Ballet Northwest boldly enters its 55th season with highly innovative, inspirational and diverse programming in store. Time flies by quickly, so mark your calendars now. After a performance of Crescendo on October 11, comes The Nutcracker, Olympia’s favorite December tradition that invites the whole family into a land of sweets and all others we create in our imagination. We are excited to give you an inside glimpse into everything that is in store.
These two films depict the Pacific Northwest in two radically different times. In Robert Altman’s classic revisionist Western, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Warren Beatty moves into a mining town in 1900s Washington, trying his best to become a big shot in the middle of a boom period. Michael Sarnoski’s new classic, Pig, explores the fringes of modern-day Portland, with Nicolas Cage starring as a reclusive former chef whose truffle pig gets stolen. The films – showing at Capitol Theater November 15 & 16 – showcase the Pacific Northwest’s natural wonders as an overwhelming force that has to be bent to, not conquered; and both films have an elegiac atmosphere that hangs over them.
David Mollari Sederberg 45-Year Art Retrospective
by Alec Clayton – page 4
Nobody does it like David Mollari Sederberg, an artist whose work is simultaneously otherworldly and grounded in reality. You have certainly seen his otherworldly Glowhenge (2020-2021), nine brilliantly painted monoliths standing upright on the mound by the shore of Capital Lake, each lit with black light at night and each painted by a different artist. During fall Arts Walk this year, Sederberg’s work will be featured in a retrospective exhibition of artworks in various media assembled by the artist: painting, sculpture, lighted installations, and video created from 1981 to the present at the Olympia Ballroom.
Ballet Northwest’s 55th Season
by Rachel Benton – page 16
Ballet Northwest boldly enters its 55th Season with highly innovative, inspirational and diverse programming in store. Time flies by quickly, so mark your calendars now and make a plan to purchase tickets for the following events:
Crescendo: a one-night-only event October 11, when dancers will share the stage with Masterworks Choral Ensemble and Student Orchestras of Greater Olympia.
The Nutcracker: Olympia’s favorite December tradition that invites the whole family into a land of sweets and all others we create in our imagination.
As we count down the days to each event, we are excited to give you an inside glimpse into everything that is in store.
Patton Oswalt Presents Pig and McCabe & Mrs. Miller
by Adam McKinney – page 12
If you’ve grown up loving movies, and fantasize about having a career around film, you may pursue the coveted paths (director, actor, screenwriter, special effects artist, film critic), but find that the purest expression of this love is the most straightforward one: film programmer at a movie theater. With this job, you are responsible for picking the films that get shown to the public, a natural extension of every cinephile’s instinct to show all their favorite movies to everyone they know.
It’s a perfect fit, then, to have Patton Oswalt come through Olympia’s Capitol Theater in November, presenting two films that have the Pacific Northwest coursing through their veins: 1971’s McCabe & Mrs. Miller and 2021’s Pig.
s’gʷi gʷi ʔ altxʷ The House of Welcome at The Evergreen State College Celebrates 30Year Anniversary – page 8
by Lynette Charters Serembe
Nestled in the heart of the beautiful and lush grounds of The Evergreen State College is s’gʷi gʷi ʔ altxʷ House of Welcome, also known as the Longhouse, on the Indigenous Arts campus. The gathering place hosts many opportunities for Native artists as well as workshops providing a nurturing common ground to share art, wisdom, cultural practices and experiences which educate and empower the community. The Longhouse helps promote self-determination and cultural resilience, representing, facilitating, and nurturing Pacific Rim Native arts and culture by creating programs through grants that create and host Native arts classes. These programs connect Native artists with students and collaborators.
The Olympia Armory Creative Campus Looks to Reconnect With Its History As a Community Hub
by Molly Walsh – page 20
For more than three decades, a wide swath of Olympia residents has expressed interest in the creation of a community art center, with this demand recorded in nine separate City of Olympia planning documents since the late 1980s. And multiple local stakeholders, including the Eastside Neighborhood Association, City of Olympia staff, and State of Washington officials, saw potential for the Armory building as a community creative campus. In 2021, the state gifted the Armory building to the City of Olympia, with the condition that the building be turned into a community art center for at least a ten-year period.
The building is currently closed to the public until the necessary upgrades are made. Construction is set to begin around October, with an estimated re-opening date in 2027
Theater, from the beginning, has been a space for confronting death, and life’s existential questions. Shakespeare, in Julius Caesar (currently on the boards at Ashland), has much to say about both: “I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him,” quoth Marc Antony, “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.” Fast forward to the current zeitgeist, and the evil that men, mostly men, are doing, from one side of the earth to the other—climate derangement, a new ICE age, nuclear proliferation, war crimes and lawlessness from sea to shining sea—looks very much like it will have enduring if not undying consequences.
Now comes Olympia Little Theatre’s September 2025 production of Sarah Ruhl’s quintessentially quirky comedy, Dead Man’s Cell Phone, directed by Kendra Malm and Toni Holm.
On the second Wednesday of the month, the South Sound Story Guild gathers at Olympia’s Harbor House, where attendees preserve and celebrate the art of oral storytelling. Whether a funny yarn passed down through the generations, a spooky legend or the tale of a great mythological hero, the South Sound Story Guild holds space for members of the guild and the greater community to be entertained, learn something new, and share their own stories.
The Fall/Winter print edition of OLY ARTS N0. 34 is published! Here is a list of the articles and where in the Olympia area you can pick up your FREE copy. Enjoy!
Nobody does it like David Mollari Sederberg, an artist whose work is simultaneously otherworldly and grounded in reality. You have certainly seen his otherworldly Glowhenge (2020-2021), nine brilliantly painted monoliths standing upright on the mound by the shore of Capital Lake, each lit with black light at night and each painted by a different artist. During fall Arts Walk this year, Sederberg’s work will be featured in a retrospective exhibition of artworks in various media assembled by the artist: painting, sculpture, lighted installations, and video created from 1981 to the present at the Olympia Ballroom.
Nestled in the heart of the beautiful and lush grounds of The Evergreen State College is s’gʷi gʷi ʔ altxʷ House of Welcome, also known as the Longhouse, on the Indigenous Arts campus. The gathering place hosts many opportunities for Native artists as well as workshops providing a nurturing common ground to share art, wisdom, cultural practices and experiences which educate and empower the community. The Longhouse helps promote self-determination and cultural resilience, representing, facilitating, and nurturing Pacific Rim Native arts and culture by creating programs through grants that create and host Native arts classes. These programs connect Native artists with students and collaborators.