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Arts Culture

A musical monologue

By Dave Cantor

Yasmin Williams translated her enthusiasm for the video game Guitar Hero into a music degree.

After finishing up at New York University and moving back to Northern Virginia, where she grew up, the guitarist self-released Unwind, a sometimes somber, but playful, effort that seems to depict a performer pondering friendships and life, work, and making it through her 20s. The 2018 recording is by turns self-assured, unhesitant, and daring.

Williams isn’t in thrall to the folk world, despite most of her work being pretty firmly within those boundaries. She says meeting old-time and bluegrass players has been generally positive. But moreover, the audiences have been responsive, even if Williams seems to think the idea of genre is generally oppressive.

“If you’re playing old-time music, but it’s still experimental,” says the finger-style guitarist, “I’ll probably get along with you.”  

After Unwind, folks at the SPINSTER imprint reached out. The label’s roster doesn’t adhere to a single genre, and its self-described radical feminist agenda made working with Williams for her second album a reasonable fit.

“It was a real honor to release Yasmin’s Urban Driftwood,” Emily Hilliard, a SPINSTER co-founder, wrote in an email. “[W]hile she is virtuosic in her technical playing, she never sacrifices lyricism, melody, and rhythm for pure demonstration of skill. It was so exciting to see this album propel Yasmin to much deserved recognition and opportunity.” 

Driftwood is a collection of personal statements drawn from a politically turbulent time when Williams says she regularly attended Black Lives Matter protests in Washington, D.C. It not only focused the 2021 recording’s material, but her second full-length saw the composer expand her palette to include more percussion elements (she wears tap shoes to keep time) and affix a kalimba to the body of her guitar. The composer also brought along her high school music teacher, who contributes cello to a single track. 

Even after returning to the commonwealth, Williams’ time in New York instilled in her a healthy skepticism for the business-side of the music industry. And releasing work through SPINSTER allowed her to retain a sense of independence. 

“I thought that it would lead to better treatment, because at that point, I just associated labels with negativity,” she says. “So, being on a label that was smaller and more DIY, respected artists, and was [run by] radical feminists, I thought was really interesting. Not something you see a lot of. And as a woman musician, I thought it’d be really cool to put the record out with a label who’s not afraid to say what they are.” 

Openness and veracity has sometimes been tough for an industry where luster and presentation can overwhelm skill and artistry. But for Williams, when she perceived a problem with performers latching onto acoustic, country, and folk traditions in a possible attempt to capitalize on the music’s popularity, she spoke up.

Writing for The Guardian earlier this year, Williams analyzed Cowboy Carter, saying “Beyoncé settled for using [Rhiannon] Giddens’ banjo and [Robert] Randolph’s pedal steel as props to back up the overall production on the record, instead of boosting these traditions to the forefront on an album with an artificial sheen.”

There’s a long, if often ignored, tradition of Black performers in America’s acoustic-music past. Apart from players like Elizabeth Cotten and Odetta, there’re scads of 20th-century recordings showing that country, folk, and bluegrass have never been a White respite.

Williams is part of that continuum, while having broad enough tastes and the acumen to expand it. 

In a business that seems unforgiving—and sometimes unwilling to listen to the people actually making music—the guitarist says she didn’t anticipate the reception Driftwood received. The adulation, in part, led to Nonesuch Records offering her a deal. Since being founded more than 60 years ago, the imprint’s issued thousands of albums, running the gamut from contemporary, classical, and electronic recordings to Wilco.

Williams’ third album, due out this year, includes 20 guest performers and showcases her skills on acoustic and electric guitars, bass, and drums. She says it’s kind of full circle, the music in some ways hearkening back to an E.P. she released in high school.

At times, her two full-lengths hued toward a New Age sensibility, creating a musical intermission from the disordered world outside. Williams says some of the new album could “be considered relaxing,” though overall, it’s more rock-oriented than her most recent releases.

“A lot of the new record is about me digesting what it means to be a touring musician, but not just me being a musician,” she says. “It’s more of the things that are connected with being a musician, like being in an industry that’s kind of predatory and learning how to reckon with that in a way that’s positive and learning how to thrive in situations or environments that aren’t really made to help you.”

Williams’ music is intended to realize new artistic peaks and explore the complexities of being a person moving through the world, but it’s also for the enjoyment of audiences—or at least those receptive to alternate modes of guitar-playing and composing. It’s maintaining and growing that fanbase that can be difficult. And being on the road is a part of the work, though Williams says royalties and streaming revenue have been solid. 

