Thursday, March 12 Michelle Ellsworth Following along with Ellsworth’s work takes

Thursday, March 12

Michelle Ellsworth

Following along with Ellsworth’s work takes a lot of doing—her short bio describes her as a “dancer, choreographer, video maker, writer, cartoonist, and web designer.” (The long form includes even more skills.) Her work, which links kinetic expression to culture commentary and historical investigations, includes enough intellectual references to make you reach for the nearest encylopedia. But her multimedia presentation sweeps you along with the narrative until you’re convinced that you really do know what she’s talking about. Her latest invention sounds like a hybrid of a casino and a classroom: She’s performing inside a box made of screens and projectors, surrounded by video footage triggered by the audience during the show. The content is equally complex—Clytigation #3 is a speculation about Homer’s Clytemnestra, and what she’d do in a post-9/11 world. (Through Sat.) On the Boards, 100 W. Roy St., 217-9888, ontheboards.org. $15. 8 p.m.

SANDRA KURTZ

Friday, March 13

Big-Screen Hitchcock

Apart from Liam Neeson’s Run All Night, there aren’t any real crime flicks opening this weekend. Now Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980) always insisted he made thrillers, not vulgar shoot-’em-ups, the best of them infused with mordant wit, sex appeal, and postwar sophistication. But beneath those thrills there must be a crime, whether already committed, coming soon, or being covered up. (It’s that latter point, the concealment of guilt, that so appealed to the Catholic-raised Hitchcock, master of the bad conscience.) So in this five-film weekend retrospective, the misdeeds include adultery, murder, robbery, trespassing on a national monument, blackmail, identity theft, serial killing, cross-dressing (well, nothing wrong with that these days), the irresponsible use of a crop-duster, and human taxidermy. I’ll leave it to you to sort out the various wrongs among Rear Window, North by Northwest, and Dial M for Murder. Tonight the mini-fest begins with the elaborate ruse and mind-fuck that is Vertigo, in which Jimmy Stewart’s San Francisco cop falls for Kim Novak’s femme fatale (twice, no less); followed by the black-and-white shocker Psycho, with the famous shower scene, Anthony Perkins in drag, and a swamp full of victims unlucky enough to have checked into the Bates Motel. (Through Sun.) SIFF Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave. N., 324-9996, siff.net. $7–$12. 6:30 & 9:30 p.m.

BRIAN MILLER

The Vertiginous Thrill of Forsythe

William Forsythe and his ballets attract extreme adjectives—the choreographer has been extending what we understand about virtuosity since he started making work in the 1980s. Building on George Balanchine’s neoclassical experiments, Forsythe’s dancers move farther and faster—the thin red line of the classical tradition is still there, but it’s stretched to new limits with each new work. Pacific Northwest Ballet has been dipping into this volatile universe for several years, but has now accumulated enough dances to make a full evening. With three works being presented, two new to Seattle, the result may send everyone into orbit. (Through March 22.) McCaw Hall, 321 Mercer St. (Seattle Center), 441-2424, pnb.org. $30–$184. 7:30 p.m.

SANDRA KURTZ

SAM Remix

Having opened last month, Indigenous Beauty: Masterworks of American Indian Art From the Diker Collection doesn’t exactly put you in a festive mood. This is a history show, running through May 17, comprising artifacts, costumes, baskets, blankets, carvings, pottery, beadwork, etc. from all over North America (Canada included). Since the private trove amassed by New York collectors Charles and Valerie Diker ranges from snowy Inuit climes to the Navajo culture of the desert Southwest, it can be a little hard to maintain focus among the 122 objects. We’re more used to a narrow view of Pacific Northwest coastal art (represented, too, by SAM’s smaller companion show). Valerie Diker, during her opening-day remarks, said the couple was drawn simply by beauty, not any specific regional, historical, or ethnographic interest. So my advice is to forget about context and surrender to eclecticism. In that spirit, tonight’s party includes music by DJ Doc Adam, art-making activities led by Wendy Red Star and Alicia Betty, food and drinks, and something called Kisima Ingitchuna (or Never Alone), a computer game based on the lore of Alaska’s Inupiat tribe. Also, lest you think everything is old and sad in Indigenous Beauty, its 2,000 years of history run right up to the present decade. Be sure to see the Canadian artist Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas’ large comic-book panels excerpted from Red, which he calls a Haida manga. Seattle Art Museum, 1300 First Ave., 654-3121, seattleartmuseum.org. $12–$25. 8 p.m–midnight.

BRIAN MILLER

Monday, March 16

Mr. Turner

Now I have no objection to Emmanuel Lubezki having won the Oscar—his second in a row, after Gravity—for his amazing and seemingly seamless lens work in Birdman. Yet I was rooting for English cinematographer Dick Pope, who took the opposite approach in filming Mike Leigh’s gorgeous biopic about the painter J.M.W. Turner. The grouchy, selfish, yet charismatic artist (1775-1851) saw the world from a mostly static perspective, as Pope frames it. Turner (played by Timothy Spall) visits various corners of Europe with his sketchbook; he spends hours at the easel back in his London studio; and his buyers have the expectation of displaying his landscape and maritime scenes in grand rooms where visitors will admire them for decades to come. There’s no rush or bustle to this process (unlike the frantic backstage players in Birdman), which is why Leigh and Pope often pause their film’s action for us to see 19th-century views as Turner did: lambent light on a Flemish canal, the sun filtered through harbor mist and sails, locomotive steam bursting into a halo above the green countryside, and—this shot made me gasp—The Fighting Temeraire, a famous battleship being towed up the Thames to be rendered as scrap. That latter image is something of an art-history joke, since we’re seeing Turner’s famous 1839 painting come to life. It’s gorgeous trickery, not unlike Birdman, since the warship’s a digital creation. Though Pope’s of a different century and medium than Turner, he’s an artist who also hides his impeccable technique. SIFF Film Center (Seattle Center), 324-9996, siff.net. $7–$12. 7 p.m.

BRIAN MILLER