doublexposure podcast

Theresa Ruth Howard fell in love with ballet as a little girl. And she was one of the aspiring ballerinas who got to live her dream. Howard went on to write about dance, and ultimately, to work with ballet companies that aspired to open the rarified art form to a more diverse pool of both dancers and audience members. Howard is also the founder of Memoirs of Blacks in Ballet, a project that seeks to make Black dancers' stories accessible to a wider audience. Vivian and Marcie spoke with Howard about her work, and about her vision for ballet in the 21st century and beyond.

Dr. Quinton Morris is a violinist, a fully tenured professor music at Seattle University, a radio host, arts advocate and mentor to young people who might not get the opportunity to study classical music. Morris didn't set out the become a performing artist, but when he got to college, he reinvented his future. Now, Morris wears more hats than most people, and works tirelessly for both artists and the arts. Co-hosts Vivian Phillips and Marcie Sillman sat down with Quinton Morris to learn about his backstory, and about his vision for the future. 

Nia-Amina Minor was little more than a toddler when she started entertaining her family with little dances she'd create and perform in their living room. After training at the Debbie Allen Dance Academy in Los Angeles, Minor thought she's leave dance behind when she entered Stanford University. Instead, Minor pursued a graduate degree in dance, moved to Seattle to join Spectrum Dance Theatre, and has evolved into one of the city's most versatile teachers, dancemakers and visionary artists. She shares her story, and her dreams of building a thriving West Coast artistic community, with co-hosts Marcie Sillman and Vivian Phillips.

When barry johnson was a kid in Kansas, he knew he wanted to be an artist, but he didn't see people that looked like him creating paintings or sculptures.. johnson moved to Seattle after college for a job in the regional tech industry. Every day on the bus to work, he'd pull out his sketch book, pull out his headphones and draw. Now this self-taught artist is one of the biggest names in Seattle's creative community.  For johnson, making art is as much about telling the stories of his community as it is self-expression. And the artist plans to keep it that way as he tells co-hosts Vivian Phillips and Marcie Sillman.

When Preston Singletary was growing up in Seattle in the 1970's and '80's, he dreamed of being a professional musicians. But when he went over to hang out with his buddy after school. Singletary's life took a different path. His friend, Dante Marioni's dad Paul was part pf Seattle's thriving art glass movement, and young Preston found himself drawn to the art form.  More than 40 years later, Singletary has become one of the world's most famous glass artists, pioneering techniques that allow him to replicate Northwest Indigenous designs, and to transmit the stories of his Tlingit ancestors.  Co-hosts Marcie Sillman and Vivian Phillips paid a visit to Singletary's studio, located in the middle of the Seattle campus of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center to talk about craft and legacy and the importance of cultural stories.

When Nataki Garrett became the artistic director of Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the future looked bright. That was 2019. Garrett's tenure was marred by COVID 19, and wildfires that forced the shutdown of OSF's large outdoor theater. OSF, like most nonprofit arts organizations, suffered from revenue losses that challenged Garrett and her colleagues. Unfortunately, the pressures finally pushed Garrett to resign her post. Co-hosts Marcie Sillman and Vivian Phillips talked with Garrett about what happened to her in Ashland, and whether she has hope for the future of American theater.

Justin Huertas has had quite a year: his first musical theater piece, Lizard Boy, had an off-Broadway run. His latest work, Lydia and the Troll, debuted to critical and audience acclaim at Seattle Repertory Theatre. And Huertas shepherded another musical onto the Kennedy Center stage: The Mortification of Fovea Munson. Huertas' shows are lively and fun, but they are steeped in his passion to showcase the stories of people who aren't typically featured onstage or on screen, stories he didn't get to see when he was growing up. He's creating fantasties and legends for the global majority. Despite his artistic success, and his dream of bringing more original shows to New York, Huertas is still devoted to the Seattle area, where he grew up.  He spoke to co-hosts Vivian Phillips and Marcie Sillman about the joy--and pride--he takes in his work.