“Most of my day-to-day income is from touring,” she says, discussing how the music business can sometimes be extractive. “Traveling and touring for 50 years. Yeah, that to me, doesn’t seem viable for anyone. I don’t really know how anyone can do that.”

Categories
Culture Food & Drink

Small bites

“Tater totchos and a few truffles to go!” That’ll likely become your regular order at FIREFLY, where new owner Jennifer Mowad has relocated her popular artisan chocolate business, Cocoa & Spice

The new space adjacent to the restaurant will host a grand re-opening party the first weekend of Pride Month—June 1 and 2—with chocolate tastings, a tour of the new production and retail space, and a full menu of chocolate and other confections (think truffles, drinking chocolate, and bean-to-bar). 

“I look forward to sharing this new space with the Charlottesville community,” Mowad said in a press release for the event. “Having the grand re-opening the first weekend of June means you can kick off Pride Month by supporting a local queer-owned business!” 

Established in 2015, Cocoa & Spice was previously housed in York Place on the Downtown Mall. The new shop can be accessed through the red door on the Market Street side of the Linen Building where FIREFLY is located—or through the restaurant itself. As Moward recounted on a recent Instagram post, some lucky restaurant guests were given the first slice of warm brownies from the shop. Truffles and chocolate bark will be available for sale at FIREFLY outside of retail store hours, too, in case you want dessert for later.—Caite Hamilton

Worth staying up

Following its move to the former Peloton Station location on 10th Street NW, local favorite Guajiro’s Miami Eatery is now featuring a late(r)-night menu. Guajiro’s After Dark, as it’s been branded, is available Wednesday to Saturday, 5-10pm, with a menu that includes everything from birria ramen and a classic Cuban sandwich to beer, wine, and the restaurant’s signature cocktail list. 

Now open

Add these new spots to your must-try roster: Lazeez, a modern, upscale Indian spot in the former Red Pump Kitchen space on the Downtown Mall and SugarBear, a from-scratch gourmet ice cream shop that champions local ingredients, at 1522 E. High St. in the former Pie Chest outpost.   

Up for grabs

Sad news for fans of Umma’s, the buzzy Korean/Japanese restaurant from chefs Kelsey Naylor and Anna Gardner: The owners announced on the restaurant’s Instagram page that it was up for sale. “TLDR: we are moving to the city [in] 6ish months (Philadelphia and Charlotte).” 

Umma’s opened in 2022 following the success of their food truck, Basan, known for its unique take on ramen. In the years since, the brick-and-mortar has earned recognition for both its inventive menu (read: Big Mac Dolsot Bokkeumbap) and its Big Gay Dance Parties. The post notes that, until they leave, the restaurant will stay open. 

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News

Public space

As the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Downtown Mall approaches in 2026, the city of Charlottesville is looking to make some improvements. The Downtown Mall Action Plan presented to city council outlines stakeholders’ priorities and suggested next steps, with a focus on the Mall as a public space.

“The goal was not to resolve, or even identify, every issue related to the Mall, which will be an ongoing process for the City,” reads an excerpt of the report, “but to begin to serve as a starting point for that process.”

The plan is the culmination of over a year of discussions by the Downtown Mall Committee, comprising more than a dozen local business owners, residents, nonprofits, students, and city leaders. 

The report’s 22 recommendations are split into organizational, programming, and amenity categories. Four items of particularly high priority are: to have staff consistently on the Mall to bolster cleanliness and safety, to implement the Tree Management Plan, to create a lighting plan and guidelines that account for safety and aesthetics, and to “re-imagine the outdoor café spaces.”

“These four priority items, I think, [are] just a place of where do we start first,” says Greer Achenbach, Executive Director of Friends of Charlottes­ville Downtown and Downtown Mall Committee member.

At the core of all 22 action items is the idea of the Downtown Mall as a public space. When landscape architect Lawrence Halprin designed it in the early 1970s, there was significant emphasis on the Mall as a place for the community. Recommendations—including the installation of a permanent public restroom, increasing and improving public transit to the area, reconsideration of outdoor dining spaces, the restoration of Halprin chairs (movable wooden-backed seats designed by Halprin himself), and the addition of more public seating—are all aimed at improving the utility of the Mall as a communal space.

With more than a year spent considering the various elements of the Mall and its role in the community, it is now up to the city and other local actors to move from discussion to implementation.

“These are not new ideas; a lot of these things have been talked about in the community for a long time,” says Achenbach. “I’m just so thankful that we’re all getting together to specifically write it down and make a plan on how to make it happen.”

