Carolina’s Isabelle’s Gift blend sweltering Southern rock with Sunset Strip sleaze; Raleigh’s Eyeball are psychedelic neo-space rock weirdos. If you ain’t barfin’ up eggnog at the end of the night, you’re doing it wrong.

—PW [THE MAYWOOD, $10/9 P.M.]

Greves MIDDLE Greves brings an METAL appropriately manic, menacing energy to its ontologically frightening,

Kooley High KOOLEY Rumors of new IS HIGH music from Kooley High are afoot, and with a Grammy nod to its most notable alumna, Rapsody, in the bag, anticipation for what the crew has in store for its fans next has peaked. Ace Henderson and Danny Blaze share the stage.

—CM [KINGS, $12–$15/9 P.M.]

Ravary Former frontman of Clockwork Kids and The Color Exchange, Justin Ellis now spearheads Ravary when not performing with acts like Happy Abandon or Al Riggs. Spinning sensitive, heart-on-his-sleeve vignettes, Ellis reimagines lo-fi folk-pop recordings with the backing of a full band tonight. With TØMA and Waking April. —SG [DEEP SOUTH, $5–$10/9 P.M.]

INDIE POP

TEASERS 17th Annual Christmas Party Saturday Dec. 9th Join us for special entertainment, door prizes and heavy hors d'oeuvres Members in FREE 7-9

919-6-TEASER for directions and information

www.teasersmensclub.com 156 Ramseur St Durham, NC An Adult Nightclub

Open 7 Days/week • Hours 7pm - 2am

@TeasersDurham TeasersMensClub

The Revivalists COMPLEX This sold-out RIFFS show features two not-quite country acts that are better than what’s currently on Top 40 country.

The Revivalists are toe-tapping pop-Americana. With gritty vocals, brass instruments, and crashing cymbals, they’ll have you grooving.

Muddy Magnolias, a duo from Nashville, showcase feminist Southern rock skills.

—KH [THE RITZ, $35/8 P.M.]

Granger Smith

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 13

CHATHAM COUNTY LINE ELECTRIC HOLIDAY TOUR “I found this bluegrass thing through a wormhole,” says Chatham County Line singer and guitarist Dave Wilson, offering an explanation for his unlikely transition to Americana music nearly twenty years ago, after being enthralled by a Del McCoury Band performance.

“While that’s been really good to us as a band and to me as a writer, I also love plugging in a guitar because that’s what I did way back in seventh grade, rocking out to ‘I Melt With You’ in my buddy’s garage.”

For fifteen years now, local Americana institution Chatham County Line has made an annual holiday tradition out of fondly revisiting those formative years with their first electric guitars. After a conventional acoustic set, bassist Jay Brown, guitarist Johnny Irion, and drummer Zeke Hutchins join in on electric versions of Chatham County Line tunes along with a smattering of covers—don’t be surprised this year to hear tributes to Tom Petty and Fats Domino—and songs from Stillhouse, Wilson’s pre-CCL roots rock crew with Brown, Hutchins, and current bandmate Greg Readling.

“I feel like it gives Dave a little more freedom to try textures and colors that paint the song in a different light,” Brown says. While he’s seen shades of Wilson’s acoustic efforts creeping into the holiday shows, Wilson takes advantage of the opportunity to push the boundaries of his main project into even more adventurous territory than what’s typically considered to be bluegrass.

“There’s always been two sides of me in that [songwriting] respect, but I’m trying to really put them together,” Wilson explains. “Whether the song needs to be electric or if it needs to be acoustic, I’m all for it—there’s really no jail.”

Stillhouse finished its third LP last year, but hasn’t released it yet—Wilson jokes that he’s “waiting to get so unbelievably bored that I just put it online and people can have it.”

Chatham County Line is also set to record a new album in 2018, and Wilson guesses that the mostly acoustic outfit may explore its rock ’n’ roll background even further.

“It’d be really nice to broaden the palette a little bit, just for our fans’ sake,” he says.

“If they’ve got seven records of acoustic Chatham County Line, it might be nice to have something from us that you can turn down.”

Along with hopes of writing songs with a drummer onboard, Chatham County Line electric shows are beginning to become less of a seasonal offering—the band plugged in at both Merlefest and IBMA’s Wide Open Bluegrass street festival.

“We’re trying to do more of these during the year to mix things up for the long-term fans that are out there but miss the holiday shows,” Wilson concludes. “CCL has always kept a toe in the waters of rock ’n’ roll, but there’s only a few times when we can really electrify the water.”

Chatham County Line will dive in with two area shows, beginning Wednesday night in Raleigh and concluding the regional mini-run on Saturday, December 16, at the Haw River Ballroom in Saxapahaw. —Spencer Griffith LINCOLN THEATRE, RALEIGH | 8 p.m., $18, www.lincolntheatre.com

COMPLEX This Christmas RIFFS Wish show from radio station QDR helps support AGAPE of N.C., which works to find foster parents for the thousands of children in the state who need them. Rallying behind the cause is a pair of popular young country singers— Brooke Eden and Granger Smith, who operates under the alias Earl Dibbles Jr. —DK [LINCOLN THEATRE, $15–$25/9 P.M.]

Sunny Ledfurd Inspired by Lynyrd Skynyrd’s sound and naming technique, Chattanooga, Tennessee’s Jonathan Bakalli took the misspelled name of a friend for his band. But Ledfurd’s sound was more Kid Rock than Southern rock, and when the band went bust, Bakalli continued solo as Sunny Ledfurd, morphing into hardcore drink and bad-boy country. —GB [POUR HOUSE, $12/8 P.M.]

BAD BOY

Michael VM Mike VenutoloEVERY MAN Mantovani earned a hardcore following with the punky Jersey-redolent blasts of his band The Everymen.

His first solo LP—recorded at a studio in Muscle Shoals with some top-notch accompaniment—is another thing entirely, drawing on his mother’s death from cancer last year. This fine bill also includes Al Riggs, Reese McHenry & the Fox, and Belle Adair. —DK [LOCAL 506, $8–$10/8 P.M.]

