Arts & Culture

Juneau choreographer Hali Duran explores the six stages of a queen bumblebee’s life cycle in Acoustic Turbulence, a new production showing this weekend. 

But Duran said the project was also a way to reflect on the soul and journey of someone close to her. 

“I was researching ancient Egyptian mythology, and they believed that bees represented the journey of the soul, and that really spoke to me,” Duran said earlier this month on KTOO’s Juneau Afternoon. “My grandmother is in her last chapter of life. We’re helping her die gracefully. And to me, that premise really spoke to me, because I was like, there, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to use my grandmother as kind of my muse. She is my queen bumblebee.”

All the music, poetry and choreography of Acoustic Turbulence stems from this concept, and a narrative Duran wrote based on it. 

Duran, who’s been choreographing and dancing in Juneau since 2012, joined local performing arts nonprofit Orpheus Project last year. She’s the writer and director of Acoustic Turbulence, as well as the choreographer. She worked with several dancers creating, what she calls, “a whole new vocabulary.”

“We spent a lot of time figuring out ‘what does a bumble bee flying around look like in our bodies,’ if we are bumblebees. And you start to feel just different parts of your body activate. Who knew my shoulder blades could express deep sorrow, but they can,” Duran explained. 

One of those dancers is Juneau-raised Anouk Otsea, who lives in Seattle, but came home to dance the role of the Queen Bee.

“Hali would give us the concept, like ‘this is the phase that we’re working on, these are the emotions that we’re trying to evoke.’ Then we would play around with the ideas through dance improv and kind of set how that was going to be portrayed in movement,” Otsea said. “There’s a lot of motifs, which I really love. A lot of lifting, which is very fun.”

Other artists Duran collaborated with for the production include William Todd Hunt, artistic director of Orpheus Project and one of the show’s three composers. He said he found a lot of inspiration in Duran’s concept. 

“It’s like finding the bumblebee in sound, and more than just buzzing, which you’ll hear,” Hunt said laughing. “But it’s also about finding that connection with us as well. And the process that this life goes through, all of these different stages, the things that happen to it. It’s like, how do you put that into sound?”

Other composers are Spencer Edgers and Elena Levi. And the original music features words by Juneau poet ​Dita Devi. 

Acoustic Turbulence – a production of music, dance, visual art and poetry – plays this Saturday and Sunday at Thunder Mountain Middle School’s auditorium. More information about the show can be found at orpheusproject.org.

As breweries in Alaska adjust to a legal ruling that could allow them to have unlimited live shows, a different sort of industry is also celebrating: musicians. 

Until last month, breweries were limited to hosting four live shows a year. Before 2024, they were banned from having them completely. Now, breweries can host unlimited live music performances. 

The ruling comes right on time for musicians and businesses to start planning for the Alaska Folk Festival in April. 

Marian Call is a Juneau musician and, as executive director of MusicAlaska, she’s also spent the last few years organizing other musicians across the state to advocate for the industry. She said the recent Alaska Superior Court ruling opens doors for musicians and performers. 

“This regulation was ultimately a regulation about when and where musicians can work,” Call said. “It was essentially putting a limit on how often and in what locations we can do our job.”

The ruling argued that the regulations that limited live shows at breweries suppressed free speech. The lawsuit didn’t specifically include distilleries, but at a recent Alaska Alcoholic Beverage Control Board meeting, board members said they believe those businesses will fall under the same ruling, and be able to have unlimited live music as well. 

“It makes sense for the government to regulate various industries. But the thing that was so difficult about this particular regulation was that they were not intending to regulate the music industry,” Call said. “They were intending to regulate the alcohol industry.”

She said musicians are a force in Juneau. More performances in town don’t create a zero-sum game, economically. Call said MusicAlaska researches the economic impacts of music in communities.

 “Generally, what we see is that more music breeds more economic growth without necessarily undermining other sectors,” she said. “We come into a space where there was no economic activity and create it kind of out of thin air.” 

If the ruling holds, this could open doors – financially and creatively – for musicians during the city’s biggest music event of the year, Call said.

“I think Folk Fest excites me the most because it’s really an invitation, not just for everyone to come out and listen and enjoy, but also for everyone to play,” she said. “And I can’t wait to see people feeling free to play anywhere without worrying about it.”

Avery Stewart is a guitarist, vocalist, and writer with local band the Rain Dogs. He said he thinks former limitations have dampened Juneau’s creative spirit during Folk Fest.

“I was just recalling past Folk Fest, seeing signs on the walls of distilleries because they had to put up these signs, like, ‘do not play music here,’ which I thought was so silly,” Stewart said.

He said that impromptu jam sessions are an inherent part of the festival, and now, there’s no risk of businesses or musicians facing fines for them.

“It’s like a communal experience, rather than a performance,” he said. “Just a sharing of music, in its purest forms.”

The Rain Dogs Frontwoman Anna Mahanor said she’s excited to have more places to play in Juneau, and different venues to suit different kinds of shows. She said she wants to be able to play for broader audiences. 

