Theater
As with Rent, the enormous impact Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues made in the nineties—and its persistent cultural presence since—can make it seem dated and overfamiliar, its edge dulled by decades of use and social progress. Ensler based her series of monologues, which touch on many aspects of female experience through sexuality, on hundreds of interviews, and the show's affirmation of the connection between loving one's body and empowerment is a widespread verity today. But at a time when anti-vagina-violence is enshrined in the presidency, … More...

Theater
Tanya Barfield's Bright Half Life has a lot in common with Duncan Macmillan's Lungs, which Sonorous Road staged last September. Both are two-character dramas focused on chronic overthinkers in love, and both propel us through decades of couples' lives with the hand brake off. But Barfield's work differs from Macmillan's in two crucial respects. The dyad in Bright Half Life is lesbian and interracial, and instead of progressing in chronological order, the play flips through their crucial and resonant moments seemingly at random. Lives flash … More...

Readings & Signings
If poetry were a beverage to be imbibed, this month's So & So reading at CAM Raleigh would offer a unique flight of the good stuff to savor. Three local writers with works-in-progress or recently published first books will take the mic: Michelle Dove (currently teaching at Duke), with the ruminative, relational, and downright funny poetry and flash fiction of her first book, Radio Cacophony, which we reviewed in October; Travis Smith, who works at Flyleaf Books and is the author of the chapbook Zodiac … More...

Clubs & Concerts
Between the self-applied genre of "hush folk" and the very name of the band itself, Charlottesville-via-Greensboro duo Lowland Hum does a rather spot-on job of letting listeners know what to expect before hearing a single note of its music. The gorgeous voices and gentle harmonies of Lauren and Daniel Goans confer a quiet tranquility upon their collaborative songwriting, which often culls influences from both the natural world and spiritual themes for poetic lyricism. It's the kind of placid and ruminative sound that can fade into … More...

Exhibits
Self-taught artists also teach one another, and, starting in the 1980s, Alabama produced a remarkable crop of African-American ones who entered the canon as it tortuously grew less homogenous. Scavenger sculptor Lonnie Holley, who came to Kings in Raleigh as a musician last Friday, has had a major retrospective at the Birmingham Museum of Art. Assemblage master Thornton Dial has been collected by MOMA, the Whitney, the Met, and the Smithsonian. Less well known but primed for reconsideration is Dial's cousin, Ronald Lockett (1965–1998), who … More...

Exhibits
An artist is not always the best person to assess his or her own work, but in the case of Ansel Adams, the great photographer of the American West, the king of the coffee-table book, we're willing to make an exception. Adams called this grouping "the Museum Set," intending it as the ultimate expression of his legacy. And unlike many a great novelist, painter, or musician, who experience a golden age in youth, Adams, who worked as a photographer for five decades, was so devoted … More...

Clubs & Concerts
Around this time last year, a group of experimental beatmakers transformed The Shed, Golden Belt's modest space for jazz music, into a trippy bunker thundering with instrumental hip-hop and strands of dance funk. The collective called itself Raund Haus, and its subsequent showcases almost immediately filled the head-nod void left by Party Illegal's monthly inclination toward more seamless EDM party vibes. Since then, Raund Haus has taken strides toward becoming its own institution, similar to what the Low End Theory beat club in L.A. has … More...