INDY Week March 20, 2024

Durham duo Gibson & Toutant get weird and dig deep on debut album

Raleigh

NEWS

5 Chapel Hill's vision for transit is beginning to take shape. BY CHASE PELLEGRINI DE

PAUR

6 Speeding traffic and violent collisions make walking in downtown Durham a tough sell. Busines owners and residents hope a resurfacing project on Roxboro and Mangum Streets will help make the area safer. BY JUSTIN

LAIDLAW

8 Durham Public Schools will join hundreds of other school systems in a lawsuit against Meta, Google, TikTok, and Snap. BY

STOREY WERTHEIMER

CAMP GUIDE

9 Where to send your kids this summer. BY INDY

STAFF

CULTURE

16 Durham duo Gibson & Toutant blends two decades of psychedelic rock, outsider folk, enthnomusicology, and internet archives on new album On the Green. BY

NICK MCGREGOR

18 In a new performance, choreographer Anna Barker counts the cost of trying to make a living in dance. BY

BYRON WOODS

19 A María Magdalena Campos-Pons exhibition at the Nasher takes in the radical force of shared identity. BY

TASSO HARTZOG

20 North Durham's Perfect Lovers is a community space for art, coffee, and experimentation. BY

SHELBI POLK

3

Flamenco

W E M A D E T H I S

For the web last week, we published a story by Justin Laidlaw on the City of Durham’s plans to get input from residents on the proposed redesign of Roxboro and Mangum Streets in the downtown area. We’re publishing that story in the paper this week, and you can read it on page 6.

Reader AUDREY SHORE sent us the following message via email:

I live off of N. Roxboro and was thrilled when I first learned about the resurfacing project. However, N. Roxboro is not a part of this project. About once a month, there is a multi-car accident at the intersection of N. Roxboro and Lavender and/or at the Club Blvd. and Avondale intersections with N. Roxboro. The speeding is horrible and multiple cars run the light at Lavender Ave. every time it turns red. The NCDOT owns the road so there is little Durham Transportation can do, but it is incredibly unsafe. This is an area that should be more walkable, we have coffee shops, King’s Red and White, parks, and restaurants but you don’t see people walking because it is dangerous.

Thank you so much for the article about the Twitter account that tracks speed on Roxboro. I wish we had something like that on N. Roxboro.

And in our paper two weeks ago, we published a story about local Vision Zero officials’ efforts to eliminate pedestrian fatalities from car crashes. We received the following note from reader STEVE JESSEPH:

I just read the article, Striving for Zero Deaths with dismay but no surprise.

No matter where I go in Wake County or throughout the State, far too many cars are moving well in excess of the posted speed limit. Either drivers don’t think the limits apply to them, they are affronted by the fact that the government would impinge upon their per-

sonal freedom by telling them to drive with a maximum speed, or they know with some certainty that they can speed with impunity because of the low likelihood of being caught. Public streets and roads in North Carolina are NOT practice tracks for the Richard Petty School of Racecar Driving.

RPD ticketed 42 drivers for speeding this last weekend in downtown Raleigh in just two hours. Wake County Deputies and the NC Highway Patrol could issue 100 times that on I-540 and I-440 alone in those same two hours.

A similar issue surrounds red lights. In the past year, I’ve almost been broadsided three times as I move into an intersection on a green light as someone comes flying through the red light. I’ve also seen at least five very near misses in the last six months alone. Apparently a red light means “Hurry up, you can make it!” by too many.

I’ve heard that Raleigh and many other communities are short of officers. Government officials must, in my view, place a priority on public safety and services above all else when preparing budgets. It’s what we pay taxes for. Police and fire protection should be the #1 and #2 ... priorities in governance. While it may be the largest line item in government budgets, it is still not enough.

I am all for individual freedom. We are blessed to be living in the most free country in the world. But with that freedom comes the responsibility to not recklessly kill our fellow citizens.

Durham

15 MINUTES

Elena Paces-Wiles

Durham high school journalist Elena Paces-Wiles is the 2024 NC High School Journalist of the Year.

BY JAMES BURRELL backtalk@indyweek.com

Paces-Wiles is a senior and coeditor of the Riverside High School student newspaper, The Pirates’ Hook. There, she has focused on investigative journalism that exposes inequities. She will now go on to represent the state in the National High School Journalist of the Year scholarship competition, where a winner will be announced in April.

How has writing for The Pirates’ Hook been, and what made you get into journalism?

I first decided to join journalism because my freshman year [of school] was online. I followed The Pirates’ Hook on Instagram and saw many of their stories. They were really cool, and I wanted to get involved. I also had always been interested in writing.

How does it feel to be awarded the NC High School Journalist of the Year?

It’s definitely exciting. It says a lot about our program. More than just me, all the hard work that everyone and my adviser has put in speaks to the strength of our program. [Working with my adviser] has been a really invaluable part of my high school experience. It’s been great.

What type of stories do you like to cover?

My favorite stories to cover have been investigative stories that take the whole semester, just like more long-form stuff, which I think we first started in 2021 with the partnership with the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting [that was then housed at UNCChapel Hill]. We’ve done a lot of long-form, semester-long investigative research, and it’s my favorite.

What do you plan to do after graduating?

I plan to attend college to major in psychology. W

PHOTO BY TATE GASCH

GASCH newspaper, The inequities. of the followed cool, and the hard program. experisemester, partnership at UNCand it’s

N E W S Chapel Hill

Dreams in Transit

Chapel Hill’s future may not include light rail, but its vision for Bus Rapid Transit is beginning to take shape.

BY CHASE PELLEGRINI DE PAUR CHASE@INDYWEEK.COM

In Chapel Hill, buses painted Carolina blue shepherd students, residents, visitors, nurses, and workers up and down the town’s roughly eight-mile-long north-south corridor. It’s the college town’s spine, comprising NC Highway 86 and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Like all Chapel Hill bus routes, it’s also fare-free for riders thanks to a partnership between Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and UNC-Chapel Hill. It’s a perfectly fine service, and the town wants to make it even better for commuters with an upgrade to a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system.

The BRT, in a town nearly as old as the nation itself, is more than another tentative line on a map. It’s an opportunity to showcase a progressive vision for the future—one based on busing, biking, walking, and affordability. A successful BRT could prove that it’s possible to realize the dreams of greenways and sustainability that policy makers have promised for years, most recently in the Complete Communities framework.

“Public transportation connects people to jobs, school, family, and more—and when transit reaches more people and communities, its impact is even greater,” said U.S. transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg in a press release announcing the recommendation of a $138.3 million investment in Chapel Hill’s BRT earlier this month. If Congress approves that money, the town’s transit department has an ambitious plan to transform the way people move along the north-south axis.

“It’s one of our highest-ridership routes,” says Brian Litchfield, Chapel Hill’s transit director. But that route is facing challenges: there’s demand for more service, says Litchfield, but just adding more buses won’t help if they all end up sitting in traffic. It also won’t help to just add more

lanes, the common instinct of planners from across the country since the post–World War II era of the automobile began.

BRT is designed to solve those problems by operating like a subway system— efficient and predictable, regardless of road congestion—without ever digging a single tunnel. The system would rely on about five miles of exclusive bus lanes, allowing bus commuters to roll past auto traffic at any time of day. It would also deploy traffic-signal technology, holding green lights longer for approaching buses in order to minimize time waiting at red lights.

The bus itself is the headliner, but the project also includes a multiuse path (basically a large bike lane) and improvements to the sidewalks along the corridor.

“It’s going to improve bus service, but it’s also going to substantially improve the ability for the community to be able to bike, walk, or move throughout that corridor in something besides a personal vehicle,” says Litchfield.

By more effectively linking the park-andrides at Eubanks Road and Southern Village, the town hopes to make the BRT so good that residents don’t need to rely on a car, which policy makers see as an important step toward affordability in Chapel Hill. Even as residents and town leaders have split over methods for responsibly managing the town’s growth, factions have generally agreed on an affordable housing plan and the need to make sure that the people who work in the town can afford to live there. The American Automobile Association (AAA) estimates that the cost of owning a car is more than $12,000 a year. That may not be much for the average tenured professor at UNC, but it’s a hell of a hit to the wallet for someone making the

state’s minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.

The BRT has been in the works since as early as 2012, when Orange County voters approved a 1/2¢ sales tax to raise money for public transportation. With projected population growth and demand for transit services on the rise, a package of plans that also included the Durham-Orange Light Rail got Triangle residents dreaming about options for a future of connectivity.

But the light rail plan had too many stakeholders and too high a price tag. It imploded before a single inch of track was laid. To this day, residents who are asked about light rail are apt to shake their heads and mutter in annoyance about Duke Hospital. The BRT plan—smaller and simpler—meanwhile, kept quietly rolling along. Now, it’s gaining momentum where light rail failed.

Litchfield doesn’t find the comparison particularly helpful.

“Light rail … was a whole different project on a whole different level related to funding and challenges related to stakeholders,” Litchfield says.

Chapel Hill isn’t the first place in the Triangle to consider BRT. Raleigh’s BRT, currently under construction, has come under fire because it was paired with a set of zoning changes to encourage denser development along the route. That issue is specific to Raleigh, given the placement of the route, but the tug-of-war between

needed infrastructure improvements and their contribution to gentrification may play out in different ways in Chapel Hill as the project proceeds.

And there will be plenty of time for those conversations, as it’ll be at least five years before the wheels on the Bus Rapid Transit hit MLK Jr. Blvd.

