by Jas Keimig
Ahhh — April! The beautiful first official month of spring and longer daylight hours. Use this burst of energy to get involved in all the cool things going down in the South End this month. There's Seattle Civic Poet Shin Yu Pai's public poetry campaign, a Pulitzer Prize-winning play about Iranian English-language learners, as well as a solar eclipse. Protect your eyes! Read on for more!
Think we missed something? Let us know at Arts@SeattleEmerald.org.
April 1—30
Everywhere
It's April — Happy Poetry Month! To celebrate, Seattle Civic Poet Shin Yu Pai is launching a citywide poetry campaign featuring poems from five Seattle poets — Kathya Alexander, Bryna Antonia ( Thanh) Cortes, Cindy Luong, Joe Nasta, and Bryan Wilson — in seven locations. So look out for posters and postcards designed by Jayme Yen with the poems at The Seattle Public Library (downtown and South Park), Wa Na Wari, Friends of Little Saigon, Seattle Municipal Tower, and Slide Gallery in Belltown.
April 4—28
ArtsWest
4711 California Ave. SW, Seattle 98116
The phrase "English Only" plays a major part in Sanaz Toossi's 2023 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, English. Set in an Iranian classroom where four adult students are studying for their Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) exam, the story follows them as they travel the road towards English fluency and construct new identities and senses of self around this language.
April 5-2025
Wing Luke Museum
719 South King Street, Seattle 98104
"Hello Auntie, Hello Uncle" at the Wing Luke Museum focuses on the roles the elders — aunties, uncles — play in AA&NH/PI communities. Specifically, the show "elaborates on who an Elder can be and what a society that values and supports an Elder might look like," reads the Wing Luke's exhibition description.
April 6, 7 p.m.
Muckleshoot Casino Resort
2402 Auburn Way S, Auburn 98002
The Miss Island Goddess Pageant brings together hundreds of people from around the world to celebrate queer, trans, and Faafafine people within the Pacific Islander community. Every year, one lucky contestant is crowned Miss Island Goddess based on their costumes and performances. It's going to be a fun-filled evening!
April 8, 10:39—12:21 p.m.
Everywhere
We're in eclipse season, babes. The heavenly bodies that orbit Earth are going to be in perfect alignment, and the midwest and eastern parts of this country will get to experience a total solar eclipse. Here in Seattle, however, the max coverage will only be 20%. But it will still be super cool to see! The Seattle Public Library is giving away a limited supply of ISO-certified eye protection at all 27 branches so you can protect your precious eyeballs. If you wanna see what the eclipse will look like here in Seattle, check out the eclipse simulator.
April 12—14
Northwest Film Forum
1515 12th Ave., Seattle 98122
The International Uranium Film Festival is "dedicated to all nuclear topics and the entire nuclear fuel chain, from uranium mining to nuclear waste, from nuclear war to nuclear accidents," says NWFF's website. The fest's opening night film is 1982 documentary cult classic, The Atomic Age, which uses footage from government educational videos and ads to compose a tongue-in-cheek guide on how to survive in the atomic age. Also in the lineup is a panel led by Hanford Challenge, a nonprofit dedicated to the Hanford Nuclear Site cleanup, then a screening of Richland, a documentary about the Washington town that manufactured the plutonium for the Manhattan Project.
April 13—14
Various Locations
Burien
This three-day cumbia festival is bringing tons of vendors and events to Burien. More from the Emerald's Agueda Pacheco Flores:
"Festivities will begin next month on April 13 and will kick off with a market at Lake Burien Presbyterian Church. Attendees will see an assortment of local vendors selling anything from art and jewelry to food. A 'Bidi Bidi Bom Brunch' at La Esquina will follow the next day, April 14, and will feature drag performances. The festival will end on April 20 with its official cumbia dance event called 'Aguacero,' a nod to Seattle's rainy weather, at Club Sur in SoDo. Both Bidi Bidi Bom Brunch and Aguacero require tickets, which range from $10 to $80. All but Aguacero will be all-ages events."
