S1: It's time for Midday Edition on Kpbs. Today , we are talking with local authors and a contemporary ballet company to highlight San Diego's arts scene. I'm Jade Hindman. Here's to conversations that keep you informed , inspired and make you think. Author Adalyn Grace takes us through a gothic murder mystery turned romance in her latest novel.
S2: I pitched it as a Gothic Bridgerton meets knives out sort of murder mystery. I wanted it to feel kind of as dazzling as it does dark.
S1: Plus , poet Foon te Woong shares the emotional experience of migration in her writing and will tell you how a local dance company is keeping ballet contemporary. That's ahead on Midday Edition. Spirits abound in one local bestselling authors Young adult fantasy series Belladonna. The first in the series is a gothic infused romance set against a Victorian era backdrop. The protagonist , Signa , is an immortal young woman who can talk to spirits , which is how she finds out her late relatives were actually poisoned. She sets out to find the murderer with a spirit named Death who , quote , makes her life a living hell. Their connection , however , grows in ways she could never imagine. The romance and intrigue continues in the sequel Foxglove , which came out Tuesday. Joining us to talk more about the series is author Adeline Grace. And Adeline. Welcome.
S2: Oh , my gosh , that was the best intro I think I've ever had in my entire life. I'm just over here grinning. Thank you so much.
S1: You are so welcome. We're so glad to have you here. So , I mean , first I want to talk about Belladonna. First , the inspiration for your series actually came from a moment where you envisioned your own death. Tell us more about that.
S2: Yeah , So I was such a weird kid. I mean , my relaxing music I grew up listening to was like Sweeney Todd. So I've always been , I guess , a little bit of an oddball. But actually my first job was working in live theater , and one of the shows I was working on back when I lived in Arizona , Arizona Broadway theater was the Secret Garden , and I was up in the rafters on the catwalk way high above the audience. And , you know , I'd seen the show probably 50 times. At this point , my brain is just on autopilot and nobody knows I'm up there and I'm just staring down at the audience watching like the ghost on stage sing. And I just had this weird thought of like , what would happen if I fell ? You know , would anybody be able to see me ? Like what I what ? I die. What I become a ghost. What I haunt this theater. And it was this very initial spark of the idea for Belladonna because , you know , again , the ghosts are singing on stage. We have this backdrop and like this eerie manor. Um , yeah , it's kind of just an odd , an odd thought that spiraled into an entire book. Wow.
S1: Wow. I mean , it's a gothic romance that's also part murder mystery , part coming of age.
S2: I wrote it during peak Covid when we were at home quarantining and couldn't leave the house. So it was very much just for me. I've always loved the Victorian era. I've always loved that sort of paranormal romance. The book that kind of just made me want to be an author was Twilight , which , you know , has a very paranormal romance at its core. So that's always just been something I've gravitated toward.
S1: I mean , and I want to know more about your background in Gothic literature. I mean , you turned to classic gothic novels like Rebecca and Jane Eyre. Tell me more about that.
S2: Yeah , so I was actually an English major in college. I loved reading those books so much. That was always my favorite part of school , just the Gothic literature courses , the fairy tale courses , all of that. So being able to kind of weave all those elements together into a book that I got to create was just the best of every world. It's been so much fun. The Victorian era especially has always just been so fascinating to me. I would never want to live in it. It's a very kind of growth time period , but it's fascinating as well. You know , they had such an interest in death at that time and would take photographs with their with those that they have lost. It was just a very interesting time that fits very well towards gothic literature.
S1: No doubt about that. There's also like some bridgerton influences in there , although more eerie , as you've mentioned.
S2: Yeah , it's very much , you know , the I pitched it as a gothic bridgerton meets knives out sort of murder mystery. I wanted it to feel kind of as dazzling as it does dark. I am a huge scaredy cat. I can't really read horror novels , but I do like things that are a little bit dark , so I just have to pair them with , you know , romance and beautiful dresses and beautiful scenarios and things like that. Um , but yeah , I think for me it was very much just again , going back to all the things I love and I love that time period. I love romance , I love enemies to lovers and those kind of tropes. So I think just leaning into the tropes that I loved in particular lended itself very well to this novel and a lot of the inspiration. Yeah.