ALSO ON SATURDAY BEYÙ CAFFÈ: David P Stevens; 7 & 9 p.m., $15. • BLUE NOTE GRILL: 6 String Drag, Handsome Al and The Lookers; 8 p.m., $8. • THE CARY THEATER: Jonathan Byrd and the Pickup Cowboy, Corin Raymond; 8 p.m., $20. • CAT’S CRADLE: Southern Culture on the Skids, It’s Snakes!, Dex Romweber; 9 p.m., $13–$15. • THE CAVE: The Coke Dares, The Blind Spot, Violet Bell; 9 p.m., $5. • DUKE CHAPEL: Choral Society of Durham Christmas Music for Choir and Brass; 8 p.m., $5–$22. • MEYMANDI CONCERT HALL: Raleigh Ringers 2017 Holiday Concert; 3 p.m. • RUBY DELUXE: Future Crimes Reunion, Pie Face Girls; 8 p.m., $5–$7. DJ DNLTMS; 11 p.m. • SCHOOLKIDS RECORDS (RALEIGH): Cosmic Superheroes; 7 p.m. • SHARP NINE GALLERY: Lovell Bradford Quintet; 8 p.m., $10–$20. • THE STATION: Four On Six; 2 p.m. Luxuriant Sedans, Harvey Dalton Arnold; 7 p.m. • UNC’S MEMORIAL HALL: Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis; 8 p.m. $10–$159. See page 31.

SUN, DEC 10 All You Need Is Love DO SOME Ashley Reaves GOOD Linden is a Raleigh mom struggling with a rare form of cancer, so a slew of talented bands from the Triangle’s past, present, and future are uniting to help out with medical expenses.

They include eighties party kings the Fabulous Knobs, Johnny Folsom 4’s bracing Cash tribute, Robert Kirkland, and many more. —DK [POUR HOUSE, DONATIONS/1 P.M.]

The Coke Dares The Coke Dares, once the big-block rhythm section of the late Jason Molina’s Magnolia Electric Co., sprint from their previous outfit’s sparse, ghostly roots rock, trading instead in zippy, throttling power pop. Theirs is a speedball that mixes Wire’s arty verve, Guided By Voices’s pith, The Minutemen’s sinewy energy, and Cheap Trick’s windmilling electricity. The band’s minute-long bursts are all peel-outs and burnouts, revved-engine guitars and throttling drums. —PW [NEPTUNES PARLOUR, $7/8 P.M.]

SNORT IT

Shooter Jennings FAMILY Waylon Jennings’s BUSINESS son looks and sounds just like his daddy as he peddles hardcore outlaw country. Shooter has wandered through several genres, including the hard rock band Stargunn. In 2009, he changed the name of his backing band, the 357’s, to Hierophant, putting out a rock opera that featured Stephen King before returning to the family business. —GB [LINCOLN THEATRE, $15–$20/8 P.M.]

KRS-One EDUTAIN- Earlier this year MENT KRS-One independently released his latest album, The World Is Mind, on Bandcamp, which landed as a mid-tier quality project that effectively provided his fans with a fresh dose of his brand of edutainment. It’s also a strong take on the dawn of Trumpian politics, or rather, how Trumpian politics has been what he’s been warning us about the whole time. Local emcee Kaze and 9th Wonder’s newest protégé, Reuben Vincent, open the show. —CM [CAT’S CRADLE, $26–$30/9 P.M.] ALSO ON SUNDAY BLUE NOTE GRILL: Tommy Hartley & Jason Barker; 5- p.m., free. • CARY ARTS CENTER: The Concert Singers of Cary, The Moonlighters Orchestra; 3 p.m. • THE CAVE: The River Otters, Stephanie Merinoff; 8 p.m., $5. • DUKE’S BALDWIN AUDITORIUM: Durham Medical Orchestra; 3 p.m. • DUKE CHAPEL: Choral Society of Durham Christmas Music for Choir and Brass; 4 p.m., $5–$22. • FAIRMONT UNITED METHODIST CHURCH: Christmas With A Twist!; 3-5 p.m., $10. • LITTLE LAKE HILL: Robin Bullock and Steve Baughman; 7 p.m., $20. • LOCAL 506: Rico Nasty, ZenSoFly, Charles DaBeast; 9 p.m., $12– $15. • MEYMANDI CONCERT HALL: Raleigh Ringers 2017 Holiday Concert; 3 p.m. • NC MUSEUM OF ART: Holiday Concert: Raleigh Flute Choir; 3 p.m., $6–$10. • THE PINHOOK: Echo Courts, Queen Jesus, Permanent Body, Blueberry; 8 p.m., $8. • RUBY DELUXE: DJ Mindspring; 10 p.m. • STEEL STRING BREWERY: Texoma; 4 p.m. • TEMPLE BETH OR: Folk Songs from Jewish Traditions; 3 p.m., free. • WALL OF SOUND MUSIC CENTER: Willard McKiver & The Martin Eagle Trio; 4-7 p.m., $20.

INDYweek.com | 12.6.17 | 35

12/812/10

BLUE WED: THE SPOONBENDERS PINKY WYOMING & DUKE LACROSSE DUKE STREET DOGS

WE 12/6 TH 12/7 FR 12/8

SA 12/9 SU 12/10 TU 12/12

THE NIGHT SHADES 6 STRING DRAG / HANDSOME AL & THE LOOKERS TOMMY HARTLEY & JASON BARKER TUESDAY BLUES JAM

8PM 6-8PM

SA 12/9 WE 12/13

9PM $8

FR 12/15

7PM

8PM $8

SA 12/16 5-7PM 7:30PM

TU 12/19

SU 12/31

FR 1/12 SA 1/13 SA 1/20 SA 1/25 SA 2/3

DECISION HEIGHT

PRESENTED BY ONE SONG PRODUCTIONS

NO SHAME THEATRE - CARRBORO DAR WILLIAMS TRANSACTORS IMPROV: HOLIDAY HOMECOMING 2ND ANNUAL HOLIDAY CIRCLE SHOW POPUP CHORUS HOLIDAY PARTY (JOHN LENNON “IMAGINE” & MARIAH CAREY “ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS YOU”)

DIRTY DOZEN BRASS BAND NEW YEAR’S EVE PARTY JASON MARSALIS AND THE 21ST CENTURY TRAD BAND TRANSACTORS IMPROV: FOR FAMILIES! NO SHAME THEATRE - CARRBORO IRA KNIGHT PRESENTS

MARTIN LUTHER KING, AN INTERPRETATION THE MONTI Find out More at

ArtsCenterLive.org

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

MON, DEC 11

WED, DEC 13

Trans-Siberian Orchestra

New Madrid

Converge

WATERY Colorful and PSYCH dynamic, New Madrid’s tangled web of guitars, post-punk rhythms, and melodic but murky vocal hooks emerge from a reverb-soaked, Southerntinged psych-pop haze. The quartet pulls double duty tonight, backing fellow Athens resident David Barbe—a regional indie rock icon of Sugar and Mercyland fame—as Inward Dream Ebb. —SG [POUR HOUSE, $10–$12/9 P.M.]

Nearly three HXC HEROES decades into a vital career, Massachusetts hardcore quartet Converge has lost none of its visceral vigor. On The Dusk in Us, the band’s ninth record, Converge builds its usual monolith to power and aggression. But Jacob Bannon and crew also turn inward, eschewing interpersonal torment to face something bigger and more existential. It is Converge’s sharpest and most urgent record in a decade, and possibly its best. —PW [MOTORCO, $20–$25/8 P.M.]