Many of the Downtown Mall Action Plan’s recommendations closely align with the goals of Friends of Charlottesville Downtown, and Achenbach anticipates working with the city on implementation.

“What I have learned over the past year is that we have a special amenity out there that has a lot of passion associated with it,” said City Manager Sam Sanders at the conclusion of the action plan’s presentation and discussion by councilors on May 20. “One of my priorities is … to recognize the Mall as the amenity that it is for the entire community.”

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News

In brief

Trump says Good bad

Former president Donald Trump weighed in on the heated primary between Rep. Bob Good and state Sen. John McGuire, formally endorsing McGuire in a Truth Social post on May 28.

“Bob Good is BAD FOR VIRGINIA, AND BAD FOR THE USA. He turned his back on our incredible movement, and was constantly attacking and fighting me until recently,” posted Trump. “John McGuire has my Complete and Total Endorsement!”

The race between Good and McGuire for the Republican primary nomination for Virginia’s fifth district kicked off in November 2023, shortly after McGuire was elected to the state Senate. While Good is the chair of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, McGuire and other Trump loyalists have slammed the representative for his previous endorsement of Ron DeSantis in the presidential primary and have accused Good of being a “RINO” (Republican In Name Only) and “never Trumper.”

Trump’s endorsement of McGuire has sent an already hotly contested primary into overdrive. Both candidates have received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions, and more than $6 million in independent expenditures—either in support of or against the candidates—has been spent so far, according to the Virginia Public Access Project.

Early voting for the Republican and Democratic primaries in VA-5 is already underway and runs until June 15. For more information on local early voting hours and locations, visit your local registrar’s website.

Primary election day is June 18, with polls open from 6am to 7pm statewide.

Play ball

Photo by UVA Athletics Communications.

The University of Virginia has been selected as one of 16 teams to host a regional for the NCAA Division I Baseball Championship. Players from Mississippi State, St. John’s, and the University of Pennsylvania will join the Cavaliers at Ted Davenport Field at Disharoon Park for the Charlottesville regional, which runs from May 31 to June 3.

The Cavs will face Penn’s Quakers in the opening game at noon on May 31, with St. John’s and Mississippi playing ball later that night at 7pm. The teams will then go into a doubleheader on Saturday, June 1.

This year’s event marks the 11th time the Hoos have hosted NCAA Regionals and the 21st time UVA has competed in the playoffs.

“Certainly, you have to perform on the field, and your team each and every year has to earn that opportunity,” Head Coach Brian O’Connor told VirginiaSports.com. “But you also have to have a facility and a fan base to drive that, to put in a bid that’s competitive … Our fans come out for the games, even the games that we’re not playing in, and it’s just a great atmosphere for college baseball.”

Access denied

Community organizers are calling on the University of Virginia to drop its no trespass order against Mustafa Abdelhamid, who was one of 27 people arrested at the pro-Palestine encampment at UVA on May 4. The order has led to the rescinding of Abdelhamid’s externship at UVA Medical Center, and it has jeopardized the Piedmont Virginia Community College student’s anticipated graduation. The nursing student alleges he was in the area delivering an order for DoorDash and that he was not aware of the declaration of an unlawful assembly.

Missing teen

Portillo Abreago was reported as a runaway after not returning home from school. Photo via Charlottesville Police Department.

The Charlottesville Police Department is seeking information about Portillo Abreago, a missing child from Washington, D.C., most recently seen in the 500 block of Park Street on May 24. Abreago is 14 years old, 4’5,” with brown hair and eyes. Anyone with information can contact CPD at 910-3280.

Good food

The Blue Ridge Area Food Bank announced the results of its annual Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive on May 23, bringing in a whopping 90,967 pounds of food. The donations will reportedly produce 76,006 meals for local people experiencing food insecurity. “Together, we are making a difference and helping to ensure that no one in our community goes without healthy, nutritious food,” shared the group on Facebook.

Categories
News Real Estate

Filling in 

Details are now known for the first of three UVA-initiated projects to build between 1,000 and 1,500 affordable housing units in the community. 

“This is a project being pursued by the University’s real estate foundation at the northeast corner of 10th Street and Wertland,” says Jeffrey Werner, the city’s preservation planner. “There are some opportunities here for architectural creativity.” 

UVA President Jim Ryan announced the general goal in March 2020, but work stalled during the pandemic. Three sites were selected in December 2021; they include the redevelopment of a faculty housing site on Fontaine Avenue and space at the North Fork Research Park. In all cases, developers will lease sites that will be owned by UVA’s foundation. 

