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The Top Things to See and Do in Seattle: January 2017

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Visual Art

The Pig Went Down to the Harbor at Sunrise and Wept

Jan 21–Apr 16 Ever a peddler of the surreal oddities of the mind, Seattle illustrator and creator of the Frank comics series Jim Woodring employed a larger-than-life artistic implement to create his new Frye-commissioned exhibit, The Pig Went Down to the Harbor at Sunrise and Wept. The psychologically explorative and trippy black-and-white, framed images of abstract dreamscapes were inked by Woodring using his gigantic, five-foot-long handcrafted dip pen. Mightier than the sword indeed. Frye Art Museum, fryemuseum.org

Concert

Windborne’s The Music of David Bowie

Jan 10 It’s still hard to fathom that David Bowie was mortal, but his songs still feel transcendent. On the one-year anniversary of the death of the experimental, glamorous, and boundary-pushing rock icon, join the Seattle Symphony, guest conductor Brent Havens, and singer Tony Vincent for a public celebration of Bowie’s music and its lasting impact on our collective creative psyche. Benaroya Hall, seattlesymphony.org

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Image: Heidi May

Books & Talks

Henry Rollins

“Pain is personal. It really belongs to the one feeling it. Probably the only thing that is your own. I like mine.” —Henry Rollins 

Jan 2 The punk polymath (former Black Flag frontman, writer, comedian, actor, radio host) heads to the Neptune for a viciously unvarnished spoken word performance. Neptune Theatre, stgpresents.org

Dance

Shot

Jan 19–Feb 4 Complacency isn’t in acclaimed Seattle choreographer Donald Byrd’s vocabulary. His Spectrum Dance Theater opens its 2017 season (American: Identity, Race, or Culture?) with the world premiere of Shot, an examination and critique of the police’s use of lethal force against black people. Byrd’s “theater of disruption” style—which mixes dance, music, text, and sound—provides an unflinching look at the issue. Seattle Repertory Theatre, spectrumdance.org

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Image: Tino Tran

Theater

Woody Sez: The Life and Music of Woody Guthrie

Jan 6–29 Woody Guthrie built the template for the American protest song. With “This Machine Kills Fascists” scrawled across his guitar, the folk singer-songwriter blended rebellion and sincerity in songs like “This Land Is Your Land” and odes to the plight of Dust Bowl workers. Seattle Rep shares his homespun legacy via the musical Woody Sez: The Life and Music of Woody Guthrie. Seattle Repertory Theatre, seattlerep.org

Published in the The Seattleite's Ultimate Guide to Hawaii issue of Seattle Met.











Seth Sommerfeld
Seth Sommerfeld
Assistant Editor (Arts) Seth Sommerfeld runs the arts department at Seattle Met, crafting the magazine's On the Town section, editing the Culture Fiend blog, and contributing to reader service features such as “The Ultimate Seahawks Guide” and the front-of-the-book department, Mudroom. Seth has written about music and culture for Rolling Stone, Spin, Pacific Northwest Inlander, Charleston Post and Courier, Syracuse Post-Standard, and Billings Gazette. He also extensively covered the NBA Draft for years for Fox Sports and NBADraft.net, and was published as part of Myth, Media, and Culture in Star Wars: An Anthology. Originally from Billings, Montana, Seth first lived in Washington while earning an undergraduate degree in journalism and broadcasting at Gonzaga University. He followed up those studies at Syracuse University, where he earned a master’s degree in arts journalism.