S1: Yeah. And let's talk about your main character , Cigna. Even though both books take place in the Victorian era , her internal struggles are pretty relatable to a lot of young women. Could you tell us more about that ? Yeah.
S2: So Signa has spent her entire life just wanting very much to fit in. She feels like the odd duck out in every scenario. Her entire life. People around her have died of strange and mysterious circumstances and she is not sure why. And she very much thinks that if she just kind of follows the rules of society and fits in and plays her part , that she will find , you know , room for herself and she will find a space where she is accepted. And along the way , you know , I don't want to spoil too much of the book , but of course , along the way that she has to learn that that is not being true to herself and that there's a cost to that. And she has to find the sort of balance of who she is , who she personally wants to be , and how she can carve out a space for herself in the world that doesn't want her to want the things that she wants.
S1: You know , a new point of view in Foxglove is her cousin , Blythe.
S2: So in the first book , Blythe is very , very sick. She spends the whole book as the person you know , Cigna is trying very hard to save. So in foxglove , getting to write her was an absolute blast. She is a firecracker. She says exactly what she thinks. Cigna is very reserved. She's very thoughtful. Blythe is a little bit less so. She is very spunky. She's very decisive. And she's just she's so much fun. She's probably one of the most fun characters. I feel like I've written in a long time , at least to me personally. And I also think that she's the funniest as well. Wow.
S1: Wow. Another thing readers can expect in Foxglove is a love triangle between Cigna death and Death's brother fate. And , you know , love triangles are a popular staple of The Wire.
S2: But I love love triangles. I don't think that there's any trope I love more than a good love triangle , even though the person I'm always rooting for loses every single time. I still absolutely love them. But I wanted to do the love triangles and both belladonna and foxglove in a unique way , which makes it hard to talk about without spoiling anything. But I will say that I love the trope so much and I wanted to do something very fun with it. So I don't want to stress people out too much. Everybody who doesn't love a love triangle like I do , I will say that it is done in a very different way. And I think that even if you don't like the trope , you will still very much enjoy the book.
S1: You're listening to Kpbs Midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman. I'm speaking with Adalyn Grace , author of The Young Adult Gothic Fantasy Books Belladonna and Foxglove Adalyn Before Belladonna and Foxglove , You wrote two books also in the young adult fantasy genre. They were much lighter in tone , I'll say.
S2: You know , I feel like publishing is really changing. Young adults became a huge thing back when I was growing up and I was considered young adult. You know , it was very much like the Twilight era. And I feel like a lot of the people who grew up with those books are now getting older and they are looking for something with a similar pace of a young adult novel , which are very quick paced books , and they're looking for something a little bit older , though , you know , characters who are in their 20s , stories that are a little bit more romantic , a little bit darker. And that was very much what I focused on for Belladonna , which is a much more upper a sort of category. That's the new cool term , I guess , in publishing where my first series , All the Stars and Teeth was a lot more high fantasy , a lot more grounded in the young adult traditional genre , a character who , you know , is 18 very much in the the teenager sort of space and becoming they're discovering who they are. That is a very traditional aspect of a young adult novel where belladonna is a little excuse , a little bit older , a little bit more romantic , a little bit more romance on the page.
S3: You know , you you lived a few.
S1: Different lives before becoming an author. You mentioned you worked in live theater , but you also managed a newspaper and even interned at Nickelodeon.
S2: It's funny , I don't know if anybody remembers the website Neopets Growing up. That was my jam. I spent every day on Neopets and I found during my time there something called Guilds and role Playing , and I used to write these stories when I was probably about nine years old about wolves and kids with superpowers. And I just loved it so much. I would write thousands of words each day. I'd come home from school and just sit at my computer and write all these stories and had the best time. So it was always something that I wanted to do , but I didn't know if I wanted to write books. I didn't know if I wanted to write screenplays or plays or go into journalism. So I wanted to sort of try everything. My first job was life theater because I wanted to be closer to stories and closer to , you know , seeing the stage and stage plays and testing that out. And then when I was in college , I worked at the university well , an offshoot of the the university paper. And I wanted to try journalism. And then , yes , I had the internship at Nickelodeon because I really love animation and I wanted to see if maybe that's where I fit in and I wanted to write animated stories. So I wanted to just kind of test the waters and try everything out before settling on books.