“I think that our sound is evolving in a lot of different ways, and we’re experimenting with playing in different places,” Mahanor said “There’s a certain energy that you bring to when you’re playing at, like a bar or a dive bar.”

And a lot of the Rain Dogs shows meet that energy — loud and rowdy. But Mahanor wants to play in quieter venues, too. 

“With the idea of there being kind of more listening-room-style, it’s like a little bit more intimate,” she said. “And you can be a little bit more personable with the crowd, you know, and interact and have just a more intimate, vulnerable experience”

The Alaska Alcohol and Marijuana Control Office has until Feb. 14th to appeal the decision. 

Alaska’s largest professional theater indefinitely postponed a run of its show in Anchorage this spring due to financial concerns. 

Perseverance Theatre had originally planned to bring its newest production, opening in Juneau later this month, to Anchorage. For the past decade, the theater has regularly run productions in both the capital city and Anchorage. But staff say the decision to postpone the latter leg came after a period of financial pressure on the national and local level.

Artistic Director Leslie Ishii said Juneau has been feeling the impacts of federal job cuts and economic strains, so less people have money for entertainment.

“Many, many jobs are gone, besides just being laid off,” she said. “So we’re feeling the effects of that as we all look around and see some shops are no longer there, or restaurants are having to cut back hours.”

The nonprofit – which relies on a number of funding streams for its budget, including support from the city, state and federal governments – considered other factors as well. That includes an upcoming $10 to $12 million budget shortfall at the city level, plus ongoing instability with the Trump administration’s efforts to cut arts spending. All of this informed the decision to not take its upcoming show, “Pueblo Revolt,” to Anchorage. Ishii said it would have cost about $60,000. 

“The good news is we’ve been able to say we want to produce this show here,” Ishii said. “We were able to keep that funding in place. But just the added cost of transferring it to Anchorage is what made it difficult to say we can still do this.”

She said so far, the theater has only seen minimal reductions in their current grants. Moving forward she is expecting that funding from all government levels will be greatly diminished. 

On a positive note, she said the Mellon Foundation – a private funder of arts and humanities programs – just renewed a two-year $500,000 grant to Perseverance. And Ishii said theater leadership is working with a financial management company that specializes in helping arts organizations budget and plan for the future. 

The theater hopes to take “Pueblo Revolt” to Anchorage later this year instead. 

Kylie Ferguson manages community partnerships with Perseverance. She said postponing the show’s run in Anchorage was a decision to maintain the theater for the future. 

“Sometimes the play doesn’t have to go on,” Ferguson said. “Sometimes it gets delayed by a few months, but it’s in service of keeping this wonderful organization around for the next generation.”

Ferguson said the Juneau community — which values its performers and the work they do — will be here to appreciate it. In 2024, Juneau was ranked third of small cities nationwide for having a vibrant arts community by SMU DataArts. 

A Juneau jazz musician canceled a show that was meant to be a part of a festival in town this week. The show was advertised as a fundraiser for the ACLU of Alaska, but the organization who planned the festival said it didn’t agree to that.

Spencer Edgers plays the saxophone with other local musicians in the Dream Band. Local nonprofit Juneau Jazz and Classics tapped his band to play a show during its annual Jazz Fest in town.

But recent national events — like immigration enforcement ramping up efforts and shooting civilians — led him to decide to approach this show differently.

“Knowing I had this show coming up, I personally felt uncomfortable promoting a show taking up bandwidth on the internet during a time where people are sharing resources and looking out for each other,” Edgers said. 

So Edgers decided to make the show a fundraiser for the ACLU of Alaska. The rest of his band were on board, and he cleared it with the venue — the Alaskan Hotel & bar — which was paying the band.

“The plan was to have our tip jar, pass it around to people,” he said. “The tip jar was going to go to the organization.”

He also planned to pass around flyers with links to report immigration enforcement activity, and resources for forming safety plans. But Edgers didn’t clear it with Juneau Jazz and Classics. He said the organization hadn’t really been communicating about the event. 

“I assumed that they would not have a problem with it,” he said. “And did not seek the consent for that collaboration.”

Edgers said festival leadership called him and expressed concerns about bringing politics into the festival. But Interim Director Alex Serio said fear of political pushback was not part of their concerns. 

“This went to the board,” he said. “And the board decided that we’ve never had any outside fundraisers before.”

Serio said the board also expressed frustration at not being informed of the fundraising aspect. But if Edgers chose to ask for donations for the ACLU on stage, and not in advertising, that would have been his right. 

“Everybody has freedom of speech,” Serio said. “Everybody can voice what they believe in, and we respect that.”

But the organization’s board didn’t want their branding on the same poster that advertised an ACLU fundraiser, Serio said. 

“We just didn’t want the two of them together saying that we formally endorse an outside fundraiser,” he said. 

So the board asked Edgers to remove its logo from the poster, but said he could carry on with the show. 

“I think the board hoped that there would be a compromise, that he would still be able to ask people, and he would still play,” Serio said. “We could still include community members, but he decided to do it independently, and we totally support that.”