President Biden’s department of transportation has recommended that Congress approve funding, along with 13 other similar projects, in the 2025 fiscal year budget. If approved on schedule, the town hopes to move through design and begin construction in 2026 or 2027, with operation beginning in 2029. But Litchfield is hesitant to put his faith in Congress’s timeline.

“Never place a bet on what Congress will do,” he says. “There’s no guarantee until we receive notification from the Federal Transit Administration.”

Still, he says that most projects that get this far ultimately do receive funding. And after a long process—one recent step required a 1,300-page application from the transit department—the town is optimistic about the future.

“We have all the … good vibes on making sure that gets fully funded by Congress,” said Chapel Hill mayor Jess Anderson, to light applause, at the council’s work session following the announcement. W

More information about Chapel Hill’s BRT plan can be found at NSBRT.org.

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY ANN SALMAN , PHOTO VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

N E W S Durham Road Works

Speeding traffic and violent collisions make walking in downtown Durham a tough sell. Business owners and residents hope a resurfacing project on Roxboro and Mangum Streets will help make the area safer.

BY JUSTIN LAIDLAW jlaidlaw@indyweek.com

Chris Perelstein needed to take his two dogs, Castillo and Luna, outside one last time before calling it a night. He’d moved from Raleigh to Durham with his wife, Lindsey, nearly a year ago. As he stepped out onto the patch of grass in front of his townhouse last May, a speeding car came barreling down Roxboro Street, jumped the curb, and nearly collided with Perelstein and Luna.

“I think that was the first thing where we got really rattled by unsafe conditions, specifically on the road we live on,” Perelstein says.

Perelstein, a computer programmer, decided to use his skills to develop a system for tracking vehicle speeds on the section of Roxboro Street in front of his house. He uses a camera and a Raspberry Pi, a small single-board computer, to capture photos of vehicles traveling at 55 miles per hour, 20 miles over the speed limit, or faster. Those photos are automatically posted to X (formerly Twitter) under the account @RecklessRoxboro. Perelstein hopes the account grabs the attention of folks in the community as well as the City of Durham’s transportation department and North Carolina’s Department of Transportation (NC DOT).

“I did go through a period where I was at-ing NC DOT,” Perelstein says. “Turns out that counts as spamming them if you don’t provide some method for them to unsubscribe, which I find ironic because I can’t unsubscribe from their unsafe road, right? I briefly got banned by Twitter for that.”

Residents will have the chance to share their concerns about pedestrian safety with Durham city staff at an upcoming open house regarding the resurfacing of

Roxboro Street and Mangum Street and may weigh in on an online survey and interactive web map on the city’s website through May 20.

Resurfacing is often used as a cost-effective way for local governments to make on-street design improvements. Adding features like bike lanes and crosswalks is cheaper because the paint and other materials are already budgeted for.

“Each one of those projects has funding already allocated to put down new pavement markings,” Durham transportation director Sean Egan told the INDY back in October. “So if we do some of that concept development and community engagement around changes in design, we basically get all of the construction costs for free.”

Making significant changes to stateowned roads can be a difficult task, as advocates found out in September when a communication breakdown between Durham’s transportation department and NC DOT led the Durham’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission (BPAC) to write an open letter to city and state officials criticizing NC DOT’s decision to halt infrastructure improvements on Fayetteville Street near NC-147.

“I don’t even look for places to go on Fayetteville Street, knowing we’re not going to drive there, because it’s not safe,” BPAC member Mary Rose Fontana told the INDY last fall. “It’s a deterrent for people who don’t want to risk their safety.”

Residents and business owners in the Roxboro/Mangum project footprint echo concerns about safety in their neighborhood. Exorbitant speeds on those streets are not uncommon, according to data Perelstein has collected over the past several months.

“We generally have about 250 reckless speeders a day,” Perelstein says. “Some days it’s upwards of 350 to 400, some days it’s down at like 150. It varies.”

State law marks reckless driving at 15 miles per hour over the designated speed limit. On Roxboro Street, the speed limit is 35 miles per hour. Perelstein says that, because X (Twitter) only allows him to send 50 automated tweets a day for free, he had to raise the speed limit of cars he was tweeting pictures of from 50 to 59 miles per hour. Otherwise, there would be too many speeding vehicles for the account to post.

Mangum Street has seen a resurgence of activity in the last year. New apartments and condos have popped up, and new businesses have taken root in Old Five Points. But the precarity of walking down the block, says Lindsey Andrews, owner of Night School Bar on North Mangum Street, is a deterrent for potential customers.

“We don’t see that much foot traffic even though there are people in the neighborhoods all around,” Andrews says. “I think having a street that feels safer to walk up and down, with more greenery and bike lanes, would really increase foot traffic, which would be nice for the businesses.”

Andrews lives in the neighborhood. She opened Night School Bar last October and frequently walks to work. Soon after signing the lease for her new business, Andrews says a vehicle crashed into the storefront next door. Last week, the driver

of a passenger van and an officer driving a Durham police car were involved in a crash at the intersection of Mangum and Morris Streets that sent the police car into the facade of Indian Monsoon.

These kinds of violent collisions are scary and make would-be pedestrians feel unsafe.

“It’s very difficult to promote people walking downtown,” says Marcus Morrow, neighborhood resident and co-owner of Chibanga’s Neighborhood Market, located at 506 North Mangum Street.

Chibanga’s and Everlou, the neighboring coffee shop, offer customers outdoor seating on the storefront patio, but access to the space and constant noise pollution from traffic on the street make hanging out at the businesses a tough sell.

“More people walking is great from a business perspective, but not when they’re terrified of getting hit by a car,” Morrow says.

Last month, residents and local officials gathered at the downtown Durham bus station to discuss the future of local transit in the region. City and county staff members shared budget overviews and details on specific initiatives that the transportation departments are investing in to make public transit safer and more accessible. W

Disclosure: Justin Laidlaw was formerly a member of the board of directors for the nonprofit Bike Durham. Bike Durham is lobbying for changes to Mangum/Roxboro Streets.

ILLUSTRATION BY NICOLE PAJOR MOORE, PHOTOS VIA UNSPLASH

Durham Schools Suit

Durham Public Schools will join hundreds of other school systems in a lawsuit against Meta, Google, TikTok, and Snap.

BY STOREY WERTHEIMER backtalk@indyweek.com

Durham Public Schools (DPS) will join hundreds of other school systems, including 14 in North Carolina, and 42 attorneys general, in a lawsuit against Meta, Google, TikTok, and Snap for the detrimental effects they say the companies’ products have had on students.

The school board voted unanimously to join the suit earlier this month after a presentation by attorney Janet Ward Black of Ward Black Law, a personal injury firm based in Greensboro. The firm’s legal team is representing more than 60 school boards in this multidistrict case.

Social media companies design their applications to send children down bottomless rabbit holes, said Ward Black. Targeted algorithms attract and addict adolescents, while dings and beeps cause an immediate endorphin rush, she said, adding, “The longer the student is on the social media application, the larger the opportunity for these for-profit

companies to make more money.”

Scientific literature reveals that social media usage among youth can lead to anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and suicidal ideation. With over one-third of children ages 13–17 reporting using one of the companies’ applications “almost constantly,” the U.S. surgeon general has described it as “just not a fair fight” between children and Big Tech.

Because school districts are primary providers of mental health support for young people, they’ve had to bear the brunt of treating students affected by social media, said Ward Black. This lawsuit aims to secure compensation for depleted school resources, the toll on school personnel, and the need for future outreach programs and mental health support.

“Litigation can cause behavior changes,” Ward Black said.

She represented school boards in multidistrict litigation cases against JUUL and opioid companies, which secured millions in compensation for school districts nationwide. Rather than Durham filing its own suit against billion-dollar corporations, multidistrict legislation allows hundreds of districts nationwide to band together, she said.

“With individual litigation, a lot of times you don’t get the attention of folks,” Ward Black said. “But in this instance, you have hundreds of school boards from all across the country banding together and saying …, ‘You have put a burden on us, and as a result, you should be paying for the consequences.’”

This case will be filed in North Carolina federal court before being transferred to a U.S. judge in California. DPS will pay no legal fees unless it wins the lawsuit, in which case attorneys would be paid a 25 percent contingency fee.

Members of the school board were eager for Durham to join the lawsuit.

“It frightens me, that idea that our kids can get lost in a world without people looking out for them,” said DPS board member Emily Chávez. “I’m excited to move forward with this, and I’m hopeful that this will be as successful as the JUUL litigation.”

Board member Natalie Beyer echoed Chávez’s sentiments. “We struggle to have resources we need for counseling and mental health support for our children,” she said.

Member Jessica Carda-Auten agreed. “If we end up with some compensation to support the needs of our students, that’d be amazing,” she said. “We have the ability to impact hundreds of thousands of lives with this.”

“Thank you,” replied Ward Black. “I promise we will do the very best we can for this school system.” W

This story was published through a partnership between the INDY and 9th Street Journal, which is produced by journalism students at Duke University’s DeWitt Wallace Center for Media & Democracy. Comment on this story at backtalk@indyweek.com

ILLUSTRATION BY NICOLE PAJOR MOORE, IMAGES VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Camp listings &special advertising section

2024 INDY SU MM E R C AM P GUIDE

2024 INDY SU MM E R C AM P GUIDE

It finally feels like spring and it’s time to start thinking about what your kids will be doing when they’re out of school in the warmer months while you still have work. In our 2024 Summer Camp Guide this year, we have plenty of options to keep them energized, engaged, learning, and getting creative.

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At ommos autat odis quam laborro rectae officipsa enimusda quo es de cuptatur?