The holiday XMAS BLARE season is always best expressed at maximum volume, with as many pyrotechnics as possible. The long-running Trans-Siberian Orchestra is the musical equivalent of your neighbor who fills their entire roof with Christmas lights and then leaves them blaring and flashing all night into your bedroom. It pummels you into being cheerful. —DR [PNC ARENA, $43–$74/7:30 P.M.]

ALSO ON MONDAY THE CAVE: Second Freddy and the Zwickers; 9 p.m., $5. • IMBIBE: Grewen and Griffin; 7 p.m., free. • LOCAL 506: Prawn, Slingshot Dakota, People Like You, Us and Us Only; 8 p.m., $12. • MOTORCO: Flash Chorus; 6:30 p.m., $7–$10.

• NEPTUNES PARLOUR: Polyorchard; 9 p.m., $5. • RUBY DELUXE: DJ Lord Redbyrd; 10 p.m.

• ST MICHAEL’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH: The Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, UK; 7:30-9 p.m., $10–$20.

TUE, DEC 12

Holiday Gift Guide Contact your ad rep or advertising@indyweek.com to be part of our December 13th guide!

36 | 12.6.17 | INDYweek.com

Jake Bugg Famous for the EASY LISTEN old-timey hand-clapping “Lightning Bolt” from 2013, Jake Bugg could have stayed in the alt-Americana field and been a success. But he didn’t—his subsequent albums leaned heavy into easy listening and pop. His latest record, this year’s Hearts That Strain, recalls the downbeat tunes of Donavon Frankenreiter and Jason Mraz. The tempo is much slower, the guitars much softer, and the loose, affable jam quality is gone.

Equally laid-back Kate Rhudy opens. —KH [LINCOLN THEATRE, $25/8 P.M.] ALSO ON TUESDAY DUKE’S NELSON MUSIC ROOM: Duke University String School; 7 p.m. • MEYMANDI CONCERT HALL: NC Master Chorale; 7:30 p.m.

• RUBY DELUXE: Tescon Pol; 11 p.m. • SHARP NINE GALLERY: NCJRO; 8 p.m., $10–$20.

McKinley Dixon With its title SHARP RHYMES borrowed from a Malcolm X speech, McKinley Dixon’s under-the-radar debut, last year’s Who Taught You to Hate Yourself, is filled with observations on blackness wise beyond Dixon’s years. Backed by an electrifying jazz band, Dixon’s intellectually engaging rhymes are made even more compelling in an improvheavy live setting. On The Importance of Self Belief—one of three mixtapes the prolific emcee plans for next year— Dixon focuses on intersectionality by turning his attention to female, femme, and trans perspectives.

Durham’s Zen Groove Funkestra joins. —SG [SLIM’S, $5/9:30 P.M.]

Kansas CLASSIC Big-ticket hit ROCK makers in the seventies, a good handful of this Topeka group’s catalog remains classic rock radio staples to this day. The most famous of those songs— “Dust in the Wind” and “Carry on My Wayward Son”—seem slightly weirder in retrospect, but not necessarily better. —TB [MEMORIAL AUDITORIUM, $59–$100/8 P.M.]

Vesperteen This Ohio pop purveyor makes big-room synth-pop in the vein of Twenty One Pilots, and his music can sound like cutting an H&M pillow open and letting the guts spill out over everything. Opener Amy Guess, who filters modern studio-trick diva pop through a throwback eighties aesthetic. With Bonelang.

—DS [KINGS, $15–$18/7:30 P.M.]

POP FLEX

Dar Williams BRAINY Lately, this literate FOLK troubadour has been involved in a lot of teamwork, reuniting folk supergroup Cry Cry Cry with Richard Shindell and Lucy Kaplansky. She also published a book, What I Found in a Thousand Towns, and she’ll be reading from and talking about it at this show. But let’s not forget she’s a solo songsmith first and foremost, so fear not; she’ll be unpacking plenty of tunes from her voluminous solo discography, both recent and otherwise. —JA [THE ARTSCENTER, $30–$50/8 P.M.] ALSO ON WEDNESDAY BLUE NOTE GRILL: Anne Mccue Band; 8 p.m., $8. • THE CAVE: Nest Egg Residency; 9 p.m. • LINCOLN THEATRE: Chatham County Line Electric; 8 p.m., $18. See box, page 35.

THE PINHOOK: Guitarzz!; 8:30 p.m., $8. • POUR HOUSE: Starbird, Tweed; 9 p.m.

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12.6 – 12.13

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FRIDAY, DECEMBER 8

ELY URBANSKI: IMPRINTED When she lived in Japan, the Durham-based artist Ely Urbanski lacked access to a studio, so she adapted to meet her circumstances instead of fighting them. She turned from human models to pieces of their clothing, devising her own printmaking method of soaking the clothes in ink or bleach and then pressing them onto fabric with her body weight. Obliquely but poignantly, the prints hint at the stories their former owners relate in accompanying videos; when Urbanski deconstructs the clothes rather than printing them whole, they also capture something of memory’s degradation. And they are weirdly, simply beautiful. Not only can you see some of the work in Imprinted, Urbanski’s new exhibit at Duke’s Bryan Center, but you can also contribute to it after this opening reception. Bring a piece of clothing you can stand to part with to the gallery between three and five p.m. on Dec. 13, Dec. 15, and Jan. 5, or between noon and two p.m. on Dec. 19 and 21, to tell its story to the camera and indelibly commit its form to Urbanski’s monoprints. —Brian Howe

DUKE’S LOUISE JONES BROWN GALLERY, DURHAM 4–6 p.m., free, www.printosynthesis.com

“kc.t-shirt.blue.R,” monoprint on reclaimed sheet by Ely Urbanski PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

OPENING

ONGOING

SPECIAL Annual Community EVENT Art Exhibit: Group show. Dec 8-22. Reception: Fri, Dec 8, 6-8 p.m. The ArtsCenter, Carrboro. www.artscenterlive.org.

LAST (as) Thick As CHANCE Thieves: Scanner photography by Jeainny Kim. Thru Dec 9. Power Plant Gallery, Durham.

Holiday Open House: Thu, Dec 7, 5:30-8 p.m. Cary Gallery of Artists, Cary. www.carygalleryofartists.org.

SPECIAL Landscapes and EVENT Dreamscapes: Melanie See. Dec 8-22.

Reception: Fri, Dec 8, 6-8 p.m.

The ArtsCenter, Carrboro. www.artscenterlive.org.

Matters of Media: A Showcase of NC State Student Media Production: Games, posters, physical computing, short films, music. Mon, Dec 11, 7 p.m.

