Saturday, June 06, 2026

2026.6.6. Seattle International Dances Festival

This weekend, my peak-bagging friend O.K. wanted to climb a few peaks in the Teanaways with me to celebrate her birthday. Due to the windy and wet weather forecast for Saturday, she opted for a day hike on Sunday. When she arrived ~2pm, and me with 4 little cakes for her birthday, it turns out that her birthday was quite a few days ago. For entertainment without climbing, I got tickets to 2 events, one at 5pm, one at 8pm.

First we went to Seattle Center to see the Philipine Festival (part of an ongoing Festal weekend series at Seattle Center). I always like colorful costumes.

Saturday turned out to be fairly nice day. Not much rain. 5pm, we walked to Art Love Salon for a talk on Beethoven's 9th Symphony by Kunal Taravade. I really enjoyed it. Taravade is not even in music industry. He uses images and videos to talk about music. Disectoring the aspiration and each movement of this symphony: breaking new grounds. Before the lecture, there was even a small reception.

8pm Opening night of the 2026 Seattle International Dance Festival. I've heard of this festival, but today is the first time I attended a performance. This event is organized by Cyrus Khambatta, artistic director and founder of the 6 dancer company Khambatta Dance. This is a week-long event with 2 weekends. Many local small dance groups, and some come far away.
The first work tonight is by Khambatta Dance, titled "404 - Human not found". According to Cyrus, the speech used in the dance is generated by AI. An AI robot dances with human. She's later replaced by a better model.
Second work is a 2-dancer work presented by a Korean group, MYOWNMOVE, titled "Constructed Selves". A strange piece. These two acted like with broken limbs, one dancer uses the other's limb for his/her pose. Interesting.
The last piece is a short work combining the two companies in a new choreography.
I enjoyed these dances. Afterwards, 2 dancers and the choreographers of of each team sat on stage for an Q&A. Needed an interpreter.

2026.6.6. The Great Seattle Fire

6/6 Saturday. 10am, I joined a Seattle history field trip at 1st and Madison, guided by 2 enthusiastic amature historians. In 1889, on the very same day at the same spot, in the ink shop below, the Great Seattle Fire started. We walked to Pioneer Square as the fire progressed. Learned how the city was and how it changed. These 2 guys know a lot.

Some reference given: Continued on the same theme. Today MOHAI is hosting a fire day. A bunch of fire trucks are here, where you can check out, and climb onto the driver seat. They have really long flash lights (now you can call these torches), carry power generators.

I visited Virginia V, the historical ferry boat (June, 1922, part of the Puget Sound Mosquito Fleet). You can pipe lake water out of a hose. A nice day on the water.

Wednesday, June 03, 2026

2026.6.3. Westin Run club + Chief Sealth High School Orchestra & Choir

6/3 Wednesday 6:30am. Global Running Day at Westin Seattle. I wasno't even aware of a global running day (first Wednesday in June), but I'm aware of the run every Wednesday at Westin. I'm waking up early these days due to jet lag. Decided to join the run. Today, the route goes to Olympic Sculpture Park, right by this new installation of Aiweiwei's Zodiac. After the run, there's a table of snacks and T-shirt set in the hotel lobby. Even got a large water bottle. Some random hotel guests came by and partook the freebies.

At 7:30pm, went to a community concert, where Chief Sealth High School Orchestra played side by side with Seattle Symphony. The school choir was also on stage. Program is gone from Seattle Symphony's website. Here it is:
Antonio Vivaldi           Concerto for twi Chellos in G minor
                          -- Chief Sealth High School Orchestra
Alan Menkin &             "Colors of the Wind" from Disney's Pocahantas
Stephen Schwartz          -- Chief Sealth High School Orchestra
Stephen Schwartz          When You Believe
/arr. Aubrey Snyder       -- Chief Sealth High School Orchestra & Choir
& John Moss
Aaron Copland             El Salon Mexico
                          --Seattle Symphony
Jimmy López               Aino
                          -- Seattle Symphony
Dmitri Shostakovich.      Festive Overture, Op 96
                          -- Seattle Symphony
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky  Waltz of the Flowers from The Nutcracker Suite
                          -- Chief Sealth High School Orchestra
                          -- Seattle Symphony
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