TeenTix Blog Editorials

It’s been a pleasure curating the events for the newsroom this year. One thing we zoomed in on was finding events from underrepresented venues and artists to push our writers into the deep zone of art critique. Although you’re guaranteed a good time at big venues such as 5th Ave., or MoPOP, branching out to explore smaller events deepens our knowledge of the arts and their impacts. Especially for teens, gaining familiarity with the corners of the arts scene in Seattle can take a rabbit hole of research and bravery. Good art is important in a community, but learning to unravel details transforms its impact. We hope you find time this summer to explore the niches of the Seattle arts scene.

Earshot Jazz has an enormous calendar of daily jazz events around Seattle. From cafes to fancy hotels, they’ve got a wide variety of performers that won’t disappoint. If you’re looking to deepen your jazz taste or try something new this is your jackpot.

It’s a busy time of year at the TeenTix Newsroom. We’ve arrived at the last review cycle of the TeenTix program year, many of us are students and are submerged in final exams and AP tests, and, for some, graduation is on the horizon. We hope that, as the year wraps up and the days seep into summer, you can take some time to rest. To breathe, enjoy a steady moment of your day, and maybe – surely even – go see some art! Here’s what we’re covering this month at the Newsroom.

Seattle Chamber Music Society is bringing a unique classical music fix with Adam Neiman’s varied program featuring Rachmaninoff's 6 Moments Musicaux, Ravel’s Miroirs, and Neiman’s own Visions. Moments Musicaux are very well known in the piano world, with the famous No.4 in E minor held as one of the hardest piano pieces of all time due to its rolling left hand. This set of concert etudes features a combination of musical complexity from introspective reverie to inner turmoil making it a perfect concert piece. If you’re looking to explore classical and experimentalist music you can see Adam Neiman perform on May 10th.

For this month, TEDS Aamina and Kyle have a special treat for you. An April Editorial in the format of an NYT game of Connections (Learn about the game here)! See the key below to see what events the Newsroom is covering this month.

Youth

The sun’s coming up in Seattle. As the evenings grow lighter, cherry blossoms bloom, and March brings us closer and closer to the equinox, now is the perfect time to step out into the near-spring air and go see some art with your TeenTix pass. This month, the Newsroom’s slate of reviews covers gothic theater, pluralistic choreography, classic musicals, and local comedy: a plentiful and varied spring spread!

Over at Dacha Theatre, Mikhail Bulkakov’s “gothic Soviet fairytale” Master and the Margarita is coming to the stage. Opening on March 22 and running at 12th Avenue Arts on Capitol Hill, the play is perfect for audiences who want to be entranced by magical realism and pulled into hilarious satire. A perfect partner to Dacha’s production is The Moors at Seattle Public Theater. This play, running from March 22 to April 14, promises even more gothic goodness, this time entrenched in the mystery of the English moors. Between unexpected arrivals and the secrets of old houses, The Moors will bring a rush of intrigue into your month.

This February, in honor of Groundhog Day, the events that the newsroom is reviewing shed light on the dilemmas that have come to define the human experience: Who am I? Does joy come from continuity or change? Will there be another six weeks of winter? Though the fact that we continue to struggle with these questions can feel disheartening, we can also relish the fact that we, like so many of our ancestors, have the opportunity to untangle the complicated web of human existence.

Joy Harjo will be at Seattle Town Hall on February 27, a poet known for her writings on reconciling the past with the future as we all ask ourselves, how do we remember the past and our heritage without idealizing the pain in our history? Also taking inspiration from history, ArtsWest is running Born With Teeth from February 1 through 25. The play depicts queer, fictionalized depictions of William Shakespeare and Kit Marlowe, capturing the conflict experienced by all queer people and the erasure of their history while celebrating queer joy and excellence.

Happy New Year from the TeenTix Newsroom! This year, we challenge you to explore new artistic mediums, genres, and subjects, all for $5 with your TeenTix pass.

If you’re interested in branching into the visual arts, the Henry Art Gallery has more engrossing, novel exhibitions coming through 2024. Raúl de Nieves’s A window to the see, a spirit star chiming in the wind of wonder… opened at the Henry in September of 2023 and will continue well into summer. We suggest opening your year with the one-of-a-kind multimedia experience to set the tone for many more explosive experiences to come. Music’s rich but often-unexplored history is getting a spotlight at the Northwest African American Museum through their Positive Frequencies exhibit. Check it out to learn more about how music plays a role in Black History.

