Arts & Entertainment
PhaseFest roars on this weekend
Indie queer music festival to feature MEN, People at Parties, Tayisha Busay, Glitter Lust et. al.


The queer band MEN, which evolved from a DJ/production/remix team, play PhaseFest again this weekend. The indie music fest kicked off Thursday and runs through the weekend. (Photo courtesy of PhaseFest)
The fifth annual PhaseFest Queer Arts and Music Festival continues this weekend at Phase 1 (525 8th St., S.E.) with a line-up of local and international performers, crafters and artisans featuring their work and more starting at 7:30 p.m. and going until almost 2 a.m.
“We’re expecting it to be super packed every night,” says Angela Lombardi, manager of PhaseFest and Phase 1, adding that they are expecting anywhere from 700 to 800 people over the three days. “We’re really encouraging people to come out early.”
According to the festival’s website, PhaseFest is dedicated to the development, exposure and interaction of queer and queer-allied musicians and artists.
Tonight, there will be performances by MEN, People at Parties, the electronic dance bands Tayisha Busay and Glitter Lust, the duos Rad Pony and Lost Bois, and G.U.T.S.
MEN, who headlined Saturday night at last year’s festival, started as a DJ/production/remix team of Le Tigre members JD Samson and Johanna Fateman. Now the group consists primarily of Samson, Michael O’Neill and Ginger Brooks Takahasi with Fateman and Emily Roysdon contributing.
“They rocked it out last year,” says Lombardi. “So people are … stoked about having them back.”
The drag troupe, D.C. Kings, will also perform a mini-show starting around 10:30 p.m.
The festival ends Saturday night with a performance by the queer, all-female band Sick of Sarah, as well as Hunter Valentine, Allison Weiss, Mitten, Melissa Li and the Barely Theirs, Clinical Trials and Michelle Raymond.
This is Sick of Sarah’s first time performing at PhaseFest.
“They’re a smoking hot group of rockers and they’re just going to blow everyone’s minds,” says Lombardi of the band.
For quite a few acts, this isn’t their first time at PhaseFest.
“We’ve got some Phasefest regulars coming back,” Lombardi says.
Admission is $20 each night for Friday and Saturday. A festival pass is also available for $45. All attendees must be 21 or older.
For more information and to purchase tickets, visit phasefest.com.

Cupidās Undie Run, an annual fundraiser for neurofibromatosis (NF) research, was held at Union Stage and at The Wharf DC on Saturday, Feb. 15.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
















“Fuenteovejuna”
Through March 2
GALA Hispanic Theatre
3333 14th St., N.W.
$27-$50
Galatheatre.org
Inventively staged and strongly acted, GALA Hispanic Theatreās production of Lope de Vegaās classic āFuenteovejuna,ā vividly brings to life an old but timely tale of injustice and power. A lot of theatergoers will find this work (first published in Madrid in 1619) painfully relevant.
Possibly Lope de Vegaās most produced play, this version of āFuenteovejuna,ā penned by renowned contemporary Spanish playwright Juan Mayorga, is markedly shorter than others you might have seen. While purists may not concur, itās generally agreed that Mayorga has effectively condensed the plot and modernized the verse.
The action kicks off with cast members jovially sharing jokes that are mostly lost on those of us relying on the productionās English surtitles, but no matter, it creates a happy mood of a contented townsfolk whose lives are soon to be horribly disrupted. (From there on, all translation is clear and presents no difficulties.)
Lope de Vega based the play on a true incident. In 1476 in Southern Spain, village residents, unwilling to accept ongoing abuse, banded together and overthrew a brutish commander.
Here, the Commander/Comendador (played menacingly by Iker Lasker) sets upon the town and specifically the mayorās daughter Laurencia (Julia Adun in her GALA debut). In short, the all-powerful bully makes the brave young womanās life miserable, and as he grows increasingly insistent the situation becomes perilous.
Initially she relies on the protection of her male friends. But itās not enough.
As Laurentia is further harassed and ultimately assaulted, she somehow becomes stronger, and emboldened. Disappointed by the townās men, she calls on the women to rebel: āSisters, take your places, and letās do something that will shake the whole world.ā
Like all the classics, the workās themes are enduring. Justice, decency, and collective identity are among the pressing topics explored.
Also, integral to the playās story is the love between Laurencia and her fiancĆ© who becomes a target of the Comendadorās savagery. Additionally, there are fine examples of familial love and genuine friendship.
Thereās a lot to love about out director Juan Luis Arellanoās glowing production. It moves swiftly and excitingly. Heās assembled a large cast of talented, experienced actors (including Luz NicolĆ”s, who plays Flores, the Commanderās right-hand man) and an outstanding design team.
Arellano has thoughtfully imbued the piece with exceptional modes of storytelling.
For instance, off to the side but still clearly seen, DJ (Aldo Ortega) provides both mediaeval and rock music. Occasionally characters step away from the other players to narrate from a standing mic beneath a dramatic spotlight.
Scenic designer Giorgos Tsappasās set is both a thing of beauty and unexpected functionality. Comprised of different elements that include a huge silver pendulum, a sandy floor, a curved wooden bench backed by a concrete-esque curved backdrop. All of its parts are smartly and organically integrated into the staging.
At the top of the second act, a door rather surprisingly opens, allowing the Commander surrounded by actors costumed in dark sheep masks, passage to the stage. Itās a striking image.
The set is compellingly lit by stalwart designer JesĆŗs DĆaz CortĆ©s. Heās also responsible for the captivating visuals shot from overhead and projected on the imposing back wall. All the visual design work looks subtly expensive.
āFuenteovejunaā is Lope de Vega at his best, and GALAās production is the perfect means of introduction or a revisit.
Movies
A cat and its comrades ride to adventure in breathtaking ‘Flow’
Latvian filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis directs animated fantasy adventure