Cest, cuscipsunti con res reperibust fugitature et hillignatur, odicil int.

Want your kids to be active in the summer? Send them to dance, fencing, horseback riding, or scienceand-nature summer camp. Want them to practice the arts or learn a new skill? There are cooking, visual and performing arts, and music camps available, too. Whatever your child’s interests, and whatever summer camp your family chooses, one thing is certain: the memories kids make while learning, playing, and adventuring at camp stay with them for a lifetime.

Quia doloreic te perum lab ipsam si omnimil iur alis ipsum aped excerferchil et aut landiae. Eveligenient et renecabore, sanditaquunt qui blantiissit qui ut omnihit rerspelliqui quis erspelibus.

Aximus si qui comnim venim aut et dollanis illenem poraess umquat faccumq uoditatur sint dis apic tem voluptae cuptae perunti ostempo rrorero repudam eum labore accum fugiasp elentis coreprenda nis nos eos mossum velest, odigni

2024 INDY Summer Camp Guide Listings

American Dance Festival Summer Camps

ADF

Location: Durham, NC

Ages: 6-17 years

Contact: americandancefestival.org/camps studios@americandancefestival.org

Art & Animals Camp

Craft Habit

Location: Raleigh, NC

Ages: 5-13

Contact: crafthabitraleigh.com/camp-schedule

Blue Skies of Mapleview Horse Camp

Blue Skies of Mapleview LLC

Location: Hillsborough, NC

Ages: 8-18

Contact: blueskiesmapleview.us dpmblueskies@hotmail.com

Boys and Girls Club Summer Camps

Boys and Girls Clubs of Durham & Orange Counties

Locations: Chapel Hill, Durham

Contact: bgcdoc.org/summer-camp

Brightleaf Stables Summer Camp

Brightleaf Stables

Location: Durham, NC

Contact: brightleafstables.com/camps 919-949-7386

Broadreach Summer Adventures

Broadreach

Locations: Caribbean, Fiji, Costa Rica, the Bahamas, Ecuador, Bonaire, Curacao, Azores, Mexico, Bali, and more

Ages: Middle and High School students

Contact: gobroadreach.com brhq@gobroadreach.com (919) 256-8200

Camp High Rock

High Rocks Camp for Boys

Location: Brevard, NC

Ages: 7-16, all boys

Contact: highrocks.com office@highrocks.com

Camp Phoenix

Unify Gymnastics

Location: Durham, NC

Ages: 4-13

Contact: unify-athletics.com/camp-info

Camp Riverlea Summer Camp

Camp Riverlea

Location: Bahama, NC

Ages: 5-12

Contact: campriverlea.com campersupport@campriverlea.com

2024 INDY Summer Camp Guide Listings

Carolina Friends School Summer Programs

Carolina Friends School

Location: Durham, NC

Ages: 4-18

Contact: cfsnc.org/extended-learning/summer-programs

ExtendedLearning@cfsnc.org 984.316.0123

Civic Engagement Leadership Institute

The Triangle Nonprofit & Volunteer Leadership Center

Location: Durham, NC

Ages: High School

Contact: thevolunteercenter.org/celi 919-321-6943

DAC Arts Camps

Durham Arts Council

Location: Durham, NC

Ages: 5-17

Contact: durhamarts.org (919)560-2726

Duke Gardens Camp

Sarah P. Duke Gardens

Location: Durham, NC

Ages: K-5th grade

Contact: gardens.duke.edu/learn/camp GardensEducation@duke.edu

Durham 4-H Camp

NC Cooperative Extension

Location: Durham, NC

Ages: 5-18

Contact: amauney@ncsu.edu

durham.ces.ncsu.edu/durham-county-4-h-clubs

Durham Academy Summer

Durham Academy

Location: Durham, NC

Ages: 4-18

Contact: da.org/summer summer@da.org

Durham Parks and Recreation Summer Camps

City of Durham

Location: Durham, NC, Multiple Locations

Ages: 5-17

Contact: dprplaymore.org/366/Summer-Camp

Durham PAL Summer Camp

Durham Police Athletic League

Location: Durham, NC

Ages: Rising 6th graders DPAL@durhamnc.gov

BLUE SKIES OF MAPLEVIEW LLC SUMMER HORSE DAY CAMP

“Oh my goodness, my daughter had the best day today. She loved every bit of it by becoming part of the herd, brushing and feeding, riding bareback and realizing how powerful communication is between her body and the horses. She loved how y’all talked about the horses and how you treat them, and wow, she is just one happy camper!”

www.blueskiesmapleview.us

dpmblueskies@hotmail.com • 919-933-1444

2024 INDY Summer Camp Guide Listings

Durham Regional Theatre Summer Camp

Durham Regional Theatre

Location: Durham, NC

Ages: 6-17

Contact: durhamregionaltheatre.com/theatre-camps

Emerson Waldorf Summer Camp

Emerson Waldorf School

Location: Chapel Hill, NC

Ages: 4-15

Contact: emersonwaldorf.org/summercamps summercamps@emersonwaldorf.org

Eno

River Field Station

Eno River Association

Location: Durham, NC

Ages: 12-15

Contact: app.enrollsy.com/browse/eno-river-association camps@enoriver.org

Farm & Wilderness Summer Camps

Farm and Wilderness

Location: Plymouth, VT

Ages: 5-17

Contact: farmandwilderness.org admissions@farmandwilderness.org

Frog Hollow Adventure Camp

Frog Hollow Outdoors

Location: Durham, NC

Ages: 8-18

Contact: froghollowoutdoors.com/adventure-camp

Glazed Expectations Summer Camp

Glazed Expectations

Location: Carrboro, NC

Ages: 5-12

Contact: glazedexpectations.com

IMPACT Camp

The Triangle Nonprofit & Volunteer Leadership Center

Location: Durham, NC

Ages: High School

Contact: thevolunteercenter.org/impact 919-321-6943

iWalk the Eno Science & Nature Summer Camp

Eno River Association

Location: Durham, NC

Ages: 12-15

Contact: app.enrollsy.com/browse/eno-river-association camps@enoriver.org

JCRA Summer Garden Camps

JC Raulston Arboretum

Location: Raleigh, NC

Ages: preschool to rising 8th grade

Contact: jcra.ncsu.edu/education/childrens-program/summer-gardencamps

The Justice Theater Project’s

2024 Summer Camp Production of Matilda Jr.

The Justice Theater Project

Locations: Durham and Raleigh, NC

Ages: Rising 3rd-9th grade

Contact: thejusticetheaterproject.org/summer-2024 slee@sleearnold.com

Kids Yoga Camp

Yoga Garden

Location: Pittsboro, NC

Ages: 4-12

Contact: yogagardenpbo.com/yogacamp yogagardenpbo@gmail.com

Kidzu Summer Camp

Kidzu Children’s Museum

Location: Chapel Hill, NC

Ages: 4-8

Contact: kidzuchildrensmuseum.org/summer-camps camp@kidzuchildrensmuseum.org

Learn to Fence

Forge Fencing

Location: Durham, NC

Ages: 7+

Contact: forgefencing.com

Longleaf Forest School Camps

Longleaf Forest School

Location: Durham, NC

Ages: 7-12

Contact: longleafforestschool.org/camps

Marbles Kids Museum Camps

Marbles Kids Museum

Location: Raleigh, NC

Ages: 3-9

Contact: marbleskidsmuseum.org/camps-programs camps@marbleskidsmuseum.org (919) 847-1040

Master Chang’s Martial Arts Summer Camps

Master Chang’s Martial Arts

Locations: Triangle-wide

Contact: masterchangtkd.com/programs/just-4-kids/summer-camp

SA 3/30 @CAT’S CRADLE MARSHALL CRENSHAW W/ BAND

FRI 3/22 @CAT’S CRADLE UNWOUND W/ CHERUBS

MADISON CUNNINGHAM & JUANA MOLINA

SA 3/23 @CAT’S CRADLE ELIZA MCLAMB W/ MINI TREES

TH 3/21 @MOTORCO BAR ITALIA W/ GREAT AREA

CAT'S CRADLE

3/20 WE: SLEEPYTIME GORILLA MUSEUM W/ TITAN TO TACHYONS

3/21 TH: BRIAN SELLA OF THE FRONT BOTTOMS W/ KAMARA THOMAS

3/22 FR: UNWOUND W/ CHERUBS

3/23 SA: ELIZA MCLAMB W/ MINI TREES

3/26 TU: ANDMOREAGAIN PRESENTS OCTOBOKE BEAVER W/ DRINKING BOYS AND GIRLS CHOIR

3/28 TH: TAY TAY DANCE PARTY

3/29 FR: SARAH SHOOK & THE DISARMERS W/ H.C. MCENTIRE

3/30 SA: MARSHALL CRENSHAW (W/ BAND)

SEATED SHOW

4/4 TH: SAM BURCHFIELD & THE SCOUNDRELS + TOPHOUSE

4/5 FR: ANDMOREAGAIN PRESENTS THE CRANE WIVES W/ RACHEL BOBBIT

4/6 SA: ZACK MEXICO W/ JENNY BESETZT

4/7 SU: GET BACK! A FINAL TRIBUTE TO THE BEATLES W/ DANNY GOTHAM, WILLIE PAINTER, REBECCA NEWTON, AND FRIENDS

4/9 TU: SNOW STRIPPERS W/ DRES

4/12 FR: CARBON LEAF

4/13 SA: DAVID MORRIS

4/14 SU: LOS STRAITJACKETS

30TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR W/ JOHN HOWIE JR. & THE ROSEWOOD BLUFF

