SOU’WESTER EVENTS!
Discover what’s happening during your next stay or plan a visit around our free live music, workshops, wellness offerings and more!
Yawa, also known as Amenta Abioto, is a songwriter and producer from Memphis,TN and currently based in Portland, OR. In her one-woman performance, she builds vocal and instrumental loops from synth, drum machine, and kalimba creating atmospheric textures. Yawa surprises and tantalizes audiences with mind bending ideas while skipping vocally from soul-shaking gospel to smooth jazz. Her music is boldly mystical and soul-fired, and her raw live performances invoke elements of both theatrical and magical surprise. “
“Portraits, Men in Ballgowns, Sound, We Will Be Heard” by Scott Braucht
Sou’Wester Arts is thrilled to welcome filmmaker Scott Braucht whose program Portraits / Men in Ballgowns // Sound / We Will Be Heard will be featured in a special exhibition celebrating Pacific County Pride in our Red Bus Microcinema.
On view at The Sou’Wester’s Red Bus Theatre
May 29 – July 14, 2023.
Opening reception Monday, May 29 6-8p with a special acoustic performance from musician Khaelo Dé.
Portraits is a collection of film interviews shot both on super 8mm and digital formats. It includes a selection from the series Men in Ballgowns, exploring ideas of masculinity and femininity in the LGBTQ2SIA+ community. This work-in-progress highlights men wearing gowns in different environments filmed on super 8mm with audio interviews detailing how growing up LGBTQ2SIA+ reflects in their art. Portraits concludes with the short film Mel & Kate about letting go and moving on. // Sound is a collection of music videos featuring the short documentary We Will Be Heard about rappers that identify as LGBTQIA+.
Curated by Nikki Cormaci
Jeremy Ferrara: Presented by Sou’wester Arts
There is an innate tenderness about Jeremy Ferrara. His good nature is inescapable, and anyone within earshot of his quavering voice and quiet guitar is likely to swoon in sympathetic reaction. He’s a folksinger, and a song-diviner. His music is as fun as it is finely detailed. His new album Everything I Hold is exemplary of this style. Produced by Mike Coykendall, the LP features just Jeremy, his guitar, and voice, on eight songs that fill the listener with wonder, empathy, and joy.
Clay Teacup Making Workshop with Midori Hirose
Explore clay and create a one-of-a-kind tea cup with Midori Hirose. All levels and fun clay making tools are welcome!
Midori Hirose is a Japanese American interdisciplinary artist. In Hirose’s work, physical objects and materials are interchangeable with community bonds, recognizing space as a necessary part of the generative process through collaborations, historical narrative, perception (physiological and psychological), and storytelling.
Hirose’s work has been shown nationally and internationally, including solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, and Disjecta Contemporary Art Center (now called Oregon Contemporary) for the Portland Biennial. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at The Lumber Room in Portland, OR; East/West Project, Berlin, Germany; Newberg Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland; and Fylkingen, Stockholm, Sweden. For more information visit midorihirose.info/ and instagram.com/midorihirose/
This workshop is full.
Divorce Care: Presented by Sou’wester Arts
Seattle independent rock band Divorce Care’s catchy guitar hooks and emotionally wrought lyrics are expertly hand-crafted for fans of pre-myspace-era emo. Bringing effortlessly nostalgic arrangements with a post-modern twinkle in her eye, singer/songwriter Bri Bloemendaal’s quietly powerful delivery simultaneously demands your attention while making you feel at home. Themes of love and loss are immediately apparent when you listen to Divorce Care’s debut album “Ladylike” (Produced by Andy Park), but scratch any deeper than the surface and you’ll observe Bloemendaal artfully wrestling with complexities of morality, feminism, and self-awareness. Underpinned by Seattle music scene veterans Matt Batey, Sean Lane and CJ Stout, Divorce Care’s powerhouse performance belie their new-kids-on-the-scene status, already making waves in the notoriously restless pool of PNW talent.
Ida Jane has an eclectic style. Her music is Influenced largely by folk, alternative rock, and indie musicians such as: Fruition, Lucinda Williams, Mazzy Star, Jessica Lea Mayfield, Niel Young, Kacy & Clayton. Ida provides a mix of pensive, thoughtful songs as well as more upbeat, friendly, folk rock.
Kelli Schaefer: Presented by Sou’wester Arts
A few years disappeared into the forest of a global pandemic, but Kelli Schaefer and her brand new band trod through a new record this year, and it is expected to leap from the woods in 2023. With two full-length records and two EP’s already under her belt, her new record is another pivot in stylistic choice. This time, with a fresh take on the age-old singer-songwriter trope, Schaefer delivers haunting melodies over swirling woodwinds, piano, classical guitar, and upright bass. These songs could be the soundtrack to a modern gothic, a playlist for a trudge through the forest, the accompaniment to a subconscious mantra. As expected, Schaefer again demonstrates her refusal to confine herself to a single genre. Along with her bandmates Andrew Jones (bass), Ayal Alvez (piano, keys), Joey Binhammer (guitar), Schaefer is working to finish the record and planning tour steadily in the foreseeable future. The record was recorded live at Color Therapy with Ryan Oxford (Y La Bamba) and mixed by Alex Bush (Damien Jurado).
Crowey: Presented by Sou’wester Arts
What began as the solo project of Joey Binhammer (Die Geister Beschwören, Elektrokraken, Meeping, Whales Wailing), Crowey has grown into a psychedelic/folk soundscape project and collaboration between Joey and Kate Kilbourne (Mordecai, June Rose Band, Sweeping
Exits). Both multi-instrumentalists from Portland, OR, the duo crafts sweeping vistas of finger-style guitar, strings and vocal harmonies, exploring the deep well of human emotion and finding beauty in its darkest crevices. Layers of intricate orchestration evoke the sound of moving clouds.
June 27th-29th
Stop Motion En Plein Air! with Aarica North
This summer camp week is currently full. Feel free to register for a different summer camp week.
Who says you have to animate alone in the dark? Each student will build their own puppet with organic material, then the group will play a collaborative game outside where we create a stop motion animation together. Students will receive a copy of the final animation, and can bring their puppets home with them.
Brad Parsons: Presented by Sou’wester Arts
Brad Parsons is a singer-songwriter/multi-
