Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photoGRAPH by Rita Baghdadi.
Shery Bechara and Lilas Mayassi appear in Sirens by Rita Baghdadi, an official selection of the World CInema: Documentary Competition at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.
Sundance Film Festival
Crosstown Theater, 1350 Concourse
Friday-Sunday, January 28th-30th
As January dances into the sun to a glorious fiery death, you can catch a different kind of Sundance this weekend at the Crosstown Theater. Yes, that’s right, the elusive Sundance Film Festival has chosen the Bluff City as a satellite location for a specially curated selection of 2022 Sundance Film Festival films during the event’s closing weekend.
The weekend kicks off with Sirens, a documentary about Slave to Sirens, the first and only all-woman thrash metal band in the Middle East. Saturday, viewers can look forward to, among others, the short film What Travelers Are Saying About Jornada del Muerto, directed by former Memphian Hope Tucker, who will be on hand for a Q&A after the film. Alice closes the weekend on Sunday. In the film, an enslaved woman escapes captivity in the 1800s and finds the shocking reality that lies outside the antebellum South — it’s 1973. Kenneth Farmer, a lead supporting role in Alice, will be in-person to introduce the film.
Single tickets ($10) and four-ticket bundles ($36) can be purchased online. For a full schedule of viewings and a description of the films, click here.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY MOSH
Juanita Pahdopony, Kitsch Me, I'm Indian!
Savages and Princesses: The Persistence of Native American Stereotypes
Museum of Science & History, 3050 Central
Opens Friday, January 28th
For the next few months, MoSH is urging everyone to say goodbye to stereotypes in its latest exhibition. In “Savages and Princesses,” 12 contemporary Native-American visual artists use humor, emotion, and shock to explore the falsehoods behind common stereotypes that permeate the current pop-culture landscape. The exhibition will be on display through March 16th.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY DAVID LUSK GALLERY
Tad Lauritzen Wright, Repeating It Perfectly (Undone) Again 4, acrylic on canvas, 2021
"Poetics of Gesture" Open House
David Lusk Gallery, 97 Tillman
Saturday, January 29th, noon-3 p.m.
You know when your phone charge cable gets all tangled up and you just can’t handle it right now, so you plug your phone in and have it sit on the floor since the tangled cable can’t quite reach your bedside table? But then you think to yourself that, in theory, this is an easy problem to solve, so why are you putting it off? Well that’s kind of the theme of Tad Lauritzen Wright’s series of oversized paintings at David Lusk Gallery. He might not have the answers, but he sure as heck can commiserate and will be happy to chat at his open house on Saturday about tangled cords, wires, cables, and lines and the desire to say goodbye to the smaller problems in life.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY IRIS ORCHESTRA
Teddy Abrams
Iris at GPAC: Guest Conductor & Piano, Teddy Abrams
Germantown Performing Arts Center, 1801 Exeter
Saturday, January 29th, 7:30 p.m.
Another soon-to-come goodbye is Iris Orchestra’s 2021-2022 season. This weekend, Teddy Abrams, Musical America’s 2022 Conductor of the Year, will guest conduct the orchestra’s rendition of Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 92 and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5.
Tickets ($45-$70) can be purchased online. For a schedule of upcoming performances, visit here.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY PLAYHOUSE ON THE SQUARE
The Goodbye Levee
The Goodbye Levee
TheatreWorks @ The Square, 2085 Monroe
Through Sunday, January 30th
Playhouse on the Square has three whole productions going on right now (and I can’t even untangle a phone charging cable, so good for them. May We All a charming country-music jukebox musical, and Torch Song is a heartwarming comedy that involves a pair of bunny slippers. Their third production is a bit more bleak, and it’s your last chance to see it. So as we say goodbye to January this weekend, Playhouse will be saying goodbye to The Goodbye Levee, which serendipitously is all about goodbyes.
Written by the NewWorks@TheWorks National Playwriting Competition winner Mike Solomonson, The Goodbye Levee explores mental health and dementia. After a devastating diagnosis, Celeste Banks hosts a “Goodbye Party,” during which her erratic memory and hallucinatory interruptions turn into chaos, threatening to upend her family and the control she so desperately desires to retain.
For a schedule of closing weekend shows and to purchase tickets ($37), visit Playhouse’s website. Tickets to view livestream performances of the show are also available.