S1: Yeah , that is always the best way to go about things. And you've said before that you envisioned this series as a duology Can readers expect to see more of this world ? Yes.
S2: Yes , they can. So I actually it's funny. I sold the story initially as a standalone , and then once I was in it and writing it , I was like , You know what ? There's just so much more here. There's characters I really want to explore and stories that I want to explore. So we sold another book , which is foxglove , and once I turned that in , I was like , Hey , publisher , Hey everybody. I actually have a third book that I would love to sell until one day , and I was fortunate enough to have them be on board with that. So yes , there's a third book coming. It's called Wisteria.
S1: Mm All right.
S2: I really want to lean more into the romance in the third book , and I will say that once readers get through foxglove , I think that they will have a good idea of what the story of Wisteria is going to be about. But yeah , I mean , for this book , I've actually written the first draft of the third book already and I am getting to do everything that I hoped I would get to do. So I'm very , very excited about it and very excited about the series and I'm just so ready for everybody to be able to read it.
S1:
S2: I want them to be able to feel like they can pick up a book and just escape into it. There's so many things happening in the world right now that are scary and that are heavy , and I just really want to write stories where people can escape all of that for a little bit. So that's my hope. I hope that they get to pick it up and just fall into a story that takes their brain into a fantasy world.
S1: I've been speaking with Adalyn Grace , author of The Young Adult Gothic Fantasy Books Belladonna , and its sequel Foxglove. Foxglove , is out now. Thanks so much for joining us.
S2: Thank you so much for having me. This was a lot of fun.
S1: Coming up , poet Phuong Te Vong shares the emotional experience of migration in her latest work.
S4:
S1: Welcome back. You're listening to Kpbs Midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman. Migration can often be a very emotional experience , and that's the case for many people in the Vietnamese diaspora whose lives were disrupted by war. The poetry collection , a plucked zither , reflects on the experience of refugee migration from Vietnam and its aftermath. Poet Phuong Te Vong joins us. She is also a PhD candidate at UC San Diego , where she studies Asian American feminism. A plucked zither is her second poetry collection. Welcome to Midday Edition.
S4: Hi , Thanks for having me.
S1: We're glad you are here. So let's start with your background. You and your family came here from Vietnam as immigrants and refugees. Could you tell us more about that ? Yeah.
S4: So I was born in Vietnam. My family is from Hawaii , the central region of Vietnam. And I came when I was four. And so we were part of a later wave of migration in the 90s. So my father was part of the police force in Southern Vietnam. And so there was just more coordination with nations in the UN to accept refugees from Vietnam after 1975 , which was when the war ended.
S1: Mm hmm.
S4: You know , I think for is I would call it a tender age. You know , you're kind of forming your sense of self and your connections to your family members are really important. And so one thing I write about is my relationship with my grandmother , for example. And that's those are relationships that I feel could have been stronger if I stayed. You know , that's something I kind of wonder about through the collection. I wonder about the cultural forces that I could have been surrounded by. And on the other hand , I was I grew up in Oakland , And so that's a whole nother cultural world that I was a part of.
S1: Mm hmm. When did you first get into writing poetry ? Yeah.
S4: My experience writing poetry is definitely a little bit roundabout compared to other writers. Think I was. I considered myself a closeted writer in high school. I kind of kept little scraps and a notebook that I would never share with anyone of poems and would be on the fringes. I think of spoken word events , just admiring the bravery and the artistry of those writers and performers. And it wasn't really until after college that I started to wonder if , wait , maybe I want to really challenge myself and think about self-expression and think about creativity and live that life. So it wasn't until after college when I started to I worked as a teacher , so I started to set aside some time to work on that craft and then , yeah , eventually decided that it was something worth pursuing.
S1: That's great. And , you know , I'm curious and to what extent do you draw from your own experience when you write ? I mean , one piece of common writing advice is write about what you know.
