TONIGHT! The Legacy of Octavia E. Butler

In celebration of the legacy of Octavia E. Butler, Pacific Northwest writers Vonda N. McIntyre, Nisi Shawl, Dennis Y. Ginoza, Erik Owomoyela, Caren Gussoff, and Rashida Smith will read work inspired by their relationships with Octavia Butler, or stories included in Blood¬children: Stories by the Octavia E. Butler Scholars.

These readings will be at Seattle's world famous sci-fi/fantasy coffeehouse, the Wayward Coffeehouse (6417 Roosevelt Way NE, #104, Seattle WA 98105) on Friday, April 12, at 7PM.  Octavia E. Butler was one of the world’s most respected speculative fiction writers. Butler, an African-American woman, was recognized during her lifetime with numerous awards, such as the Hugo and Nebula, and was the first science fiction writer to receive the MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant. Butler made the Seattle area her home in 1999, and lived in Lake Forest Park until her death in 2006.

Bloodchildren is an e-book anthology of science fiction and fantasy stories by those who have received the Octavia E. Butler Scholarship.

The Octavia E. Butler Scholarship Fund is named for Butler and managed by the Carl Brandon Society. The Carl Brandon Society is “…dedicated to addressing the representation of people of color in the fantastical genres such as science fiction, fantasy and horror…” and the scholarship pays tuition for 2 writers of color attending the Clarion and Clarion West writers’ workshops each year. Both Clarion and Clarion West are recognized as the premiere workshops for aspiring professional writers of speculative fiction.

All proceeds from the sales of Blood¬children benefit the scholarship fund.The anthology is only available until June 22, 2013, which would have been Octavia’s 66th birthday.

The anthology is available for purchase through the Book View Café, an all-author run publishing cooperative:  http://bookviewcafe.com/bookstore/book/bloodchildren/

More information about the Octavia E. Butler scholarship and the Carl Brandon Society may be found here:  http://carlbrandon.org/

To learn about Clarion and Clarion West, please visit:  http://www.clarionwest.org/, respectively.

Location:  Wayward Coffeehouse, 6417 Roosevelt Way NE, #104, Seattle WA 98105

"Brother from Another Planet" opens Seattle's Langston Hughes African American Film Festival this Saturday!

LANGSTON HUGHES AFRICAN AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL

The Langston Hughes African American Film Festival (LHAAFF) celebrates its 10^th anniversary this year at the newly renovated Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute. LHAAFF takes a look back with a 30^th anniversary screening of the sci-fi classic Brother from Another Planet, and a look forward with a presentation of actor/director Robert Townsend’s newest independent film In the Hive. Both films spotlight powerful personal transformation stories. Transformations also appear thematically in many in many of the more than 40 films and shorts expected to run during the nine-day festival, April 13 to 21. Beginning as a weekend series, LHAAFF has expanded over the past decade to include nine days of film, workshops, filmmaker events and community celebrations renowned for presenting positive, provocative and penetrating independent films created by emerging and established filmmakers. Films are selected by panel and will feature contemporary and vintage offerings, as well as local and international filmmakers.

To view all films and buy tickets click here.

2013 DAILY PROGRAM SCHEDULE

Please note: this schedule is subject to change.

OPENING NIGHT – Saturday, April 13 7 – 11 p.m. BROTHER FROM ANOTHER PLANET

Sunday, April 14 1 – 2:45 p.m. SHORTS & FEATURE DOCUMENTARY PROGRAM 3 – 5 p.m. FAMILY/YOUTH-FRIENDLY FILM PROGRAM 7 – 9 p.m. JAKE’S WAKE with THE SILENT TREATMENT and STONEFACED 9 – 10:20 p.m. THE LOVING STORY

Monday, April 15 4 – 6 p.m. AFRICAN INDEPENDENCE 7 – 9 p.m. MUSIC FILMS: BROADWAY AT THE PARAMOUNT PARTNER PROGRAM 9 – 11 p.m. SHORTS SHOWCASE I

Tuesday, April 16 4 – 6 p.m. SHORT FILM & FEATURE DOCUMENTARY PROGRAM 7 – 9 p.m. FRED HUTCH HIV VACCINE TRIALS/SCCA PARTNERSHIP FILM PROGRAM 9 – 11 p.m. YELLING TO THE SKY

Wednesday, April 17 4 – 6 p.m. FROM THE STREETS TO THE FIELDS 7 – 9 p.m. AFROFUTURIST EVENING: A SCIENCE FICTION FILM PROGRAM 9 – 11 p.m. THINGS NEVER SAID

