10 minute read
LIFEWAVE
ONGOING
CHARLOTTE FILM SOCIETY’S VIRTUAL SCREENING ROOM
What: UNC Charlotte’s College of Arts + Architecture hosts a virtual bene t to support performing arts students. Normally ticket sales to the college’s performing arts events supply crucial scholarship funding, but the pandemic has resulted in the loss of that revenue. The College will present a virtual showcase of what its performing arts students’s work this academic year. Tune in via Zoom for this celebration of resilience and renewal as the College builds support for the students. More: Donations accepted, Jan. 14, 7 p.m.; online; coaa.uncc.edu/events What: Director Eliza Schroeder seems to be channeling the warmhearted, multicharacter comedies of Richard Curtis (Love, Actually) in Love Sarah. Sarah gets killed in a bike accident on the way to open a bakery that was her lifelong dream. Three generations of women – Sarah’s acerbic mother Mimi, her best friend Isabella and Sarah’s twentysomething ballet dancing daughter – must overcome their di erences to save the titular bakery. In Climate of the Hunter, two sisters each have romantic feelings for their friend Wesley, but their rivalry for his a ections are complicated by the fact that he might be a vampire.
LISA DE NOVO & JIMMY SKI
01/15
THURS01_14
CURTAINS RISING: A CAMPAIGN FOR PERFORMANCE
More: $10-12; ongoing; online; charlotte lmsociety.com FRI01_15
POETRY SLAM
What: With a goal of promoting poetic growth, performance enhancement, and increased camaraderie among the poets and the community through slam competitions, SlamCharlotte hosts Blumenthal Performing Arts’ monthly Poetry Slam. SlamCharlotte’s current slammaster, artist, teacher, mentor and Emmy-winning poet and author Boris “Bluz” Rogers joined Blumenthal as director of creative engagement in September. He is also the 13th ranked poet in the world. This event will be livestreamed on Blumenthal’s Facebook page. More: Donations accepted, Jan. 15, 8 p.m.; online; blumenthalarts.org/events FRI01_15
LISA DE NOVO & JIMMY SKI
What: “Music is the best kind of therapy,” Lisa De Novo writes on her Facebook page, and it’s hard to disagree. Drawing on the tuneful, confessional indie pop of Florence and the Machine and Ed Sheeran, plus the pop-soul sass of Amy Winehouse, De Novo crafts deeply emotional music that belies its sunny pop-rock trappings. The Big Bang, her debut album, retains De Novo’s upbeat bounce and applies it to a crunchy indie-rock setting. For this virtual concert, she teams with multi-talented drummer Jimmy Ski, who is also a producer, composer and photographer. More: Donations accepted; Jan. 15, 8 p.m.; online; tinyurl.com/LisaDJimmyS
ANTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: YOUR MIND & THE MACHING
1/16
SAT01_16
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: YOUR MIND & THE MACHINE
What: From sophisticated online marketing to facial recognition software, arti cial intelligence is all around us, and yet there is no technology as intriguing and misunderstood as AI. Watch a robot paint and compose music, meet a lifelike robotic dog, get in the “driver’s seat” of a self-driving car and more with this exhibit, which features dozens of ways that our brains and computers interact with the world. It also explores the question, “How will our brains and Al work together in the future?” More: $15-19; starts Jan. 16; Discovery Place Science, 301 N. Tryon St.; science.discoveryplace.org
MON01_18
MLK HOLIDAY WEEKEND
What: The Gantt Center hosts a virtual MLK celebration spanning the full day. Highlights include From Slavery to Civil Rights, an Aural History Tour, which features a combination of spirituals, protest songs, and inspiring gospel; Our Friend Martin, an animated film about two teens who go back in time to visit Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; a live one-man show by Omar El-Amin that depicts the essences of MLK and Malcolm X; a live musical performance by Rudy Currence that covers songs of justice from the civil rights era; hands-on art activities and panel discussions. More: Free; Jan. 18, 10 a.m.; online; ganttcenter.org FRI-SAT01_22-01_23
CURTIS WINGFIELD’S JAZZ IS LED
What: Jazz ain’t dead – it’s Led! Imagine Charles Mingus’ “Misty Mountain Hop,” Lionel Hampton’s
“Houses of the Holy,” or “Kashmir” by John Coltrane. You might not have to, because Charlotte-based jazz drummer Curtis Wingfield presents Jazz is Led, a celebration of, and tribute to, the music of Led
Zeppelin in the spirit of Jazz-Fusion. The crack ensemble includes Ron Brendle on bass, Troy Conn on guitar and Emmanuel Wynter on violin, just the crew to make “Stairway to Heaven” swing.
