“Dear White People,” an award-winning entry at the Sundance Film Festival, will be shown at Whitman as part of the Power and Privilege Symposium on Thursday, Feb. 19. The showing is open to all Whitman students as well as Walla Walla community members, and it will start at 8 p.m. in Cordiner Hall to end the symposium. The film satirically examines the experiences of black and mixed-race students at a predominantly white school and also discusses conceptions of identity and self.

Unlike many movie showings hosted by the Whitman Events Board, the showing of “Dear White People” was prompted by enthusiastic student requests. Senior Sierra Dickey, the cinema director for Whitman Events Board, was emailed by multiple groups and individuals asking them to show the film at Whitman.

“I usually don’t get requests like that at all,” said Dickey.

Dickey speculates the overwhelming support for the film is related to similarities to the fictional “Winchester University” and Whitman College itself. Not only is it a well-received film, but it is a relevant and important film for Whitman students to see.

“Clearly it’s a great film without its politics, but part of the reason that makes it great is its politics,” said Dickey. “We at the community need these kind of events to critically examine our position and build a better community through doing that.”

Sophomore Ryan Long saw the film in Seattle over last semester’s Thanksgiving break in Seattle, and they praise the film for its depiction of race relations in a white-dominated environment. They believe that Whitman’s administration could especially benefit from viewing the film, as Winchester’s administration handles the schools race problems quite poorly, serving as a warning of what not to do in this type of situation.

“Whitman has a race problem and that’s very obvious,” said Long. “While I’m not an expert on these experiences at all … I hope that people will see this film and start thinking about what they’re doing.”

However, the film goes beyond race relations in its examination of identity and self.

“It’s a piece of media that’s representing something that both black students and white students don’t usually see,” said Dickey. “It’s about how in a place where you’re a minority, there’s a constant struggle about acting out people expect of you, like you feel you need to do, and acting out according to yourself.”

The Power and Privilege Symposium will open with a more serious, information-heavy film by Shakti Butler, the keynote speaker for the event. Senior Natalie Shaw, marketing and communications director for the symposium, said that they chose to show “Dear White People” as part of the conclusion in order to add levity to the event without invalidating the experiences of the rest of the Symposium.

“We decided to screen ‘Dear White People’ as a part of the closing ceremony because we wanted to do something fun that was also relevant to the mission of the Symposium,” said Shaw. “Because the Symposium focuses on creating spaces challenging conversations, participation can be an intellectually and emotionally exhausting experience for some students.”

While the details are still in progress, the showing will be accompanied by a “passive debriefing” of the film’s content. Dickey reiterated that while the film is less serious in tone than a lot of the events, it is by no means a deviation from the ground covered during the Symposium.

“There’s comedy and it’s more celebratory, in a way, but it’s equal parts tragedy and comedy,” said Dickey. “It’s a way to lighten the mood without allowing everyone to go into catharsis.”

Slam poet Kane Smego will be performing from 7 p.m. until 11 p.m. in the Reid Coffeehouse on Friday, Feb. 6. Aspiring or experienced poets can also attend a workshop at 4 p.m. where Smego will help students transform their ideas into spoken word poetry.

Smego is renowned speaker, poet and the artistic director of Sacrificial Poets. In 2010 following the stories of young revolutionaries in Tunisia and Egypt, Smego helped contribute to the multimedia “Poetic Portraits of a Revolution” project along with two other poets and a filmmaker. His work examines how stories can be used as a means of non-violent protest and self-transformation, and they often explore concepts of identity, diversity and leadership.

Smego individualizes his performances based on the context and theme of the event where he is performing. His wide range of experience draws on his work as a youth educator, nonprofit director and active ally for immigration rights, allowing him to share his life through speech and poetry.

In November of 2014, a group on the Whitman Events Board (WEB) first encountered Smego at the NACA (National Association for Campus Activities) conference in Portland, Ore., where poets, performers and speakers give presentations and are hired to hold events at various schools. Sophomore and WEB member Collin Faunt, who manages most performance-based events through WEB and is in charge of the Smego event, was impressed by Smego’s showing, as was the rest of the group.