When Megan Griffiths finished film school she didn't head to New York or Los Angeles. Griffiths decided to make movies in Seattle after falling in love with the city's music scene in the early 1990's. Griffiths has built a career making both independent feature films in Washington State and directing bigger budget television shows in Hollywood but her heart belongs to Seattle.  The filmmaker, sidelined by the Writer's Guild of America strike, took some time to talk about her movies and Seattle's film community, with co-hosts Marcie Sillman and Vivian Phillips.

Ever since he was a  young boy, Keith Beauchamp has been driven to make a feature film based on the story of Emmett Till. In 2022, Beauchamp finally realized his vision, creating one of the most critically acclaimed films of the year. But Emmett Till's life is only one story this filmmaker was to bring to the big screen, Co-hosts Vivian Phillips and Marcie Sillman dive into what motivates Keith Beauchamp, and why he believes this work is also his life's calling.

Marc Bamuthi Joseph has been involved in the creative sphere ever since he was a boy in Queens. The son of Haitian immigrants, Joseph knew he had an ancestral debt to pay, and he didn't intend to squander his opportunity. A dancer, a spoken-word poet, a playwright and leader of social impact for the Kennedy Center, as well as a Global TED Fellow, Joseph recognizes arts potential to touch and change lives. "I just don't trust art that doesn't bleed, or sweat or cry," he says.  In this episode, Marc Bamuthi Joseph talks to co-hosts Vivian Phillips and Marcie Sillman about how his family helped pave the way for his current path, and what he hopes his audiences will take away from his work.

In late 2022, Seattle Art Museum welcomed audiences into its newly-reimagined American Art galleries. SAM, like many cultural institutions, has been revamping not only how it selects and presents art to the public; it is reassessing who the "public" really is, and how to create a curatorial process that welcomes in community members who haven't had access to big museums like it. On March 1, 2023, co-hosts Vivian Phillips and Marcie Sillman moderated a panel that included Seattle Art Museum American art curator Theresa Papanikolas; writer and advocate Mayumi Tsutakawa; and Inye Wokoma, artist, writer, curator and co-founder of Wa Na Wari. We recorded this wide-ranging conversation in front of a live audience.

We wrap our second season with this live recording from WaNaWari, a cultural space in the heart of Seattle's Central District. Once upon a time, artist and WaNaWari co-founder Inye Wokoma's family lived in this house. In 2019, Wokoma and three collaborators transformed the building into art galleries. But WaNaWari is more than a destination; it houses a free food program, a community oral history project, and an on-going effort to document how Seattle's land use policies have affected the neighborhood's historically Black population. Co-hosts Vivian Phillips and Marcie Sillman wrapped a season-long exploration of the ties between culture and community with these interviews, taped in front of a live audience on December 14, 2022.

Kristina Clark spent years dreaming about making a space for Black literature, community and healing. This year she finally took the leap and opened the Loving Room in Seattle's Central District.  The Loving Room is a business, but Clark says beyond that, it's a place for the Black community to gather together, to feel at home. She's proud that her new business is part of a wider movement by Black entrepreneurs to reclaim and re-establish a strong community-led business and cultural district. Co-hosts Vivian Phillips and Marcie Sillman talked to Clark about how she transformed her dream into reality, and what it will take to keep it alive.

Most Seattleites know Donna Moodie as the owner of the beloved restaurant Marjorie, named for her mother. But during the pandemic, Moodie decided her restaurant could operate without her full-time presence. Now she's heading up Community Roots Housing, advocating for affordable--and dignified--housing for everyone.  Moodie believes deeply in building community, whether that means in bricks and mortar developments, or over a dinner table.  Join co-hosts Vivian Phillips and Marcie Sillman for a conversation with Donna Moodie that's sure to light up your day.

Seattle's Central Area (or as some people know it, the Central District) is the historic home of the city's African American community. Although skyrocketing real estate prices have forced many to leave the neighborhood, city planners are working hard to try to restore the Central Area to its roots. As head of Seattle's Office of Planning and Community Development architect Rico Quirindongo plays a key role in this work. Quirindongo is a Central Area native who returned to his hometown to help recreate a city that everyone, especially BIPOC residents, can call home.