More: $34; Jan. 22, 6 p.m. & 8 p.m.; Jan. 23, 6 p.m. & 8 p.m.; Middle C Jazz, 300 S. Brevard St.; middlecjazz.com WED01_20
LATER RAIN
What: Do not confuse this art jazz quintet with Latter Rain, a Christian classic rock combo from Kentucky or The Latter Rain, the debut album by Norwegian progressive death metal band In Vain – but wouldn’t it be great if Later Rain played a mash-up of the other two bands? What the music and movement experience comprised of Eric Mullis, Troy Conn, Micah Davidson, Daniel Flynn and Charlie Trexler will do promises to be just as cool. The combo describes their act as “A dance and jazz ensemble performance that will blow your mind.” More: $10; Jan. 20, 7 p.m.; online; neighborhoodtheatre.com THURS01_21
What: The Bechtler Museum of Modern Art presents the documentary Mario Botta | The Space Beyond. The film is a rare, in-depth journey into the work of internationally acclaimed Swiss architect Mario Botta. The filmmakers explore Botta’s ever growing curiosity and reflections on the contractions of society, through sacred spaces. With the addition of building a mosque, Botta has completed many churches, chapels and synagogues. He is one of the few architects who has built places of prayer for three main monotheistic religions. Registration is required. More: Free; Jan. 21, starting at 5 p.m.; online; bechtler.org SAT01_23
What: Ash and his friends hike to a cabin in the woods for a weekend getaway, but when they open an old book and read an infernal spell, all hell breaks loose... literally, as the cabin and surrounding woods start crawling with the Evil Dead! Sam Raimi’s breakthrough horror classic is a little rougher around the edges than you might remember it, and it’s dead serious, unlike its sequels, which play like three stooges slapstick slathered in gore. If you don’t believe us, watch it again – but this time with a live commentary from Ash himself, genre superstar Bruce Campbell. More: $25 and up; Jan. 23, 9 p.m.; online;
MLK HOLIDAY WEEKEND
1/18
blumenthalarts.org/events
FOOD & DRINK FEATURE Back in Charlotte, the team has been organizing the dispersal of staff from 5Church to get their hours themselves. Instead of following that lead and in at Tempest and another sister restaurant, Sophia’s TAKE ‘EM TO CHURCH Lounge, located in The Ivey’s Hotel in Uptown. “We’ve shifted a lot of our operations to Sophia’s Lounge,” Lynch tells Queen City Nerve. “We started 5Church reopens with new executive chef after 10 doing brunch just to help keep the business afloat during the hard times.” 5Church pastry chef Moehring, for example, has months closed held a residency at Sofia’s Lounge while 5Church has been closed. As for 5Church’s newly announced BY LEA BEKELE executive chef Sherief Shawky, who was recently
When Phase 2 of Governor Cooper’s COVID-19 away to curate a new menu for the reopening, reopening plan was announced in May, Charlotte’s including a seafood tower that features oysters, restaurant industry scrambled to prepare jumbo shrimp, lobster and Alaskan King Crab. promoted from chef de cuisine, he used his time potentially rushing their reopening, management at 5Church in Uptown Charlotte chose to wait it out. The fine-dining concept pushed the opening of its dining room back a month and watched how everything played out before deciding in June to close the doors indefinitely. “It has become clear that there is no cogent plan from any local, state or federal officials allowing for the safe and solvent Paving the way After opening 5Church in 2015 with his friends Patrick Whalen and Alejandro Torio, Lynch’s career took off, eventually leading him to compete on season 14 of Top Chef. His introduction to the industry wasn’t as glamorous. Lynch started his food-service journey as a dishwasher in Marblehead, Massachusetts, when learn and looking back, he shares that he “didn’t know anything” about the business. “I didn’t know hospitality. I just knew that cooking was my vehicle to communicate with people and I knew that I wanted to have my own cooking voice. I wanted 5CHURCH’S SIGNATURE S’MORES. operation of a restaurant to have my own in North Carolina,” the place to do that.” 5th Street Group wrote Like Lynch, in a statement that was Moehring started shared via social media. her career at
After a 10-month 15 years old, closure due to the working in a pandemic, 5Church’s corporate kitchen flagship location in as a prep cook, Uptown has announced expeditor and that it will reopen its doors eventually, a line on Feb. 4. When indoor cook. dining returns to 5Church, After moving as will renowned chef and to North Carolina, co-owner Jamie Lynch, she pivoted to an though this time he’ll be upscale restaurant joined by a new executive working as a chef, Sherief Shawky, as pastry cook. well as longtime pastry Shawky chef Michaela Moehring. THE INTERIOR OF 5CHURCH CHARLOTTE. PHOTO COURTESY OF 5TH STREET GROUP started cooking at his mother’s Biding their time restaurant.
In the face of uncertainty, all that’s left to do he was 15. He spent his late teens and early 20s “After a year or two of working there, I decided to is stay busy. In Lynch’s case, that means opening a roaming from state to state until he eventually go to culinary school [at Middlesex County College] new restaurant, the Tempest in Charleston, SC, and landed in San Francisco, where his career began to and fell in love with food and started my journey up planning to open another in Tennessee in the coming flourish. He then moved to New York to work under north,” Shawky shares of his introduction into the months. He and his 5th Street Group partners will more seasoned chefs. culinary world. “I came down here, worked with chef open Church and Union in Nashville in February. Lynch was a young cook with so much left to Jamie and it’s been a blessing ever since then.”
PHOTO COURTESY OF 5TH STREET GROUP
He’s worked under Lynch for a little over a year and says he wants to eventually become his righthand man at 5th Street Group.
“I am looking to develop with the company and grow as much as I can,” he tells Queen City Nerve.
A new perspective
Just like its staff, 5Church is a living, breathing entity that seems to grow bigger and bolder with every pivot.
The 5Church Charlotte space is known for its large-scale artwork and hand-painted ceiling, which includes every word of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War written out in its entirety.
In the name of reinvention, 5th Street Group commissioned local artists Matt Moore, Matt Hooker, Honey McCrary, Corey McGovern, Jon Norris and Nathaniel Lancaster to create an entirely new mural in place of the original one. 5Church’s revamped interior will feature artwork inspired by Aesop’s Fables, with each artist showcasing their interpretation of different fables in various styles. Along with the new artwork, the space is now equipped with a REME Halo LED air purifier in the HVAC system to help with sanitization and circulation.
The need for reinvention is a tale as old as time. When the doors open on Feb. 4, customers can expect a new menu and new artwork adorning the walls, leaving guests with that same fantastical feeling.