Kings, Raleigh. www.kingsraleigh.com.

Pictures on Silk with Resist Workshop: $95. Sun, Dec 10, 10 a.m. fernsandfancy.com.

SPECIAL Signs of the Times: EVENT A Single Lady’s Life in Neon: Neon signs by Danielle James. Dec 8-22.

Reception: Fri, Dec 8, 6 p.m.

Glas, Raleigh.

A Field, A World: Charlotte native John Beerman spent three decades living and painting in the Hudson Valley.

Six years ago, he returned to his native North Carolina, bringing with him a delicate way of dealing with light. Beerman’s paintings, while indebted to the light-obsessed Hudson Valley painters of the nineteenth century, are less grandiose visions. His eye directs itself toward nature and landscapes, but he often frames only fragments of them, fixating upon uncommon angles of perception. Segments of tree trunks are foregrounded, the earth in which they are rooted and their leaves overhead unseen. This photograph-like framing, along with a gentle way of abstracting away shadow, lends his work stillness and softness. Thru Jan 20.

Craven Allen Gallery, Durham. cravenallengallery.com.

—Noah Rawlings

And Then the Sun Swallowed Me: Black tape and video installation by Heather Gordon.

Thru Feb 4. CAM Raleigh, Raleigh. camraleigh.org.

Annual Holiday Show: Artwork and jewelry. Thru Dec 29.

Gallery C, Raleigh. galleryc.net.

The Boomer List: Photography

by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders.

Thru Dec 31. NC Museum of History, Raleigh. www.ncmuseumofhistory.org.

Character Space: Text-based art

by Scott Hazard and Stephanie Strange. Thru Jan 27. Artspace, Raleigh. www.artspacenc.org.

LAST Court and Capital: CHANCE Art from Asia’s Greatest Cities: Thru Dec 10.

Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill. www.ackland.org.

The Disaster Paintings: Donald Sultan. Thru Dec 31. NC Museum of Art, Raleigh. www.ncartmuseum.org.

Don’t Quit: The Nello Teer Sr. Story: History of the Teer family in Durham. Thru Dec 15. Durham History Hub. museumofdurhamhistory.org.

Drawn Together: Mixed media drawings and ceramics by Kiki INDYweek.com | 12.6.17 | 37

Farish, Jean LeCluyse, Aggie Zed. Thru Dec 22. FRANK Gallery, Chapel Hill. www.frankisart.com.

Envision Saint Agnes Hospital: Community and student artists.

Thru Jan 5. Miriam Preston Block Gallery, Raleigh. www.raleighnc.gov/arts.

Exterminati Sunt Mechanica: John Elliott. Thru Jan 28. NC Museum of Natural Sciences, Raleigh. naturalsciences.org.

Fine Contemporary Craft Exhibition: Juried by Roger Manley. Thru Jan 13. Artspace, Raleigh. www.artspacenc.org.

Flash of Light, Fog of War: Japanese military prints 18941905. Thru Jan 7. Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill. www.ackland.org.

FRANK Gallery Pop-up Show: As many people travel home for the holidays, the member artists of Chapel Hill’s FRANK Gallery are heading the other way. After seven years on Franklin Street, the regional artists’ nonprofit is filling the void for a gallery— after Tyndall Galleries’ departure to cyberspace—in the ever less mall-like University Place (anyone else kind of miss Roses and Kerr Drugs?), where it has a grand reopening on February 9. While FRANK will remain open in its current location until December 22, it also currently has a monthlong preview of its new digs. The move is presided over by new gallery manager Natalie Knox, who, with a minor in art history and “extensive experience in retail management and merchandizing,” seems well chosen to lead FRANK out of the food court that formerly funky Franklin Street has become and into the lifestyle-commerce arena of Silverspot, Kidzu Children’s Museum, and Planet Fitness. University Place, Chapel Hill. frankisart.com. —Brian Howe Freeze!: Installation by Mary Carter Taub. Thru Jan 5. Miriam Preston Block Gallery, Raleigh. www.raleighnc.gov/arts.

Gutter Box: Translatio Imperii North Korea, 1950: Painting by Lien Truong. Thru Jan 4. Lump, Raleigh. www.teamlump.org.

Holiday Salon & Craft Exhibition: Pottery, glass, jewelry, photography, painting, fibers, books, and printmaking by twenty-five artists. Thru Dec 30. Horse & Buggy Press and Friends, Durham. www.horseandbuggypress.com.

LAST Image of Ukraine: CHANCE Exploring Ukrainian 38 | 12.6.17 | INDYweek.com

Culture through Embroidery and Painting: Olena Zintchouk. Thru Dec 8. UNC Campus: FedEx Global Education Center, Chapel Hill. www.global.unc.edu.

A Kiss of the Earth: Apt for a work about a season of fecundity, the epochal modernist ballet The Rite of Spring just keeps on giving, more than a century after its legendary premiere. It’s the inspiration for this experiment

by UNC-Chapel Hill associate art professor Sabine Gruffat, whose interactive threechannel video projection remixes the story of a pagan tribe’s maiden sacrifice: realtime weather data from Paris affects the weather in the animation, and viewers can text to a number on the wall to further alter the proceedings.

Thru Jan 28. NC Museum of Art, Raleigh.ncartmuseum.org.

—Brian Howe Louis C. Tiffany: Art and Innovation from the Wester Collection: Stained glass windows, vases, lamps. Thru Mar 4. NC Museum of History, Raleigh. www.ncmuseumofhistory.org.

Low Country Life: Paintings by Irene Tison. Thru Jan 4. Mike’s Art Truck, Hillsborough.

More than One Story | Mas de una historia: Photography. Thru Feb 1. UNC Campus: Davis Library, Chapel Hill. www.lib. unc.edu/davis.

New Works: Kenia Brea. Thru Dec 30. Artspace, Raleigh. www.artspacenc.org.

Pop Realism: Paintings by Robert Box. Thru Dec 31.

Gallery C, Raleigh. www.galleryc.net.

LAST Peacemaker: John CHANCE Kayrouz. Thru Dec 10. The Carrack Modern Art, Durham. www.thecarrack.org.

Barbara Rhode: Watercolors.

Thru Dec 31. Bull City Art & Frame Co, Durham. www. bullcityartandframecompany. com.

The Shape of Fashion: Dress trends from 1800s to 1900s.

Thru May 6. NC Museum of History, Raleigh. www.ncmuseumofhistory.org.

David Shingler & Jimmy Craig Womble: You don’t have to go to the countryside or the museum to look at landscapes—you live in one, even if it doesn’t match the bucolic associations of the term. Oil painters David

Shingler and Jimmy Craig Womble remind us that there is more to landscapes than rolling meadows and hazy mountains. On your way to the gallery, you might pass through views presented in Shingler’s energetic impressions of downtown Raleigh, while Womble’s softer, dreamier hues extend the exhibit’s purview to include Outer Banks docks and Blue Ridge waterfalls.