When the Viaduct--Seattle's aging elevated waterfront highway--came down three years ago, it ushered in a intense, five-year redevelopment project on the shores of Elliott Bay, the ancestral home of the Coast Salish people and the historic launching pad for present-day Seattle. In addition to a new passenger ferry terminal, a tree-lined boulevard with bicycle lanes, and pedestrian walkways from downtown Seattle to the waterfront, the redevelopment includes a 20-acre park and more than a dozen public artworks.  Co-hosts Vivian Phillips and Marcie Sillman invited an audience to join them at Pier 62, the heart of the new park, for a series of conversations about the waterfront's history, its cultural future, and how the new project could reshape Seattle's identity.

More than 50 years ago, in the aftermath of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, New York City Ballet dancer Arthur Mitchell found himself wondering how he, an artist, could help foster social and racial equity.  His answer, with Karel Shook, was to found Dance Theater of Harlem, originally a school program based in Mitchell's home neighborhood. Not long after, Mitchell and Shook expanded their vision to create a touring ballet company that could show the world that the classical art form wasn't just for white Europeans.  Virginia Johnson was part of the original company; now Johnson is in her final season as DTH's artistic director. She talks with co-hosts Vivian Phillips and Marcie Sillman about DTH and the power of art to change the world.

For years Seattle residents and visitors have had a hard time getting from the downtown streets to the city's waterfront.  In November, 2019, one of the biggest impediments to access, the double decker elevated Viaduct highway, came down, making way for a new surface street, pedestrian and bicycle trails, a 20-acre park, and a slew of new public artworks. Seattle was one of the first cities in the country to implement a law that requires one percent of public works projects to fund art to be locate at the project. In the case of the waterfront redevelopment, that money will pay for everything from art installations focused on the sea itself, to works that highlight the history and culture of the Indigenous people who have called the area home for many centuries. Ruri Yampolsky is in charge of stewarding the creation and installation of these public artworks. She talks with Vivian Phillips and Marcie Sillman about what we'll see when the dust finally settles at one of the biggest redevelopment sites in Seattle history.

The City of Seattle is in the middle of a major waterfront redevelopment project, including creation of a 20-acre park. But it won't be the first urban park built on Seattle's downtown shoreline. 15 years ago, Seattle Art Museum inaugurated its Olympic Sculpture Park, an art-filled haven on Elliott Bay, just north of Seattle's downtown core. The 9-acre urban oasis includes not only a notable sculpture collection but also beach access and an all-seasons pavilion. Best of all, its open free-of-charge seven days a week. Seattle Art Museum Director Amada Cruz talked to Vivian and Marcie about the Sculpture Park's mission, its connection to community, and what will change when the adjacent waterfront park opens in 2025.

Co-hosts Vivian Phillips and Marcie Sillman start their exploration of how culture fits into the massive redevelopment of Seattle's downtown waterfront at Pier 62. It's the first finished section of what will be a 20-acre park where a double decker highway once stood. Overseeing the park's development is the nonprofit group Friends of Waterfront Seattle. Chief Operating Officer Eldon Tam explains the vision for this new park and how the community is helping to shape it.

Artists create work to express themselves, to communicate with an audience, and in the case of Jake Prendez and Angelina Villalobos, to sustain their culture. This season co-hosts Vivian and Phillips and Marcie Sillman are exploring the ways that art can build community. Today, in the fourth episode in Seattle's South Park neighborhood, they talk with Prendez and Villalobos in front of a live audience at community-owned South Park Hall.

When Josh Grant and his husband Chris Montoya were looking for places to open a new Seattle dance academy, they didn't necessarily target South Park. The neighborhood is far off the beaten track when it comes to the city's traditional cultural institutions. But that's exactly what attracted the couple. For Montoya, finding South Park was like re-entering his native Phoenix--with everything from Mexican restaurants to his beloved swap meets. Co-hosts Vivian Phillips and Marcie Sillman talk with Montoya and Grant about their new school, the neighborhood, and what it means to find "home."

