Tag Archives: century ballroom

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Retroactive Taxes Could Put a Hurt on Local Music Venues

Dance taxIn a spirit of surprise welcomed by absolutely no one (except, maybe, regional tax collectors), multiple music venues throughout this state are facing retroactive tax bills for allowing the ‘Opportunity to Dance’ in their venues.

The obscure tax made its debut in the 1980s as a method of generating income from aerobics studios, Jazzercise classes, and other decidedly non-rock-and-roll recreational activities. And for years, most Seattle music venues have gone through audits (and readily paid the usual barrage of state and local taxes), without any knowledge of this particular law.

The state government, however, apparently considers most music venues in Washington state subject to this tax, and in a bid to generate revenue, they’re asking local venues to pony up. The time-honored Seattle tradition of passively head-bobbing at a music venue apparently isn’t safe, either: Venues who don’t offer any sort of dance classes or so-called “Dance Music” are being taxed because they have open floors, where the ‘potential for dancing’ exists.

All of this has come as quite a surprise to many local venues, with several club owners and operators being held accountable for tens, even hundreds, of thousands of dollars in retroactive taxes.

Some local venues have already taken huge hits thanks to the newly-discovered tax. Capitol Hill’s Century Ballroom is currently holding a fundraiser to cover their massive retroactive tax bill ($92,000). And other clubs who’ve already  fulfilled their taxation obligations are also being dinged for additional sales tax on admissions. Another Capitol Hill fixture, Neighbors, was audited twice: For the first audit, the Opportunity to Dance Tax never even came up. For the second audit, Neighbors was held accountable for retroactive taxes of $300,000. Those kinds of figures are more than enough to kill most local clubs.

According to opponents, if it’s allowed to stand as-is, the ‘Opportunity to Dance’ tax could provide consumers with a real slug to the pocketbook, too: Ticket prices could jump ten percent on local venues’ admissions to accommodate payment.

Legislators and venue operators aren’t taking this sitting down. Neumo’s co-owner Steven Severin went on Luke Burbank’s KIRO Radio show to get the word out, and State Senator Ed Murray has introduced a bill, SB 5613, that’s made its way to a hearing, scheduled tomorrow at the State Capital. The bill’s drawn support from the SNMA, Local 76 Musicians, The Recording Academy, and the WA State Arts Alliance.

Even with the impending hearing, SB 5613’s supporters could use some added voices in their favor. Music fans can contact their district legislators (a list of legislators can be accessed here) to weigh in, and if you’re unsure which district serves you, just go here. A quick note (with your home address included) will get your voice heard.

 

Bar, Drinks, Food, Restaurant

Olmeca Altos Takes Tequila to the Next Level

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Olmeca Altos Reposado and Plata (Photo care of Pernod Ricard USA.)

Brand Ambassador Steffin Oghene and Master Distiller Jesus Hernandez (Photo care of Pernod Ricard USA.)

The proof is in the blind tastetesting.

Master Distiller Jesus Hernandez (Photo care of Pernod Ricard USA.)

The Mamacita Skinny Margarita is available now at all Cactus locations.

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There’s a new tequila on the block, as Pernod Ricard–producer/importer/marketer of such well-known liquor brands as Absolut, Glenlivet, Jameson, Malibu, Kahlúa, and Seagram’s, among others — has expanded distribution of Olmeca Altos to Washington State as of last month. The new spirit is 100-percent blue agave tequila from the Los Altos region of Jalisco, Mexico, created by Master Distiller Jesus Hernandez with the input of several tequila-loving bartenders from around the world.

Hernandez and bartender-turned-brand ambassador Steffin Oghene were on hand recently at Cactus South Lake Union for a tequila taste test. In a land of single-malt lovers, Oghene is a self-described “tequila geek” and probably one of only a few Scotsman who sports an afro. According to Oghene and Hernandez, the reason for geeking out over Altos is the artisanal process, which creates a full, smooth taste for sipping as well as mixing.

The good people at Olmeca own or have long-term leases in the Western-Central Mexico highlands, which allows them to control the treatment of the agave plants over their lifespan. After the plants are hand-selected by jimadors for harvest at the optimal time, the agave piñas are brought back to the Destileria Colonial de Jalisco for processing. In order to avoid scorching, the agave is cooked slowly, at a low temperature for two days before being gently macerated by a two-ton Tahona millstone.

The stone gently squeezes out the sugary juices of the agave, which is fermented by cultivated wild yeasts — not bakers’ yeast, which is common due to being inexpensive, but produces inconsistent batches of tequila. Then the tequila is distilled twice, slowly and carefully, in copper stills which keep the intensity of the aromas and flavors intact without the harshness or aggressiveness of some other tequilas.