It's wintertime! Even in Seattle's bleakest months of the year, vibrancy and inspiration are definitely not gone from Seattle’s arts scene. This month our writers will be putting on their explorer hats and experiencing art from around the globe. So join them on experiences ranging from Indonesian Gamelan to Nordic sculptures to contemporary Seattle experimentation.

Seeking to disrupt and reinvent, NextFest NW 2023 at Velocity Dance is a celebration of experimentation. Northwestern artists Maximiliano, Kara Beadle, Danielle Ross, and Sophie Marie Schatz present a singular yet cohesive experience from dancing, movement, and light. NextFest runs December 7-9 + 14-16, so don’t miss the contemporary event of the season at 12th Ave Arts.

I was quietly taking notes in an eighth-grade Algebra class when I asked my deskmate if she ever thought about what she would do in a school shooting.

At first she said, “No.” Then tilted her head and said, “Sometimes.” Little did we know that a girl named Alyse sitting a few rows over would survive a shooting at her new high school.

This November, as the clocks fall back and the rain keeps falling, we at the TeenTix Newsroom are turning our attention to tradition: maintaining beloved ones and forging others that are fresh and new. With a TeenTix pass this month, there’s plenty of time to both return to classic stories and explore contemporary ideas.

At Seattle Rep, Little Women runs from November 10 to December 17, a staging of Louisa May Alcott’s adaptation of her own 1868 novel. Following the aspiring writer Jo March and her three sisters throughout each of their lives, Little Women centers on the joy of family. But the cozy community fun doesn’t stop with the play itself; the run includes dates with a Winter Market taking place in the Rep’s lobby, a double feature date in collaboration with SIFF Uptown, and more.

Fall has fallen upon us, and with it comes a new batch of exciting art to be covered on the TeenTix blog in October. This month, our writers are covering a range of films and plays that seek to tell stories usually left untold, in styles never before seen. Dust off your TeenTix pass, bundle up against the dropping temperatures and check out the unique and international perspectives showcased in Seattle this month.

SIFF’s 31st annual Seattle Polish Film Festival will kick into full gear on October 13 with a selection of the last couple of years’ best Polish films. Included among them is Anna Jadowska’s Woman on the Roof, screening on October 15 at the SIFF Film Center, a visually stunning existential drama following a 60 year-old woman as she makes the desperate decision to rob a bank at knifepoint.

Fast fashion is an increasingly relevant issue in society today. The introduction of social media into mainstream pop culture has led to more world-connectedness making the newest fashion trends cycle faster and faster. The ever-changing popularity of outfits might not seem like such a big deal at first—after all, trying new styles is fun—but then, you start to wonder… How can companies produce new clothing so fast, yet sell it for so cheap?

The answer, unfortunately, is a complete disregard for ethics. The cheap and readily available clothing that fits the newest trends is so convenient, especially for teenagers, that there’s an astounding lack of awareness regarding the harm of fast fashion. From sweatshops to poorly made clothing that falls apart after five washes, fast fashion is extremely hurtful and wasteful. After the clothing is made, worn, and soon after, torn, the quality makes it unsalvageable, leading to a majority of clothing being thrown into the garbage. Fast fashion creates much larger harm to both humans and the environment than it seems on the surface.

With the first installment of articles from the TeenTix Newsroom coming out in the next few weeks, the Press Corps is writing about works that talk about the tensions between one’s dreams and one’s past as well as the different forms that one’s dreams may take.

At ArtsWest, we’ll be covering Matt & Ben, a look at Matt Damon and Ben Affleck before their fame, in their Good Will Hunting era, pursuing their dreams. Though being a comedic take on the two Hollywood headliners, Matt & Ben reminds us to not let our dreams be deferred but to take on the oncoming year in storm.

An afternoon at Ballard’s National Nordic Museum, a brand-new TeenTix partner, left me oriented and disoriented — both, I would say, in a good way.

The disorientation was immediate and obvious. Within minutes of collecting my free ticket — the National Nordic doesn’t charge on the first Thursday of every month — I pushed through the heavy doors of their new exhibit FLÓÐ into pitch blackness. FLÓÐ was designed by Icelandic singer Jónsi as an immersive museum experience meant to simulate the ocean, but none of that was clear to me as I walked in. All I knew was that it was very, very dark, and that I nearly walked into a fellow museum-goer who hissed a quiet “excuse me” (visitors to FLÓÐ are asked to remain as silent as possible).