Jessica Pena-Manalo is an elementary school music teacher in Seattle's South Park neighborhood. They're also a change agent. Pena-Manalo's students are learning everything from cultural identity to how to collaborate successfully, through the lens of making art. Vivian Phillips and Marcie Sillman talk with Pena-Manalo about the teacher's dedication to students, to social justice, and above all, to art. NOTE: Jessica Pena Manalo uses they/them pronouns. In Vivian and Marcie's discussion, Pena Manalo is erroneously referred to as "she."  

When Cote Soerens arrived in Seattle's South Park neighborhood with her family, she was drawn immediately to the community spirit. Nine years later, Soerens has been instrumental in the move to not only preserve that spirit, but to carve out spaces that will honor and celebrity the neighborhood in all its diversity. Co-hosts Vivian Phillips and Marcie Sillman talk with Soerens about what first attracted her to South Park, and the work she's doing to preserve and strengthen the area's unique cultural identity.

60 years ago Seattle hosted a World's Fair. When the last guests departed, the fair's buildings were turned over to a myriad of local arts and cultural nonprofits. What was a fairgrounds is now the Seattle Center, the city's largest and most vibrant cultural hub. This season hosts Vivian Phillips and Marcie Sillman are exploring four neighborhoods that depend on creative activities to help define and strengthen their communities. After several visits to Seattle Center, they culminate the exploration with LiveXposure, a panel conversation recorded in front of a live, in-person audience on July 22, 2022.

For 25 years, the City of Seattle has sponsored a series of community festivals collectively know as Festal. The 24 festivals celebrate different ethnic and cultural groups from all corners of the globe. A little over two years ago, just as the pandemic was gaining force, Heidi Jackson took Festal's helm, navigating the program through online and Zoom activities to the return of live, in-person celebrations Co-hosts Vivian Phillips and Marcie Sillman talk with Jackson about the Festal program, and the essential role creativity plays in building and reinforcing community.

"The arts can heal," says Holly Jacobson, Executive Director of Path with Art, a Seattle nonprofit that works with people who are moving through trauma. From its Veterans' Choir to fiber arts, Path with Art offers a range of arts classes. Jacobson says she's personally seen how participation has helped people dealing with mental illnesses, homelessness, or other challenging life crises. PwA offers an outlet for personal expression, but it also creates community. Jacobson talks with co-hosts Vivian Phillips and Marcie Sillman about the power of both her organization and the arts in general.

The Northwest Folklife Festival has been a Seattle institution for more than 50 years. The annual free event brings together folk artists, musicians and audiences from a wide array of ethnic and cultural communities--from Northwest Indigenous groups to the descendants of the Scandinavian immigrants who call the area home. Folklife Managing Director Reese Tanimura and Artistic Director Ben Hunter talk with co-hosts Vivian Phillips and Marcie Sillman about what it means to be a folk artist, how that definition has evolved, and about the role these artists play in sustaining their communities. This episode is the first of four that will focus on Seattle Center, a cultural campus that houses everything from opera, ballet and theater to an under-appreciated public art collection.

doubleXposure's Vivian Phillips is more than a great podcast co-host. She's spent decades helping to nurture Seattle's cultural community. Now Vivian turns her considerable passions and energy to Arte Noir, a new gallery/shop that will feature work by artists from the African diaspora. Arte Noir is part of Seattle's Midtown Square, a residential/retail complex in the heart of the Central District, one of four neighborhoods we're featuring this season on doubleXposure.

In doubleXposure's second season, co-hosts Vivian Phillips and Marcie Sillman will explore the connection between arts, community and civic vitality.  In this short preview, they visit the historic Seattle waterfront to talk with public programmer David Rue about how culture creates and fosters community identity.

