OPEN / "Bring Yourself" Arts & Culture event!

[enveloped]

who: Cameron Waltz and you!
what: "Bring Yourself" Arts & Culture event!
when: Today!
where: Riverside Community Centre.
warnings: None predicted.

Open invitation on the network!


The community center is normally a modest building, albeit one with a spectacular riverfront view. Tonight, it's putting on the ritz. Multicolored lanterns hang on either side of the sidewalk leading up to the front of the building, and music of all kinds, depending on what time it is, pours out of the open doors and into the street. Local vendors have set up small carts to show off their wares and offer small trinkets and fresh food for sale, displaying their local pride.

Inside, things have been completely redecorated for the event. It's a modern open concept gallery, with blank walls for artwork and written word, empty pedestals to display objects, and plenty of tables with chairs. Some pieces are already on display, from paintings to exotic foods. Small crowds gather around people telling stories or showing off their special skills and talents.

That music plays live from the small main stage overlooking a dance floor, both of which can be cleared for demonstrations of everything from dance to martial arts. Anything physical that requires that little bit of extra room.

Musicians are free to write their names for a time-slot on the stage, and can choose to be accompanied by the onsite pianist and guitarist, bring their own instruments or backup, or perform solo.

All throughout the room are food and drink stations, where staff serves wine, beer, limited spirits, and soft drinks. The exotic foods are on display here, from which the guests can help themselves. If you can imagine it, someone has managed to cook it.
At the far end of the building is an outdoor patio overlooking the river, with seating and torches to light the area through the night. Most displays of magic take place out there, where practitioners can go all-out casting their most extravagant spells.

The crowd ebbs and flows, gathering to socialize during lulls and splitting off to see new events and installations as they come in. Other than opening and closing statements by Cameron Waltz, there's very little structure.

Casual and relaxed, the focus is on learning, generating conversation, and meeting new people. It's an organized free-for-all, a mini festival dedicated to the celebration of the cultures and backgrounds of everyone in Riverview. And in a city made up of a thousand universes worth of people, there's more than enough to see.

[Characters can bring pieces with them as they arrive, and simply set themselves up around the room. Contributions aren't limited to art, anything goes! Feel free to play random observer/staff/performer NPCs. The party goes until midnight, have fun!]

Comments

OTA

[bestsir]

You might not expect the city coroner to have artwork on display at this event, but Harry's mother was a talented amateur artist and passed those skills onto her children—and it served the scientists amongst them well. Harry illustrated his own work, as did John, and while he now enjoys the fidelity offered by photography, there is something reassuring to him about the hand-drawn work.

So he's here with illustrations he's created of the creatures he's been studying since they showed up in the quarantine in June, framed and hung on a small space on the gallery wall. There's a pen-and-watercolour of Draco oculi, the flying, eyeball-eating lizard, the detail of which owes a lot to the fact that his pet lizard, Phoebe, is very nearly tame by now. Vulpis ignis, the fire-breathing fox, is represented by a pen drawing of a pair, one crouched on the ground, the other rearing up and spitting fire. There's a finely detailed drawing of a dissection of Birgus visumfluminae, the toy-poodle-sized crabs that were responsible for getting his menagerie politely booted from the hospital. The hair-nesting Rattus clamo appears in a rough pencil sketch. And there's a beautifully preserved Hepialis motus moth, mounted in a glass case.

Harry is not good at parties, but he does seek out people he knows to talk, and nurses the same glass of wine throughout the entire evening.

[volitaunt]

Poe is drawn to the art, because he recognizes those animals. It didn't occur to him that drawings like this could be considered art for display, or he might have tried to convince Jyn or Cassian to show some pages from their own study journals. He wouldn't show his own for love or money--the notes might be good, but the drawings are not.

BB-8 looks from one drawing to another at Poe's heels, whistling impatience while Poe takes his time to study each page and the names alongside them.

He circles the glass case with the moth inside, glad to have the chance to get such a close look at one.

Poe spots Harry, and walks over to him, curious. BB-8 follows. "How'd you find out the names of all those things?"

[bestsir]

"Ah, well—the truth is, they are names that I have developed, according to the naming system common in my own world," he says. "I admit that there's a certain arrogance in it, but until I am able to devise a more fitting one, I find it easier to work with the knowledge that I have."

[volitaunt]

"Nah, I wouldn't say arrogance." He claps Goodsir on the shoulder, a bit of the casual physical friendliness he can't help. "You're working with what you know. Nothing wrong with that."

BB-8 whistles agreement, chiming away in binary. Poe looks down at the droid, smiling. "Different languages, different names for things, right buddy?"