Then the lights came up, sort of. FLÓÐ is lit by a single strip across the ceiling, which darkens and brightens and undulates in time with the sound, which is composed by Jónsi and evokes the ocean without really sounding like the ocean. Instead of the crashing of water, it’s made up of choral recordings and vaguely electronic sounds, but it moves up and down like a wave. Sometimes the music and the lights are regular and rhythmic, like a calm sea, and sometimes storms seem to sweep through. Occasionally, the pitch darkness returns.Courtesy of the National Nordic Museum

Eventually, you’ll catch your bearings in FLÓÐ — it’s really just a long room, with a strip of lights on the ceiling and speakers along the walls — and start to get bored. I’d encourage you to linger, even after that. When I forced myself to stay, and keep watching the lights, I stopped thinking about lunch or my article assignment or what-have-you and focused on the ocean.

Still, FLÓÐ is a place you stay only for 10 or 20 minutes, maybe a few more if you’re exceedingly patient and meditative. It’s a good metaphor for my general experience of the National Nordic: a lovely place to drop into, one with a relatively low barrier to entry, that rewards a short visit or a longer one and that rewards multiple viewings. Regardless of whether you end up at the National Nordic on a regular day or a free-admission first Thursday, FLÓÐ will cost you $5 — either included in $5 general admission though the TeenTix pass, or as an add-on to your free ticket to the rest of the museum.

The rest of the museum is where I got better oriented in Nordic culture. The National Nordic does a very good job of generalizing where it’s appropriate and emphasizing individuality when it’s helpful. The rest of the ground floor is an exhibit broken down by country, highlighting a cultural practice from each county. It was useful for me, someone with only a passing familiarity with most Nordic countries, but it seemed just a bit reductive — not all of Danish culture can be encapsulated in the trendy notion of hygge, for example.Courtesy of the National Nordic Museum

This exhibit included a panel about the indigenous Sámi people, whose cultural region, called Sápmi, extends into Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. On the back wall played a video about the experience of Nordic people of color and their relationship with the stereotypes and ideals of their home countries.

Upstairs was my favorite exhibit, a long and comprehensive timeline of Nordic history. It was exceptionally well-done: accessible to an outsider, clear, and rich with more information than I could conceivably read in a single sitting. The curation of the objects in the room also benefited from the National Nordic’s wide-ranging look at history, featuring everything from Viking longboats to brightly-colored Scandinavian chairs and bicycles.

It’s the objects that really shine at the National Nordic, the clothes and the furnishings and the memorabilia and the doohickeys. It’s easy to get distracted staring at the rigging on a model ship or the stitching on the traditional dresses on display. Everything is vibrantly colorful and interesting and simply lovely; the Scandanavians know what they’re doing when it comes to design. At the National Nordic, take time to stop reading and look up from the plaques, timelines and information to appreciate everything visual that’s on offer.

It’s conceivable to see the entire museum in an hour or two, and that includes time to stop by Freya, the café and bakery on the first floor that serves unique Nordic baked goods. The National Nordic is great to drop by during an afternoon out in Ballard — walk around the shops, grab some lunch, then stop at the museum for a little while. (Just don’t try for lunch at Rachel’s Bagels, as your erstwhile TeenTix writer did, because while they’re open until 1pm, they were nearly cleaned out of bagels at noon. Let that one be a breakfast activity.

The beauty of the National Nordic is the beauty of FLÓÐ: it can be enjoyed relatively briefly, but there’s a lot of depth to it, benefitting both a short and a long visit. For just $5, you too could find yourself both oriented and disoriented in Nordic culture. This summer, take that principle and have a museum summer. Grab your TeenTix pass, find a cool little spot, and add some gallery-gazing, sonic-immersion-experiencing and baked-good-eating to your days out and about in Seattle.Courtesy of the National Nordic Museum

The month of May is the last month of spring—enjoy it before the hot waves of summer hit us with our exclusive curation of art to experience this month!

If you’re in the business of unfiltered, unscripted stories, then The Moth Mainstage is the May event you’re looking for! Watch five storytellers develop and shape their stories with the Moth’s directors.