A new season of doubleXposure is coming your way on June 16th. Co-hosts Vivian Phillips and Marcie Sillman will focus on the way arts and cultural activities help to build, foster and sustain community identity. We'll explore four Seattle neighborhoods, including Uptown, with the historic Seattle Center campus at its heart. For more than 20 years James Whetzel has programmed the music that inspires visitors to the Center's iconic International Fountain. Check out this short conversation with him.

doubleXposure co-hosts Vivian Phillips and Marcie Sillman give a brief introduction to Season Two, focused on the role arts and culture play in fostering and sustaining communities.

As the pandemic heads into a third year, we've all learned a lot. In the performing arts world, despite Omicron and other COVID setbacks, producers, presenters and artists are reinventing the rules for live performance. Josh LaBelle, head of Seattle Theatre Group, has been on the frontlines when it comes to writing new rules for live arts, whether that's a touring Broadway show or a rock concert.  He talks with co-host Vivian Phillips about what he's learned, what keeps him up at night and why he stays optimistic.

Arts organizations around the world have been playing a guessing game: when is it safe to reopen? And if they do open their doors, how likely is it that Covid will force another shutdown? Seattle Repertory Theatre Managing Director Jeffrey Herrmann has been trying to predict the future. His nonprofit theater company  reopened to live audiences in January 2022, and he's crossing his fingers that they'll be able to welcome patrons throughout the coming months. Herrmann talks to co-host Marcie Sillman about the challenges he--and every other arts organization--faces as we approach Covid's 2-year anniversary.  

In late 2021, Seattle's Henry Art Gallery invited doubleXposure co-hosts Vivian Phillips and Marcie Sillman to visit the exhibition Packaged Black, featuring artwork by Barbara Earl Thomas and Derrick Adams, and to respond to what we saw. The show is amazing, and we were so moved by what we saw that we thought we'd offer it to you as a bonus episode, a little glimmer of hope for 2022.

David Armstrong led Seattle's 5th Avenue Theatre for 18 years. During his tenure, he led the push to transform a venue for presenting touring Broadway musicals into a launching pad for new work, including the award-winning shows Hairspray and Come from Away. Since Armstrong's "retirement," he's been teaching a University of Washington class on the history of Broadway, and hosting a popular podcast, Broadway Nation. He talked about Broadway's past, present and future with Vivian and Marcie  

Greg Kucera opened his eponymous Seattle art gallery in the mid 1980's, as the city was emerging from the economic doldrums. Over the years he represented some of the Northwest's most esteemed artists. But Kucera also was a tireless advocate both for their personal welfare, and for the health of Seattle's arts community. This year he retired from the business and moved to a castle in France. Before he left, though, Kucera made one last gift to the community he loves. 

Seattle-based artist Barbara Earl Thomas is having a moment. A moment that just keeps getting longer. Thomas's well-reviewed one-woman show at Seattle Art Musem, Geography of Innocence, got held over through the winter holidays. Across town at the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington, her show with artist Derek Adams, Packaged Black, shows Thomas' mastery of both her craft and the messaging she imbues into her artworks. Marcie and Vivian visited Thomas in her studio last summer. We decided to bring you this episode again, because we liked it so much. 

Seattle was one of the first city's in the country to adopt a law that mandates a percentage of every public construction budget pay for public art.  That was in 1972; now the city has hundreds of objects in its collection, from murals to manhole covers.  But who owns it? And who takes care of it?  Marcie Sillman talks to Seattle Office of Arts and Culture Deputy Director Calandra Childers to find some answers.

When COVID hit the globe in early 2020, Seattle-based choreographer Donald Byrd was getting ready to debut a multi-faceted project called the Race and Climate Change Festival. Like artists around the world, Byrd had to find a new way to create and present his artistic vision. In the process, the 72-year old learned some interesting life lessons. He shares his thoughts with co-hosts Vivian Phillips and Marcie Sillman in this interview originally broadcast in August, 2021.

In March 2020, cities around the world shutdown all but the essential activities in the effort to contain the spread of COVID-19. Now, as vaccination rates in the Seattle area hover above 70%, businesses in the downtown core hope to see more traffic on the street and more customers coming through their doors. Jon Scholes, Executive Director of the Downtown Seattle Association, tells co-host Vivian Phillips that the arts are critical to the city's economic and social emergence from the pandemic.