“When we heard Kane, [our desire to bring him to Whitman] was pretty much unanimous. We thought he was very moving and he also performed his poems, and some of them were about issues that would be well-received here at Whitman. One of them had some feminist undertones, and we were just interested to see what else he had to offer,” said Faunt.

WEB hired and booked a date for Smego based on his performance alone but later found that he also held spoken word poetry workshops with students based on his experience in the art form. The workshop is focused on turning ideas you have about yourself and things important to you, and making the transition into the written and eventually the spoken word.

“When we talked to him, he told us he’d developed a curriculum about finding your voice and finding your personality through spoken word poetry,” said Faunt.

The workshop is open to all skill levels, so even those with little to no experience in slam poetry are welcome to attend. More experienced poets and writers have been promised more intensive writing prompts and techniques, so attendees need not worry that the curriculum will be too beginning-centric. Members of Whitman’s slam poetry group “Almighty Ink” have expressed interest in attending as well.

Almighty Ink co-leader Gus Coats expressed a willingness to see the artist’s own style come through in the workshop.

“I like that with slam poetry … everyone has their own style,” said Coats. “I’m hoping to see some of Kane Smego’s personal practice come through [in the workshop].”

Fellow co-leader Grace Little seconded this notion, adding that Smego’s ear for a musical tempo would be a helpful skill to learn about for her and other members in the club.

“Having listened to some of Kane Smego’s work, he employs internal rhyme and rhythm that blurs the line between poetry and rap,” said Little. “I think we could all use work with that.”

Like most WEB-sponsored events, Smego’s performance and workshop will be free admission for all Whitman students. As WEB’s funding is paid for through student tuition via ASWC, Faut believes charging money for the majority of their events would be unfair and excessive.

“We don’t like to charge students for events they’ve already paid for,” said Faunt.

Whitman’s annual Arts and Crafts Fair provides an opportunity for Whitman students and Walla Walla locals to show off their art prowess and make a profit. Held Monday Dec. 8, the fair exhibited a combination of local community members, student-run businesses and amateur artists just looking for a little exposure. Prints, cards, clothing, hand-made trinkets and even some confectionaries were displayed and sold from 4pm to 6pm.

A woman examines earrings made by Collin Faunt ’17. Photo by Tywen Kelly.

Cryptid, Whitman’s premier apparel designers and printmakers, were selling their new designs as well as recent designs from Walla Walla’s Dia de los Muertos celebration. Their newest shirt design featured an Ewok from the Star Wars franchise. This design was created during a children’s workshop the group conducted. Since the last time the Pioneer covered Cryptid last March, the group has gained popularity is expanding from Whitman’s campus to Walla Walla at large.

“We’ve become a go-to in the community,” said senior Jesus Chaparro.

Cryptid’s website is now up and running, and the group is selling shirts leftover from events like the Crafts Fair and shipping them to anywhere in the United States. Currently, the group is focusing on training younger members to carry on the Cryptid legacy when the seniors of the school leave Whitman, hoping that the shirt-making team continues to expand.

Not all the merchandise available at the fair is sold for profit, however. Student group STArt (Students Teaching Art), formed earlier this semester, was at the event to raise money to fund the group’s volunteer work. STArt plans to buy instruments and art supplies to teach students in second to fifth grade at Blue Ridge Elementary, and expand as they gain new volunteers.

“We’re in need of volunteers,” said junior Hannah Davenport, co-president of STArt, “It’s just a great way to get involved with the community.”

The art sold by STArt members at the fair included contributions from within the club (composed of art majors) as well as donations from students on campus. Statues, wood carvings and prints were all available for purchase, and all the profit helps fund the group’s projects.

Community service groups sold crafts at the fair as a way to raise money for their cause. Photo by Tywen Kelly.

