When Lucy Yao and Dorothy Chan began collaborating with each other and creating as Chromic Duo, both were already experienced educators and performers, looking for a way to foster community and lift up the Asian American diaspora in New York, which at the time was increasingly the target of racist violence. “I think eventually, when […]
Witching Hour Festival
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Nashville’s Eve Maret will bring her synthesizer heart to Witching Hour 2021
Eve Maret will be a featured performer at this year’s Witching Hour Festival, an exploration of the creative process and a celebration of new work produced by Little Village and the Englert Theatre. Full schedule and ticketing for this year’s Witching Hour will be available soon at witchinghourfestival.com. Nashville-based electronic musician Eve Maret has accomplished […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Revolution and Beatitudes of Black Liberation: A video essay by Stacey Walker
Produced by Little Village in partnership with Witching Hour and Englert Wavelength Below is an excerpt from Walker’s essay, published in Little Village’s February 2021 issue. What is Black Liberation? What does it mean to be free? Black people have been fighting for liberation since we arrived on the shores of what would come to […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Beatrice Thomas returns to Witching Hour to guide us through the apocalypse
Over the past five years, Witching Hour has become an innovator within festival cultures. While many festivals are stops on a circuit of touring bands that parade spectacles for passive participants, Witching Hour, like the Englert’s Mission Creek Festival, has created a different tonality, celebrating the arts as an expression of community. But its core […]
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Who owns indigenous music? Psychedelic duo Heavy Color collaborate across cultures to make ‘world music’ less parasitic
Heavy Color, a beat-driven psychedelic music duo founded by Ben Cohen and Sam Woldenberg, makes “world music” by way of Toledo, Ohio. These composer-producers are very careful to distance themselves from that problematic term — world music often treats music made by people outside of a European or American context as exotic culture ripe for […]
Posted inCommunity/News
‘Nothing is real until it happens’: Stacey Walker on being a ‘foot soldier’ for racial justice reform
A month out from the 2020 Witching Hour festival, presenter Stacey Walker isn’t exactly sure what he will say to attendees. But that’s not for lack of something to say. “As a Black man, as an elected official, as a person who has been involved in racial justice politics for my entire life, I know […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Witching Hour hosting virtual fest featuring Danez Smith, Stacey Walker, Black Belt Eagle Scout and more
The arrival of COVID-19 in Iowa on March 8 spelled disaster for the 2020 Mission Creek Festival, which was set to take place in downtown Iowa City April 1-4. But the Englert Theatre had time to adapt their other annual festival, Witching Hour, for a pandemic world. The 2020 Witching Hour Festival, presented by the […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Watch: Sharon Udoh (Counterfeit Madison) discusses her Iowa City experiences, Nina Simone and the future
On Nov. 2, 2019, Sharon Udoh (Counterfeit Madison) gave one of Witching Hour Festival’s most memorable performances, presenting her Nina Simone songbook solo, on piano, at the Englert Theatre. She spoke with Little Village before the show at the site of her last performance in Iowa City, The Mill. Video by Jason Smith with photos […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Counterfeit Madison brings the music and message of Nina Simone to the Witching Hour Festival
When Sharon Udoh first heard Nina Simone’s music, it was a revelation. “I was struck by our similarities,” said Udoh, who performs under the moniker Counterfeit Madison. “Here was this dark-skinned black woman who was a classically trained pianist, just like me, and with a similar vocal register. My head was spinning.”
Posted inArts & Entertainment
The new Stanley Museum of Art will serve as ‘a library and a laboratory,’ says its director, bringing art to all majors
Lauren Lessing began serving as the eighth director of the University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art in July 2018, and less than nine months later, presided over the ceremonial groundbreaking of the new site for the museum. UI’s renowned art collection (arguably one of the top university collections in the United States) was displaced by
Posted inFood & Drink
A snacking guide to Witching Hour 2019
Since 2015, Witching Hour has worked to expand the consciousness of festival-goers by stretching imaginations and perceptions of what a festival can and ought to be: a two-day smorgasboard of obscure discussions and performances that take place just as the weather starts to turn horrible. I’m here to stretch how you imagine filling your gullets.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Rachel Grimes explores her roots and Kentucky’s checkered history in ‘The Way Forth,’ a folk opera and film
A few years back, siblings Rachel and Edward Grimes were faced with a difficult but rather common responsibility: transitioning their parents into a nursing care facility. This required the pair to sort through decades—and, it turned out, centuries—worth of stuff in their parents’ Kentucky home. “Both of my parents had a really wonderful trove of photographs