4/16 TU: GOOD KID W/ ADAN DIAZ

4/17 WE: ROBYN HITCHCOCK

4/22 MO: HELADO NEGRO W/ MAREM LADSON

4/23 TU ATERCIOPELADOS

4/25 TH: HAYES & THE HEATHENS FT. HAYES CARLL / THE BAND OF HEATHENS

4/26 FR: PROXIMA PARADA + OLIVER HAZARD

4/27 SA: BLACK COUNTRY, NEW ROAD

4/28 SU: ANDMOREAGAIN + MOTORCO PRESENT TWRP DIGITAL NIGHTMARE 2024

4/30 TU: DYKE NIGHT FT. NYX ADONIS, LADY DYKE, FOUND FAMILY, ALL STAR BREAKFAST, KHXO5

TU 6/18 @NCMA WILCO

FR 3/29: @CAT’S CRADLE SARAH SHOOK & THE DISARMERS W/ H.C. MCENTIRE

5/1 WE: FUTUREBIRDS

5/3 FR: LOW CUT CONNIE

5/7 TU: SARAH JAROSZ

W/ LE REN

5/8 WE: CKY W/ CROBOT, X-COPS

5/11 SA: SOULS OF MISCHIEF

5/13 MO: DESTROY BOYS

W/ MARGARITAS PODRITAS, CHOKECHERRY

5/19 SU: SOEN W/ TROPE

5/20 MO: WILD CHILD W/ OH HE DEAD

5/22 WE: MIKE, 454, NIONTAY

5/25 SA: REVERED HORTON HEAT W/ SURFRAJETTES

6/4 TU: SHANNON & THE CLAMS

6/7 FR: SYMPHONY X W/ HEATHEN

6/11 FR: THE MENZINGERS, LUCERO + THE DIRTY NIL

6/18 TU: CAMERA OBSCURA

6/21 FR: KIM GORDON

6/30 SU: OF MONTREAL W/ TELE NOVELLA

7/21 SU: TINARIWEN

7/24, 7/25, 7/26, & 7/27: MERGE 35 SINGLE NIGHT TIX

10/15 TU: HOMESHAKE W/ FREAK HEAT WAVES

CATS CRADLE BACK ROOM

3/20 WE: CHARLIE PARR W/ RESONANT ROGUES

3/21 TH: MCLUSKY W/ GANSER

3/22 FR: ¡TUMBAO! W/ THE MOON UNIT, GUSTAV VIEHMEYER

3/23 SA: AZUL W/ MAIA KAMIL, TORCHLIGHT APOTHECARY

3/24 SU: BENDIGO FLETCHER W/ FREE RANGE

3/28 TH: THE TYSON BROTHERS W/ THE MODERN AGE, HIGH JUNE

3/29 FR: LIGHTHEARTED W/ GOOD DEAL, EMMA GEIGER

3/30 SA: SHEER MAG W/ DE( )T, SERVER 4/1 MO: BRISCOE

4/4 TH: GRANT LEE PHILLIPS

6/4 TU: LIP CRITIC

6/7 FR: KASSI VALAZZA W/ SEQUOIA

6/14 FR: SETTING W/ VERITY DEN

6/15 SA: BIRD AND BYRON

6/22 SA: ROSE CITY BAND

W/ DRUNKEN PRAYER

7/20 SA: MC CHRIS

7/23 TU: HOT FREAKS W/ DANTE ELEPHANTE

8/3 SA: THE BLAZERS – 50 YRS!

9/10 TU: KING BUZZO + TREVOR DUNN

10/25 & 10/26: THE OCEAN BLUE

HAW RIVER BALLROOM (SAX)

3/20 WE: GUSTER

4/12 FR: MADISON CUNNINGHAM + JUANA MOLINA

4/14 SU: MIGHTY POPLAR

4/5 FR: AJ LEE & BLUE SUMMIT W/ RHODES BABY

4/6 SA: REMO DRIVE W/ WILT

4/9 TU: HOTLINE TNT W/ CICADA

4/11 TH: ILLITERATE LIGHT W/ TONGUES OF FIRE

4/12 FR: KILTRO W/ NINA DE FREITAS

4/13 SA: UNPROCESSED

4/14 SU: 723, CUFFING SEASON, MADISINN

4/17 WE: SATSANG

4/18 TH: CHRISTIAN KURIA

4/19 FR: MIKAELA DAVIS

W/ SEAN THOMPSON'S WEIRD EARS

4/20 SA: SPEED STICK + PIPE

4/23 TU: EARTHLESS + MINAMI DEUTSCH

4/24 WE: SLOW HOLLOWS

W/ COMPUTERWIFE

4/25 TH: THE PYLON REENACTMENT SOCIETY

4/26 FR: ANDMOREAGAIN PRESENTS: PODCAST ABOUT LIST

4/28 SU: AARON LEE TASJAN

W/ MOLLY MARTIN

4/30 TU: TEEN SUICIDE

W/ AWAKEBUTSTILLINBED

5/2 TH: SADURN W/ GREG FREEMAN

5/4 SA: ROYEL OITIS

W/ GIRL AND GIRL

5/5 SU: GRACE CUMMINGS

5/8 WE: CALVA LOUISE + VUKOVI

W/ STELLAR CIRCUITS

5/11 SA: FLESHWATER

W/ MODERN COLOR, 9MILLION

5/12 SU: LØ SPIRIT

5/15 WE: SHAMARR ALLEN

5/24 FR: SKATING POLLY

W/ LORD FRIDAY THE 13TH

5/26 SU: SAM EVIAN W/ HANNAH COHEN

5/28 TU: ZACH SEABAUGH

5/31 FR: KELSEY WALDON

4/25 TH: TEENAGE FANCLUB

5/25 SA: REAL ESTATE

6/8 SA: MDOU MOCTAR

6/15 SA: NATION OF LANGUAGE TIX ON SALE 3/22

6/18 TU: CAMERA OBSCURA W/ PHOTO OPS

6/25 TU: JENNY LEWIS W/ DEAN JOHNSON

LOCAL 506 (CHAPEL HILL)

7/24 WE: MATES OF STATE MOTORCO (DURHAM)

3/21 TH: BAR ITALIA W/ GREAT AREA

5/17 FR: CHEEKFACE W/ YUNGATITA

10/4 FRI: LA LUZ

COASTAL CREDIT UNION MUSIC PARK (RALEIGH)

4/27 SA: THE POSTAL SERVICE + DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE

CAROLINA THEATRE (DURHAM)

5/29 & 5/30: THE MAGNETIC FIELDS PLAY 69 LOVE SONGS – OVER TWO NIGHTS KINGS (RALEIGH)

4/13 SA: JULIA WOLF W/ SCRO

MARTIN MARIETTA CENTER (RALEIGH)

6/24 MO: FUTURE ISLANDS

DURHAM BULLS ATHLETIC PARK

5/31 & 6/1: GOOD MOON FESTIVAL –SYLVAN ESSO, FLEET FOXES, HIPPO CAMPUS, DEHD, REYNA TROPICAL, TRUTH CLUB

NC MUSEUM OF ART (RALEIGH)

6/18 TU: WILCO TIX ON SALE 3/22@ NOON

8/20 TU: ANDREW BIRD AND AMADOU & MARIAM

PLAYMAKERS REP (CHAPEL HILL)

5/4 SA: DAWN LANDES & FRIENDS REIMAGINE THE LIBERATED WOMAN'S SONGBOOK FT. ALICE GERRARD AND MORE

FR 4/12 @HAW RIVER BALLROOM

2024 INDY Summer Camp Guide Listings

Model UN Week

The Triangle Nonprofit & Volunteer Leadership Center

Location: Durham, NC

Ages: High School

Contact: thevolunteercenter.org/model-un-week 919-321-6943

Modu Martial Arts Summer Camp

Modu Martial Arts

Location: Durham, NC

Ages: K-5th grade

Contact: 919-544-2222 modumartialarts.com/summer-camp

The Morningside School Summer Camps

The Morningside School

Location: Carrboro, NC

Ages: 3-9 years old

Contact: themorningsideschool.com

Movie Makers Summer Camp

Movie Makers

Location: Durham, NC

Ages: 6-17

Contact: movie-makers.net/summer-camp moviemakersnc@gmail.com

North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences Summer Camps

North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences

Location: Raleigh, NC

Ages: Rising K-12th grade

Contact: naturalsciences.org/calendar/summer-camps summercamps@naturalsciences.org

North Carolina School of Science and Math Summer Camps

North Carolina School of Science and Math

Location: Durham, NC

Ages: Rising 5th-12th grade

Contact: ncssm.edu/summer

Piedmont Wildlife Center Summer Camps

Piedmont Wildlife Center

Locations: Triangle-wide

Ages: 5-17

Contact: piedmontwildlifecenter.org/summer-camp camp@piedmontwildlifecenter.org 919-489-0900