Even though we’re on the tail ends of the UW cherry blossoms, the spirit of reinvigoration, renewal, and reinvention remains in the air in the Seattle arts scene. In April we traveled from Jet City Improv to the Henry Art Gallery quintessential spring atmospheres. We hope you’ve been taking advantage of the nice weather and visiting all of our amazing arts partners!

We first see this theme of reinvention at the Henry with Thick as Mud, an exhibit that explores how mud represents the relationship between humanity and geography. The multimedia showing explores the violence inflicted against the environment as well as the potential for preservation and reinvigoration. Similarly, Ikat at the Seattle Art Museum uses an immersive experience to remind us of the importance of the tangible in terms of fashion. SAM describes this as “A radical departure from today’s factory-made cloth, Ikat serves as a reminder of the power of slow fashion and the sacredness of clothing as art”.

This month on the TeenTix blog, we’re featuring events that force viewers to reject surface level understanding of life. These arts events venture underground, focusing on stories that have previously been untold, underrepresented, or underappreciated.

SIFF starts off on March 1st with the 2002 film Whale Rider, the story of a Mayori girl battling against stereotypes with the hopes to one day become chief. Similarly, Seattle Public Theater delves into stereotypes and their harm through the musical 110 in the Shade. The source material of the show was written in the 1950s and centers the theme of uncovering, as the main character Lizzie uncovers her own personal truths.

It’s love season and we at TeenTix have many partners we adore (partner venues, that is). We love seeing our partners invest in new works, so we are thrilled to have three world premieres from TeenTix venues this February. Dacha Theatre, a new addition to the TeenTix Pass Program, is debuting the electro-synth musical An Incomplete List of All the Things I’m Going to Miss When the World is No Longer.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, ACT Theatre Core Company member Reginald André Jackson pursued an extensive research project about forgotten Black theatre artists, which has culminated in the production History of Theatre: About, By, For, and Near. The play explores whether the history of the oppressed can properly be shared without expressing oppression.

With one turn of a calendar’s page, 2023 has arrived. For many, the new year is a time for self-reflection. Some might make New Year’s resolutions to look back on their year in review; others might set on the path to a fresh start. For the more creatively inclined, the new year is a magnificent chance to delve deep into who you are and who you want to become through art. If you’re interested in experiencing the myriad of artistic perspectives the new year has inspired in the Seattle community, check out the events covered this month on the TeenTix Arts Blog, curated by the Teen Editorial Staff.

For those of you aching to return to theater after the holidays, look no further for some truly exciting events. Seattle Repertory Theatre is welcoming in the new year by contemplating change and transformation with Metamorphoses, a thrilling new theatrical production inspired by Ovid’s classic epic poem. If you’re looking to delve even further into history, check out History of Theatre at ACT Theatre, a production that seeks to explore and celebrate the rich, little-known history of Black theatre in America. To challenge your social perceptions, consider seeing This Bitter Earth at Seattle Public Theater, a beautiful exploration of racial issues, Queer identity, and modern love.

As we enter the depths of winter and the holiday season, art in Seattle is picking up a familiar festive theme—with a twist, of course. Tradition connects us to our heritage and identity, but it can also feel limiting. The ability to evolve traditions and create something new and interesting for the present is and has always been integral to art. Rest assured, there will be plenty of opportunities to revisit and reconstruct our favorite holiday classics this December.

Seattle Public Theater is bringing a Christmas classic to the mix with a revival of their A Very Die Hard Christmas, running from December 3 — 30. Similarly, A Very Drunken Christmas Carol is coming back to the Seattle Opera after a sold-out run in the 2021 season.

Welcome to the “Thursday” of the year! November isn’t exactly the Wednesday of the week, but it definitely isn’t Friday either. As we float towards the weekend of the year (December), the local arts scene too begins making the shift from fall to the holiday season. Various arts events of holiday spirit now coexist with cultural exhibitions that redefine the giving season, culminating in a Mariah Carey-esque thawing as the festive fun begins. So please you, enjoy yourself this November with productions of all kinds, holiday-themed or not!

Thanksgiving season is a time to reflect on our cultural identities, identifying how they will shape our futures. American Art: The Stories We Carry, an exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum, does just that, highlighting a diverse array of experiences that give new meaning to the term “American.” The exhibit opened on October 20th, and is a fun way to spark conversation with family and friends as you trudge about Seattle’s art scene in the remaining fall weather.