STAR Center Photo Contest: Focus on South Tacoma

The finishing touches are being put on the new South Tacoma Activity and Recreation (STAR) Center opening May 19, and Metro Parks’ photo contest could put your photos on the walls. The STAR Center is a state-of-the-art, 32,000 square foot complex designed by Miller Hull Architects in Seattle. This $16 million, regional recreational showcase is part of a 75-acre community complex shared by Metro Parks Tacoma in partnership with Gray Middle School and the Boys and Girls Club. The eco-designed Star Center offers a music/yoga/dance studio, a teaching kitchen, fitness rooms, a dynamic indoor/outdoor children’s playground and a rental hall. The urban campus will welcome people of all ages and abilities to connect, explore, stay active and have fun. The top 3 photographic entries will be professionally matted and framed for exhibition at the grand opening of the STAR Center! The winning photographers will also be awarded prizes.

"Ole 99," a sculpture by Fritz Church. Photo: Dave Davison

Unfamiliar with South Tacoma? Cruise the area between S. 38th and S. 70th on S. Tacoma Way to find interesting historic sites and public art (the official boundaries of South Tacoma are Center St., I-5, 80th St. and Orchard St.). This gutsy neighborhood has muscle-car showrooms, fascinating 19th-century cemeteries (many of the city’s founders are buried here) and traces of the industrial and railroad shops the area is known for. Artist Mary Mann‘s bucolic 1998 mural in the back lot of the Heritage Bank at S. 47th and S. Tacoma Way looks as fresh as the day it was finished, and it remains one of the best examples of mural painting in the whole city. A very old railroad trestle at 66th and Adams serves as an impromptu memorial canvas, and it is periodically painted with artful tributes to community members who have passed. Also at S. 47th and S. Tacoma Way is Fritz Church‘s sculpture, Ole 99, a wonderfully rangy, life-size horse made of iron – a clever reference to the “iron horse” locomotives that rolled through South Tacoma a century ago. There’s lots of material here – good luck!

Inside China’s Art Academies

What is an arts education like inside modern China? On March 28, you are invited to a Chism lecture and exhibition by artist and president of The Hubei Institute of Fine Arts in China, Xu Yongmin, at the University of Puget Sound (UPS). An internationally known painter, Xu Yongmin will present the lecture, Changing Art Education in China’s Art Academies with an introduction to Xu Yongmin’s artwork. Established in 1920, the Hubei Institute is one of China’s three oldest art colleges. The lecture will take place at 5 pm in Wyatt 101, with a reception in the Kittredge Art Gallery at UPS immediately following. Xu Yongmin’s exhibition of paintings, High Wind, will be on display in the gallery from March 27–April 7, 2012. These events are sponsored by the Catherine Gould Chism fund and UPS Department of Art. University of Puget Sound, 1500 N. Warner, Tacoma WA 98416.

La Bohème: From the Streets of Paris to Tacoma

WHO: Tacoma Opera with chamber ensemble
WHAT: La Bohème by Giacomo Puccini; Italian with English subtitles
WHERE: Rialto Theater, 310 S. 9th St. in Tacoma
WHEN: Friday, March 30, 8 pm – Sunday, April 1, 2 pm
ADMISSION:$12.50-$64. Info at 253-627-7789. Download an order form OR order online from the Broadway Center for the Performing Arts (visit the website for details).

Turn up the drama - check out a Tacoma Opera production! Here, a scene from "The Marriage of Figaro." Photo: Peter Serko

Paris like you’ve never seen it. If you’re a fool for heaving drama set to ravishing music, you’ll love the Tacoma Opera production of La  Bohème. Tacoma’s own opera company is presenting Puccini’s opus about the lives, loves and sorrows of a group of struggling young artists in the bohemian district of Paris in an updated retelling of the classic story. La Bohème is a work of endless appeal – one of the greatest love stories in all of opera, it takes on new forms to beguile each new generation of audiences. It premiered in 1896 in Turin, Italy; was reinvented during the silent movies of the 1920s, stormed Broadway as Rent in 1996, and reemerged yet again as a “Broadway Bohème” for the new millenium.

By moving the story to Paris in 1947, Tacoma Opera promises a fresh reading of this classic opera of love and loss. Get ready for a Bohème unlike any you have seen before!

Read more: Plot Synopsis ~ Meet the Artists