ALAXSXA | ALASKA opens Oct. 12

Bunnell Street Arts Center presents Ping Chong Theater + Company (PCC) from New York City in YC in ALAXSXA | ALASKA, showing at 7 p.m. on Oct. 12 and 13 at the Mariner Theater.

“Alaska’s Indigenous cultures, including regional peoples, have been endangered since the Russian conquest of Alaska in the early 1700s,” Bunnell writes in a press release. “Indigenous culture and regional peoples survive and adapt in many ways, especially through art which is intrinsic to traditional life ways. Art, in Alaska’s 20 plus indigenous languages, is not even a word or a separate practice from culture.”

Last year, Bunnell co-commissioned ALAXSXA | ALASKA to explore identity and cultural survival. The performance weaves puppetry, video installations, recorded interviews, and yuraq (Alaska Native Yup’ik drum and dance) in a collage of contemporary and historical encounters between indigenous Alaska Native communities and newcomers to the Great Land. The title of the piece includes the ancient indigenous Unangax tribal name for the rocky shores of the Alaska Peninsula: Alaxsxa (uh-LUK-shuh). This word is mirrored by and juxtaposed against the familiar, Anglicized version of this place name: “Alaska.”

Performers Ryan Conarro and Gary Upay’aq Beaver (Central Yup’ik) — along with puppeteer Justin Perkins — use movement, stories and puppetry to reveal a series of little-known historical narratives of collisions between people and cultures in Alaska. Tickets are available at www.bunnellarts.org.

5×7 art call ends soon

The Homer Council on the Arts invites artists 16 and over, aspiring through accomplished, to submit work in any media for its 5×7 show. All entries must be of original design and personal execution within the last three years. Artists will have the option of splitting proceeds 60/40 or donating all proceeds to the council in exchange for an individual membership. Register by email at office@homerart.org or call 235-4288 by Oct. 15.

Naden offers Art a la Carte

Artist Lynn Naden offers Art a la Carte classes during the school year. For October, students explore painting techniques, composition, and color application through pigment acrylic, water color, and other media. For grades 4-6, classes meet from 2:45-4:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays at West Homer Elementary School. The fee is $100 a month for members of $120 a month for nonmembers. Register at www.homerart.org.