We've hit the end of our first season and to celebrate, doubleXposure brought our show on the road, recording a panel discussion before a live audience at Seattle's Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute. Guests University of Washington Drama Professor and stage director Valerie Curtis-Newton, President and CEO of Arts Fund Michael Greer, Tim Lennon, Executive Director of LANGSTON! and Trish Millines-Dziko, founder and Executive Director of the Technology Access Foundation, talk to Vivian and Marcie  about everything from the role of culture in policy-making to how their own lives were touched by the pandemic.

One big challenge for BIPOC led nonprofit cultural organizations is funding. Traditional philanthropic channels have been rethinking how they hand out money and who they give it to. Jonathan Cunningham, a Senior Program Officer at the Seattle Foundation, walks co-host Vivian Phillips through the Creative Equity Fund, aimed specifically for groups led by and serving BIPOC communities.

Seattle's cultural sector is a major pillar of the local economy, yet many politicians overlook it when they craft their policy agendas. On October 4th, hosts Vivian Phillips and Marcie Sillman got a chance to ask candidates about how arts and culture fit into their visions for Seattle.  In this episode, Marcie and Vivian listen to mayoral candidates Lorena Gonzalez and Bruce Harrell and mull over what they heard.

In March, 2020, three Seattle-area artists knew they wanted to help their fellow creatives who'd been slammed by pandemic closures. They created a grassroots Artists Relief Fund, ultimately handing out more than a million dollars to more than 2,000 people. The Seattle cultural organization Langston administered the fund. Now, Langston Executive Director Tim Lennon says they're getting ready to launch a new relief fund aimed specifically at Black artists.

Throughout the long pandemic, the arts have helped to buoy our spirits. Now, in many cities around the world, they're helping to rebuild our communities. But very often, political leaders either minimize or overlook the cultural sector's role in civic vitality. Guests Dr. Jasmine Mahmoud of the University of Washington and Tracey Wickersham, Director of Cultural Tourism for Visit Seattle, help trace the connections between the arts and public policy.

The Covid pandemic has hit hard everywhere and in every economic sector. But arts and cultural institutions, and the people who work within them, have been especially hard hit. This year Congress approved ARPA, the American Rescue Plan Act. Co-host Vivian Phillips talks to Brian Carter, Executive Director of 4Culture in King County, Washington, to explain what ARPA is and how it could help the embattled cultural community.

We're 18 months into the pandemic, but many theaters are contemplating opening their doors to live audiences, with Broadway leading the way. Covid hammered the arts world, but guests Tim Bond, Artistic Director of TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, and Valerie Curtis-Newton, nationally known stage director and founder of the Hansberry Project, and African-American theater laboratory, don't want to see a return to the way things were pre-pandemic. They believe it's time to push for true racial equity, and for broader awareness of the essential nature of theater--and all the arts--in our communities.

After almost 18 months, many arts organizations thought the worst of the pandemic was behind them. The Delta variant has played havoc with their plans for a full reopening this fall. Spectrum Dance Theatre Executive Director Tera Beach talks with host Marcie Sillman about the latest pivot in the long trek to keep the dance company afloat.

Donald Byrd has been making dances for half a century, sometimes in the most challenging of circumstances. The Covid-19 pandemic pushed the choreographer to re-imagine his artform, and to re-learn lessons of resilience his grandmother taught him more than 60 years ago.

When Covid-19 forced the arts sector to shutdown in March, 2020, the financial impact was devastating. More than 18 months into the pandemic, with cases on the upswing, most presenters are wondering when--and if--things will ever stabilize. Meanwhile, many arts organizations have used the forced closure to rethink their missions, and in the wake of the racial justice uprising, who gets to make artistic decisions. Pacific Northwest Ballet Executive Director Ellen Walker and Michael Greer, President and CEO of Seattle-based Arts Fund, talk to hosts Vivian Phillips and Marcie Sillman.