S4: I draw from the moments that I experience and I try to make sense of them through my writing. I , you know , might write about , you know , the longing or sense of grief of , for example , that relationship with certain family members or not having that relationship. I might draw from a feeling I get , you know , walking down the street and seeing a certain scene or image. So it's definitely involves myself. And at the same time , I also try to think more broadly to try to think about concepts and ideas that reach beyond me as well.
S1: Let's talk about a plucked zither.
S4: So the poem actually came first , but I felt I was searching for a while for the right title , something that felt a little bit more specific than what I had originally thought would be the title. And for me , the other the other is a musical instrument. So it speaks to Vietnamese cultural heritage. And I love the image of the string because I am thinking through migration and connection in the collection. So the string could connect to points. And then there's also the vibration of the string , which suggests movement. It's musical , and I just again love that. It's a specific image that you can call to your mind.
S1: Your poetry really grapples with the effects of war and imperialism.
S4: I think something I grapple with is that it is really hard to to deal with. I don't think that there is any easy resolution , and I think that that's something that writing actually can offer us rather than writing to. A defined definition or a defined destination. The writing can kind of circle around multiple ideas because imperialism , for example , or the trauma of war , continues to impact us long after those events have ended. But we know that they're not simply events. They continue on in our lives long after.
S1: Yeah , and you actually prepared one of your poems to read for us today , right ? Yeah.
S4: So this is called In the Canals of Thought. And to connect to your earlier question about how my own experience might come into the poem. This was actually literally when I was walking down the street and saw something that evoked for me the idea of memory. So in the canals of thought , mass of wires , bird's nest of cables , power lines above me in Colorado , some gray alley , gray building behind a house , a creek , a two lane boulevard as American as ash trees deep in August , frayed feathers were thick , black ropes , vines , branches , what you call it , like rubber electric tunnels stretched taut across air , the mess floating by someone's balcony three floors up in apartment space to beat the summer heat. Like suddenly I'm looking up in Saigon , somewhere in a balmy alley , white underwear on hangers drying an electric transformer , and I overhear the neighbors chat , sitting on short plastic stool sniffing between chili snot and noodle slurps , the basil and beef hanging in humidity , telltale signs of any dense place its animal tangle smells and sidewalk denseness. Man made sky high knots , tight tightrope for currents Under there I stand and I look and I am teleporting time tripping child of electric vision.
S1: That really takes you there. That really takes you there. You're listening to Kpbs Midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman. I'm speaking with poet Phuong T Vang about her newest poetry collection , a plucked zither and fong. You also explore other themes like intergenerational connections , grief , memory.
S4: So just kind of this duality or maybe the messy contradictions of the two feels really resonant for me. You know , how I how do I stay in relationship to the culture that I come from , even when at times and in different ways I might be disconnected from it ? So yeah , I feel like maybe a broader umbrella could be connection and disconnection.
S1: How about language ? Vietnamese words and phrases are interwoven throughout your poems. What is your relationship to language and the use of Vietnamese in your poetry ? Yeah.
S4: Thank you so much for bringing that up. It's really important to me. So I you know , ironically , maybe I am not fluent completely in Vietnamese. I really just speak it to my family and I'm not fully literate in it either. So I am looking up words in the dictionary. But for that very reason , that kind of grasping and reaching that effort that I have to put into it is partly why it is so important to me. It's this continual process of trying to connect to the language and the culture and history. And then also , you know , because that is a language that I mostly speak with my family. There's so much emotion to it , you know , and even the emotion of that struggle , it just feels really important to to stay with.
S1: And there's a famous anti-war Vietnamese singer who's writing. You actually lean on a lot. Can you tell me about that ? Yeah.
S4: So his name is Jen Johnson. He actually is , I believe , from the area that my family is from. And he's written a lot of songs. So people might compare him to a Joan Baez or Bob Dylan from the US. And so I sometimes take words from his songs and explore some of the meanings behind them. I pull from them in particular because sometimes a word might have so many different layers to them , so many connotations that I can't fully explain. You know , they might create maybe a sense of hope or longing that is so embodied in me that I try to explain or communicate in my poems. But it's really that struggle that I'm trying to demonstrate or get across to the reader.