Expect the show to color your perspective for the rest of the evening—after seeing art that looks like the city, the city should look more like art. Thru Dec 23. Adam Cave Fine Art, Raleigh. adamcavefineart.com.

—Brian Howe Simple Elegance: Paintings

by Stephen White. Thru Dec 31. Little Art Gallery & Craft Collection, Raleigh. littleartgalleryandcraft.com.

LAST Simple/Complex: CHANCE Weavings by Ann Roth. Thru Dec 10. Meymandi Concert Hall, Raleigh. dukeenergycenterraleigh.com.

Step Right Up: Sculpture by Patrick Dougherty. Thru Aug 31.

Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill. www.ackland.org.

The SuperNatural: We’ve lost sight of the seams, once considered inviolable, between nature, technology, and commerce—though we sometimes imagine we are crossing a boundary when we take thousand-dollar bikes into deceptively wild woods with our smartphones and moisture wicking socks.

The SuperNatural wades into this liminal zone, exploring how we see and shape the contours of our planet as the physical refuse of the industrial age shades into the digital refuse of the present. The show includes a generative digital video by Tabor Robak, a virtual reality installation by Jakob Kudsk Steensen, and photos by Lars Jan, among many others.

Brooklyn artist Chris Doyle created “Dreams of Infinite Luster,” a digital animation, for the exterior vitrines. In it, “All the elements are rendered in gold, the color of lucre—the product, engine, and goal of capitalism.” Is a luxury hotel an odd site for post-capitalist critique? Sure. But, as we’ve said, what seams? Thru Jul 1.

21c Museum Hotel, Durham. www.21cmuseumhotels.com/ durham. —Brian Howe

Test of Faith: Signs, Serpents, Salvation: Photographs by Lauren Pond. Thru Feb 4. Duke Campus: Rubenstein Library, Durham.

LAST things I can’t say CHANCE out loud: By Martha Faith Rogers. Thru Dec 12.

Meredith College: GaddyHamrick Art Center, Raleigh. www.meredith.edu.

LAST Triangle Visual CHANCE Artists Exposition: Paintings, photography, weavings. Thru Dec 15.

The Frontier, RTP. Triangle Weavers Art Exhibition: Fiber art. Thru Jan 6. Carrboro Branch Library, Carrboro. www.co.orange. nc.us/library/carrboro.

We are greater than the sum of our parts: Collaboration around the Durham Bull. Thru Dec 23.

Pleiades Gallery, Durham. www.PleiadesArtDurham.com.

We’ve Met Before: Handwoven cloth has a certain rigor, a requirement for stitches to interact with structural integrity rather than spontaneity. Ink, meanwhile, has a quicksilver impulsiveness, a tendency to slip and run unbounded.

Andrea Donnelly holds this contrast in tension. The images on her large textile pieces evoke bodies, Rorschach blots, abstract flora, and, most of all, memory. Dyed, woven, unwoven, and rewoven, the work contains “a literal record of its own making.” Thru Jan 28. N.C. Museum of Art, Raleigh. www.ncartmuseum.org.

—Brian Howe Winter Corridor Artists Exhibition: Dana Ayscue, Cynthia Bickley Green, Stephen Cefalo, Eileen Hendren, Kelly Murray. Thru Jan 27. Artspace, Raleigh. www.artspacenc.org.

food Cooking the Books Dinner: Five-course meal with guest chef Bill Smith and Al and Melody Bowers. Celebrating Flyleaf’s favorite cookbooks. $50. Thu, Dec 7, 7 p.m. Mel’s Commissary, Carrboro. www.melscarrboro.com.

Faithful Friends: The Holiday Tea: $16-$32. Thru Jan 7, 2:304:30 p.m. Washington Duke Inn & Golf Club, Durham. www.washingtondukeinn.com.

stage OPENING 3rd Annual Boom or Bust: Star Wars Burlesque: $12-$25. Fri, Dec 8, 9:30 p.m.

The Maywood, Raleigh. www.themaywoodraleigh.com.

A Christmas Carol: Play. $15+.

Dec 12-17. PlayMakers Repertory Company, Chapel Hill. www. playmakersrep.org. — Dec 6-10.

Memorial Auditorium, Raleigh. dukeenergycenterraleigh.com.

Deluxe Standup with Funny People: Stand-up comedy. Thu, Dec 7, 8:30 p.m. Ruby Deluxe, Raleigh. www.facebook.com/ RubyDeluxeRaleigh.

Disney on Ice: Dare to Dream: Dec 6-10. PNC Arena, Raleigh. www.thepncarena.com.

An Evening with Tim Renkow: Stand-up comedy. $10. Sat, Dec 9, 7 p.m. Wall of Sound Music Center, Durham.

A Fairy Tale Christmas Carol and The Great Big Holiday Bake Off: Play and musical. $6-$10.

Dec 8-10. Halle Cultural Arts Center, Apex. www.thehalle.org.

Great Russian Nutcracker: Moscow Ballet. $28+. Wed, Dec 13 & Thu, Dec 14, 7 p.m.

Carolina Theatre, Durham. www.carolinatheatre.org.

Jon Reep: Stand-up comedy.

Dec 13-16. Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh. www.goodnightscomedy.com.

Meemaw’s Holiday Holler: Open mic talent show with the cast of A Trailer Park Christmas. $15-$17.

Sat, Dec 9, 7:30 p.m. Manbites Dog Theater, Durham. www. manbitesdogtheater.org.

See box, p. 39.

The Nutcracker: Triangle Youth Ballet. $19-$32. Sat, Dec 9, 11 a.m. & 3:30 p.m. Carolina Theatre, Durham. www. carolinatheatre.org. — Carolina Ballet. Dec 9-10. Durham Performing Arts Center, Durham. www.dpacnc.com.

Wet Hot American Summer: The Musical (sort of): Musical (sort of). $15. Fri, Dec 8 & Sat, Dec 9, 8 p.m. www.nightlightclub.com.

See p. 30.

The Year of the Coxx: Birthday Roast for Vivica: $10. Sat, Dec 9, 10 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham. www.thepinhook.com.

Joe Zimmerman: Stand-up comedy. Dec 7-9. Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh. www.goodnightscomedy.com.

ONGOING

Anything Goes Late Show: Sat, Dec 9, 10:30 p.m. Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh. www.goodnightscomedy.com.

LAST A Charlie Brown CHANCE Christmas: Play.

Thru Dec 10. Theatre In The Park, Raleigh. www.theatreinthepark.com.