The two-acre site in the center of Charlottesville is currently a parking lot and a three-story apartment building owned by the foundation. In February, UVA selected a partnership consisting of the Boston-based Preservation of Affordable Housing and the National Housing Trust. 

“Our goal is to design this in context and collaboratively with the University of Virginia with the surrounding community and [to create] something that is financeable,” says J.T. Engelhardt of NHT, an organization that co-owns Kindlewood with the Piedmont Housing Alliance. 

Under the city’s new CX-8 zoning, the developer could have gone as high as 11 stories. But on May 21, members of the Board of Architectural Review saw a six-story structure that would take up much of the two-acre site. 

“We’re assuming somewhere between 150 and 190 affordable rental units,” says Liz Chapman of Grimm + Parker, a local firm hired to actually design the building. “That … range is largely driven by wanting to work with community stakeholders to understand the types of residential units these should be.”

For instance, should they be built for individuals or for families? 

Under the initial plan, vehicles would enter the 80-space parking garage on 10th Street, the same street that retail spaces will face. 

Chapman asked BAR members to identify what architectural cues the project should take and whether there were nearby examples of adequate public infrastructure for pedestrians. 

BAR member James Zehmer pointed out that 10th Street is a very busy road and suggested the designers move the garage entrance to Wertland. 

“I think this wants to be part of West Main because of the massing and size, but we need to respect there’s a much more residential neighborhood behind it,” Zehmer says. 

Chapman said the preliminary idea is to build the structure as a concrete podium with wood construction because that’s the most feasible way to cover the costs. An internal courtyard would provide the outdoor amenity space in something referred to as a doughnut. 

Planning Commissioner Carl Schwarz says he understands the reason for the design, but he doesn’t like that it looks like a fortress. 

“It does feel like it’s walled itself off a little bit,” Schwarz says. “It makes a safe public space for the residents, but it’s not very welcoming to the neighborhood.”   

BAR member Cheri Lewis encouraged the designers to create a way for vehicles to drop people off at the new building. 

“You can’t stop on 10th Street,” Lewis said. “There’s no way. And I don’t think you can turn very easily without being backended anyway, so maybe there’s an opportunity there.”

In the near future, the redevelopment of Westhaven could mean additional affordable units. City Council has morally committed at least $15 million to the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority.

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Arts Culture

Erin & The Wildfire

Now based in the commonwealth’s capital, local favorites Erin & The Wildfire return with their smoking-hot show of original neo-soul and indie-pop sounds. Seeking authentic audience interaction and acceptance—of both self and others—the group brings incredible energy to the stage, while frontwoman Lunsford balances power and emotion through an impressive vocal range that moves body and spirit.

Saturday 6/1. $14–17, 6pm. Rivanna River Company, 1518 E. High St. frontporchcville.org

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Arts Culture

‘The Electronic Lover’ audio opera

With an ending more than five years in the making, The Electronic Lover audio opera debuts its ultimate episode in front of a live audience this week. You can be one of the (lonely?) hearts in the crowd as this tragicomedy set in 1980s chat rooms hits “send” on its final installment. Scored for six lead female vocalists, three male vocalists, a three-person choir, three instrumentalists, a narrator, and spaces for special guests, San Francisco Bay Area’s composer Lisa Mezzacappa and writer Beth Lisick have infused this audio dramedy with ’80s synths and pop-culture references. It’s a look back at what the early days of internet dating held, with parallels to today’s swiping singles culture. An interview and Q&A with Mezzacappa follows the show.

Saturday 6/1. Free, 8pm. WTJU’s Stage, 2244 Ivy Road. wtju.net

Categories
Arts Culture

Essential to the soul

“They’re more than art—they’re like the Bible, Google Maps, and ancestry.com all rolled into one,” says Henry Skerritt, curator of the Indigenous Arts of Australia at University of Virginia’s Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection. Skerritt is describing what bark paintings represent to the Yolŋu people of Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory of Australia. It’s an apt description to keep in mind when viewing “Madayin: Eight Decades of Aboriginal Australian Bark Painting from Yirrkala” at The Fralin Museum.

The exhibition, which is the largest showing of bark paintings ever presented in the Western Hemisphere, took seven years to produce—a remarkable endeavor given the scope of the exhibition and the challenges along the way, including a global pandemic and legislative changes governing the export of Australian cultural heritage objects.