Sometimes, life changes overnight, and thereās nothing to do but be swept away by it, trying to navigate its currents with nothing to help you but sheer instinct and the will to survive.
Sound familiar? It should; most lives are at some point met with the challenge of facing a new personal reality when the old one unexpectedly ceases to exist. Losing a job, a home, a relationship: any of these experiences require us to adapt, often on the fly; well-laid plans fall by the wayside and the only thing that matters is surviving to meet a new challenge tomorrow.
When such catastrophes are communal, national, or even global, the stability of existence can be erased so completely that adaptation feels nearly impossible; the āhitsā just keep on coming, and weāre left reeling in a constant state of panicked uncertainty. That might sound familiar, too.
If so, you likely realize that thereās little comfort to be found in most of the entertainments we seek for distraction, outside of the temporary respite provided by thinking about something else for a while ā but there are some entertainments that can work on us in a deeper way, too, and perhaps provide us with something that feels like hope, even when we know there is no chance of returning to the world we once knew.
āFlowā is just such an entertainment.
Directed by Latvian filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis from a screenplay co-written with MatÄ«ss Kaža, this independently-produced, five-and-a-half-year-in-the-making animated fantasy adventure has become one of the most acclaimed films of 2024; debuting at Cannes in the non-competitive “Un Certain Regard” section, it won raves from international reviewers and went on to claim yearly ābest ofā honors from numerous criticsā organizations and film award bodies, including the Golden Globes and the National Board of Review. Now nominated not only for the Academyās Best Animated Feature award but as Best International Feature (only the third animated movie to accomplish that feat) as well, it stands as the odds-on favorite to take home at least one of those Oscars, and possibly even both ā and once seen, itās hard to dissent from that assessment.
Set in an unspecified time and an unknown, richly forested place, it centers its narrative ā which begins with breathtaking quickness, almost from the opening frames of the film ā on a small-ish charcoal grey cat, who wakes from its slumber to find its home rapidly disappearing under a rising tide of water. Trying to stay ahead of the flood, it finds a lifeline when it discovers an abandoned sailboat, adrift on the waves, and seeks safety on board; but the cat is not the only refugee here, and with an unlikely group of other animals ā a dog, a capybara, a lemur, and a secretary bird ā sharing the ride, the plucky feline must forge alliances with (and between) each of its shipmates if any of them are to avoid a seemingly apocalyptic fate. Faced with setbacks and challenges at every turn, the crew of unlikely comrades learns to cooperate out of shared necessity ā but will it be enough to keep the uncontrollable waters that surround them from becoming their final oblivion?
With no human presence in the movie ā though the implication that it once existed, accompanied by the inevitable suspicion that climate change is behind the mysterious flood, is ominously delivered through the monumental ruined structures and broken relics it has seemingly left behind ā the story unfolds without a word of dialogue, a narrative chain of events that keeps us ever-focused on the ānow.ā The non-verbal vocalizations of its characters (each provided by authentic animal sounds rather than human impersonation) help to convey their relationships with clarity, but itās the visual evocation of their sensory experiences ā of being trapped and at the mercy of the elements, of making an unexpected connection with another being, of enjoying a simple pleasure like a soft place to sleep ā that fuels this remarkable exploration of physical existence at its most raw and vulnerable. We have no way of knowing what has happened, no way of imagining what is yet to come, but such questions fade quickly into irrelevance as the story carries our attention from the immediacy of one moment into the next.
Accentuating this in-the-moment flow of āFlowāā for if ever a film title could be said to summarize its style, it is surely this one ā is its eye-absorbing visual beauty, rendered via the open-sourced software Blender to provide an aesthetic which matches the material. These realistically-drawn animals come vividly to life against a backdrop that captures a deep connection to nature, accented with the surreal intrusions of human influence and a certain appreciation for the colorful beauty of the world around us, even at its most untamed, which hints at an indefinable mysticism; and when the story begins to transcend the expected borders of its meticulously-crafted realism, the animation takes us there so easily that we scarcely notice it has happened.
Yet transcend it does, and in so doing becomes something greater than a humble adventure tale. As the animal companions progress in their journey toward hoped-for safety, the remnants of human existence become more weathered, more ancient, and less recognizable; the natural landscape through which they are carried begins to be transformed, rendered in a more mythic light by the clash of elemental forces swirling around them and the strange encounters with other creatures that occur along their way. Whatever world this may have been, it seems rapidly to be dissolving into a cosmos where the forms of the past are being reconfigured into something new ā and the band of travelers, both witness to and participants in this process, cannot help but be reconfigured, too.
We canāt explain that further without spoilers, but we can tell you that it includes the catās ability to ignore its solitary instincts and natural mistrust of its comrades in order to form a diverse (yes, we said it) and cooperative team. It also involves learning to let go of things that can no longer help, to be open to new possibilities that might, and perhaps most importantly, to surrender without fear to the āflowā and trust that it will eventually take you where you need to go, as long as you can manage to stay afloat until you get there.
Zilbalodisās film is an immersive ride, full of visceral and frequently harrowing moments that may produce some anxiety (especially for those who hate seeing animals in peril) and conceptual shifts that may challenge your expectations ā but it is a ride well worth taking. More than merely a fantastical āNoahās Arkā fable reimagined for an environmentally conscious age, it just might offer the timely catharsis many of us need to confront our unknowable future with a renewed sense of possibility.
āFlowā begins streaming on Max on Feb. 14.
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