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.