Out and about: Enjoy mountain vistas, local dancers and student musicians

Molly Gilmore
·2 min read

Skip the climb

The mountains are in easy reach at the Banff Mountain Film Festival, which showcases high adventure and awe-inspiring landscapes. The festival’s world tour is screening March 1-3 in Olympia, with a different program each night. Skiers, climbers, kayakers and paragliders — not to mention grizzly bears — are among the subjects of the festival’s short films, made in countries around the world. The screenings are fundraisers for Olympia Mountaineers. Screenings begin at 7 p.m. March 1 and 2 and 6 p.m. March 3 at the Capitol Theater, 206 Fifth Ave. SE, Olympia, with doors open one hour before showtime. Tickets (https://olympiafilmsociety.org/fireweed/) are $18 per screening, $30 for two or, if you just can’t get enough, $40 for all three.

Celebrate dance

Ballet Northwest alum Giovanny Garibay is the guest star at the 2024 Olympia Dance Festival, presented by the ballet company and the Washington Center for the Performing Arts. Garibay, who danced with Ballet Northwest from 2018 to 2019, dances with the Cincinnati Ballet’s CB2. He won first place at the 2019 Youth America Grand Prix Seattle senior division. Garibay will dance solos from “Giselle” and “Diana and Acteon” at the festival, at 7 p.m. March 2 at The Washington Center for the Performing Arts, 512 Washington St. SE, Olympia. The program also features 15 dance troupes from Western Washington, ranging from hip-hop to Chinese dance and including Olympia’s own Random Acts of Dance Collective (RADCo). Tickets (https://www.washingtoncenter.org/event/the-olympia-dance-festival-2024/) are $21.

From Appalachia to Mexico

Student Orchestras of Greater Olympia’s March 3 winter concert includes pieces ranging from Aaron Copland’s “Variations on a Shaker Melody,” part of “Appalachian Spring” to José Pablo Moncayo’s dance-like “Huapango.” Also on the program are the fourth movement of Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 8, SOGO musician Cade McBride’s arrangement of Claude Debussy’s “The Sunken Cathedral” and “Fanfare for Brass and Percussion.” The concert is at 4 p.m. at The Washington Center. Tickets (https://www.washingtoncenter.org/event/sogo-winter-concert-2/) are $5-$23, with children 6 and younger admitted free.

Freelance writer Molly Gilmore talks with DJ Kevin the Brit about what’s happening around town on KGY-FM’s “Oly in a Can,” airing at 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. Fridays.