The end result is two premium tequilas: the Plata, Olmeca Altos’ Blanco, bottled straight-away, and a Reposado, bottled after aging for eight to ten months in used bourbon barrels made of American oak. A 750mL bottle goes for a reasonable MSRP of $24.99. (There are plans for an Añejo in the works, but these things take time.)

Enough with the info, it’s time for the drinking! Sampling tequilas side by side, the Altos tequilas were more accessible and tasted more fruit-forward, balanced, and clean, when compared to such other brands as Cuervo 1800, Cazadores, and El Jimador. Even in a blind taste-test, the Altos difference was clear. And unlike some other premium tequilas which get lost in a cocktail, the Altos flavors more than held their own. Give the Plata a try in a Mamacita Skinny Margarita, which is now on the menu at all four Cactus locations.

And if you’re looking for even more liquor in your life, hit up the Century Ballroom this Sunday for Speed Rack, a female bartender competition with proceeds going to fight breast cancer through education, prevention, and research. You’re not just getting drunk on Sunday afternoon — it’s for charity, goddammit! Rationalize it however you may and get your tickets now.

Arts & Entertainment, Dance

Will Seattle Go Gaga for Newcomer Choreographer Danielle Agami?

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Ate9 dancer Rebecah Goldstone and performer Nadav Heyman (Photo: Danielle Agami)

Ate9 dancers Genna Moroni, Ariana Daub, Taylor Knight, and Chantael Duke (Photo: Danielle Agami)

Ate9 dancers Matt Drews, Chantael Duke, Taylor Knight (Photo: Danielle Agami)

Danielle Agami

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Friday night at the Century Ballroom, Seattle audiences have a chance to see “Sally meets Stu” (two shows Friday night only; tickets: $15-$20), a new dance work from newcomer to Seattle Danielle Agami. Agami was previously with Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company, before a brief Gaga stopover in New York led her to the West Coast and a summer residency with Velocity.

In pulling together a troupe of dancers for her new work, Agami found a new dance company, Ate9, had crystallized–there’s something about Seattle, she says, that makes you want to take risks. (Seattle dancers Kate Wallich, Matt Drews, Erica Badgeley, Sarah Butler, and Chantael Duke have already signed on.)

Danielle Agami

I spoke with Agami at Octo Sushi, the cannily placed sushi joint that is about 15 paces from Velocity dance studios. Not yet 30, she has the self-possession of someone older, but she’s also engagingly candid–in the midst of our talk about “Sally meets Stu,” she says, “I wonder if I’m talented enough, that’s what I’m checking.” (These are words to make a critic’s pinched little heart beat faster–it’s not always the case that an art-maker bothers to ask that question.)

“Sally meets Stu” is not really about a Sally and a Stu, not even in terms of its text by Nadav Heyman, a 6′ 2″ former point guard for Corvallis High School, described even then as a “cerebral” player. (He also played at the University of Puget Sound.) The stories he tells are concerned with contingency and ramification: “all the alternative routes that romantic relationships might take over a lifetime,” as Michael Upchurch puts it. Heyman recites, and dances as well.

Agami claims she’s learned English mainly from watching TV, which perhaps accounts for her unselfconscious poetry when she says the dance is about finding “the edges of the human body.” She means tracking down the multitude of states we’re capable of, not just the usual buttons. She muses about a quiet alertness, “like an animal before it attacks.”

What dance can show us, she argues, is the way the dramatic climaxes to life are located in the body. In “Sally meets Stu,” some of that external setting of scene is provided by Heyman’s words, but the focus is on the performers’ expressions and responses: the elasticity of one woman, the bitchy shell of another.  “Simplicity is the best option,” she says, talking about her goal of a “perfect clear moment.” We can be too busy to notice, she muses, the “shock of subtlety.”

In “Sally meets Stu” rehearsals, Agami keeps slicing away at the extraneous–which often means that music vanishes, it’s just the dancers and the audience members. Maybe two men heave a woman back and forth like an encumbering sack of potatoes. Maybe a series of women run and leap into a partner’s arms–just that moment, so that your stomach lightens with fear and exhilaration.

But then, from somewhere, music and an ensemble dance erupts, a line of dancers stepping along, hands lightly forward of the pelvis, as if holding reins, weight back behind the heels. Maybe the ensemble arranges itself in three levels, like a soccer team with four defensive backs, and the lines thread between each other. It is unpredictable.

