Open Flight Studio, HERE/NOW. A quarterly project of Paige Barnes at the Open Flight Studio, HERE/NOW features a lineup of randomly paired dancers and musicians who will produce improvised performances (Saturday night 8 p.m.; $8 suggested donation at the door). It’s very off-the-cuff and informal, and the results can either be complete flops or brilliantly inspired. Barnes has ensured that her guests are some of the most talented artists in Seattle; past participants have included dancers KT Niehoff, Jim Kent, Michael Rioux, and Mônica Mata Gilliam, and the musicians have included Tiffany Lin, ilvs strauss, Paris Hurley, and Jeff Huston. The lineups are kept secret until the performance, though, so prepared to be surprised.
The Trails Project at Marymoor Park. One of the many projects supported by 4Culture, The Trails Project (Sunday, 11 a.m.; RSVP preferred) features three artists commissioned to produce work that engages audiences with our regional trails. At first blush, it probably sounds like one of these cheesy community events you want to avoid like the plague, but true to form, 4Culture has commissioned three pretty brilliant artists. Susan Robb is a visual artist and sculptor whose work I don’t know very well, but it looks cool. Paul Rucker, on the other hand, is a pretty amazing musician, composer, and visual artist, and a pretty nice guy to boot. And as for performer Stokley Towles, his last piece Waterlines, on the municipal water system, was so strangely compelling that I can’t help but highly endorse his work.
Katy Hagelin Dance Project, from Phantastes. A young ambitious choreographer, Katy Hagelin, in only her company’s second year, is presenting a new evening-length ballet (up in Everett at the PUD Auditorium; tickets $10-$15). Based on Scottish writer George MacDonald‘s 1858 proto-fantasy novel Fantastes, Hagelin’s working on familiar story ballet material: dream worlds, idealized feminine beauty, etc., etc. But expect a work produced with contemporary twists. It’s an ambitious project that Hagelin’s been working on for a couple years, and features a corps of around twenty dancers.
Live Girls! Theatre, Quickies Vol. 11. Live Girls! Theatre presents the eleventh installment of their female playwrights festival (through June 26; tickets $5-$15), with seven works from around the country, including local playwrights Kimber Lee, Darian Lindle, Pamela Hobart Carter, and Sherry Narens. Live Girls! went mobile by giving up their longtime Ballard space last year, and will be presenting the show at the UW’s Ethnic Cultural Center on Brooklyn Ave., so if the inconvenient drive to Ballard is what’s been keeping you away from Live Girls!, whose work is usually pretty good, now is your chance to catch them closer to home.
