As Anna Kendrick reminded us with the annoyingly viral cup song in 2012’s Pitch Perfect, the skeleton of any good song is good percussion. In the (free!) 70-minute Percussion Power concert, Juan Álamo (thrillingly described as a “marimbist on a mission”) and his UNC-Chapel Hill Percussion Ensemble remind us that sometimes, percussion can be the whole song. With picks like Eckhard Kopetz’s “The Song of the Snake” (which uses drums, shouts, and clapping to invoke the feeling of a giant snake in the room) this concert is sure to demand some dancing from an audience of kids, families, and anyone who enjoys the sounds that humans can make when we smash things together with intention. —Chase Pellegrini de Paur
How does a college basketball team become a juggernaut? Recruiting a generational talent like Cooper Flagg definitely helps, but Jeff Tiberii (whose voice may be familiar to your car’s speakers via WUNC’s Due South) teams up with sports journalist Mark Mehler in a new book digging into how seven teams—including Duke and UNC—have spent decades establishing themselves as “American basketball royalty.” Whether you’re the office basketball know-it-all, a divorced dad, or new to the Triangle and hoping for an NCAA crash course, this well-timed book talk will give you some valuable insight that goes deeper than the headlines. —Chase Pellegrini de Paur
what else to do this week
As we learned on “Liberation Day” this week, new tariffs are set to take effect and things are about to get more expensive. That includes produce grown abroad and imported for sale in U.S. grocery stores. So what better time than now to start learning how to grow your own food? This Sunday at Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh, Pittsburgh-based authors (and former Chatham County residents) Silvan Goddin and Jordan Tony will present their new book Homegrown Handgathered: The Complete Guide to Living Off Your Garden.
The pair, creators of Homegrown Handgathered, “an online community showcasing low-cost methods for gardening, foraging, and cooking in all environments,” have more than 15 years’ experience as manager of an urban demonstration farm (Goddin) and teacher of regenerative agriculture and foraging (Tony). The couple’s book offers growing techniques for beginner to expert gardeners, with information about how to select a site, plant a garden, start seeds, manage pests and weeds, compost, preserve harvests, and more. Tickets for the in-store event are $30 and include a copy of the book, or you can RSVP for free just to listen to the talk (though a seat isn’t guaranteed). Sounds like a good way to spend a Sunday afternoon if you don’t want to be liberated from too much of your money. —Jane Porter
Should Full Frame Documentary Film Festival feel too representative of Big Documentary, Shadowbox Studio has a bite-sized alternative: Single Frame, a free showcase of small, experimental documentaries. At this fourth annual event, which has screenings at 5:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., is sponsored by Shadowbox and Ponysaurus Brewing Co. and put on by UNEXPOSED, a “roaming microcinema” based in Durham. Expect short documentaries from six to seven filmmakers at each showing and pizza and beer (also free!). “We cherish documentaries that respect the art form of filmmaking equally to the topic discussed,” the event description states. —Sarah Edwards
I am familiar with the Canadian artist Tamara Lindeman, who makes music as The Weather Station, for her climate change activism as much as her music. Both deliver: On 2021’s Ignorance, Lindeman makes a cerebral, mournful (but still bright and pop-inflected, somehow?) case for caring about looming environmental destruction, a cause that she has described as transforming her: “I don’t think you can come into contact with the reality of what 2 degrees of warming means and not become radical,” she told Pitchfork in 2021.
Lush, emotional swirls of synth follow her music wherever it goes, including on her latest release, Humanhood, an album that continues to elegantly probe climate grief, as well as the fact of being shattered by the world and figuring out how to pick up the pieces. —Sarah Edwards
High, lurking tension fuels The Center Will Not Hold, a Dorrance Dance production. An original score by Donovan Dorrance and live percussion by John Angeles, paired with light splashed uneasily onto a dark stage, lends the show the feeling of an action thriller, moments before the killer comes onto the scene.
In this performance, though—a fusion of “street, club, and vernacular dances”—there is no killer; instead, the wildly talented Dorrance Dance performers parse out existential themes of belonging and isolation. Michelle Dorrance, hailed as “one of the most imaginative tap choreographers working today” by the New Yorker, is the daughter of Anson Dorrance, who led the UNC’s women’s soccer program for 45 years before retiring last year. —Sarah Edwards
To comment on this story, email arts@indyweek.com.