The troupe trains every day in Gaga, the movement language from Ohad Naharin, which challenges people to keep constantly in motion for up to 75 minutes at a time. Naharin has said it’s a healing practice, a way to break the rigidity of habit (and other trainings) and discover where atrophy has set in. The constant flow is a way of keeping your head out of it. The result in the Ate9 troupe is that each dancer has a distinct idiom, a movement personality, but there’s also a delight in group movements, where the choreography seems lit from within.

Gaga-inspired choreography is “less formal,” Agami says, more prompted by “emotion, tension, intention”–and from each dancer “shapes arise.” (She’s teaching Gaga to dancers and non-dancers at Velocity.) Putting on “Sally meets Stu” at Century Ballroom, where thousands have twirled and tangoed, felt right to her immediately. Here are two videos of the creative process:

http://vimeo.com/45490192

http://vimeo.com/47373441

Arts & Entertainment, Music

The Box is Empty Brings Cutting Edge Classical Music to the Century Ballroom

The Box is Empty presents an evening of new classical music at the Century Ballroom on Friday, June 29, 2012. Doors open at 7:30 p.m., music begins at 8 p.m. For more information, visit The Box is Empty’s website.

In 19th-century Europe, the musical salon was a popular way to experience the latest works by the hottest composers of the day. These intimate social gatherings were typically held in private homes, where composers, their friends, and other guests would gather for musical performances, refreshments, and conversation. For composers like Chopin and Liszt, salons were essential opportunities to debut their compositions for colleagues and patrons.

The Box is Empty conductor & founder Jeremiah Cawley (Photo: Leo Chen)

This Friday, contemporary classical music collective The Box is Empty is giving Seattle audiences an opportunity to experience a salon-style event at Capitol Hill’s Century Ballroom. Led by local conductor and founder Jeremiah Cawley, the ensemble will perform new classical works by five internationally-renowned composers. All the pieces on the program will be receiving their Seattle premiere on Friday evening. Two of the performances will also be world premieres.

Much like the musical salons of the 19th century, Friday’s concert is structured in a way to encourage both active listening and socializing over the course of the evening. The Century’s bar will be open and serving drinks, and there will be ample time between pieces for audience members to mingle with the musicians. “We are excited to get to know our listeners and to discover what they hear in our performance,” writes Cawley in a press release for the event.

The five composers represented on the program reflect a diverse spectrum of the contemporary classical music world. “Here (In Circles)”, a work by acclaimed Dutch multimedia artist Michel Van Der Aa, will be receiving its U.S. premiere at Friday’s concert. Written for soprano voice accompanied by a small ensemble of winds, strings, and percussion, the piece muddles the boundaries between live and recorded music through the use of a cassette tape recorder operated by the soprano soloist during the performance.

Seattle-based composer Nat Evans (Photo: Erin Elyse Burns)

Closer to home, Seattle composer Nat Evans represents the local new music scene with the world premiere of “Hear No Noise,” a work for soprano and chamber ensemble based on the writings of a 9th century Chinese monk. Evans’ innovative works often involve site-specific performances and weave together acoustic, electronic, and natural elements. His work “Sunrise, September 18, 2010” invited audience members around Seattle to collectively experience the natural phenomenon of dawn while listening to a pre-recorded musical track.

Three other notable composers round out the evening’s impressive roster. Bang On a Can festival co-founder Michael Gordon‘s piece “Four Kings Fight Five” explores the musical elements of rhythm and pulse. Composer Amy Beth Kirsten, known for her collaborations with the Grammy Award-winning group Eighth Blackbird, explores a haunting, atmospheric sound world in her work “L’ange pale.” “For Lotte, Asleep,” a work for piano quintet by noted vocal composer Scott Gendel, is a tribute to his daughter, written during her naps as an infant.

Founded in 2011, The Box is Empty is devoted to providing Seattle audiences with new ways to experience contemporary music, art, and multimedia. “Our goal is neither audience education nor engagement, but to slowly build a community comprised of personal relationships among the audience, the performers, and the music,” they say. The Century Ballroom, a historic venue more commonly associated with social and ballroom dance than with classical music, provides a setting more conducive to conversation and interaction than the typical concert hall.

As a project-based collective, The Box is Empty’s roster of performers changes from concert to concert depending on the requirements of the program. The Box is Empty may be a new ensemble in town–Friday’s concert is the group’s third event–but Cawley has rounded up a host of Seattle’s best young musical talent for the concert. Performers include up-and-coming soprano Maria Mannisto and a 15-member chamber orchestra of local musicians, including several regular contributors to the acclaimed experimental music series The Racer Sessions.