April 20, 9:30 a.m.—12:30 p.m.
Paper Press Punch
5628 Airport Way S, Seattle
This Paper Press Punch workshop is dedicated to showing your love to Mother Earth via print. The process goes like this: You'll create a design using provided templates, then your image will be printed from a glass bed scanner on the risograph. Along the way, instructors will also teach you about how to use paper waste in the print process. Your Earth Day creations will get hung on Paper Press Punch's gallery wall for a mini-exhibit. Participants get to take home 25 prints of their own, plus one from every other workshop participant. Riso Jam is kid-friendly so make sure to bring your kiddos too!
April 20, 10 a.m.—2 p.m.
Duwamish Longhouse & Cultural Center
4705 W Marginal Way, Seattle 98106
The Duwamish Longhouse & Cultural Center will host the Wisdom Keepers, an international team of Indigenous leaders and activists who represent the Indigenous perspectives in climate policy discussions at UNCOP. Come through to hear COP28 and COP29 delegates Jacob Johns (Akimel O'odham and Hopi) and Jeff Ferguson (Spokane Tribe) share stories and insights related to their work on the Wisdom Keepers delegation and learn about Indigenous perspectives on climate change policy. There will be a Q&A after as well as snacks!
April 21
The Beacon Dance
812 Rainier Ave. S, Seattle 98144
Dance for Falasteen is an event to fundraise for Camp Breakerz of Gaza, a breaking/hip-hop crew that has been giving dance education classes to the people of Gaza for over 20 years as a means to give young Palestinians an outlet for their trauma and self-expression. On Feb. 23, Israeli forces bombed the Camp Breakerz dance studio in the Nuseirat refugee camp and killed four students and their families. Dance for Falasteen has organized classes on hip-hop, house, dabke, amapiano, and vogue femme to raise money for Camp Breakerz. Masks are required and a portion of the class will be dedicated to a Palestinian speaker.
April 25—28
Langston Hughes Performing Art Institute
104 S 17th St., Seattle 98144
Never fear! The 21st annual Seattle Black Film Festival is here! Some highlights: Goodbye Julia, the first Sudanese film at Cannes Film Festival; two shorts by Northwest Film Forum's Netsanet Tjirongo, Savi the Cat (one of my favorites from SIFF last year) and Vanishing Seattle: Queer the Land; and a documentary about one of the first Black supermodels, Donyale Luna: Supermodel. Audiences can watch excellent Black films at two locations — the Langston Hughes Performing Art Institute and Washington Hall.
April 27, 10 a.m.—5 p.m.
White Center
Southwest 98th Street between 15th and 16th Avenue Southwest
Now in its 21st year, the Cambodian Cultural Alliance of Washington invites everyone to come celebrate the Cambodian/Khmer New Year at their annual street festival in White Center. There will be a monkey blessing and food offering, live music, traditional/classical performance, a Khmer skit and fashion show, food, games, and more.
April 27—28, 10 a.m.—5 p.m.
Duwamish Longhouse & Cultural Center
4705 W Marginal Way, Seattle 98106
Come through to pick up wares from Indigenous vendors and makers at the Duwamish Longhouse & Cultural Center.
Jas Keimig is a writer and critic based in Seattle. They previously worked on staff at The Stranger, covering visual art, film, music, and stickers. Their work has also appeared in Crosscut, South Seattle Emerald, i-D, Netflix, and The Ticket. They also co-write Unstreamable for Scarecrow Video, a column and screening series highlighting films you can't find on streaming services. They won a game show once.
📸 Featured Image: A poem by Joe Nasta on the window at Slide Gallery. Nasta and other local poets have their poems on display at various locations around Seattle as part of the public poetry project by Shin Yu Pai, Civic Poet of The City of Seattle. (Photo: Shin Yu Pai)
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