Arts in Seattle
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Seattle, although a relatively new city, is a significant center for the performing arts. The century-old Seattle Symphony Orchestra is among the world's most recorded orchestras [1]. The Seattle Opera and Pacific Northwest Ballet, are comparably distinguished. On at least two occasions, Seattle's local popular music scene has burst into the national and even international consciousness, first with a major contribution to garage rock in the mid-1960s, and later as the home of grunge rock in the early 1990s. The city has about twenty live theater venues, and Pioneer Square is one of the country's most prominent art gallery districts.
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[edit] Seattle in the early 20th century
Although Seattle in the early 20th century was more of a center for variety shows and vaudeville than for the high arts, the Seattle Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1903.
The Cornish School — later the Cornish Institute and now Cornish College of the Arts, an accredited college with courses in the sciences and humanities as well — was founded in 1914 by Nellie Cornish. Initially a music school, but later equally known for dance, theater, and visual arts, it thrived for decades under her leadership; although its quality slackened after her death, it eventually recovered and remains an important arts education institution to this day.
[edit] Emergence of Seattle as an arts center
Seattle first began to be an arts center in the 1920s. Australian painter Ambrose Patterson arrived in 1919; over the next few decades Mark Tobey, Morris Graves, Kenneth Callahan, Guy Irving Anderson, and Paul Horiuchi would establish themselves as nationally and internationally known artists.
Seattle was very much "on the circuit" by this time. Performers at Seattle's Moore Theater in the 1930s included Sarah Bernhardt, Lily Langtry, the Barrymores, Marie Dressier, and Anna Pavlova. [2]
By mid-century the thriving jazz scene in the city's Skid Road district would produce such luminaries as Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, and Ernestine Anderson. The Brothers Four, one of the collegiate folk groups of the late 1950s and early 1960s, were also from Seattle.
[edit] Century 21 Exposition
When Seattle decided to try to put itself on the map with the futuristic Century 21 Exposition — the 1962 World's Fair — high culture was on the agenda, as well as popular entertainment along the lines of "Gracie Hansen's Paradise International" and "Les Poupees de Paris," an adult-themed puppet show, both of which aspired more to a Gay Nineties naughtiness than to anything artistic. [3] The Opera House on the grounds of the center was rebuilt for the occasion (and would be rebuilt again 2001–2003 as McCaw Hall); performers at the fair included Igor Stravinsky, Benny Goodman, and Victor Borge; the Seattle Symphony brought in opera singers and staged Aida. The Fine Arts Pavilion (later the Exhibition Hall) managed to bring in works by Titian, Van Dyck, and Monet, as well as more contemporary pieces by Jackson Pollock, Georgia O'Keefe, and Alexander Calder and by Pacific Northwest artists Tobey, Callahan, and Graves. There was also a significant exhibition of Asian art and Northwest Coast Indian art. [4] The exposition also commissioned a massive abstract mural by Horiuchi, which still forms the backdrop to the stage at Seattle Center's Mural Amphitheater.
Outside of the fair itself, Seattle's bars were filled with the live music that would result just a few years later in the region's first great period as a rock'n'roll mecca.
[edit] After the Fair
Robert Nesbitt writes in the liner notes to the compilation album Wheedle's Groove that in 1972 the city had "a minimum of twenty live music clubs specializing in funk and soul," and that doesn't count other popular music genres. That collection of live music clubs would shrink drastically beginning in the mid-1970s, first with the rise of disco music and recorded dance music in general, and then with Seattle's slightly rundown center becoming a financial district of new skyscrapers.
[edit] The 1980s
But it wasn't until the 1980s that Seattle began to be generally recognized as an important performing arts locale. One of the key events in this respect was the Seattle Opera's ambitious and successful staging, under its founding general director Glynn Ross, of Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. Performed in its entirety every summer from 1975 through 1983 back-to-back cycles (first in German, then in English, by 1982, the New York Times reported that Seattle had become a serious rival to Bayreuth. Seattle's Wagner festival has continued to the present day, albeit no longer quite such an ambitious annual event. [5]
The popular music scene at the time included such teen-pop bands as the Allies (whose song "Emma Peel" received a good deal of local play, but never broke out nationally) and the Heaters (later "the Heats"). That same era saw the more sophisticated pop of the short-lived Visible Targets and the still-performing Young Fresh Fellows and Posies; the pop-punk of The Fastbacks; and the outright punk of the Fartz (later Ten Minute Warning).
[edit] Grunge era
Seattle burst into the popular consciousness with the grunge rock scene of the early 1990s, when Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Temple of the Dog, and Mudhoney, all reached vast audiences.
Another punk-influenced but non-grunge Seattle band of the period, The Gits, had garnered great local respect; the brutal murder of Gits lead singer Mia Zapata threw the local music scene for a loop. Zapata was memorialized in several ways: the creation of a women's self-defense organization, Home Alive, and an album Viva Zapata by Seven Year Bitch, a Seattle band who had counted her as a mentor.
