Free Reading

The Last Best Place

You are invited to a one-time, free, first-time public reading of a new theatrical documentary, the collaboration of anthropologist Sara Jo Breslow and theater artist Todd Jefferson Moore, performed by Mr. Moore with video by Thomas Ager, will take place

Monday, 7 pm, January 28
at the Capitol Hill Arts Center
1621 - 12th Ave., Seattle, WA

In 1999 stocks of Puget Sound Chinook and Coho salmon are listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act. The listing galvanizes efforts by federal, state and tribal agencies to restore the fish’s freshwater habitat. This action to “Save the Salmon” threatens another popular cause: “Save Our Farmland.” A young anthropologist inadvertently becomes mired in this community of competing forces and attempts to figure it out. Seattleites are passionate about wild-caught salmon, farm fresh food, and high-speed wireless Internet. But we rarely consider how these mainstays of our lives and identities are produced in our city’s hinterlands - those rural river valleys spilling off the Cascades. We rarely observe how the production of what we love converges there, sometimes incompatibly. How often do we pause to consider that fingerlings migrating out of the Skagit River make up a full third of Puget Sound’s salmon population; that Skagit farms – formerly Chinook salmon nursery grounds - produce an increasing share of our local fruits and vegetables; that Skagit River dams generate thirty percent of our city’s electric power? While we worry about declining fish runs and dwindling farmland, do we truly understand how we are all connected? Verbatim interviews taken from Ms. Breslow’s anthropological study form the text of The Last Best Place.

Sara Jo Breslow is an Anthropology Ph.D candidate at the University of Washington and has been conducting interviews with a wide range of people living and working in the Skagit Valley.

Todd Jefferson Moore is a Seattle actor. His previous theatre documentaries include In the Heart of the Wood; The Killing Jar; The Professor, the Puppet and the Execution; and Cars, Driving, People.

Thomas Ager is an award-winning, multi-disciplinary Seattle artist. His artworks are in private and institutional collections throughout the USA and he has over two decades of experience in theater.

For more info: 725-5695 or CHAC at 388-0569