Like other west coast cities, Seattle is booming. It's not just Amazon that is creating new architecture but restaurants, housing, culture spaces and more.
The Pacific Northwest Ballet headed up by the warm and welcoming Peter Boal has excellent dancers but they were in search of a better repertory program on the Sunday matinee I took in. The William Forsythe Slingerland Duet was a tease for the longer work it had originally been part of, New Suite, and One Flat Thing, an early work Forsythe made on Ballet Frankfurt though gymnastic and complex seemed busy rather than soaring. The Perpetual State, a new work by Ezra Thomson felt dated and static, the corps performing robotically and symmetrically throughout the piece. Red Angels by Ulysses Dove is the crowd pleaser from NYC Ballet's Diamond Project and it stands out for its dynamic dancing and fluid and upbeat rhythm. Violinist Michael Lim accompanies the quarter with gusto.
The Pacific Science Center, a sixties-era faux Venetian jewel leftover from the Worlds Fair near the Space Needle was filled with leftover marchers from Saturday's anti gun rally and felt particularly busy and happy after the more solemn march, as children younger than the Parklanders made and launched rockets and learned about physics and bioengineering etc from the U of Washington grad students who were placed around strategically to impart a little science along with the exhibits. This is a great collaborative program and should be copied everywhere.
The Pike Market, the mother of all urban farmer's markets is now a bit too shiny for my taste but some things do still taste very very good, in particular the roules cannelles from Le Panier.
I always like the Seattle Art Museum for its careful curation of its permanent collection. I learn something new each time I'm there from the rotating selection of works, and this time, a special exhibition of Kerry Marshall, Robert Colescott and Mickalene Thomas allows these superstars to become even starrier in juxtaposition with one another. Marshall's latest work (post the MoCA show) continues to be rich and rewarding. He has done a series of riffs on Fragonard I found particularly engaging.