S1:
S4: A I got. Which could translate to mother's legacy or inheritance.
S5: The dog on the.
UU: My mom and your grandmother. But your grandmother. You'll be a. Match.
S5: Match.
S4: There's a line. Yeah. You're going to annoy my mum. Which means in my own translation. Teach your child to speak truthfully , your mother or I wish that you haven't forgotten your skin color. So , you know , some of the things I kind of draw from that those lines is the word Hmong. So it really kind of means to wish or to hope. But there's something deeper about it that I can't really put my finger on it. And so I have a poem that tries to explore these different images that I hope can communicate how that one word , hope or wish can't fully encapsulate what that meaning is.
S1: You're also a PhD candidate and fellow at UC San Diego. Tell us more about your work there.
S4: Yeah , my work there. I'm trying to think about inscrutability and the archive , so I kind of hinted at this before , but there might be space where there's a use for hiding or not communicating as directly as possible. And so what's the strategic use of distancing ourselves or veiling ourselves ? So I'm exploring that. I'm interested in issues of solidarity and anti-colonial solidarity as well , and how my Asian American women's literature help us get at some of those ideas.
S1:
S4: You I think especially when I was younger , I entered writing thinking we have to unpack the silence , we have to speak to it. We have to call out the secrets because that's how will get rid of their power over us. And I still believe that. But I think with some further nuance , which is that sometimes there might be reason to hold on to silence or we might center a different audience that might perhaps make it seem like we're excluding others. So , for example , with my use of Vietnamese in the poems , there might be some readers that feel challenged by that. But that is one way that I'm centering a different audience or a different group of people with that access to the language. Absolutely.
S1: Absolutely.
S4: Right in the description of the book is the word aftermath.
S1: Wong , thank you so much for joining us today.
S4: Yeah , thank you again for having me.
S1: Coming up , how the rosin box ballet company is keeping the art modern.
S6: Being a contemporary ballet company , our focus is on making dance relevant and reflecting the times and bringing it into today.
S1: You're listening to Kpbs Midday Edition. Welcome back. You're listening to Kpbs Midday Edition. I'm Jade Hyndman for our weekend preview. We have a play about motherhood , some forgotten composers and brand new choreography. Joining me with all the details is Kpbs arts producer and editor Julia Dixon Evans. Julia , welcome.
S7: Hi , Jade. Thanks for having me.
S1: Always great to have you. So let's start with dance. The Rosin Box Project is a local contemporary ballet company , and they have performances this weekend called Debuts. What do you know ? Right.
S7: So this is their debuts program. It's all new stuff. It's their annual production of premieres and new choreography. And many of it is actually created by their own company , dancers and choreographers. And it's kind of a representation of how committed this company is to finding new voices and telling new stories through dance. They're such an inventive company. Their works often kind of push boundaries , but are always still really harmonious , really beautiful to watch. And for this year's show , they have two guest choreographers plus two company choreographers. The guests are Penny Saunders and then Mike Tice , who is doing this incredible piece that's inspired by whale sounds. Wow.
S1: Wow. Okay.
S7: And that style of dance , it's it's basically a blend of contemporary dance with some of the structures of ballet. So like the way that you move your feet , sometimes they even wear pointe shoes. And I talked to Carly Taposiris , who's the founder of the Rosenbach Project , and Mike Tice , who's one of those guest choreographers. I'll let them tell you more about it. But yeah , there's there's so much creativity and freedom to kind of step outside the box. Traditional ballet does have a lot of restraints on it.
S1: All right. Well , let's take a listen to your interview with the Rosin Box project.
S8: There was kind of a.
S6: I think a couple of reasons leading up to it , but one of them being that we felt that there was more area to explore and more that we wanted to share and express as artists in , you know , kind of shifting the the focus of being more about the connection and the the experience between both artists and audience members. So I think that was really the initial launching point and the impetus for this kind of birth of the company. A lot of our shows tend to be more intimate , more focused on the experience between audience and artists. So they are intimate in nature. They , you know , just as our mission statement kind of states , um , they really focus on re-imagining the way that both artists and audiences experience , dance and connect with it. Um , so having alternative venues , um , you know , really breaking down the fourth wall to make dance and our live performances more of an experience and more approachable and accessible as well as exploring alternative kind of performance structures such as immersive shows or mixed media or just not the , the typical proscenium stage shows. And I think that was kind of what really intrigued most of us as as artists and really launched the company as a whole.