But Edgers said continuing without the organization’s support didn’t feel right and he canceled the performance. 

“I would have not felt good about compromising my values in this way,” he said. “I would not have felt good with going through with it.”

Edgers posted about the cancellation on his personal Facebook account, and the post garnered dozens of comments, some from local musicians and artists in support of his decision and admonishing the organization’s decision. 

Edgers said he understands he sprung the change on Juneau Jazz and Classics at the last minute, and said he plans to communicate earlier in any future shows. 

But he also wants the board to consider the organization’s role in the Juneau community — and that protest is inherent to jazz. 

“One of the things I encouraged them to do is to reflect on the history of the music and the nature of it,” Edgers said. “And how it was born out of adversity and originated basically as protest music.”

Serio says Juneau Jazz and Classics plans to have conversations about that history more in the coming months. 

The Dream Band still plans to hold a fundraiser for the ACLU of Alaska sometime in March. 

Disclosure: KTOO Morning Host Mike Lane sits on the Juneau Jazz and Classics board and was not involved in producing this story.

A new play, “These Birds: A play inspired by death, flowers, and Farkle,” opened in Juneau Jan. 29. The show was born from interviews and conversations with local residents about death and dying.

The Theater Alaska play is written by Juneau playwright Merry Ellefson. But the seed for the project started with hospice chaplain Claire Richardson. 

Richardson wanted to find a way to inspire people to talk about death. She said creating a play from community-based interviews was a vehicle to ground stories of death and dying in Juneau. 

“I kept thinking, there has to be a way to have people to be able to have conversations about death. It’s so challenging, even with all the books and web resources and everything that we can offer. It’s that personal connection,” she said during a recent Juneau Afternoon interview on KTOO. 

Richardson contacted Ellefson, who has previously written plays based on interviews with Juneau residents and Alaskans across the state. 

The women conducted about 25 interviews and Ellefson said it was a profound journey. Though death can be a somber topic, Ellefson said there’s so much life in connecting through stories. 

She said she’s grateful for everyone they interviewed, as well as for the eight performers and other artists who transformed the script into a theatrical experience, honoring all the conversations and interviews. 

“These stories live in our community. They are part of us. They are of us. We hear ourselves here, whether that’s a whale breaching or someone talking about a tragedy,” Ellefson said. 

“These Birds: A play inspired by death, flowers, and Farkle” runs through Feb. 15, with two performances this Friday and Saturday at Ḵunéix̱ Hídi Northern Light United Church, and four shows next week at various locations.

Theater Alaska offers ticketed and free performances. Find details and the full schedule of performances and post-show conversations at theateralaska.org.

Editor’s note: KTOO is a media sponsor for “These Birds: A play inspired by death, flowers, and Farkle.”

A national storytelling nonprofit is launching its winter and spring season in Anchorage this week, with Alaska voices helping to kick off a series centered on the idea of the American Dream.

The Moth is an organization that promotes the art of storytelling through education, performance and other efforts. The Moth’s Mainstage show comes to the Atwood Concert Hall in Anchorage on February fourth. The Anchorage performance is presented by the Anchorage Concert Association. The event will feature and features Alaska storytellers Na Mee and Polly Napiq Andrews.

Na Mee is a writer and teaching artist from Juneau. She said being invited to share the stage in her home state feels especially meaningful.

“I just feel honored to be one of the Alaskan storytellers for this particular show,” Na Mee said. “I love that The Moth reaches out to local storytellers, so people from the community are represented on stage, sharing their experiences from their viewpoint as Alaskans.”

While the story Na Mee will tell takes place out of state, she says it is deeply shaped by the Alaska experience.

“The story doesn’t take place in Alaska, but it’s grounded in the fact that we are from Alaska,” she said. “I think it especially speaks to fellow Alaskans and parents who may have taken their kids outside of Alaska, and what that might feel like.”

For Na Mee, storytelling itself is a cultural practice, not just a performance.

“Our family doesn’t really sit around talking about how we feel. At dinner, we tell stories. That’s how we transfer what we know about the world and how we feel about it,” she said.

The show’s director, Michelle Jalowski, says her focus is less on forcing a theme and more on curating voices that naturally resonate.

“When I’m curating a show, I try to put together the most compelling stories that represent a diverse group of voices. Finding local storytellers is always my favorite part, and Alaska has been good to us,” she said.

Anchorage storyteller Polly Napiq Andrews brings a background in trauma healing and cultural storytelling. She says story is central to identity in Indigenous communities.

“Story is one of the centerpiece values of who we are as Indigenous people,” she said. “We share stories to teach the younger generation who we are, where we come from, and how we live in community.”

Andrews said the idea of the American Dream, for her, is rooted in healing.

“The American Dream means healing and living a good life. It’s about breaking cycles of trauma and passing on healthier ways of living to our children, so they can have a better life than we did,” she said.

In Anchorage, those stories will open the season for a national tour, offering audiences a chance to sit together and listen to what dreaming looks like now.

The Moth Mainstage comes to the Atwood Concert Hall for one show, at 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 4, presented by the Anchorage Concert Association.