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-The Rabbit Box is are warren for like-minded people,
artists, and really kind of a hub for community.
-♪ Let's keep this party polite ♪
-Creating this space was to encourage people
to come in after the pandemic
and feel like they had a place to go that was cozy
and welcoming and encouraging
for the arts to kind of come back,
but also that the audience feels a little bit
like they're part of the performance that's happening.
I think because the space is small enough,
the audience often gets to feel like they're part of the story.
I'm a bibliophile.
So how do you create a room that feels
like you're walking into a book?
"The Rabbit Box" is a quartet published in like 1970
by Joseph Pintauro, and never reprinted,
and the quartet's called "The Rainbow Box,"
and each of the books represents a different season
and "The Rabbit Box" is the book of spring.
It's a children's story for adults,
but it's really an elegy to, like, Mother Earth and humanity.
And it's a letter to the world and a letter to the heart.
And the rabbit itself is a nuance of connection.
If you've been through something
and you know someone else has been through that thing too,
then that is the name of the book -- "The Rabbit."
It's the name of the feeling.
"Soft about the moss, the wild fern,
and curls ever so gently where rabbit is born,
king of nervous things.
If crocuses in the dirty snow made you cry
and remember things,
those things you remembered,
that is my name -- I am the rabbit."
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I wanted something that was classy,
that was comfortable,
that was cared for,
and that was going to always develop into its own thing.
We've done some wonderful things with Jon Langford
from The Mekons art show meets concert.
We've done some kid-hosted bingo games
that also includes Deaf audience with sign,
working with Loosegroove Records.
and Brittany Davis has probably been one of my favorite things.
Stone Gossard has been really helpful,
and we get to experience some real improv joy and laughter
from Brittany in a way that
I've never really experienced.
-We're about to go "Ah!"
Next thing you know, you start all over again.
[ Laughter ]
-I think houses have, you know, spirit.
And I think this one, it definitely talks to you.
-♪ Summer rain ♪
♪ Ooh ♪
-Spaces always have their own agenda, you know?
And this space definitely has its own agenda.
And we are not owners of it, you know, we're guardians of it.
You know, it's in the Pike Place Market.
So it's not something that belongs to us.
So how do you become a good guide to something
that is part of a greater community?
It is a matter of saying, "Hey,
this is an amazing place and it's for everybody."
♪♪
-For hours, location, and a full performance calendar,
go to therabbitboxseattle.com.
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Catch Art Zone Friday night’s at 8
and anytime online at SeattleChannel.org/ArtZone.
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