Thursday, April 18 4 – 6 p.m. CLOSURE 7 – 9 p.m. LADIES’ NIGHT 9 – 11 p.m. SHORT FILM SHOWCASE II

Friday, April 19 4 – 6 p.m. FILMS ABOUT CREATIVITY 7 – 9 p.m. GARIFUNA IN PERIL 9 – 11 p.m. HOME

Saturday, April 20 11 a.m. – 1 p.m. FILMMAKERS PANEL DISCUSSION 2 – 4 p.m. LGBTQ FAMILY AND FRIENDS 4 – 6:45 p.m. THE RETRIEVAL 7 – 9 p.m. THE BLANK CANVAS 9 – 11 p.m. FUNKJAZZ KAFE: THE STORY OF A MOVEMENT

CLOSING NIGHT – Sunday, April 21 1 – 3 p.m. WHAT ABOUT US? FILMMAKER TALKBACK 4 – 6 p.m. CELEBRATING ROBERT TOWNSEND 6 – 11 p.m. IN THE HIVEOFFICIAL SPONSOR COMCAST

Athol Fugard’s “Master Harold” ... and the Boys

Thank You To The Seattle Weekly for the Info and Review!

___

Opening Nights: Athol Fugard’s “Master Harold” ... and the Boys

By Margaret Friedman Tue., Apr 2 2013 at 05:51PM

“Master Harold” . . . and the Boys

Dancing for better days ahead? Warren (left) and Thomas.
John Ullman

West of Lenin, 203 N. 36th St., 352-1777, westoflenin.com. $12–$20. 8 p.m. Thurs.–Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. Ends April 21.

Athol Fugard’s autobiographical drama about two middle-aged black men in 1950 South Africa and their relationship with the white child of their employer is a delicate powder keg that needs to go off. In its best airings, including this excellent revival, it does just that. Three decades after its 1982 premiere (which I happened to see and be seared by), it is capable of just as much impact, as though apartheid were still with us. AJ Epstein’s West of Lenin production, directed by M. Burke Walker (a founder of Empty Space Theater), detonates even more shatteringly than I recall the original doing, laying waste to the hopes of the audience.

Sam (G. Valmont Thomas) and Willie (Kevin Warren) have worked for Harold’s mother in Port Elizabeth since Harold (or “Hally”) was a tot—lately in the family’s tea room. As graceful Sam and clumsy Willie prepare to compete in a ballroom-dance competition, late-adolescent Hally (James Lindsay) badgers them with pretentious banter between bouts of family crisis about his father coming home from the hospital. Clearly the two “boys” have been his real father figures, particularly Sam. But now that Hally’s on the verge of adulthood himself, his own repressed shame, anger, and self-loathing transform into vicious racism before our eyes on Catherine Cornell’s period diner set, sandwiched between two stands of audience seating. (Sit on the near side if you can; at key junctures, only half the audience can see the cast, creating a visceral sense of separate-but-not-equal.)

Lindsay is perfect as baby-like Hally; his small eyes seem needy and peevish even as his lanky body affects the languor of privilege. As Thomas’ Sam subtly wrests control of the story, his earlier jovial subjugation hardens into a weapon; his resonant moral authority assumes a dangerous edge. Meanwhile, Warren’s simpler Willie looks on in terror. By this point, several audience members were sobbing. The final recovery of equilibrium comes at a high cost to everybody, like the necessary cleanup after a bombing, and it feels more emotionally informative than a hundred books on apartheid. Off goes Epstein’s galaxy of globe lights, on comes the jukebox’s pink glow—as dreamy as a future that can’t come soon enough.

stage@seattleweekly.com

JAMAICA KINCAID at Seattle Public Central Library

JAMAICA KINCAID at Seattle Public Central Library

Wednesday, 04/03/2013 7:00 pm

Jamaica Kincaid

Co-presented with the WASHINGTON CENTER FOR THE BOOK AT THE SEATTLE PUBLIC LIBRARY.

One of the most accomplished prose writers in the English language at work today, the author of numerous works of fiction and essay, Jamaica Kincaid makes this welcome Seattle return for her first novel in ten years, See Now Then (Farrar, Straus & Giroux).

  

 "Writers make uncomfortable kin ... There's a reflex in every writer that trumps even the maternal instinct, a part of her that, even while her newborn suckles at her breast, is cold-eyed, choosing words to describe the pit-bull clamp of its gums, the crusted globe of its skull, with the same dispassion which she might describe fellow passengers on a bus ... The intimate treachery, the permanent duality that this entails ... are lucidly examined in Jamaica Kincaid's latest novel ... Kincaid has the gift of endowing common experience with a mythic ferocity ... [She] is one of our most scouringly vivid writers." – Fernanda Eberstadt, New York Times Book Review.