Cinderella: Play. $27+. Thru Dec 17. Raleigh Little Theatre, Raleigh. raleighlittletheatre.org.

LAST ½ Dot: In this CHANCE production of Colman Domingo’s 2016 domestic drama, Rasool Jahan gives an intrepid performance as Shelly, a young lawyer, single mother, and certified control freak caught in a situation she cannot control. Her mother Dot’s Alzheimer’s disease is progressing and, as the selfdesignated “responsible” daughter, Shelly is convinced she’s the only one who can take care of her. With two days left until Christmas and Dot (a sterling Kathryn HunterWilliams) even dottier than usual, it’s clear that something has to give. Director Nicole Watson deftly mines a candid brand of gallows humor. As estranged siblings and lovers reconcile and family bonds reform and solidify, this bittersweet holiday tale reminds us that some losses are reversible, and that enough of the past can be protected to fund an uncertain future. $10+.

Thru Dec. 11. PlayMakers Repertory Company, Chapel Hill. www.playmakersrep.org.

—Byron Woods The Harry Show: Ages 18+.

Improv host leads potentially risque games with audience participation. $10. Fri, Dec 8 & Sat, Dec 9, 10 p.m.

ComedyWorx, Raleigh. comedyworx.com.

LAST  Lake Placid: CHANCE If you’re looking for Lake Placid, don’t take I-87 north from New York. Instead, look somewhere between the films of Robert Altman and the golden age of Charles Schulz’s

Peanuts. (Should you reach Wes Anderson, make a U-turn; you’ve gone a bit too far.) That notional zone is where you’d find the result of Little Green Pig’s new theatrical experiment, which uses long-form techniques originally developed and-up nd-up oodnights odnights for improv comedy. Directed by Jaybird O’Berski, the work gh. h. medy.com. edy.com. begins anew each night, with the actors portraying different characters—a mix of smallShow: Show:Sat, Sat, town locals and international oodnights odnights athletes visiting for the 1980 gh. h.

Winter Olympics—in the medy.com. edy.com. Adirondacks village of the title.

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Play. ereInInThe The showed Emily Levinstone’s Sam on the precipice of expressing her attraction to Dana Marks’s k.com. rk.com. free-spirited Carol before +. . Thru Thru retreating back into denial.

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Sunday night was the strongest yet, as nine actors threaded four distinct subplots. A masterful flurry of switch-ins and -outs in the ending sequences has the actors collaborate as playwrights on the fly, collecting narrative threads and weaving a rewarding finale. $8-$17. Thru Dec 9. Durham Fruit Company, Durham. —Byron Woods Peter Pan & Wendy: J.M. Barrie may have created Peter Pan, but he didn’t invent the puer aeternus—the eternal boy.

That enigma has been around since at least the days of Ovid, who praised the minor god Iacchus as the embodiment of auspicious beginnings, mirth, and dance. But, like most archetypes, the ever-child has darker aspects as well, which psychologist Dan Kiley explored

in the 1980s—and which Barrie more than alluded to in Peter and Wendy, the 1911 novel based on his original hit play from seven years before. What is an eternal figure devoted to the caprices of childhood capable of? Why does Barrie finally conclude that children are “innocent and heartless?” Guest director Lillian White probes the nuances in this new, devised adaptation from Burning Coal, with Alec Silver and Shawn Morgenlander in the title roles. $5-$25. Thru Dec 17. Burning Coal Theatre, Raleigh. burningcoal.org.

—Byron Woods Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: The Musical: Broadway Series South.

Thru Dec 24.

Fletcher Opera Theater, Raleigh dukeenergycenterraleigh.com.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 7–SATURDAY, DECEMBER 16

A TRAILER PARK CHRISTMAS

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A Trailer Park Christmas

PHOTO COURTESY OF MANBITES DOG THEATER

This wasn’t supposed to happen, you understand. Last December, co-conspirators Jeffrey Moore and Rachel Klem took their final bows as Meemaw Hussey, the dowager countess of a certain doublewide in West Durham, and her semi-doting daughter-in-law, Loraine, in the farewell production of their low-rent holiday farce, A Trailer Park Christmas, which coincided with the closing of Common Ground Theatre. But theater, to paraphrase Jeff Goldblum, finds a way. Luckily, when puppet master Torry Bend pulled her current work in progress from the December slot at Manbites Dog Theater, the whole dysfunctional clan was standing Lake ake Placid: Placid:by to pick up the slack. In its tenth-annual production, nerves are on edge because Christmas ooking lookingfor for isn’t the only thing approaching Row M, Lot 16. An eviction notice and a late-season hurrike e I-87 I-87 cane are also on the way. What’s worse? Meemaw and Loraine ain’t getting along; one’s been k.Instead, Instead, sniping at the other now for days. Surely no one would use a holiday family reunion to have it ween weenthe the out or expose the most shameful family secrets. —Byron Woods an andthe the n and sSchulz’s Schulz’s MANBITES DOG THEATER, DURHAM | Various times, $22–$24, www.manbitesdogtheater.org

967-6159

(919) 967-6159

bill.burton.lawyer@gmail.com INDYweek.com | 12.6.17 | 39

page READINGS & SIGNINGS Heather Bell Adams: Maranatha Road. Sun, Dec 10, 2 p.m. McIntyre’s Books, Pittsboro. www. mcintyresbooks.com.

Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill. www.flyleafbooks.com.

LECTURES ETC.

Michael Smith: And There was Evening and There was Morning.

Sun, Dec 10, 2 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh. www. quailridgebooks.com.

The 2017 Wilde Children’s Book Awards: Susie Wilde. Thu, Dec 7, 7 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh. quailridgebooks.com.

Boozy Poetry Night: Local poets read their work. Mon Dec 11, 8:30 p.m. The Stag’s Head, Raleigh.

Nate Swick: American Birding Association Field Guide to Birds of the Carolinas. Sat, Dec 9, 11 a.m McIntyre’s Books, Pittsboro. www.mcintyresbooks.com.

Imagining Color: Color Threads in Proust and Murasaki: Elaine Scarry. Thu, Dec 7, 6 p.m. National Humanities Center, Durham. www. nationalhumanitiescenter.org.

Nancy MacLean: Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America. Sat, Dec 9, 3 p.m.

Dar Williams: What I Found in A Thousand Towns. $30. Wed, Dec 13, 8 p.m. The ArtsCenter, Carrboro. artscenterlive.org.

Nerd Nite 4: Seeing is Believing: Series of short talks.