2024 INDY SUMMER CAMP GUIDE

2024 INDY Summer Camp Guide Listings

Raleigh Little Theatre Summer Camps

Raleigh Little Theatre

Location: Raleigh, NC

Ages: Pre-K-12th grade

Contact: raleighlittletheatre.org/education education@raleighlittletheatre.org

Schoolhouse of Wonder Summer Camps

Schoolhouse of Wonder

Locations: Triangle-wide

Ages: 5-16

schoolhouseofwonder.org schoolhouse@schoolhouseofwonder.org 919-477-2116

Sewing Level 1: Beginner Sewing Camp

Craft Habit

Location: Raleigh, NC

Ages: 5-13

Contact: crafthabitraleigh.com/camp-schedule activityhub.com/partner/craft-habit

STEAM Summer Camps

Kramden Institute

Location: Durham, NC

Ages: Rising 3rd-12th grade

Contact: camps@kramden.org 919-293-1133

kramden.org/camps

Summer Arts Camps at the Eno Arts Mill

Orange County Arts Commission

Location: Hillsborough, NC

Ages: 5-18

Contact: artsorange.org/camps 919-245-2129

Summer Youth Jazz Camp

Durham Jazz Workshop

Location: Durham, NC

Ages: Middle and High School

Contact: durhamjazzworkshop.org/youth-jazz-summer-camp djazzworkshop@gmail.com

Sunrise Community Farm Center’s Summer Camp

Sunrise Community Farm Center

Location: Chapel Hill, NC

Ages: 5-12

Contact: sunrisecommunityfarmcenter.com admin@sunrisecfc.com (919) 968-8581

Triangle Ultimate Summer Camps

Triangle Ultimate

Location: Triangle-wide

Ages: 14-19

Contact: triangleultimate.org/cufs info@triangleultimate.org

Triangle Youth Ballet Dance Camp

Triangle Youth Ballet

Location: Chapel Hill NC

Contact: www.triangleyouthballet.org/summer-classes tyb.registrar@gmail.com

Two Sisters Adventure Company Summer Camps

Two Sisters Adventure Company

Location: Durham, NC

Ages: 7-18

Contact: twosistersadventure.com/camps connect@twosistersadventure.com

USA Ninja Challenge Summer Camps

USA Ninja Challenge

Location: Durham, NC

Ages: 6-11

Contact: ninjadurham.com/camps

Vault Theatre Summer Camps

Vault Theatre

Locations: Triangle-wide

Ages: 6-18

Contact: vaulttheatre.org/camp info@vaultttheatre.org 919-886-4584

The Wonder Lab Summer Camp

The Wonder Lab

Location: Durham, NC

Ages: 3-7

Contact: wonderlabdurham.com

Woodcrest Farm and Forge Summer Camps

Woodcrest Farm

Location: Hillsborough, NC

Ages: 6-17

Contact: woodcrestfarmnc.com/summer-camps

Kismet Reverberations

Durham duo Gibson & Toutant get weird and dig deep on debut album On the Green.

BY NICK MCGREGOR music@indyweek.com

As the world turns in an increasingly digital direction, the ragged edges of existence get sanded down. The algorithmic engines humming in our pockets steer us away from strange serendipity. What we see, hear, and consume becomes more and more familiar. Traces of the old weird America fade from view.

But Durham duo Gibson & Toutant construct an eccentric world of sonic peculiarity on debut full-length On the Green, out March 22 on Sleepy Cat Records. Digital static grafts onto toy piano melodies. Guitar riffs crackle as if hot-wired through coaxial cables. Banjo and bass blend with bleary dial tones. Fiddle licks fuse with found sounds. Stutter-step drums sync up with manipulated samples.

Call it postmodern roots music—a uniquely North Carolina tincture that, according to the band’s bio, “couldn’t exist without digital technology, but which beats with an analog heart.” Married couple Josephine McRobbie and Joseph O’Connell share that heart, blending two decades of experience in psychedelic rock, outsider folk, ethnomusicology, and internet archives into a sneaky statement of excellence.

Liner notes for On the Green frame it in the heady context of “interpersonal telekinesis” and “emotional proximity.” McRobbie and O’Connell trace the project’s roots to their 2018 honeymoon in Australia (McRobbie’s home before moving to the United States at age 12). Traveling through Brisbane and Mooloolah Valley, the duo

recorded melodic experiments on an old GEM Rodeo synth organ while celebrating the spirit of McRobbie’s late uncle Vern, a prolific rockabilly musician and handmade-instrument builder.

Back in the Triangle, McRobbie and O’Connell culled their library of Down Under fragments into two four-song EPs, which they released as Gibson & Toutant— an ode to their mothers’ maiden names— featuring song titles culled from Uncle Vern’s lyrics. Meandering through a dusty soundscape cheekily dubbed “American Australiana,” the self-produced sets combine tinkling drum loops, surreal audio snippets, fiddle from McRobbie’s stepsister Carol Catherine, and synth from O’Connell’s brother Matt.

On the Green extends those early experiments into confident new directions. Gibson & Toutant gave themselves three days to write the album, playing a sonic game of telephone by assigning each other song parts. They lobbed chord progressions and offhand phrases back and forth while trading off parenting time with their toddler, now three years old.

“We didn’t have a plan when we started,” O’Connell tells the INDY over coffee at Durham Co-Op Market on a rainy February morning. “It really did unfold based on happenstance.”

Yet the duo trusted the process—especially since it was a natural fit for their daily cadence.

“Even devoting three days to writing was

no small feat with a younger child,” McRobbie says. “But it led to a better product. We both enjoy working with some kind of constraints.”

They extended those limitations to On the Green’s recording process: three days spent with Wye Oak’s Andy Stack in his Doom Homestead studio.

“Letting Andy in on the project gave us a lot of confidence that the music was viable,” McRobbie says. “He was enjoying the same jokes as us while helping us figure out how to best utilize our sound.”

Their mutual success blossoms on the jagged album-opening collage “Carolina Shred.” McRobbie murmured the melodic phrase to her daughter while nursing—“that beautiful, intimate time that’s also an endless expanse,” she laughs. O’Connell embellished it with vintage telephone beeps. Kaleidoscopic and befuddling, the creative experience of “Carolina Shred” was liberating, says O’Connell, who’s performed as Elephant Micah for nearly 25 years. “With an editor like Josephine at my side, I was willing to try stuff really fast—stuff that I wouldn’t try if I was just working solo.”

McRobbie’s roots in surf-rock and postpunk with bands The Tsunamis and Tamma permeate “Quoth My Baby,” a jangly earworm that serves as the album’s lead sin-

gle. Veering between turbulence and tenderness, it underscores the artistic dialogue of Gibson & Toutant—two lifelong artists inhabiting an intimate, fragmented musical world while asking themselves, Should I wait for my partner’s next transmission or elbow my way into the conversation?

Referencing a recent songwriting class taught by Phil Elverum of Mt. Eerie that she attended, McRobbie says, “One of the things that stuck with me is to attempt to write in the plainest way possible, without trying to sound smart or poetic. Even if it’s a more vulnerable process, there’s some truth that will resonate with others.”

The phrase “quoth my baby” came to her on a pregnant pandemic stroll as she imagined “a dual protagonist that was not my kid but an adult who was headstrong and hard to pin down. Playing with a character in that roundabout way was fun.”

Further character studies abound on “Norm’s Oranges” and “Vicky’s Chimes,” two noir-ish songs that blend cowboy goth, twee pop, and leering voyeurism. “The Click” is more autobiographical, settling into an easygoing groove as McRobbie “ride[s] on my bike” and “stop[s] at the tollbooth” under a “coral-colored dusk.” Originally built atop a reversed sample from ’80s jam “She Drives Me Crazy” by Fine Young Cannibals,

Josephine McRobbie and Joseph O’Connell of Gibson & Toutant.

PHOTO BY ANGELICA EDWARDS

GIBSON & TOUTANT: ON THE GREEN Sleepy Cat Records Mar. 22

STAG E

Labor Notes

In could be worse, choreographer Anna Barker counts the cost of trying to make a living in dance.

BY BYRON WOODS arts@indyweek.com

In a January 27 preview of Anna Barker’s new work could be worse, the choreographer and her artistic partner, Leah Wilks, threw some well-earned brickbats at the pandering elements in popular and high-art dance performances that they’d witnessed, over the years. Sinuous, simpering hip and shoulder rolls, vertical synchronized-swimming moves, and a bathing beauty pose or two, served up (sometimes, at least) with ingratiating smiles, fully embodied—and ridiculed—the ultralounge stylings of musicians like Esquivel and Ferrante and Teicher.

Those roasts will come as small surprise at most to dance and theater aficionados who have followed Barker’s incisive, funny, and often autobiographical work with her Durham company, real.live.people, over its first 10 years on conventional stages and off the beaten path for live performance in both genres.

Ever since her groundbreaking premiere, it’s not me, it’s you, packed Motorco in 2014 as the first offering of the intrepid Durham Independent Dance Artists initiative, Barker has made a point of closely interrogating interpersonal, professional, and artistic relationships at the same time that many other young women in her audience, just coming into their own, were doing the same in their own lives.

In 2021, Barker completed and screened her first feature film, Level Up, a comic and revealing backstage account of a dancemaker’s vexations while producing her own work.

“It was a narrative about Leah and I, now in our thirties, trying to make sense of

being a dance artist,” Barker says. “It was also a way of documenting my works, because it’s hard to document dance.”

But could be worse marks the first new live work from real.live.people since 2018. Fittingly for Barker, the title’s a punch line: a three-word kiss-off to four pandemic years that posed some of the most existential threats that the choreographer—and her art form—have faced.

She and Wilks had just begun exploratory work on a new project as the pandemic hit, plunging all live performances and rehearsals in dance into sudden and total eclipse.

“We felt very disconnected to our dance practice,” Barker recalls. “The stand-ins for dance—dancing on Zoom, watching livestreams of work without an audience—felt very hollow to us.”

On a personal, experiential level, the disconnect was even more profound. “It was the only time in my life I ever felt disembodied—like I didn’t have access to that, not only as a creative outlet but as a way to experience the world.”

Barker pauses, then adds, “That’s why isolation and dissociation exist in the new work. We existed in that space for a long while.”