S7: So this is a the Rosenbach Project is a contemporary ballet company. Mike , can you talk a little bit about how contemporary ballet differs from what we traditionally know as ballet or what we traditionally know is contemporary dance ? Yeah.
S9: So think ballet is the technique that has been being practiced for centuries. And contemporary is something that is a mix of different cultures , different ways of moving , different ways of expressing yourself tends to break the boundaries. It tends to not follow all of the rules or add completely different rules than ballet does. So when you add kind of the ballet structure , the ballet vocabulary and mix of a contemporary vocabulary , one that bends , breaks , augments , so you get something that tends to be quite unique and quite thrilling to watch.
S7: And does it take a certain type of performer to to make those transitions between classical ballet and contemporary ballet ? I mean , you have a background in classical ballet as well as in things like Cirque du Soleil.
S9: Who is , um. I don't even think it's as much about talent. It is about determination and curiosity and a desire to explore different avenues and ways to move things. I think ballet was one of the things that I found exciting. But I also grew up in gymnastics , and gymnastics is another completely different technique , but with one with a set of really stringent rules that cultivated my desire for discipline and. And excellence. And I think that's what it takes to kind of cultivate an artist who's interested in contemporary dance styles is curiosity , discipline and a desire to break the rules.
S7: Kylie This program debuts features brand new works of choreography. Can we talk about why this is something you're committed to showcasing year after year ? Absolutely.
S6: I think it , for one , speaking to just the nature of our company being a contemporary ballet company , our focus is on making dance relevant and , you know , reflecting the times and bringing it into today. So it's so very important to us to continue to create new works that evolve alongside the voices that are creating them and that are representative of them. So new works to us is is very important and very crucial to our mission and to the company and the artists that we not only employ , but also engage with and think one of the most beautiful things. Just like Mike had mentioned , is that contemporary ballet. You know , part of that means not sticking so true to the classical form , but using it sort of as a base board and then exploring and really igniting , you know , and following your creativity and the the curiosity and different ways of realizing , you know , what ballet technique is , but kind of bending and maybe sometimes breaking the rules and it creates just , you know , these totally new and beautiful languages and expressions that I think make for just so many new opportunities.
S7: Mike , I want to talk about your piece in this show. It's a world premiere , and I'm wondering if you could set the scene for us and tell us about what we see on stage and what we'll hear and what inspires this piece , too. Yeah.
S9: Yeah. So York is a world premiere. My partner , Luca Renzi , and I were really inspired by the South Wales. Sync to real tracks on Spotify and found the plotting and beautiful. We have been exploring physically with lines and ripples. Things like dolphins jumping out of the water or birds flying in perfect harmony were really inspiring for us to watch and we wanted to kind of recreate those. We were also really inspired and kind of tickled by the the reports of these orcas off the coast of Spain that were , I guess , had enough free time because of the amount of food that they were receiving to start playing with boats. And they started tipping boats over , which , you know , sucks for fishermen. But I found it an interesting conversation to have during this time of climate change , overfishing. Talking about our oceans , it felt like a kind of sense of revenge , but that was kind of just the jumping off point. I think what you'll see in the work is all those things that we had been playing with , you know , ripples and formations , things that feel organic. And then I don't know. I don't want to I don't want to guide the listener too much as to what I want them to feel. I'm really curious as to what they do get out of it when they experience it.
S7: So before we go , live performance has been through the wringer in the last few years. There's Covid and also rising expenses , rising ticket prices. What keeps you going ? I want to hear from both of you. But Mike , let's start with you.