[bestsir]

"Who is your friend? Harry asks, looking down at the droid with surprised pleasure. He hasn't seen anything like BB-8 before, and the droid is a charming little thing.

[volitaunt]

"Ah, right, sorry. BB-8, this is--" He pauses, looking surprised for a second. "Actually, I don't know who this is."

He extends a hand, which BB-8 mimics by popping out one of his maintenance arms and holding the claw out to Harry.

"I'm Poe Dameron, and this is BB-8."

[bestsir]

"Harry Goodsir." He shakes Poe's hand. "A pleasure to meet you and BB-8 here." He hesitates and extends his hand toward the claw, quite honestly slightly concerned at getting ... pinched or something.

[volitaunt]

BB-8 very carefully takes Harry's hand and bobs his maintenance arm up an down in a pretty good imitation of a handshake, before letting go and retracting the limb with a pleased sound.

"Same here." He smiles down at the little droid. "I don't know why he's started shaking hands, but he seems to like doing it. So is this what you do? Study animals?"

[bestsir]

Some part of Harry can't quite believe that an automaton is capable of liking anything, but there's no denying the personality in those chirps and the way it tilts its hemispherical head. It's absolutely impossible not to smile at it.

"It is part of what I do," he answers. "My official occupation here is city coroner, and I am studying medicine at the university—but the study of animals has always been my passion, and I have been happy to continue it here."

[volitaunt]

Poe scratches his chin thoughtfully.

"Have you met Cassian Andor or Jyn Erso, by any chance?"

[bestsir]

The names don't ring a bell; Harry shakes his head. "Are they friends of yours?"

[volitaunt]

"Yeah, yeah they are. I'm just asking because they go outside the walls a lot, make a lot of notes on what they see out there. Notes, drawings, bits of fur and feathers and stuff like that. Kind of like what you're doing here." He gestures at Harry's illustrations. "Seems like you'd get along."

[bestsir]

"Ah—perhaps I shall seek them out, then. Always a pleasure to meet explorers of like mind." And perhaps they'd be willing to allow him to tag along on one of their ventures outside the walls.

[pacifisticuffs]

Well, now. Here's a familiar face. Simon saunters up with a glass of some local whiskey, or a close equivalent. He's abandoned his tailored suit for a form-fitting, sky-blue turtleneck, and a pair of carefully pressed black slacks.

"Hello there, Dr. Goodsir." He studies one of the drawings, impressed and not bothering to hide it. "My, my. The local fauna certainly has some color to it."

[bestsir]

"Mr. Templar, good evening. Yes—I have noticed that in some respects it is quite similar to Earth species I've seen, but often with some truly ... disconcerting variances." He gives Simon a quick, appraising glance, to see how he might be healing from his misadventure with the pigs.

[pacifisticuffs]

Simon catches the glance and smiles, dropping a quick wink.

"Hale and whole as it is possible to be, doctor. Provided I don't take another blow to the ribs wrestling someone over a platter of hors d'oeuvres I should continue to heal quite nicely."

[bestsir]

"I'm glad to hear it. Fortunately, as Mr. Waltz seems to have matters well in hand, I should think you will be safe." A smile. "Are you enjoying the evening so far?"

[pacifisticuffs]

"Very much so, actually." He'd thought the event might fall under the umbrella of "quaint, but well-meant," but he can't deny Waltz has put on a good show and that the majority of exhibitors are legitimately talented. "And you? Have you strayed far from your own exhibition?"

[bestsir]

"Enough to see what others have brought. I had not thought the community had so many with one such talent or another; it's very pleasant to see. And, in some cases, to hear." Some of the music has honestly not been to his own taste at all, but he can understand the appeal to others.

[pacifisticuffs]

"Not in all cases?" Simon is teasing, of course. While some of the piano pieces have been very nice, the more punk the music, the less fond he finds himself. Talent is talent, but that doesn't mean he always has to love how it's expressed.

[bestsir]

"Some of it is ... very loud," he concedes diplomatically, but with a flicker of a surprisingly mischievous smile.

[pacifisticuffs]

Well hello. There's a sense of humor beneath those mutton chops. Simon toasts him with his (third?) drink of the evening. "If you haven't yet experienced it, I highly suggest you try a sampling of deathmetal. You will lose all hope for the future of music."

[bestsir]

"Death ... metal?" Those are two words that are English and that he knows, but which make absolutely no sense to him paired like that. He's imagining people clanging swords and knives together. "I'm afraid to ask further."

[pacifisticuffs]

Simon chuckles softly.

"There's a great deal of debatably artistic screaming involved."

[bestsir]

"De gustibus non est disputandum, as the saying goes," Harry says wryly. "What sort of music do you prefer?"