While several of the tables at the fair were occupied by student businesses and non-profit groups, the majority of students represented were individual artists selling off their personal work. Senior Lilly Gibbs has been felting for 2 and a half years ever since taking a class on the art form.

“It’s a good creative outlet, I can do it while watching TV…[or] if [someone else] is driving [me],” said Gibbs, “They’re cute and fun to make.”

Gibbs spends upwards of two hours on each felted figure, with some of the larger ones nearing four or five hours. She uses roving felt for her projects, which can be pricey depending on where you buy it. If the opportunity arises, Gibbs has considered selling her work at more events, but she’s also content with just making her projects for herself and friends.

From students making hand-made cards over the weekend and selling them, to local Walla Walla businesses, the Crafts Fair hosts a wide swath of the community’s craftier members. Even for contributors which this fair is their first or their last, the exposure for their art gives them to provide more opportunities in the future.

“Actually Just Kind of and Almost,” the dance performance starting Dec. 11, reflects last year’s introduction of dance to the theatre department, and Harper Joy Theatre has begun introducing dance-based shows into their typically play-oriented season lineup.

“Seeing the dance production in our offerings at Harper Joy Theatre is a reflection of trying to make dance part of what we do here, so it’s all one thing,” said department chair Chris Petit.

Three choreographers will be contributing a total of five pieces, creating an hour-long show. Renée Archibald, the recently hired professor of dance, will be providing two of her older works along with a new collaboration with her students, and professor Peter de Grasse and guest artist David Thomson will each be providing a piece.

Archibald’s first piece was originally created in New York in 2003, her first official work as a choreographer. The piece incorporates speaking roles into the choreography. The second piece Archibald is contributing to the show is a light-hearted production created a few years ago during her time in graduate school. It examines the ideas of movement and motion in different contexts.

“It’s kind of meta, in a very short period of time it looks at the idea of moving West, and also this idea of the American dream, and also this idea of upward mobility through dance,” said Archibald.

Archibald’s final piece for the show is also her newest. She worked with her five Whitman students, one junior and four first-years, to examine the concept of disappearance.

“I’m working with the idea of disappearance, of presence and absence…the idea of the space or the energy between people being the thing of interest rather than the [performers] as objects,” said Archibald, “I’m trying to call attention to the negative space.”

While Archibald created the original concept for the dance, her students helped develop the idea through movement, writing, and discussion. The students wrote short explorations of the idea of disappearance, and some images that they created, such as growing fur and disappearing from humanity, provided subtext for the choreography.

Dancers rehearse for Peter deGrasse’s piece. Photo by Hannah Bashevkin.

“Sometimes I give them some ideas I’ve been working with and ask them to craft movement, and then we shape that movement and share it as a vocabulary,” said Archibald, “Other times I give them movement…where [I] improvise something short, and then [the students] have to make something from that.”

De Grasse’s piece, “Mantra in a Funky Key,” plays with the ideas of fragmentation, repetition and non-literal meaning. The choreography uses disjointed arrangement of movement to reflect the music of the piece, by hip-hop produce Sixtoo, as well as writing the students did in preparation for the performance.

“In one of the exercise for this piece, the performers wrote down semi-autobiographical anecdotes.  They wrote the anecdotes to include elements of magic, so that the narrative of each one became fairy-tale-like in nature.  The performers then took the anecdotes and fragmented them, so that they contained no complete sentences, so that their narrative logic was dismantled entirely.  When memorized and spoken, the fragmented texts had an unexpectedly poetic quality.  In rehearsals, the performers repeated the memorized texts ad infinitum, until the words took on an absurdity which in turn became meditative in nature, as would be the case with a mantra,” said de Grasse. 

Thomson developed his piece over a short campus residency of around 2 weeks, collaborating with Whitman students.   Guest artists like Thomson are brought on to relieve strain on the theatre and dance department, and outside collaborators are often seen in Harper Joy Theatre productions.