A chronicle of such a time could easily be fraught. But given her penchant for autobiographical comedy, Barker manages to artfully replicate onstage not only the physical constraints under which she

and Wilks had to create entire sections of the work but the similarly harrowing economic constraints they experienced as their livelihoods as dance and movement teachers began to dwindle during lockdown.

By now, the first notes of modern dance’s well-worn war-horse, Ravel’s Boléro , have all but become a punch line in themselves, the usual signal for 15 minutes of stem-winding tedium. But a listless AI voice, nervelessly intoning a lengthy list of occupations, subverts the programming in could be worse : “Personal costume designer. Cheesemonger. Prenatal movement coach. Farmhand. Pet sitter. Elder companion. End-of-life companion.”

As the roll call continues, the audience laughs as we realize we’re listening to a list of every job and gig these artists have had to take to make a living before and during the pandemic. It’s everything they’ve had to do, on top of their artistic occupations, to make this art and this evening possible.

Then a list of prices and commodities follow: hourly pay rates and production costs for food, supplies, and services. Were we in a restaurant, this would be a public reading of the bill. There also would be every expectation that we would pay for all of it. But as things stand in our

culture, the artists have to, instead.

“We couldn’t make the work without addressing that,” Barker notes, “not only our history of having to make our work with all these other jobs we do but the history of labor and effort by us, the loss of income, and never being able to really make that up and recover from that. We’ve never been able to make a living as an artist. We’ve had to contort ourselves into all sorts of positions, sometimes many at a time, to continue.”

“How do we want to relate to this now? How can we?” Barker asks. “Is there a way to change our relationship to this history of effort, and how we want to move forward with that, in the dance world, and the world at large?”

The joke turns, as Barker and Wilks execute their acts of choreographic resistance. By the end of the Boléro sequence, both characters are clearly exhausted. Sweat flings off their heads and one is almost limping; the other’s breathing hard, down on one knee, on the side.

In the moment, both look around themselves and look back, in bewilderment perhaps, or anger, at all that they’ve embodied, and the price they’ve paid to do it. In these and other moments, could be worse forces us to consider the costs, on several levels, of being an artist and persevering in making and presenting one’s art. W

Anna Barker and Leah Wilks PHOTO BY ERIN BELL

Through June 9 | The Nasher Museum of Art, Durham

Communal Power

New exhibition Behold takes in the radical vitality of shared identity.

BY TASSO HARTZOG arts@indyweek.com

In 2014, the artist María Magdalena Campos-Pons led a procession through the Guggenheim Museum while wearing a tiered dress shaped like the Guggenheim Museum. It was both celebration and protest: Campos-Pons had been invited by her friend, the photographer Carrie Mae Weems, to stage a performance for Weems’s retrospective exhibition—the first for a Black artist in the museum’s 55-year history.

A video of the performance, “Habla La Madre,” plays on a continuous loop in the final room of Behold, on view at the Nasher Museum. A themed, career-spanning survey of Campos-Pons’s work, the exhibition is on a tour that also includes stops at at the Brooklyn Museum, the Frist Art Museum in Nashville (where Campos-Pons works as a professor at Vanderbilt University), and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

In the video, Campos-Pons invokes Santería orishas (deities), smashes plates on the floor, and releases goldfish into the Guggenheim’s fountain, all while encircled by rings of white fabric that echo the form of the famed building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. For the first time in the institution’s history, she told the INDY, she had made the Black body into the “spinning center of the Guggenheim.”

The performance was a powerful expression of rage at the historical exclusion of Black people from venerable art institutions, but it was also an homage to a beautiful building and an artist Campos-Pons loves. She sees Frank Lloyd Wright and herself as part of the same lineage, descended from Yemayá, the orisha of water.

“He, too, is a son of Yemayá,” she says, “even though he didn’t know it.”

Although Behold, curated by Carmen Hermo and Mazie Harris with Jenée-Daria Strand, consists mostly of photographs and works on paper, “Habla La Madre” embodies the idiosyncratic vision that defines Campos-Pons’s multimedia oeuvre.

“I started doing performance art,” she says, “when I couldn’t express what I was feeling and thinking through painting, drawing, sculpture, printmaking, film, or video— any of those—and I wanted to become a body: a thing that feels, that milks, that spits, that cries.”

The body is a locus of connection for Campos-Pons. Hers is a world in which every being—Frank Lloyd Wright, Santería orishas, and everything in between—is linked by tendrils of history, family, land, and spirit. In “Umbilical Cord” (1991), one of the earliest pieces on display in Behold, photographs of Campos-Pons and five of her female relatives are threaded by a wire wrapped with fabric and Cuban soil. Above the photographs is a portrait of Campos-Pons’s grandmother, their common ancestor.

Campos-Pons was born in 1959 and grew up in Matanzas, Cuba, on the same sugar plantation where her great-grandfather Gabriel had been enslaved; she has Cantonese ancestors who were brought to Cuba as indentured laborers in the 19th century. A child of diaspora who has since lived and worked on multiple continents, she is interested in how to locate identity in dislocation—how to explain, for example, the fact that a religious tradition like Santería could emerge from the violence and dispossession of the transatlantic slave trade.

Campos-Pons is best known for her photographic assemblages, which are usually self-portraits and are

always shot using a large-format Polaroid camera.

In “Finding Balance” (2015), she looks magisterial in an antique Chinese theatrical costume; her face is white with cascarilla, an eggshell powder used in Santería. Arrestingly beautiful and technically accomplished, the 8 x 13 foot composition (28 separate photographs) occupies an entire wall in the exhibition and has an otherworldly presence.

Many of the compositions on display at the Nasher are triptychs, including the haunting “Identity Could Be a Tragedy” (1996), a trio of self-portraits. Campos-Pons engages with identity not as a set of hyphenate categories but as a collection of vital linkages—umbilical cords, perhaps— that reach across time and space. Through color, composition, and performance she presents intersectionality as it was originally formulated by the Black feminists of the Combahee River Collective: shared identity as a source of communal power.

“Identity confuses us in what we are and makes us think of ourselves in a kind of conflicting space with others—that is tragic,” Campos-Pons says. “One of the things that marks identity is the capacity to relate.”

In her photographic assemblages, frames become spaces of visual connection and disconnection: they link as they divide, like the sea between continents. Several of the compositions on view evoke the ocean with vivid blues and rich symbolism—most notably in “De Las Dos Aguas (Of the Two Waters),” with its twists of hair connecting each element in the scene—but the ocean otherwise appears in several somewhat disappointing watercolor and gouache works, which don’t have the force or formal inventiveness of the photographs.

One of the most moving works on display, however, is not a photograph. “Spoken Softly with Mama” is a sculptural séance: images and videos of Campos-Pons’s ancestors are projected onto seven ironing boards that stand upright in a dark room. Ghostly cast-glass irons are arranged in a kind of mandala between them.

Nearby, “TRA” (1991) summons the horrors of the Middle Passage with carved wooden sculptures that depict bodies packed into slave ships. In stark emotional contrast, the installation also includes photographs of smiling Afro-Cubans, descendants of those who survived the crossing. Campos-Pons makes history material, reminding us in a vivid Santería color palette that we all exist somewhere in a vast web of connection.

An exhibition like Behold should be “a place for mediation,” Campos-Pons says, between past and present, self and other. “I carry a lot of pain and anguish and lacerations from history—the past that I get to know and acknowledge—but also incredible amounts of joy and hope and trust that it’s so difficult but the best days are ahead and should be built together.” W

María Magdalena Campos-Pons (born Matanzas, Cuba, 1959). “Red Composition,” from the series Los Caminos (The Path), 1997. PHOTO COURTESY OF NASHER MUSEUM

MARÍA MAGDALENA CAMPOS-PONS: BEHOLD

Gathering Place

Perfect Lovers, a North Durham coffee shop and arts space, pholds a long local legacy of DIY community anchors.

BY SHELBI POLK arts@indyweek.com

Walk into Durham’s Perfect Lovers and you might be privy to an impromptu dance performance featuring local professionals. You might stumble across a tattooing pop-up with a dozen clients mid-tattoo. You’ll definitely be able to sip espresso from local coffee brewers Black and White and Joe Van Gogh or Georgia-based Caption Coffee while taking in art hanging on handmade mobile gallery walls.

When thinking over the vision for Perfect Lovers, which opened in February 2022, owner Carrie Elzey wanted it to feel more like a coffee pop-up within a gallery than a coffee shop that also happened to have some art on the walls. And it worked. Most of the space, located off North Roxboro Street beside Redstart Foods, is dedicated to a rotating show or performance instead of the usual tables and semicomfortable chairs you’ll find at most coffee shops, even during “espresso hours” (which run nine to three Tuesday to Saturday).

The shop is the culmination of two of Elzey’s great loves. They trained at Aurora Coffee, Atlanta’s first specialty coffee shop, and their instincts have been honed over more than a decade spent in the industry. After then completing their MFA in “new genres” (when I ask what that means, they answer, “Whatever you want it to mean, that’s fine! It’s not medium bound.”) at the San Francisco Art Institute in 2010, they knew they wanted to get back into the specialty coffee industry.

This isn’t Elzey’s first coffee shop. They opened a coffee space called Two Clocks in Decatur, Georgia, in 2018 with a roasting partner. When the lease was up in 2020, Elzey decided to move to Durham. The

names of both shops pay homage to the same sculpture by the Cuban-born American artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres, “Untitled (Perfect Lovers),” which is made up of two analog wall clocks ticking (initially at least) in time. Gonzalez-Torres created many sculptures out of ordinary objects whose gravity comes partly from their context.