“Madayin” is a collaboration with the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College, but it was in Charlottesville, in 2015, that the idea for this exhibition took root. Djambawa Marawili, Chairman of the Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Centre, was at the Kluge-Ruhe Collection on an Australia Council for the Arts artist residency. Astonished at the number of bark paintings in the collection—many containing stories he recognized—he became intent on producing a show that would tell the history of Yolŋu bark paintings.

Bark painting is a relatively new innovation in an artistic continuum that stretches back at least 50,000 years. But it wasn’t until the 1930s that the Yolŋu began painting their artwork on large expanses of flattened eucalyptus bark. Prior to this, they placed their symbols and figures on the body or ceremonial objects, or they incorporated them into sand-sculptures. 

Works on view in “Madayin: Eight Decades of Aboriginal Australian Bark Painting from Yirrkala.” View the exhibition experience online at madayin.kluge-ruhe.org.
Supplied photo.

Aboriginal artwork is centered on storytelling passed down through generations, and Aboriginal artists cannot paint stories that do not belong to them through their clan. Songlines are walking routes which traverse the country with important stops like water holes and sacred sites denoted along the way and are essential to the storytelling. Each songline is specific to a certain Aboriginal clan and is memorized and sung. 

As an opening and closing practice, a song is sung to include the spirit. “Every one of those paintings has an accompanying song and an accompanying dance,” says Skerritt. “It records these epic ancestral stories and also testifies to the type of ownership of those places. ‘This is my mother’s brother’s land, so I can camp here and I can use the natural resources here,’ and the people living there say, ‘Well, okay, sure. Do you know the song or dance that goes with this place?’ And if they don’t know the right song and dance, they don’t have a right to be there.”

Yirrkala and its bark paintings played a central role in establishing Indigenous land rights. When a section of the Arnhem Land Reserve was opened to bauxite mining in 1963, clan elders responded by producing petitions on bark that presented their claim to the land. The petitions featured text in both Gupapuyŋu and English surrounded by sacred clan designs. The effort to stop the mining failed, but the petitions were significant in establishing indigenous ownership in the Northern Territory Land Rights Act of 1976 and the 2008 Sea Rights case.

“Madayin” is curated by the artists themselves and the late Wukun Wanambi, to whom the exhibition and catalog are dedicated. They know how the work relates, its purpose and its meaning, which paintings go together and which must be kept separate, and which should be removed from public view altogether. Designed to be as accessible as possible to the Yolŋu back home, the extensive 348-page catalog is bilingual and the show is online.

Works on view in “Madayin: Eight Decades of Aboriginal Australian Bark Painting from Yirrkala.” View the exhibition experience online at madayin.kluge-ruhe.org.
Supplied photo.

The Yolŋu people divide everything into either Dhuwa or Yirritja moieties, separate groups that operate collaboratively. Ceremonies always include both Yirritja and Dhuwa, and members of one group can only marry someone from the opposite moiety. These principles, central to how the Yolŋu people live, also guided how they chose to arrange the exhibition.

It was important to the curators to hang old paintings alongside contemporary works to show the continued vitality of the Yolŋu artistic and spiritual traditions. “Whether I see an old painting or a new one, it’s no different,” says Wanambi. “The pathway is the same. The songline. The pattern. The story. The place. The wäŋa (homeland)—the place where it came from. It’s all the same.” 

The works feature an earthy palette of red—ranging from dark brick to pink—black, tan, white, and mustard, and distinctive Yolŋu marks like cross-hatching, diamonds, and dots. Viewers can spot animals, plants, and people in the older works, but other references to topography, cosmology, and spirituality are beyond our understanding. The newer pieces read like abstract paintings but are composed of patterns, sometimes made up of recognizable objects like fish, and, in some cases, the designs are placed over figurative imagery, obscuring it.

From the Aboriginal perspective, “Madayin” is far more profound than an art exhibition. The word itself means sacred and sublime, and the Yolŋu, in addition to sharing their ancestral knowledge, are showcasing a different way of seeing and understanding. 

The Yolŋu spirit of collaboration extends to their artwork, which represents a relationship between the Yolŋu and the land. You see this in a small way with the pigments they use, which are derived from natural ochre and iron clay, but as Marawili explains, it’s far more profound than that: “The land has everything it needs, but it could not speak. It could not express itself, tell its identity, so it grew a tongue. That is the Yolŋu. That is me. We are the tongue. Grown by the land so it can sing who it is. We exist so we can paint the land. That is our job. Paint and sing and dance so that the land can feel good and express its true identity. Without us, it cannot talk, but it is still there. Only silent.”