[edit] Arts in Seattle today
[edit] Annual cultural events and fairs
Among Seattle's best-known annual cultural events and fairs are the 24-day Seattle International Film Festival, Northwest Folklife over the Memorial Day weekend, numerous Seafair events throughout the summer months (ranging from a Bon Odori celebration to hydroplane races), the Bite of Seattle, and Bumbershoot over the Labor Day weekend. All are typically attended by over 100,000 people annually, as are Hempfest and two separate Independence Day celebrations.
Several dozen Seattle neighborhoods have one or more annual street fairs, and many have an annual parade or foot race. The largest of the street fairs feature hundreds of craft and food booths and multiple stages with live entertainment, and draw more than 100,000 people over the course of a weekend; the smallest are strictly neighborhood affairs with a few dozen craft and food booths, barely distinguishable from more prominent neighborhoods' weekly farmers' markets.
Other significant events include numerous Native American pow-wows, a Greek Festival hosted by St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church in Montlake, and numerous ethnic festivals associated with Festal at Seattle Center.
As in most large cities, there are numerous other annual events of more limited interest, ranging from book fairs and specialized film festivals to a two-day, 8,000-rider Seattle-to-Portland bicycle ride.
[edit] Performing arts
Seattle is a significant center for the performing arts. The century-old Seattle Symphony Orchestra is among the world's most recorded orchestras [6] and performs primarily at Benaroya Hall. The Seattle Opera and Pacific Northwest Ballet, which perform at McCaw Hall (which opened 2003 on the site of the former Seattle Opera House at Seattle Center), are comparably distinguished, with the Opera being particularly known for its performances of the works of Richard Wagner and the PNB School (founded in 1974) ranking as one of the top three ballet training institutions in the United States. [7], [8], [9] The Seattle Youth Symphony is the largest symphonic youth organization in the United States, and among the most distinguished.
The historic 5th Avenue Theatre, built in 1926, continues to stage Broadway quality musical performances featuring both local talent and international stars. The theater's "Chinese Timber Architecture" is based upon the Forbidden City's Imperial and Summer palaces. In addition, Seattle has about twenty live theater venues, a slim majority of them being associated with fringe theater. It has a strong local scene for poetry slams and other performance poetry, and several venues that routinely present public lectures or readings. The largest of these is Seattle's 900-seat, Roman Revival Town Hall on First Hill.
[edit] Popular music today
In popular music, Seattle is often thought of as the home of grunge rock, but it is also home to such varied musicians as avant-garde jazz musicians Bill Frisell and Wayne Horvitz, rapper Sir Mix-a-Lot, smooth jazz saxophonist Kenny G, and such poppier rock bands as Goodness and the Presidents of the United States of America. Such musicians as Jimi Hendrix, Duff McKagan, Nikki Sixx, and Quincy Jones spent their formative years in Seattle. Ann and Nancy Wilson of the band Heart, often attributed to Seattle, were actually from the neighboring suburb of Bellevue, as was progressive metal band Queensrÿche.
Seattle hosts a diverse and influential alternative music scene. The Seattle-based record label Sub Pop was the first to sign Nirvana, and also signed such non-grunge bands as The Postal Service and The Shins. Other Seattle-area bands of note include Pearl Jam, Aiden, Alien Crime Syndicate, Antlers, The Beautiful Mothers, Betty X, The Blood Brothers, Charlie Drown, Common Heroes, Dangermart, Daphne Loves Derby (Kent), Death Cab for Cutie (Bellingham), Daylight Basement,The Divorce, Dog Bone Sanctuary, Dolour, Drop Six, Drown Mary, Harvey Danger, Foo Fighters, Maktub, Metal Church, Minus the Bear, Modest Mouse (Issaquah), Mudhoney, The Murder City Devils, MxPx (Bremerton), The Myriad, Pedro the Lion, Point One, Ruby Doe, Schoolyard Heroes, Screaming Trees (originally from Ellensburg), Second Coming, Sky Cries Mary, Sleater-Kinney (Olympia), Smoosh, Soundgarden, Sunny Day Real Estate, Super Deluxe, Supersuckers, Sweet 75, Turn to Fall, United States of Electronica, Utterance, Vendetta Red, Vexed, Vindaloo, Visqueen, Zeke and The Zero Points.
The Experience Music Project (EMP) in Seattle Center is one of the few major institutions anywhere specifically devoted to popular music. Although EMP has scaled back its live music programming from the level of its first few years, every April since 2002 it has hosted the three-day Pop Conference [10], which brings together a few hundred people for a unique conference that presents the perspectives of academics, writers, artists, and fans.
[edit] Visual arts
Being so much younger than the cities of Europe and the eastern U.S., Seattle has a lower profile in terms of art museums than it does in the performing arts. It is nonetheless home to five major art museums and galleries: Consolidated Works, the Frye Art Museum, the Henry Art Gallery, the Seattle Art Museum, and the Seattle Asian Art Museum. Several Seattle museums and cultural institutions that are not specifically art museums also have excellent art collections, most notably the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, which has an excellent collection of Native American artwork.
Seattle has well over 100 commercial art galleries, at least a dozen non-profit art galleries, and perhaps a hundred artists' studios that are open to the public at least once a month. About half of these galleries and studios are concentrated in one neighborhood, Pioneer Square. See Museums and galleries of Seattle.
