Remember wearing short sleeves? And sandals? And plopping down in the grass with no fear of mud caking your clothes? Such are the sweet liberties of summer, and during this especially dreary run of rain I’m finding I need convincing that they will eventually return.
Helpfully, Seattle’s summer concert lineups are starting to arrive like sunny emissaries from the near future.
You’re reading Art x NW, a weekly arts and culture newsletter from Cascade PBS. Read past issues and subscribe for more.
Late last month, Woodland Park Zoo released the roster for its popular ZooTunes series (June 4 - Aug. 20), and in the rush of seasonal eagerness two of the featured bands have already sold out (Belle and Sebastian and Jesse Welles). Better grab tix quick if you’re hoping to hit another show, whether Ani DiFranco with Valerie June, The Mountain Goats, Courtney Barnett with Built to Spill, Pavement, or The Breeders (!) with Team Dresch. Visualize: rumpled picnic blankets, white wine sloshing over the lip of a plastic cup, necessary sunglasses.
February also brought the Capitol Hill Block Party lineup, which includes Wet Leg, MUNA, Disco Lines and plenty of Seattle bands, such as TeZATalks, Clouds of the West and Avery Cochrane. For the second year in a row the longrunning fest will be 21 and older, but this time the dancing crowds will gather slightly later in the summer than usual (August 7-9). All the better for not needing a sweater.
Just last week the Timber! Outdoor Music Festival (July 23-25) announced its own plans for hot fun in the summertime, with a compelling list of bands performing at the annual gathering in Tolt-Macdonald Park in Carnation, Washington. Among the enticements: Frankie and the Witch Fingers (who totally rocked Bumbershoot last year), Reyna Tropical, Kassa Overall, Terror/Cactus and DJ Riz.
And just yesterday, Bumbershoot (Labor Day Weekend) dropped a few tantalizing updates, too. The music lineup remains shrouded in mystery, but we now know the 54th installment will offer: lower ticket fees than last year (if purchased early); a ticket level that allows for in/out privileges (the lack of which I heard a lot of people complaining about in 2025); and a free-range “sip and stroll” alcohol policy (no longer shall we be penned up in beer gardens!).
So close your eyes and remember the sun on your skin, the live music across the lawn — we’re almost there.
The current weather isn’t providing much of a warm welcome to the herd of animals that has assembled in the Olympic Sculpture Park. The curious new gathering of 12 bronze creatures — including a rat, dragon, horse, rooster and monkey — represents the traditional figures of the Chinese zodiac. It’s the work of legendary activist and artist Ai Weiwei, whose retrospective, Ai, Rebel, was on view at Seattle Art Museum last year.
Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads (through Oct. 24, 2027) was originally slated for installation alongside the SAM exhibition, but was delayed until now. It’s not hard to imagine a complication occurring — the scale of the piece is monumental, with each of the animal heads clocking in at more than 10 feet tall and weighing 1500 pounds.
Arranged in a slight semi-circle along a path near the PACCAR Pavilion, the heads rest on tall, organic-looking stems. Most of the animals have their mouths ajar, giving the impression of a chorus mid-song. But Ai Weiwei based the piece on a historic Qing dynasty hydraulic fountain that featured a dozen bronze zodiac figures, cleverly calibrated to spout water and keep time. (If the replicas at the sculpture park are spouting water, it’s purely weather related.)
The original figures were looted by European troops during the Second Opium War (1856-60). Seven were eventually recovered and returned to China; Ai Weiwei had to invent the look of the remaining five. The work is thematically in tune with the artist’s longstanding exploration of the art world’s fickle valuation of authenticity and fakes, originals and copies — especially since, as he points out, the Qing dynasty figures and fountain were created for the pleasure of the emperor by Europeans.
Related: If you haven’t yet seen Ai Weiwei’s massive wall work Water Lilies, on view at Seattle Asian Art Museum, you only have a few more days to catch it (through March 15). An homage to Monet by way of 650,000 colorful LEGO blocks, it’s a stunning piece on several levels. (Learn more in my 2025 interview with SAM curator Ping Foong.)
Spring arts season has sprung with tons of events to experience. I’ll end with a sprinkling of options from the movers and shakers in the movement arts.
Pairings, at Base Experimental Arts Space in Georgetown (March 14 at 7 p.m.), is a new program that pairs musicians and dancers in creative collaboration — including the killer combo of choreographer Bebe Miller and composer Lori Goldston, who will guest star this weekend.
The aptly named and longrunning Moisture Festival returns (March 19 - April 12 at Broadway Performance Hall), featuring clowning, comedy, acrobatics, magic tricks and (last year) someone playing Jenga while the stack of wood was balanced on their nose.
For more circus fun, Cirque de Soleil: Echo is still running (and twirling and trapezing) under the Big Tent at Marymoor Park (through March 22). Among the colorful characters in this edition are a snake-like contortionist, a coterie of masked “paper animals” and a pair of “fireflies” who hang from their hair.
And if feats of derring-do are your favorite thing, mark your calendar for high-flying Australian contemporary circus group Circa Ensemble, coming to the Meany Center (April 2-4). The show Duck Pond is a comedic/acrobatic take on Swan Lake, featuring aerialists, flips and lots of feathers.
One more under the avian influence: Pacific Northwest Ballet presents Firebird (March 13 - 22), a mixed bill including the titular work (with choreography by Kent Stowell accompanying the 1945 score by Igor Stravinsky), plus Alejandro Cerrudo’s propulsive Little mortal jump and Ulysses Dove’s fiery Red Angels. Extra credit: If you want to go all in on Firebird, pair this show with the Seattle Symphony’s concert performance of Stravinsky’s epic Firebird Suite (March 19 and 21) and burn, baby, burn.
Check out Season 2 of our tv show Art by Northwest, featuring in-depth interviews with the printmakers, painters, sculptors, carvers and photographers who are creating captivating work across Washington state.