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News

Making the cut

Members of the University of Virginia Swimming and Diving team are set to make a splash at the United States Olympic Trials in Indianapolis June 15 to 23. Any Cavaliers who make the Olympic roster will join UVA Head Coach Todd DeSorbo in Paris, where he will lead the U.S. women’s team.

Since taking over as head coach in 2017, DeSorbo has led the Hoos to national prominence. The UVA Women’s roster swam their way to four consecutive NCAA championship victories under DeSorbo, taking home 11 of 16 individual national titles this year.

“Honestly, our biggest priority is to perform at the highest level internationally,” says DeSorbo. “It’s three months between NCAA [Championships] and Olympic Trials. It’s not a lot of time, but we’ve been preparing since August, September. The NCAA season keeps your mind off of the Olympic Trials. It’s a positive distraction and a great motivator.”

The Paris Olympics aren’t DeSorbo’s first foray into international swim coaching; he led the U.S women’s team at the 2022 FINA World Championships and served as an assistant coach for the Olympic women’s team in Tokyo in 2021.

Before diving into the pool in Indianapolis, Olympic hopefuls must post a qualifying time at a USA Swimming-sanctioned meet between November 30, 2022, and June 4, 2024. Qualifying swimmers then compete in heats for each event, culminating in the semi-final and final trials.

Only the top two finishers in each event’s final trial will make the Team USA roster, with some wiggle room for third through sixth place finishers in the 100 and 200-meter freestyle events to join the relay team. There are 26 spots each on the men’s and women’s teams, but the U.S. is not obligated to fill the entire roster.

More than 750 swimmers have qualified for the Olympic Trials at press time.

Several Hoos are vying for the opportunity to compete for Team USA in Paris this summer. Among the hopefuls are Tokyo Olympic medalists Kate Douglass and Alex Walsh, who took home the bronze and silver respectively in the women’s 200-meter individual medley in 2021.

“I always joke with people [that] I kind of train with my biggest competition in a lot of races, and I feel like that’s a great thing,” says Douglass about competing against her teammates. “Since we train against each other every day, when we go up and race we’re not scared. … We’re comfortable racing each other. … Obviously, having training partners that are also national team athletes [and] are also going to make the Olympics has been huge.”

“The intensity has been really high the past couple of weeks, and I think that’s normal heading into any championship meet, especially Olympic Trials. It’s like the biggest meet, second biggest meet in the world,” says Walsh.

More than one Walsh is expected to test the waters in Indianapolis though, with Alex’s younger sister and teammate Gretchen an early favorite to make the U.S. team after a wildly successful NCAA season.

“To have a sibling duo that is this elite and both going for the same Olympic dream is so rare, and I think that’s just a really cool story for us,” says Alex. “We have this extra characteristic of our bond where we can really come to each other and relate to each other on that level that I guess other siblings really can’t.”

“Alex has always been there for me to confide in when I’m struggling with practice, or something’s hurting, or mentally I just need someone to lean on,” says Gretchen. “She’s always going to be there for me, and I’m always going to be there for her.”

Jack Aikins is also anticipating the upcoming meet, especially after taking a year off of NCAA competition to focus on the Olympic Trials. “Last time I was just a high schooler; I didn’t have any expectations of myself or anything like that,” he says. “I swam really well just being myself and not thinking about many pressures … so I’m trying to replicate that and go into it with the same mindset again.”

Other standout Cavaliers heading to Indianapolis include Claire Curzan, Noah Nichols, Izzy Bradley, and August Lamb, but even more Hoos are still racing the deadline to qualify for the trials.

While tensions are high heading into the pressure-cooker meet, so is excitement.

“I’m looking forward to experiencing trials for the first time with a huge team,” says Gretchen. “I think we’re all ready. I’m ready.”

Categories
Arts Culture

TimaLikesMusic

With an infectiously upbeat attitude and relatable witticism, TimaLikesMusic takes the stage for a night of funky fun and riveting R&B. Steeped in ’90s soul and insights from internet culture, this multifaceted producer, songwriter, singer, instrumentalist, and content composer broke into the mainstream with a series of comedy-filled jingles on Instagram Reels. She’s on the road, selling out shows with originals, remixes, and tributes that pay homage to her musical influences while hyping up audiences.

Saturday 6/1. $15–20, 8pm. The Southern Café and Music Hall, 103 S. First St. thesoutherncville.com