Alaska Nonprofits Band Together to Bring Performers to State

Postmodern Jukebox, the next group coming to Kodiak.
Zaldun Urdina / Flickr

Kayla Desroches/KMXT

Community arts councils from around the state are meeting in Tacoma, Washington this week.

The Arts Northwest Booking Conference is a chance for Alaska nonprofits to agree on which performers to bring into the state.

Kodiak Arts Council executive director Katie Oliver says, once there, they’ll watch artists present curated showcases of their work.

“We generally get to see a 12 minute showcase from about 60 different artists, and then we get together as a group of Alaskans and talk about what we like and where our priorities are and where we might be able to put together tours.”

She says Anchorage has the most buying power and drives a lot of the choices, but small communities sometimes band together.

“For example, in the spring, we’re bringing in the Irish trio Socks in the Frying Pan, and that’s an Alaska tour that’s between Kodiak, Valdez, and Cordova.”

Kodiak will host fewer such performances this year due to less funding from local government.

“We’re bringing in three groups this year as opposed to five in recent years, and we’ve reallocated our resource to produce more community theater, so we’re doing two community theater productions this year as opposed to one.”

The three out-of-town acts are Post Modern Jukebox, which arrives next week, a one-man performance of the Star Wars trilogy, and Socks in the Frying Pan.

Postmodern Jukebox plays modern music with a retro bent and self-describes as “pop music in a time machine.” The band will perform in the Gerald C Wilson Auditorium next Wednesday.

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