Cliff Notes
Each week, our regional Cliff Notes columnists Fox Whitney, Alitzah Oros, Melika Sebihi, and Kaya Noteboom pick the most exciting events and exhibitions on the West Coast.
Chloë Bass: Soft Services
Volunteer Park, Seattle, WA
August 2022 – August 2025
“There’s no way to crystallize a glossary of all we have lost, but if there were I’d offer it to you.”
This text is etched on one of the fourteen stone benches placed throughout Volunteer Park that make up Soft Services by multidisciplinary artist Chloë Bass. Organized by the Henry Art Gallery, each stone carries an engraved message from Bass. The text alludes to the laws that impact humans, stones as memorials and the cultivation and wildness of public spaces and private people.
The messages these rocks carry bring to mind the vulnerability of the body and the heaviness of loss. By using a format usually reserved to create a memorial or grave marker, Bass elevates the everyday material of remembrance we encounter in public and private life into conceptual art. Walking around the park viewing the work I found myself participating in a meditation that was not just about these stones but about the plants, people, animals and shared spaces all around me. These sculptures mark more than a gravestone ever could, encouraging me to consider the public and private compassion, or lack thereof, that affects all of us.
Reflection: What does it mean to remember and to be remembered collectively?
Mouthwater Festival: A Disabled Dance Festival
Various venues, Seattle, WA
September 23 – October 13, 2024
Mouthwater Festival’s programming is enough to make anyone’s mouth water in anticipation for the tastiness coming our way. Things warm up with the artist social Crip Open Stage at BASE Experimental Art Space. Described as “the disabled dance show-and-tell of your dreams,” the mixer includes lunch and an open stage session.
Performances kick off with Saira Barbaric’s Grow Green Man at the Olympic Sculpture Park. I’ve witnessed Barbaric’s previous work and it’s a dazzling blend of deep dancing and visual wizardry. Soul Seeker, a dance solo by Vanessa Hernández Cruz is next at On the Boards. Ella will guide us through an experimental odyssey “manifesting the chaos and beauty of our souls.” Yum.
Next up, Mouthwater Cabaret brings the heat at 12th Ave Arts, featuring a variety of disabled dance, drag, and burlesque artists. And for dessert on October 13th, a special Mouthwater edition of Seattle icon Briq House’s (if you don’t know who she is yet, you’re welcome) BIPOC burlesque night The Sunday Night Shuga Shaq at Theater Off Jackson.
Beyond the performances, the most delicious thing happening at Mouthwater Festival is the way this programming l gathers disabled artists locally and nationally to share and grow creatively and nurture cross-disability solidarity. Curated by Barbaric, Cruz, Mx Pucks A’Plenty and India Harville, the festival is part of local dance org Velocity’s Fall 2024 Season. This is a rare opportunity to see some of the most exciting dance and performance makers in their element, don’t sleep on this snack!
Reflection: How can all artists, producers, and audiences make more space for disabled artistry to thrive?