Wed, Dec 13, 7 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill. www.local506.com.

screen SUNDAY, DECEMBER 10

L7: PRETEND WE’RE DEAD & DON’T BREAK DOWN: A FILM ABOUT JAWBREAKER STILL FROM DON’T BREAK DOWN: A FILM ABOUT JAWBREAKER

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 7

NOIR AT THE BAR

This two-documentary bill at Motorco is a capsule of a time when punk music met the mainstream, producing great successes, spectacular failures, and widespread identity crises. The phenomenon that became known as grunge was dominated by sad men who did too many drugs to have much sex, which makes the all-female band L7 especially notable as grunge pioneers. After their early career seeded the riot grrrl movement, their ferocious early-nineties albums, such as Hungry for Stink, propelled them to Lollapalooza stages. (And they weren’t shy about reproductive functions; singer Donita Sparks famously removed her tampon onstage in England and threw it at some unruly fans.) Around the same time in Los Angeles, while people were still trying to figure out what “emo” was, besides an insult hurled at strangely sensitive punk bands, Jawbreaker was recording what are still some of the most revered emocore albums ever, hurtling toward their career-crowning and coffin-nailing major-label swan song, Dear You. Now, underground and mainstream divisions mean much less. But here’s a snapshot of the last moments when the difference had meaning and so many bands crashed trying to ride out the sea change. —Brian Howe MOTORCO MUSIC HALL, DURHAM | 5:30 p.m., $8–$10, www.motorcomusic.com

SPECIAL SHOWINGS Dimona Twist: Sat, Dec 9, 7 p.m. Kehillah Synagogue, Chapel Hill. www. kehillahsynagogue.org.

To Life: Free-$3. Tue, Dec 12, 7-9 p.m. Levin Jewish Community Center, Durham. www.levinjcc.org.

Mahogany: $5-$7. Fri, Dec 8, 8 p.m. NC Museum of Art, Raleigh. ncartmuseum.org.

Eryk Pruitt PHOTO BY ROSIE LINDSEY The war on Christmas is heating up as local crime author extraordinaire (and occasional INDY contributor) Eryk Pruitt—who’s been on the lam touring his latest Southern thriller, What We Reckon—returns to inject immoral filth into a pious season with this Yuletide edition of Noir at the Bar, a recurring crime-author convention at 106 Main. Seven crime and sci-fi authors will cram into the shadowy tavern to read, sell and sign books, and get blotto while welcoming their wayward ringleader home. Expect holiday-themed stories from Katy Munger, Warren Moore, J.D. Allen, S.A. Cosby, David Terrenoire, Nik Patrick, and Pruitt. “I’ve traveled around the country doing these Noir at the Bar events in other cities,” Pruitt says. “However, there’s nothing like reading in front of your home crowd. It’s a real treat to introduce Durham to a couple of writers from out of town, as well as some right here in our own backyard.” Of course it is; that’s where the bodies are buried. —Brian Howe

106 MAIN, DURHAM | 7 p.m., free, www.106main.com

Secrets the Snow Knows...: A/V Geeks. $5. Tue, Dec 12, 8 p.m. Kings, Raleigh. www. kingsraleigh.com.

Trees Lounge: With music and hot dogs. Thu, Dec 7, 7 p.m. Shadowbox Studio, Durham. www. shadowboxstudio.org.

OPENING  The Disaster Artist— Reviewed on p. 27. Rated R.

N OW P L AY I N G The INDY uses a five-star rating scale. Read reviews of these films at indyweek.com.

40 | 12.6.17 | INDYweek.com

 Blade Runner 2049— This satisfying sequel to Ridley Scott’s seminal sci-fi noir reminds us that it works best to mess with the classics when there’s actually something wrong with them. Rated R.  Coco—This Day of the Dead-themed animated fantasy has one of Pixar’s richest worlds and weakest stories. Rated PG.  It—Blend vintage Spielberg with Stranger Things and you get this scary, heartfilled new version of Stephen King’s horror classic. Rated R. ½ Justice League— Uneven but much better than Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, this collision of Zack Snyder’s bombast and Joss Whedon’s wit actually kind of works. Rated PG-13.  Lady Bird—Greta Gerwig’s nostalgic coming-ofage debut as a writer-director is winning and alert to class but falters on race. Rated R.  The LEGO Ninjago Movie—Expect weak puns, weary pop-culture references, and a waning sense of discovery from this Ninjago-

branded minor entry in the LEGO franchise. Rated PG. ½ The Man Who Invented Christmas—Charles Dickens and his famous A Christmas Carol characters come to life in this pleasant holiday surprise from across the pond. Rated PG.  Novitiate—Maggie Betts’s quietly stunning historical drama is about a group of nuns trying to keep the faith against an encroaching modern world.

Rated R.  Thor: Ragnarok—A stodgy, self-serious franchise springs to life with demigods delightfully out of their element, as Thor squares off against the Hulk and tries to stop Hela from destroying Asgard. Rated PG-13. ½ Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri— Maybe the Coen brothers could have pulled it off, but Martin McDonagh has tonal problems with the weighty themes and discordant plot of this vengeful-mother tale.

Rated R.

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KEEP DOGS SHELTERED Coalition to Unchain Dogs seeks plastic or igloo style dog houses for dogs in need, as well as indoor metal crates.

To donate, please contact Amanda at director@unchaindogs.net.

To adopt: 919-403-2221 or visit animalrescue.net

renovations

Upscale Spa. private outdoor hot tubs, 26 massage therapists, overnight accommodations, sauna and more.

Starting at $42.

Shojiretreats.com 828-299-0999

entertainment Instant live phone connections with local women & men. Try It FREE! 18+ 919.899.6800, 336.235.7777 www.questchat.com

home improvement

critters

Sponsored by

INDUSTRIAL SUPPLY AUCTION Saturday, December 16th @ 10am 300 Rampart St., Charlotte, NC. Inventory Reduction of Nationwide Wholesaler. From Gloves to Machine Tools. 704791-8825 ncaf5479 www.

ClassicAuctions.com

misc.

GOT AN OLDER CAR, VAN OR SUV? Do the humane thing. Donate it to the Humane Society. Call 1-855-617-2024

stuff

SAFE STEP WALK-IN TUB ALERT FOR SENIORS. Bathroom falls can be fatal.

Approved by Arthritis Foundation. Therapeutic Jets.

Less Than 4 Inch Step-In. Wide Door. Anti-Slip Floors.

American Made. Installation Included. Call 800-807-7219 for $750 Off.

SAWMILLS FROM ONLY $4397.00?

