SEASIDE OPERA | Tacoma

Spaceworks Tacoma
Tollefson Plaza
16-20 August 2010
A K Mimi Allin

The ocean washes its way up to Tollefson Plaza this August for a playful performance set to ocean-side operas. The plaza turns into a beach and the birds sing in opera through a record player. An aging wooden lifeguard chair rises up from the base of the curved pink steps, which are now lined in blue waves. Using costumes, flags, whistles and metal pails, the artist performs to a changing audio of sea-inspired operas and carnival music. 15-minute performances occur daily, on the half hour, for one full week from 2-7pm. The public is encouraged to take a seat and watch the performances or participate in the activities by playing with the water toys around the cascading pools. There will be paper boats, wind-up water toys, water guns and fishing rods. Summer is finally here.

From Mongolia, With Love

From Mongolia, With Love
The Loganberry Festival
Whidbey Island
Saturday July 24 July & Sunday 25 July
In the teardrop garden near the Rob Schouten Gallery

In a specially designed & constructed miniature yurt or ger (8' diameter) made of hemlock & felt awaits the nomadic poet. Inside you'll witness a little scriptorium with handmade poetry scrolls on which are written verses drawing from a variety of wandering poetry traditions (Han-Shan, Li Po, Basho, The Troubadours, The Beat Poets, Bob Dylan and Buddhist Poetry in the New Mongolia). Visitors will be invited in, one at a time, for a unique & intimate poetry experience. Scrolls will be unrolled & read to you in the mottled light of this tiny yurt. Experience the itinerant poetess face to face at the Loganberry Festival!! This project is sponsored by Brave New Words. See you at the festival!

Loganberry Festival 2010
It’s summertime on Whidbey Island, time for the annual Loganberry Festival at the Greenbank Farm. We look forward to a weekend filled with live music, good food, wine tasting, arts & crafts booths, chainsaw & other artists in action, pie eating contests, & more from 10 AM to 7 PM on Saturday, and 10 AM to 5 PM on Sunday. Admission is free, with only a $5 per car fee for parking. Directions to Green Bank Farm.

Artist
A K Mimi Allin has twice crossed the Pacific Ocean by boat, has worked a climbing ranger on Mt. Rainier and served in the Peace Corps in Poland. In 2003, she enrolled at City College of New York where she split her time between Museum Studies and Writing Poetry. In 2006, Allin returned to Seattle and started practicing as a performance artist. Her work encompasses many media often involving movement, poetry, installation and the participation of onlookers. These performed events are documented in video, photographs and writing. In her best-known work, Nostalgia: The Poetess at Green Lake (2006-2007), Allin spent 8 hours every Sunday at a small writing desk at Green Lake, offering intimate poetry exchanges to the public. Allin has created work for ACT Theatre, Seattle Art Museum, Bumbershoot, ArtSparks, LitFuse, Smoke Farm, Brave New Words and Urban Wilderness Project. In 2010, she was an artist-in-residence at both Project: Space Available and at NBBJ.

artSparks 2010

Walking in War & Peace
Weeklong performance by A K Mimi Allin

Occidental Park, Seattle
Daily, ongoing, from 13 July-19 July 2010 until Le Fin

Everyday, for one week, beginning Tuesday 13 July 2010, I will roll out a red runner that stretches the full length of the park (one full block). I will stand at one end and wait for someone to walk with me. Those who join me, tell me their full name and take me by the arm. As we walk, I read to them from War & Peace which is strapped to my body with a specially-designed book harness. At the end of the aisle, my partner gives me a sentence from their life. The only rule is that it must contain the words war and peace. In parting, we take hands, look in one another’s eyes and say, “in war and peace,” as a sort of closing vow. As a community, we stand together despite our differences. We also walk the purchase at Occidental Square and work through an epic novel. Those who walk take away a small piece of the epic whole.

This is an artSparks project
16 artists , 1 city park