“We see areas in our curriculum that we can’t cover, there’s only five of us, we put on a lot of plays and productions, so we have the resources to bring in a number of guess artists each year…we identify the needs of the season and we use our resources to bring in guests,” said Petit, “Almost every production we do has a guest working on it.”

This support from the newly-merged department is a great benefit for “Actually Just Kind of and Almost” as well as all future dance programs. The resources to bring on guest artists, as well as organizational support, was absent from Whitman’s dance program in the past.

“Before the integration of the dance program and the Theatre Department, there was no program director, and it was up to the individual instructor and the dancers to design and create costumes, props, and find necessary volunteer support for things like stage management.  There never would have been the opportunity to share a mixed bill with a guest artist like David Thomson,” said de Grasse. 

For the future performances, Archibald is looking to expand collaborative efforts. She is currently organizing the Spring Studio Series, which will feature artists from campus, the community, and across the nation as they perform, answer questions, and engage in discussions with the audience and other contributors. Archibald is also planning to have three groups of students work with a dance professor and collaborate with a professor from a different department in order to explore the politics of gender, finally merging into one group for a performance.

“I’m working with the idea that the idea that performance makes something,” said Archibald.

With experience in play-writing, acting and directing, Johnston Visiting Assistant Professor of Theatre Jimmy Maize will bring his expertise to the latest Harper Joy Theatre production, “John Muir Wolf,” for which he wrote the script. Drawing upon the folklore and recent events of the Pacific Northwest, Maize hopes this latest production will convey his admiration for the wilderness and theater.

Photo by Annabelle Marcovici.

A Whitman alumnus, Maize’s first successful play premiered on campus in 2002. After winning the David Nord Award for Gay and Lesbian Studies, Maize was able to fund a tour of the United States interviewing young gay and lesbian individuals under the age of 25. Inspired by those interviews, Maize wrote the documentary play “In One Room”, which was a hit at Whitman and later premiered in theaters in Chicago and New York.

“That play not only ended up having a successful premier in April of 2002, but Whitman college opted to do it every year for its opening week activities for about 7 or 8 years after that,” said Maize.

Since the success of his first play, Maize has written, adapted and directed several other plays. One notable play he wrote is Burn the End, a punk-rock musical about French poet Arthur Rimbaud.

While working with Tectonic Theatre Project in New York, Maize began using the “moment work” style of playwriting. This style of writing creates a fluid, constantly changing script that reflects the input of the actors and production crew. Maize used moment work to write “John Muir Wolf,” finalizing the script about two and half weeks before the premier, so Whitman students working on the play had a large say in the shape of the script.

“It’s the way I love working, and [the students have] had a great time,” said Maize.

The play itself is a combination of two stories. The first is of John Muir, a Scottish-American naturalist that immigrated to the Midwest before traveling to California, where he found spirituality in nature and became a staunch advocate for wilderness preservation. Muir had many notable accomplishments during his life, including the drafting of conservation bills with President Theodore Roosevelt in Yosemite, but Maize wanted to focus on the earlier, exploratory part of his life.

“I wanted to tell that specific part of his life around the 1870s when he decided to come off the mountain, so to speak,” said Maize.

Central to this story is the relationship between Muir and his mentor Jeanne Carr. Carr was a married woman with whom Muir exchanged letters and shared an intimate spiritual connection. On a thematic level, the play is about the sacrifices Muir makes in order to promote the greater good of nature and God. Maize is inspired by Muir’s dedication to these concepts. Spending so much time in New York City, he felt separated from the wilderness and admired Muir’s journey to protect that wilderness.

“Being so removed from the nature I grew up in, I wanted to tell a story about someone who went into nature but then made a compromise in his life and chose to move back to civilization in order to accomplish some of his greatest work, to write his books and advocate on the behalf of wild spaces to launch our conservation mindset,” said Maize.