While Elzey didn’t start drinking coffee until they were in their thirties—and even now say they only need one cup a day—they appreciate the work it takes to grow and pull a good espresso shot and have high standards for their coffee. They know the ideal measurements for a shot of ground coffee and a pulled shot, but they’re seasoned enough to rely mostly on their instincts. Despite all this, though, Elzey isn’t a coffee snob: their goal for the shop is mostly about making people happy.

Roxboro, a notoriously busy road, doesn’t get much foot traffic. At times, Elzey has struggled to keep the shop open.

“There have been many times where I’ve thought maybe I should just close,” they say. “I think anybody that potentially had a family, other kinds of obligations, or other standards for income probably would have given up.”

But the community has come through, too. “There are a lot of generous people offering up their time, their connections,” Elzey continues. “People donate to my GoFundMe, they’ve donated plants and a cool robot vacuum cleaner. People were just willing to help. At times I haven’t even asked.”

The first two years of running the shop have come with their ups and downs, but Elzey’s goal for the next few years is sim-

ple: “More of the same, with less struggle.” And business does seem to be picking up. They’re seeing more people come in for coffee and hosting more private parties in the space. “I’m hopeful,” they say. “I think it’s turning a corner.”

Over the past two years, there have been yoga classes, melancholy pilates, spoken word performances, and the occasional acoustic set at Perfect Lovers. The arts scene that cycles in and out of the space is driven highly by community and word of mouth. Poet and musician Dylan Angell remembers meeting Elzey at a show and how quickly they offered their space up for events.

Angell, who has organized a few shows at Perfect Lovers, loves the DIY nature of the space. At a January rendition of Evenings, a quarterly interdisciplinary arts event he organizes with fellow artists Victoria Bouloubasis and Loan Tran, he estimates that nearly 100 people ended up gathering in the space. The trio has utilized other places around Durham before, but Angell says those spaces haven’t offered the same level of connection.

“Whatever we’re trying to create, it’s important to be able to make eye contact with every single person in the room and have the level of intimacy that you have at Perfect Lovers,” Angell says.

At a recent show, someone who doesn’t

live in Durham told Angell they feel the city is the center of the North Carolina art scene, “because you can never really define what it is, so it feels like it’s kind of always recreating itself.”

“I think that Perfect Lovers is recreating itself every day. So I feel like the [art] that lands there is stuff that’s ambitious and interesting,” Angell says. “It’s experimental enough that it doesn’t quite have a place yet.”

Dancer Londs Reuter is one of a pair of local dancers who regularly perform/practice in the space during the day. She’s also had her work displayed on a video loop in Perfect Lovers and hosted performances in the evening, and she occasionally teaches a class called melancholy pilates too, which she describes as “horizontal, laying-down movements that we all do together to sad songs for about an hour.”

Reuter’s dance partner, Anna Maynard, initially approached Elzey about dancing in the space during coffee shop hours.

“It’s been really special to animate the space with dancing, especially when there isn’t an event or an exhibit up in the space,” Reuter says. “It’s just a giant blank slate for like 60 percent of the room. So we’ve had people on the Zoom calls in the front, while we’re like noodling in the background with some bird-sound soundscape playing. It’s been really nice to find ways for it to coexist and not be disruptive, not demand

Customers Chelsea Fritts and Tessa Butler shop at Perfect Lovers during a flower market by Piedmont Wholesale Flowers. PHOTO BY ANGELICA EDWARDS

attention, but just sort of share the tension in the room if you don’t want to look at your computer. We’re just bodies moving.”

And Reuter loves the way Elzey is just up for anything. When Reuter proposed melancholy pilates, Elzey jumped immediately to scheduling. “It wasn’t ‘if,’” Reuter says. “It was ‘how.’ And that made it feel so like a partnership.”

As Durham continues to build the same luxury five-over-one apartment buildings, Reuter would love to see more spaces like Perfect Lovers. Durham has previously seen scrappy, DIY-leaning arts communities in spaces like the Mothership, Man Bites Dog, and the Carrack, all of which have closed in the last five years.

“There’s a long history in Durham of spaces like this, and we’re definitely in a moment of having fewer of them,” Reuter says, noting the cost to maintain the space. “It will be cool with all these condo buildings if some had some community space. I have visions for how this could coexist and be supported by our city, but in the meantime, Perfect Lovers is filling a gap and upholding a long legacy of spaces like this.”

If you’re interested in attending an upcoming event, the best way to stay on top of the schedule is through the Perfect Lovers Instagram account. Alli Blois will be playing April 12, and a campaign to write letters asking Governor Cooper to commute the sentences of prisoners condemned to death will take place March 25.

Mark Adams, secretary of local arts col-

lective Synchronicity Arts, has been to more than half a dozen events and performances at Perfect Lovers.

“I like that it’s a flexible space where you can meet different types of people,” Adams says. “There’s a malleability to it. I’ve never seen it set up the same way twice.”

I’d describe Elzey and their space as unpretentious but uncompromising. It’s a hard line to walk. The espresso is very, very good, but ordering at Perfect Lovers doesn’t feel like your classic intimidating craft coffee shop with a too-cool-to-chat barista. In fact, Elzey is pretty much the only one who pulls shots during the week, unless a friend comes in to cover an urgent need. The art leans contemporary, but it also feels grounded and well-contextualized.

The shop has given Elzey, who’s originally from Maryland, an intense appreciation for Durham.

“There’s just something about Durham,” they say. “I think people just are looking out for each other.”

They’re turning to the community again for partnerships to keep things running smoothly. There’s a nearly funded GoFundMe, and Elzey has recently started partnering with Piedmont Wholesale Flowers, which sells flowers out of the space three days a week (wholesale from 10 to 12 on Tuesday and Thursday and to the public 8 to 10 on Friday), to alleviate some of the rent pressure.

For now, they’re just excited to see who else will walk through their door. W

Patrons mingle and drink coffee inside Perfect Lovers. PHOTO BY ANGELICA EDWARDS

WED 3/20 THURS 3/21 FRI 3/22

MUSIC

The Armed 8 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.

Charlie Parr 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

SOLD OUT—Guster 8 p.m. Haw River Ballroom, Saxapahaw.

Hermanos Gutiérrez 8 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

STAGE

Carolina Ballet: The Little Mermaid Mar. 16-24, various times. Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

Improv Showcase

7:30 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.

Mrs. Doubtfire Mar. 19-24, various times. DPAC, Durham.

Murder on the Orient Express Mar. 6-24, various times. PlayMakers Repertory Company, Chapel Hill.

SCREEN

Fixed: The Science/Fiction of Human Enhancement and post-screening Q&A 7 p.m. The Cary Theater, Cary.

MUSIC

Aaron Lewis: The American Patriot Tour 7:30 p.m. Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

bar italia 8 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.

Brian Sella 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

Candlelight: Neo-Soul Favorites feat. Songs by Prince, Childish Gambino, and More 7 and 9 p.m. All Saints Chapel, Raleigh.

Ed Schrader’s Music Beat / Trash Signal 8 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

The Layaways & Cardinal (formerly The Dobro’s) 8 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.

Marc Puricelli, David Kreimer, and the Jazz Posse 7 p.m. Rougarou, Chapel Hill.

Matt Smith & The Cowboy Spankers 7:30 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.

Mclusky 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Owl City: To the Moon Deluxe Tour 6:30 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh.

Theatre Raleigh in Concert:

The Music of Sam Cooke Mar. 21-24, various times.

Theatre Raleigh, Raleigh.

MUSIC

Ex Machina: Festival on the Hill 7:30 p.m. Moeser Auditorium, Chapel Hill.

Jason Foureman Quintet 7:30 p.m. Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.

Kai Lance / Itay Dayan Group 8 p.m. The ArtsCenter, Carrboro.

Kings Return 8 p.m. Baldwin Auditorium, Durham.

Manifest Music Festival Mar. 22-23, various times. Various venues, Chapel Hill.

NC Symphony: Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring Mar. 22-23, 8 p.m. Martin Marietta

Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

Sidewinder / The Hatch Brothers 8 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.

Take on Me: An ’80s Affair 9 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.

¡Tumbao! 9 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Unwound 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

STAGE

The ComedyWorx Show Fridays at 8 p.m. ComedyWorx, Raleigh. could be worse Mar. 22-23, 8 p.m. Walltown Children’s Theatre, Durham.

The Gondoliers; or, The King of Barataria Mar. 22-24, various times. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.

The Harry Show Fridays at 10 p.m. ComedyWorx, Raleigh.

Hush Hush: Comedy Based on Secrets Fridays at 9 p.m. Mettlesome Theater, Durham.

PAGE

Chris Bohjalian presents The Princess of Las Vegas 7 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh.

Hermanos Gutiérrez performs at Lincoln Theatre on Wednesday, March 20.

PHOTO COURTESY OF LINCOLN THEATRE

SAT 3/23 SUN 3/24

MUSIC

’90s Doll Collection: A Burlesque and Drag Tribute to the ’90s 7:30 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

AROOJ AFTAB 8 p.m.

Memorial Hall, Chapel Hill.

AZUL 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

The Cajammers 7:30 p.m. Succotash, Durham.

Eliza McLamb 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

SOLD OUT—I DONT KNOW HOW BUT THEY

FOUND ME: Gloomtown Tour 7:30 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.

Legacy of Jazz Presents: The Great American Crooners 6 and 8 p.m. The Cary Theater, Cary.

Mallarme Music: Schubertiad II, Music of Spring and Nature 4 p.m. St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church, Hillsborough.