S9: Gosh , I mean , as an artist , it's my calling and my job. It's. What I feel like I was born to do. And it gives me purpose. And I see that my work affects others and shows them a reflection of their own humanity and and maybe a sense of purpose in themselves. The artists I get to work with on my journeys throughout the world also fuels me and also gives me purpose because the amount of growing and soul searching you have to do with creating a work , with working with other people , other artists who don't speak your language or not from your culture. Just expand your expands you as a human. I didn't stop when the pandemic hit. I won't stop because of money. It never was about money to begin with. It's just a constant pursuit of creation.
S7: And Kali , I lost the same of you. But also , you know , you're a dancer in a choreographer , but you're also running this dance company in San Diego.
S6: What our company as a dance organization provides is that opportunity , whether it be for artists or audiences. I feel very much that , you know , through performances , through live performances or through virtual experiences even , you know , that connection is very evident and very palpable. And I think that is definitely one of the. You know , strongest motives as to what keeps me going is , you know , bringing people together and bridging those gaps and being able to communicate and and reach others and touch other people's lives , you know , through this language of dance , through the language of movement , being able to share stories and in return , being able to share experiences. And I think that's that's definitely through thick and thin. One of the most rewarding aspects , and.
S1: That was Cali Tapatio of San Diego based dance company The Rosin Box Project. And Mike Tai is one of the guest choreographers for this weekend's concerts. Performances are 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday at the Soap factory. You're listening to Kpbs Midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman here with Kpbs arts producer Julia Dixon Evans And we're talking about weekend arts events. Julia , let's talk about visual art.
S7: It's called Waiting Room , and it's a group show and features artists who are working in craft genres. So like woodwork , glass , metalwork , fiber art and things like that. It's it's about the intersection of craft and art with mental health and well-being. So the waiting room is a nod to that. It's a really thoughtful and diverse exhibit. There's lots of different types of art and it's stunning. And it's all on view through mid-October.
S1: La Jolla Music Society's Summerfest is wrapping up.
S7: And this is going to be a collection of music by composers who were somehow silenced or oppressed in their lifetimes. Some of them are still living , too. So , yeah , maybe there were women like Fanny Mendelssohn who was overshadowed by her famous brother Felix , or sometimes by a political regime. And I talked to Inon Barrington , who is Summerfest music director. A little bit more about this.
S10: Messiaen's quartet for the End of Time , famously , even though Messiaen was not Jewish , but he was in a concentration camp in the Second World War and he wrote this quartet while in the camp , and it had its premiere by camp prisoners. And we'll hear one of the movements from from that piece , the clarinet , the solo clarinet movement.
S7: And that concert is Friday night at the Conrad Prevost Performing Arts Center in La Jolla.
S1: And finally , some Theater Moxie Theater just opened a play called Cry It Out. It's about motherhood and friendship.
S7: Whether you sleep , train or you let kids , cry it out to self-soothe. And this play , it's not really about the nuts and bolts of these things or whether you should subscribe to those philosophies. But it is about the way that parents and in this case specifically , the mothers , need to find connections with someone else that's going through the same thing. It's by playwright and screenwriter Molly Smith. Metzler. The script is so funny , and it's also dark and scrappy and joyous and heartbreaking at the same time. And this this play just opened and is on stage at Moxie until September 10th. And while Moxie says that the play has some bad language , so it's not really suitable for children , they are saying that mothers can bring their babies so babies under the age of one will be free with the mothers with convenient seating. And I love that.
S1: Oh , that's great. You can find details on these and more arts events at the Kpbs Arts calendar at PBS.org. Slash Arts. You can also sign up for Julia's weekly arts newsletter. I've been speaking with Kpbs arts producer and editor Julia Dixon. Evans Julia , thanks.
S7: Thank you , Jade.
S1: That's it for today's show. Don't forget to watch Evening Edition tonight at five for in-depth reporting on San Diego issues. The roundtable is here tomorrow at noon. And if you ever miss a midday edition show , you can listen to the podcast on all platforms. I'd like to thank the midday edition team producers Andrew Bracken , Giuliana Domingo , Brooke Ruth and assistant Ariana Clay. Technical directors are Adrian Villalobos and Rebecca Chacon. Art contributors are Beth Accomando and Julia Dixon. Evans And the music you're hearing is from San Diego's own surefire soul ensemble. I'm Jade Hindman. Thanks for listening and have a great weekend , everyone.
