The first show of the Mission Creek Summer Sessions was a breath of fresh air, if you could manage a full inhale in the withering heat on Thursday evening. Seeing Iowa City poet Sara McGuirk and now Chicago-based musician Elizabeth Moen live, outside, in a dispersed but solid crowd on the Ped Mall was well […]
Mission Creek 2021
Gina Nutt talks terror ahead of her Mission Creek Festival 2021: Duos reading
Night Rooms is unlike anything I have ever read. So much so that I have repeated that phrase to anyone who will listen, including the author. I asked Gina Nutt, over email, light-headed at the opportunity to talk to someone I had already decided was a pioneer, how this book came to be. “I have […]
Mission Creek performer Billy Dean Thomas: ‘I choose to stand confidently in my existence and truth’
Billy Dean Thomas, a.k.a. “The Queer Biggie,” is a quadruple-threat: a rapper, singer, instrumentalist and charismatic performer whose dynamic presence permeates their live shows and music videos. In “Rocky Barboa,” the Harlem-raised MC can be seen rhyming and bouncing to a sparse, retrofuturistic beat while dressed in unique, stylish outfits tailor-made for this gender-nonconforming artist. […]
Power moves: Chuy Renteria on dance, language and growing up Mexican-American in small-town Iowa
Let’s start big: who are you, Chuy? Whoo, I could go in a rabbit hole with that one. I am an artist, an author, dancer — I mean, I have many, many different hats. Really my first love is dance. I started when I was 14; I’m 35 now. I went through undergrad at the […]
Mission Creek announces a virtual two-day fest, Duos, featuring Japanese Breakfast, Andrea Gibson and more
Tickets are on sale now for the 2021 edition of Mission Creek Festival, Duos. Following on the heels of the community-beloved Ghost Creek film this winter, Mission Creek is once again delving into a virtual format to present a slate of not-to-be-missed performers. The fest was conceived last fall, when it became clear to the […]