The second component of the story is of OR-7 or “Journey,” a wolf from the Wallowas that left its pack and became the first wolf seen west of the Cascades since the 1940s. Fitted with a radio collar, the wolf made headlines in 2011 as people were able to track its trek across the Western US. Maize saw overlap between the sacrifices Muir and Journey make, so both of their adventures will overlap and intertwine throughout the play.

“For me it was … a nuanced story about when someone decides to give up everything they love so much and have a connection with a deep spirituality,” said Maize.

Maize began research for the play in 2012 and wrote much of it over a brainstorming session in the Connecticut wilderness during February 2013. When he began teaching at Whitman as a visiting professor in 2014, he picked the play up again due to interest within the Theatre Department, and the play will finally be performed Nov. 12-15 at the Harper Joy Theatre.

“It seemed a really good fit for Whitman and the students, especially since it’s also partly a local story,” said Maize.

For aspiring playwrights, perhaps those contributing to the upcoming One Acts Festival, Maize advises to let ideas germinate, and not to rush the process. He believes that youth is a good time to experiment with form, rather than restrict oneself to comedies with small casts as most student writers to do. But above all, you should always write from a place of passion.

“Write about what you love, not necessarily what you know,” said Maize. “There is a great deal of adventure in playwriting using acting and using theater as bridge to the other, to the unknown experience.”

Photo by Annabelle Marcovici.

An artist makes some last minute touches to her block. Photo by Marra Clay.

Last weekend, Walla Walla’s Day of the Dead printmaking event showed the community both the iconography and culture surrounding the tradition as well as the talent of Whitman’s printmaking students. Attendees of the second annual event could see finished students’ woodblocks inked up and pressed onto cloth via steamroller, buy authentic Mexican food and hand-crafted merchandise, or even get in on the printmaking fun themselves by carving their own mini woodblock to press onto a paper or t-shirt.

Originally inspired by the Día de los Muertos festival in Missoula, Mont., Assistant Professor of Art Nicole Pietrantoni has translated the steamrolling technique and community celebration in Walla Walla with the help of local non-profit organizations and individuals such as Ron Williams, executive director of Shakespeare Walla Walla and owner of the Powerhouse Theatre.

“It seemed like a really natural fit given that we have a really large Latino population and that Día de los Muertos celebrates Latino [history],” said Pietrantoni.

Ink is rolled onto the blocks, then placed facedown onto fabric before being rolled over by a steamroller. Photo by Marra Clay.

Photo by Marra Clay.

Preparation for the event was incorporated into both her beginning and advanced printmaking classes for over a month. This year, Pietrantoni has worked more closely to teach the history of the holiday and expand the art beyond the traditional skeletons and marigolds. Students’ art incorporated images such as hearts, chain-link fences and more.

“I think the students’ work reflects more contemplation on their part … and my part,” said Pietrantoni.

While the steamroller prints were an ungraded assignment for the printmaking classes, student participants spent around 30-40 hours working on their prints. The results were worthy of showing to family and friends and for displaying and selling to the community.

“The most rewarding part is definitely seeing the finished product and seeing how much people really appreciate all the hard work and effort we put in,” said sophomore Emma Rust, “I feel like I can finally say, ‘I did it. I completed one of the hardest projects of my college career, and I’m not only proud but happy with the result.’”

Even though the assignment is not collaborative in nature, students still end up connecting over the experience and finally working together at the event itself, lifting heavy woodblocks and getting them ready to be made into prints.

“I think my favorite part has been bonding with everyone in the class while [we] work,” said senior Corinne Vandagriff. “It’s fun to talk about everyone from my peer’s art to just learning about them as people.”

For future years, Pietrantoni wants to expand the community outreach aspect of the event by focusing on educating students and visitors about Latino culture while avoiding cultural appropriation, and providing more opportunities for spectators to get involved. She also wants to take the art to local farm labor camps to interact with the workers there.

With the event growing by the thousands each year, the Walla Walla Day of the Dead celebration is looking to be one of the most influential art events in the area. This year, an estimated 3,000 people attended. The festival drew from the Whitman and greater Walla Walla communities, providing an atmosphere unlike any other event in Walla Walla.