Pedrito Martínez Group 7:30 p.m. Stewart Theatre, Raleigh.

The Pink Triangle Pink Party 9:30 p.m. The Fruit, Durham.

Studio 54 Disco Party 10:30 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Tar Heel Troubadours: Blue Cactus 6:30 p.m. North Carolina Museum of History, Raleigh.

Voivod / Prong 8:30 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.

“Word Jazz” by Actors Improv Theater 7:30 p.m. Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.

STAGE

Danny Canoe Improv Show: “We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat” 8 p.m. The ArtsCenter, Carrboro.

Golden Age 8 p.m. Mettlesome Theater, Durham.

SCREEN

Persian Nowruz (New Year) Celebration Film Screening: Where Is the Friend’s House? 1 p.m. NCMA, Raleigh.

MUSIC

Anthony Green 7 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.

Bendigo Fletcher 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Chuck Owen and ReSurgence 7 p.m. Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.

Clementine Was Right / Uglow / MEGABITCH / Riggings 7 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Live Jazz with the Christopher Law Trio 11 a.m. Lanza’s Cafe, Carrboro.

Max Lane / Izzy Ryder 7 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.

Spafford 8 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.

STAGE

Cozy Kings and Queens: All Ages Drag Show 1 p.m. Queeny’s, Durham.

KevOnStage and That Chick Angel: Here’s The Thing 7:30 p.m. Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

Mythical Menagerie: An Enchanted Circus Show 6 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.

Superbloom! A Vibrant Comedy Show! 7:30 p.m. The Pour House Music Hall, Raleigh.

TUES 3/26

MUSIC

Des Ark / NØ MAN / DUNUMS 8 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

North Carolina Jazz Repertory Orchestra 7:30 p.m. Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.

Otoboke Beaver 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

Rhiannon Giddens feat. Martha Redbone, Pura Fé, and Charly Lowry 7:30 p.m. Memorial Hall, Chapel Hill.

SCREEN

Documentary Film Screening: After Sherman 7 p.m. D. H. Hill Jr. Library, Raleigh.

PAGE

Margot Livesey presents The Road from Belhaven 5:30 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Raleigh.

Where Is the Friend’s House? screens at NCMA on Saturday, March 23.

PHOTO COURTESY OF NCMA

WED 3/27

MUSIC

Kutthroat / Spew / Banff

7:45 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Wayne Hancock 8 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.

STAGE

On Beckett Mar. 27-28, 7:30 p.m. Reynolds Industries Theater, Durham.

TommyInnit: How To Be

A Billionaire 8 p.m. Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

SCREEN

Banff Centre Mountain Film Festival World Tour Mar. 27-28, 7:30 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.

PAGE

Mushroom, Starfield, Hickory, Dirt: A Poetry Reading by Maura High, Gary Phillips, Garrett Sharpe, and Pam Baggett 7 p.m. Orange County Public Library, Hillsborough.

WED 3/28

MUSIC

Al Strong presents Jazz on the Roof 7 p.m. The Durham Hotel, Durham.

Candlelight: Coldplay and Imagine Dragons 7 p.m. Wakefield Barn, Wake Forest.

Slingshot/Ultrabillions presents KMRU 7:30 p.m. The Fruit, Durham.

Snowblind: The Ultimate Black Sabbath Tribute 8 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.

Tay Tay Dance Party 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

Tyson Brothers 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Wheeler Walker Jr.: The Spread Eagle Tour 7 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh.

STAGE

Je’Caryous Johnson’s Super Freak: The Rick James Story 3 and 7:30 p.m. Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

John Crist 7 p.m. DPAC, Durham.

Laugh Out Loud: Black and Proud Mar. 28-30, various times. Mettlesome Theater, Durham.

Tricky Dick presents True Detective: Duke Country 8:30 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.

SCREEN

Fool for Love 8 p.m. ShadowBox Studio, Durham.

THURS 3/29

MUSIC

2024 Flamenco Vivo’s Tablao Flamenco Mar. 29-30, various times. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.

A Knife in the Dark / Heavens Die 7 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.

Avenged Sevenfold: Life Is but a Dream … Tour

6:30 p.m. PNC Arena, Raleigh.

Club Bey: Act 1 & 2 – A Beyonce Dance Party 8 p.m. Legends Nightclub, Raleigh.

Emo Nite 8 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh.

Inoculation: SEVRYNCE, Spunge, PsyKaNot, SlimSpaces, LiL Space Cat 9 p.m. The Fruit, Durham.

Julian Lage: Speak to Me Tour 8 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.

lighthearted 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

MLGT (Mall Goth) Dance Party 9 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.

Sarah Shook & the Disarmers Album Release Show 9 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

Shamu Garcon: Swinging Cajun and New Orleans Music 7 p.m. Succotash, Durham.

THURS 3/29 FRI 3/30 SAT 3/31 SUN 4/1 MON 4/2

STAGE

The ComedyWorx Show Fridays at 8 p.m. ComedyWorx, Raleigh.

The Harry Show Fridays at 10 p.m. ComedyWorx, Raleigh.

Hush Hush: Comedy Based on Secrets Fridays at 9 p.m. Mettlesome Theater, Durham.

PAGE

Rosita Stevens-Holsey presents The Life of a Pioneering Feminist and Civil Rights Activist 7 p.m. Books Among Friends, Durham.

MUSIC

Angela Bingham with the Jim Ketch Quintet 7:30 p.m. Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.

Blendr: A Blends With Friends Showcase and Dance Party 10:30 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

BRÄLLE 9 p.m. The Fruit, Durham.

Joe Satriani and Steve Vai 8 p.m. DPAC, Durham.

JZM Brazilian Jazz Trio 7 p.m. Succotash, Durham.

Marshall Crenshaw 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

No One Mind / RIBS 7 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Over the Wire 8 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.

Pat Metheny: Dream Box Tour 8 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.

Sheer Mag 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

STAGE

Ali Siddiq: I Got A Story To Tell Tour 7 p.m. Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

The Last Draft Comedy Showcase 7:30 p.m. The ArtsCenter,

MUSIC

Ekko Astral / Crush Fund / Patois Counselors / Geeked 8 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Live Jazz with Joseph Silvers and Hunter McDermut 11 a.m. Lanza’s Cafe, Carrboro

VNV Nation 8 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.

The Zombies: Different Game Tour 7:30 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.

MUSIC

Briscoe 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

MUSIC

Scott Yoder / Tear Dungeon / Orb Weaver 8 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

SCREEN

Documentary Film

Screening: We Will Speak 7 p.m. D. H. Hill Jr. Library, Raleigh.

PAGE

Anna Gazmarian and Maddie Norris present Devout: A Memoir of Doubt and The Wet Wound

5:30 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill.

Scott Yoder performs at the Pinhook on Tuesday, April 2. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE PINHOOK

Carrboro.

CROSSWORD

To download a pdf of this puzzle or view its solution, visit indyweek.com/puzzles-page

SU | DO | KU

© Puzzles by Pappocom

Difficulty level: 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.

If you’re stumped, find the answer keys for these puzzles and archives of previous puzzles (and their solutions) at indyweek.com/puzzles-page or scan this QR code for a link.

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Jerry R. Wright Lecture

JungNC.org Jungian Psychoanalyst Jerry R. Wright lectures Friday 3/22/24 7:30pm

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Administrative Representative

This remote administrative representative job will offer a fair salary and a requirement of 5 to 8 hours per week for data entry and reports. contact: tillerlux1016@gmail.com

Chef - Durham County

Develop and create menus. Oversee preparation, cooking, and presentation of dishes. Handle ingredients ensuring consistent taste and quality. Organize and manage kitchen staff. Ensure smooth operations during busy service times. Monitor food supplies. Participate in special events or catering functions. Comply with health and safety regulations, and food handling standards. Requires at least two years of experience working a Chef in a Thai Restaurant. Send resume to prasertdham@aol.com. Thai at Main Street, LLC.

IT Sr. Technical Specialist

Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings in Durham, NC seeks IT Sr Technical Specialist (Multiple Openings) to design, develop & maintain data warehouse & analytics pipelines to meet enterprise’s business analytics & reporting needs. Reqs BS+8yrs or MS+5yrs exp.; To apply, send resume to: labcorphold@labcorp.com; Ref #240205.

Principal Software Developer

SAS Institute Inc. seeks Principal Software Developer in Cary, NC to be responsible for designing, building & maintaining the infrastructure & tools necessary for efficient & reliable data integration, storage, processing & analysis. Reqs: BS in IT, Comp Sci, Elec Engrng, or related field + 10 yrs exp. May work remotely pursuant to SAS’ Flexible Work Prgm. For full reqs & to apply visit www.sas. com/careers and reference Job # 2024-35484.

Product Manager

Product Manager, IQVIA Inc., Durham, NC. Must telecom frm anywhere in US (EST hrs) Rev & doc client reqs/busproblms. Salary Range: $125,000$166,000/yr. Reqs @ least bach in Bus Admin/IT/ rel/equiv. Reqs 4 yrs of prod ownership exp incl 4 yrs: perf quantitative model/qual anlys to address bus obj; mnge mult projs, define priorities & proj deliv; collab w/ user exp; use agile SW dev methd; 3 yrs: dev consltative relatnshps w/ sr lev mgrs & execs w/ clients in life sci ind; Agile PM. Reqs <10% US trvl. M-F, 9a - 5p EST w/ eve & wknd wrk. Daily stand-up &; wkly team mgmt calls. Apply: resume to: USRecruitment@iqvia.com & ref#113170.

03/06/24 CROSSWORD SOLUTION