MAKE & SAVE MONEY with your own bandmill- Cut lumber any dimension. In stock ready to ship! FREE Info/DVD: www.NorwoodSawmills.com 1?-800?-578?-1363 Ext.300N

misc. events

for sale

notices

1-ACRE LOTS

LEGAL NOTICE Mobilitie, LLC is proposing to construct a proposed 50-foot tall overall height pole located at Calvary Drive & Green Road, Raleigh, Wake County, North Carolina (N35∞ 50’ 43.5î; W78∞ 35’ 5.3î). Mobilitie, LLC invites comments from any interested party on the impact the pole may have on any Historic Properties. Comments may be addressed to: Public Notice Coordinator, 1375 Union Hill Industrial Court, Suite A, Alpharetta, Georgia 30004. Comments must be received within 30 days. For questions please call 770667-2040x111. T2400 CVG

Located in Eco-community in Efland. Comes with shared use of 7-acre nature preserve, active beaver ponds, water fowl, creeping cedar, ferns, all wooded, beautiful. Text Tom at 919932-0704

Contact your ad rep or advertising@indyweek.com to be part of our next

Holiday Gift Guide Coming December 13th!

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INDYweek.com | 12.6.17 | 41

crossword

RECYCLE THIS PAPER RECYCLE THIS PAPER RECYCLE THIS PAPER RECYCLE THIS PAPER RECYCLE THIS PAPER RECYCLE THIS PAPER RECYCLE THIS PAPER RECYCLE THIS PAPER 4 PAPER RECYCLE 5THIS 3 7 RECYCLE 1 2 9THIS 7 PAPER 5 8 THIS 3 PAPER 9 2 1RECYCLE RECYCLE THIS PAPER 6 9 RECYCLE 69 4 THIS 2 5 7PAPER 3THIS PAPER 79RECYCLE 8 5 4 7 RECYCLE 55 THIS 8 PAPER 2 RECYCLE 6THIS 8PAPER 2 6 3 9 5RECYCLE 8 3 THIS PAPER RECYCLE PAPER 9 3 THIS 1 2 47RECYCLE THIS PAPER 7 RECYCLE 8 1 THIS 4 #PAPER MEDIUM 93 RECYCLE THIS PAPER 5 3 THIS PAPER su |MEDIUM do | kuRECYCLE this week’s puzzle level: # 38 RECYCLE THIS PAPER © Puzzles by Pappocom

If you just can’t wait, check out the current week’s answer key at www.indyweek.com, and click “Diversions” at the bottom of our webpage.

9 1 9 6 4 9 2 7 8 5 6 7 1 4 3 7 1 9 8 6 5 3 4 5 2 2 MEDIUM

There is really only one rule to Sudoku: Fill in the game board so that the numbers 1 through 9 occur exactly once in each row, column, and 3x3 box.

The numbers can appear in any order and diagonals are not considered.

Your initial game board will consist of several numbers that are already placed. Those numbers cannot be changed. Your goal is to fill in the empty squares following the simple rule above.

1 3

2 8 7 9 55 8 2 9 2 44 1 3 13 1 7 2 5

2

3 6

3 9 8 5 7 5 9 1 2 4 3 6 8

8 4 3 6 5 7 1 9 2

2 6 1 8 9 3 4 5 7

3 1 5 9 8 2 7 4 6

3 9

9 4 4 2 7 42 9 33 8 6

3

3 6 8 7 5 2 8

4

# 95

6 5 1

4 4 1 9

7

6

8

5 5 3

2

MEDIUM

# 96

7 1 2 6

MEDIUM # 93

2

1 4 58 6

7

MEDIUM

2

# 94

# 40 9 2 4 3 7 6 5 8 1

6 8 7 4 1 5 2 3 9

5 9 8 2 3 1 6 7 4

4 7 2 5 6 8 9 1 3

1 3 6 7 4 9 8 2 5

solution to last week’s puzzle

# 39 www.sudoku.com 9 3 6 1 5 7 2 4 8 4 5 7 | 8INDYweek.com 9 2 1 6 3 42 | 12.6.17 2 8 1 6 3 4 5 7 9 8 2 5 4 1 9 7 3 6 3 6 9 5 7 8 4 2 1 7 1 4 2 6 3 8 9 5

# 94

5 1 6 7 3 8 2 9 4 If you just8 can’t 7 2 1 wait, 4 9 3check 6 5 out the current 4 3 9week’s 2 6 5 answer 7 8 1 2 8 4 9 5 3 6 1 7 key at www.indyweek.com, 9 5 1 6 2 7 4 3 8 and click “Diversions”.

3 6 7 8 1 4 9 5 2 Best of luck, 1 9 and 8 4 have 7 6 5fun!

2 3 6 4 3 5 8 2 1 7 9 www.sudoku.com 7 2 5 3 9 1 8 4 6

# 40

12.6.17 8 7 4 3 1 2

5 3 1 6 4 9

9 2 6 8 7 5

2 4 3 1 6 7

6 5 7 9 2 8

1 8 9 4 5 3

3 6 8 5 9 4

# 95

4Page 7 24 of 25 9 1 2 5 7 2 8 3 1 6

6 2 8 4 1 3 9 7 5

1 4 7 5 9 2 6 8 3

3 5 9 8 7 6 1 4 2

9 1 5 6 4 8 3 2 7

7 8 2 9 3 1 5 6 4

4 3 6 2 5 7 8 9 1

5 7 4 3 6 9 2 1 8

8 9 3 1 2 4 7 5 6

2 6 1 7 8 5 4 3 9

# 96

2 7 4 6 3 1 5 8 9

1 5 6 2 9 8 3 7 4

3 8 9 5 4 7 2 1 6

6 1 7 9 2 5 4 3 8

9 3 5 8 6 4 1 2 7

8 4 2 1 7 3 9 6 5

7 2 1 4 8 9 6 5 3

4 6 8 3 5 2 7 9 1

5 9 3 7 1 6 8 4 2

CLASSY AT INDYWEEK DOT COM 30/10/2005

Book your ad • Email kim: classy@indywEEk.com

please contact advertising@indyweek.com

THE INDY'S GUIDE TO THE TRIANGLE Bolinwood Condominiums To advertise or feature a pet for adoption, please contact advertising@indyweek.com

To advertise or feature a pet for adoption, please contact advertising@indyweek.com

Affordability without compromise

Convenient to UNC on N bus line 2 & 3 bedroom condominiums for lease

www.bolinwoodcondos.com • 919-942-7806

CAMPAIGN JOBS

Help doctors save lives across the world Work for Grassroots Campaigns on behalf of

To advertise or feature a pet for adoption, please contact advertising@indyweek.com

DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS

Earn $360 - $535 a week Full-Time/Part-Time/Career, Call Alex

984-260-8217

last week's puzzle

s d n sta

! w no

on

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COMPUTER REPAIR– WE COME TO YOU!

Trustworthy & Honest. Affordable rates. Mention this ad & receive $5 discount. Contact Ben Cothren @ 919-352-2189 Eminentcomputerrepair.com

DANCE CLASSES IN SWING, LINDY, BLUES, TAI CHI At ERUUF, Durham & ArtsCenter, Carrboro.

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