“That’s why I keep reminding [my students] of, is that this is something unlike anything else many people have probably ever seen in our community,” said Pietrantoni, “It really contributes to the art scene here.”

Fiona Bennitt (2017) displays her art. Photo by Marra Clay.

Much like the art of improvisation, campus improv group Varsity Nordic is always changing. The team, which recently added two new members to their lineup, performed together for the first time on Tuesday, Oct. 7, and the shift in group dynamics is already evident.

From left to right, Kinsey White ’15, Sam Adler ’15, Reid Watson ’17, Hannah Davenport ’16 (sitting), Jo Canino ’17, and Roxanne Stathos ’17 amuse their audience. Photo by Annabelle Marcovici.

In the anticipated performance, the revised Varsity Nordic showed off talent new and old in an especially strong second act. Each member of the group took on a single character and managed to put together a story that interwove Hollywood and the peanut industry. Despite the improvised nature of the performance, the group and their characters pulled together into a mostly-coherent and very humorous long-form piece. One of the new members, senior Sam Adler, acted as a seedy peanut salesman and PR agent while fellow sophomore newbie Roxanne Stathos took on the role of his manic yet shy daughter.

What Varsity Nordic looks for in its new members varies every year, but the group is always looking for chemistry. This year only two new members were chosen. While the group currently numbers six people, the team is awaiting the return of several off-campus players. The selection of only two newcomers also highlights the team’s focus on continuing to have a small, tight-knit group.

“The nature of our team is to stay pretty small,” said senior Kinsey White. “Really getting to know each individual on a friend level and a performer level is important.”

Less important to the group are class year and improv experience. Adler always wanted to try theater-based activities at Whitman, but only started performing in productions last semester. Despite the late start, the team chose Adler for his eccentricity and well-rounded skillset, according to White.

Hannah Davenport ’16 (far back), Reid Watson ’17 (left), and Roxanne Stathos ’17 perform in Varsity Nordic’s first show of the semester. Photo by Annabelle Marcovici.

The other new player, Stathos, brings her acting talent and skill in accents to the table. Both of the new recruits are still adjusting to the group dynamic, focusing mainly on improving confidence.

“It’s about not worrying about what you’re doing in the sense of letting go … it’s all for fun, and that opens it up for me in order to explore more,” said Stathos.

The newbies are choosing to think of missteps simply as practice. After all, improv is far from a perfect performance process.

“There are no pitfalls or struggles because improv is a constant imperfection … It’s just about stage presence and practicing confidence,” said Adler.

Even though these two new recruits bring specific talents to the team, Varsity Nordic continues to focus on group bonds over selective skills.

Jo Canino ’17 (left) and Kinsey White ’15 are both returning members of Varsity Nordic. Photo by Annabelle Marcovici.

“If we were to go about an audition process with selectivity in mind, it would be a lot more detrimental to the group dynamic,” said White.

This group dynamic is always changing, especially as members become more comfortable playing off one another. This year’s group is also the most female-centric team in recent years, but even that will change as the other players return to Whitman.

In the near future, Varsity Nordic hopes to travel to improv competitions in the area, including a few in Seattle and Vancouver. After collaborating with Blue Moon last year, the group is also looking to team up with student groups in similar events.

“[There is] a possibility of collaborating with on-campus groups and enriching creativity on campus in different types of performance,” said White.

The audience at Varsity Nordic’s first show this semester enjoys a funny moment. Photo by Annabelle Marcovici.

Whitman Professor Scott Elliott’s 2013 novel, “Temple Grove,” has become a finalist in the Washington State Book Awards for fiction. The winner of the award will be announced in Seattle on Oct. 10, and the competition includes “We Live in Water” by Jess Walters, author of the New York Times best seller “Beautiful Ruins.”