In recent decades, Washington State, King County, and Seattle have all allocated a certain percentage of all capital budgets to the arts. Several neighborhoods have also raised funds for art installations, usually sculptures. Among the results are massive murals by Fay Jones [11], Gene Gentry McMahon [12] and Roger Shimomura in the Westlake Station of the Metro bus tunnel; pieces by Ross Palmer Beecher in such unlikely locations as the Safeco Field hallways [13] or a men's room at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport [14]. A magnificent glass tile mosaic mural by Paul Horiuchi forms a backdrop to the stage of the Mural Amphitheater at Seattle Center. [15]
Seattle was home of Jacob Lawrence from 1970 until his death in 2000. He is well represented in local corporate collections; several of his pieces are prominently displayed at the Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington [16], as is a piece by one of his colleagues from the U.W. art faculty, Alden Mason [17], and works by other artists associated with the Pacific Northwest [18].
Probably the most visible public sculpture in Seattle is Jonathan Borofsky's 48-foot kinetic sculpture "Hammering Man" [19], outside the Seattle Art Museum; probably the most unusual and popular are several pieces in the Fremont neighborhood, including the Fremont Troll, a bronze statue of Lenin [20] (formerly in Slovakia), and Richard Beyer's "Waiting for the Interurban."
[edit] Poetry
Spoken word and poetry are staples of the Seattle arts scene, paralleling the explosion of the indie scene during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Seattle's performance poetry scene blossomed with the importation of the poetry slam from Chicago (its origin) by transplant Paul Grajnert. This and the proliferation of weekly readings/open mics and poetry-friendly club venues like the Owl & Thistle, The Weathered Wall, the OK Hotel (now defunct), and the Ditto Tavern (now defunct), The Off-Ramp (now El Corazon), and The Globe Cafe (home, until 2006, of 'Red Sky Poetry Theatre', formerly the city's oldest-running, weekly reading), allowed spoken word/performance poetry to take off in a big way.
The mid 1990's saw a major trend in collaborative performance as musicians/bands starting teaming up with poets and spoken word artists. 1995 saw an "explosion" of poets and musicians producing spoken word CDs. Performers such as Cristien Storm, Harry Pierce, Todd Davis, Christina Black, Michael Ricciardi, and others began performing with ensembles of musicians and creating a diverse fusion of words and sounds.
The Seattle Poetry Festival (launched first as the "Poetry Circus" in 1997; Bob Redmond and Noel Franklin, founders) has featured local, regional, national, and international names in poetry such as Michael McClure, Anne Waldman, Ted Joans, Gwendolyn Brooks, Jessica Hagedorn, Ishmael Reed, Sekou Sundiata, and many others. Regionally famed poets like Bart Baxter, Tess Gallagher, Sherman Alexie, and Rebecca Brown have also been featured at the Poetry Festival, as well as numerous other events such as the world famous "Bumbershoot" Arts Festival.
The Poetry Festival (produced by Eleventh Hour), through 2003, would continue to hold annual (now bi-annual) festivals that, along with poetry readings and panel discussions, featured innovative and multi-media 'happenings' and programs ("poetry by other means") such as 'The Spoken Word Orchestra' (an ensemble project organized by Paul Nelson and Danika Dinsmore), 'The Poetry Bus' (a combination 'good-will' tour and guerilla poetry 'drive by'), The Northwest Visual & Concrete Poetry Exhibition (curated by Nico Vassilakis), 'Future for Word', a first-of-its-kind anywhere exhibition of interactive, experimental, and 'techno' poetry (curated by Michael Ricciardi), and various 'Video Poetry' (short, cinematic fusions of image and language) screenings.
Currently, slam poetry takes most of the headlines, with its current stars, such as Buddy Wakefield (two-time national individual slam champ), Laura "Piece" Kelly, Christa Bell, and Jeremy Richards, achieving some national recognition.
[edit] Other museums, aquariums, zoos, and cultural centers
There are a number of other museums in Seattle. The Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, on the campus of the University of Washington, has a large collection of botanical, zoological, and geologic specimens in addition to its anthropology collection, which concentrates on Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest but covers the rest of the Americas, Asia, and the Pacific Islands as well. Residents and visitors interested in history, industry, and transportation are served by the Center for Wooden Boats, a maritime heritage museum on Lake Union; the Museum of Flight, which incorporates Boeing's original manufacturing plant; and the Museum of History and Industry, which recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. The Nordic Heritage Museum in Ballard honors Seattle's Scandinavian immigrants, and the Seattle Metropolitan Police Museum in Pioneer Square honors its police force. And on the campus of Seattle Center are located the Pacific Science Center and Paul Allen's Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame.
The Seattle Aquarium is located on the Elliott Bay waterfront, and the Woodland Park Zoo is on Phinney Ridge in north Seattle.
United Indians of All Tribes operates the Daybreak Star Cultural Center in Discovery Park.
[edit] External links
- The Stranger: Musicians' Directory lists over 1,000 current Seattle bands, about half with free samples of their music.
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