Free admission is on a first-come, first-serve basis. The Seattle Public Library is at 1000 Fourth Avenue (between Madison & Spring).

For more information, please see www.spl.org or call (206) 386-4636.

Selected Events in April

April is a busy month for the Arts in Seattle.   As many of you know, this is the month for the Langston Hughes African American Film Festival.  It features over 40 films as well as appearances from SCANDAL’s Joe Morton and Robert Townsend of Hollywood Shuffle fame. 

There is a major art exhibition from the Onyx Art Collective at Seattle’s City hall that will run through May 1st.  There will be a reception at City Hall for this exhibition from 4pm – 6pm on Thursday, April 4^th.

This first week of April includes some key performances includind a show from the beautiful and talented Jacqueline Tabor who will be at Tula’s Thursday (evening), April 4^th. 

On Saturday, April 6^th, the Devine Ms Debbie Cavitt performs at The Scarlet Tree.  The Scarlet Tree is located at 801 NE 65^th St, Seattle, WA.   

Debbie Cavitt

The Seattle Jazz Offering, fresh off of their 14th anniversary celebration will be back at Tula’s from 3pm to 7pm this Sunday, April 7^th.

Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble

BLACK HISTORY MONTH AT LANGSTON HUGHES PERFORMING ARTS INSTITUTE

PRESENTING THE CLEO PARKER ROBINSON DANCE ENSEMBLE IN A 60 MINUTE PERFORMANCE WITH A TALK BACK AFTER THE SHOW

Haitian master choreographer Jeanguy Saintus explores the concept of fusion – of bodies, souls, communities and cultures – and its potential to create solidarity, openness, and hope. Choreographed to the music of Ti Coca, Eddy François, Markus Schwartz & Erol Josué, Toto Bissainthe, and Manuel Césaire, the work blends elements of folk performance, free improvisation, voodoo religion, African, French and indigenous Indian influences.

Buy tickets: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/321607

February 16th - Premiere Performance - 7:30pm

February 17th - Master Workshops

Youth Workshop (Ages 10-12): 11am - 12:15pm

Teen/Adult Workshop: 12:45 - 2:30pm

Jeanguy Saintus (Choreographer) As choreographer, dancer and educator, Mr. Saintus expresses the rich fusion of Caribbean culture and the contemporary life of his country through the body. Having studied anthropology, sociology and languages, Haitian traditional dance, classical, modern and contemporary technique, Mr. Saintus founded Cie Ayikodans, a group that has matured over 20 years, establishing a centre and training program. 

Saintus continuously pushes the limits of modern dance. Folk performance, free improvisation, voodoo religious culture and varied African, indigenous Indian and French influences are found in his work and his Haitian-Contemporary technique offers a unique vocabulary. Saintus’ has significantly developed Caribbean dance, rooting it in the region’s historical experience while exploring subjects such as the experience of people dying of Aids, the long journey to freedom, and tensions between ancestral forces and contemporary rituals. His works connect the spiritual with the physical, honoring the human body, for expanding the possibilities of the dance medium and fostering young talent, and for inspiring pride in the strength, beauty and richness of Haitian identity.

BLACK HISTORY MONTH AT LANGSTON HUGHES PERFORMING ARTS INSTITUTE

Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute presents

‘Call Mr. Robeson’

Friday, Feb. 8 and Saturday, Feb. 9

SEATTLE –Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute will present Call Mr. Robeson, an award-winning play that received a standing ovation at New York's Carnegie Hall in February 2012, as part of Black History Month at 7:30 p.m., Friday, Feb. 8 and Saturday, Feb. 9. United Kingdom fringe theater website Fringe Review gave the performance five stars and calls it, “A stunning piece of musical theater ” Tickets are available via the Langston Institute’s website at www.langstoninstitute.org or by phone at 1-800-838-3006.F

Written and performed by United Kingdom-based, Nigerian-born playwright and singer Tayo Aluko and accompanied by renowned Seattle pianist Darrius Willrich, this roller-coaster journey through actor/singer Paul Robeson’s remarkable life highlights how his radical activism caused his downfall. The performance features well-known songs (including a dramatic rendition of “Ol’ Man River”), Robeson’s speeches and a defiant testimony to Senator Joseph McCarthy’s House Committee on Un-American Activities. Seattle audiences will be regaled with Negro spirituals and songs from the labor movement performed by local choral groups The Sound of the Northwest and the Seattle Labor Chorus.