“Temple Grove” is set in the Olympic peninsula area of Washington and tackles everything from environmentalism to mistaken identities to the philosophy of the Makah native tribe that inhabits the area. Written over the course of over 10 years, the novel features multiple points of view (including that of a cougar) and examines those issues from each of them.

“The story is about tensions in the place between conservation and extraction,” said Elliott.

Professor Scott Elliott’s novel has become a finalist in the Washington State Book Awards for fiction. Photo by Hayley Turner.

Despite his roots in the south, Elliott was drawn to write about the Olympic peninsula because of his maternal grandparents. When he visited the area, he was inspired by its environment and his family connection to it. He’d stare out at the crashing waves on the coast, and reflect on the place being the farthest western point of the lower 48: the end of the United States.

“The place as it had manifested itself in me was waiting to be written about,” said Elliot, “Then it was a matter of finding out the best characters and the best story to sing this place”

Throughout decade it took to write, “Temple Grove” changed drastically in change in content. Elliott’s publisher, the University of Washington Press, urged him to incorporate strands of Makah culture into the story. While researching Makah history, Elliott discovered that they traced their ancestry to tribes on Vancouver Island, meaning that people of the tribe looked out at the same ocean as Elliott, but from a very different perspective.

“What I thought was the end of the world was the beginning of their world,” said Elliott.

When he started the novel, Elliott did not have any children. Now with a father’s perspective, he approached some scenes in the book in a new light. For a scene when a mother drops her three-month old baby off of a bridge, Elliot always planned on saving the child, but having children of his own gave the moment more gravity.

Despite his long-standing interest in the area, Elliott learned a lot about the Olympic Peninsula by sharing his work with people from the area and finding inaccuracies and mismatches in his version of the world.

“You encounter readers who refute you…and you kind of want to be refuted,” said Elliott, “As a good novelist, I think it’s important to absorb that criticism and then incorporate that into a better vision of the world you’re trying to create.”

Now on sabbatical, Elliott is working on three new projects.  The first is a collection of short stories based on recordings his grandfather made while working at a hamburger stand in Kentucky. The other two works are humorous novels about book club culture in the south and a barge adventure in British Columbia. Just like “Temple Grove,” Elliott’s new projects are firmly rooted in their location.

“I ground these novels in place,” said Elliot, “It seems like projects come to me and tell me that they want to be written, so I feel like I don’t have a lot of control aside from deciding to follow a project where it wants to take me and seeing it through, which, with a novel, is no small task.”

A musician with a message, Dana Lyons has been combining environmental activism with folk and alternative rock since the 1980s. Most well-known for his hit song “Cows with Guns,” Lyons will be performing at the Reid Campus Center on Thursday, Oct. 2 at 7 p.m.

Lyons’ use of sardonic humor in his music has earned him comparisons (and occasionally misattributions) to artists like Weird Al Yankovic. A Washington local, Lyons has spoken out against the state for its treatment of the environment, and his song “Our State is a Dump Site” was seriously proposed as the official state song. He has also held a concert at the Hanford Nuclear Waste Dump.

His most popular work, “Cows with Guns” (released in 1996) protests the inhumane treatment of livestock by the fast food industry, and chronicles a failed cow uprising that ends in a bloody shootout. The song topped charts around the world in Seattle, Australia and Ireland and remains popular among animal rights activists to this day.

Much of Lyons’ work has been directed at a younger audience, such as his sixth album, At Night They Howl At the Moon: Environmental Songs for Kids. He also wrote the award-winning children’s book “The Tree” in partnership with renowned chimpanzee researcher and nonhuman rights supporter Jane Goodall, and “Cows with Guns” was adapted into a book published by Penguin.

Lyons continues to release music and support various environmentalist groups. His tenth album, The Great Salish Sea, was released this past March and he created music videos for “Salmon Come Home” to raise awareness about proposed Alaskan mines in May.

Looking towards the future, Lyons is looking to hold more education concerts and songwriting workshops for elementary schools, middle schools and high schools. In order to relieve stress on tight school budgets, these ventures are funded through donations on Lyons’ website.