Welcome to Your Weekend: Birthday Parties and Bollywood

Get out there for summer. But beware of B.C. (balcony collapse).

We like to party

Bumbershoot is forty years old and throwing a free birthday party to celebrate tonight at the Pan Pacific Hotel from 4:00pm–6:00 pm, featuring a playlist of Bumbershoot artists from then and now. If you can’t make it to that (or even before it if you want to go to both), head over to the South Lake Union Block Party for a farmer’s market, outdoor cinema, wine tasting and plenty of other events, today from noon to 11:00p.m.

Music

Bollywood is coming to Belltown Saturday night as The Crocodile celebrates India’s 64th Independence Day. Presented by BollyGrooves, the show will be headlined by DJ Aanshul and include plenty of Bollywood music, free henna tattoos and giveaways. Tickets are available now.

Film

Three Dollar Bill Cinema screens Desperately Seeking Susan tonight at Cal Anderson Park as a part of their summer outdoor movie series highlighting blonde bombshells in cinema. In this case, it’s Madonna, in her first movie performance in the prince-and-the-pauper-style romantic comedy in which a bored suburban housewife is mistaken for a sexy rocker chick in trouble.

Visual Art

Saturday night, the Seattle Art Museum is hosting a Quileute Nation drumming circle to celebrate the opening of Behind the Scenes: The Real Story of the Quileute Wolves, an exhibit that explores the legends and traditions of the Pacific Northwest tribes that the Twilight series got wrong. Pick up a copy of our August issue to read more about the exhibit in Joey Veltkamp’s article, “Team Quileute.”

If you’re down with art exhibits inspired by pop culture, you may also be interested to attend an artist lecture at SOIL on Saturday at 2:00pm, in which contributing artists discuss the inspiration for their work in Xanadu: A Stately Pleasure Dome. Read more in Erin Shafkind’s essay in this month’s City Arts Seattle Ampersand section.

Theatre

While popular cinema today is littered with post-apocalyptic films (Book of Eli, The Road), it’s not often you see theatre approach the theme. See Amniotes, a post-apocalyptic multimedia performance, opening tonight at An Unnamed Building (2115 Fifth Ave.) at 8:00pm and running through August 22.

Poetry

Reader’s Choice hosts Sharmagne Leland-St. John with Janet Leister and David Matthews at the Green Lake Branch of the Seattle Public Library on Saturday, along with an open mic.

Photo contributed by spratt504 from our Flickr pool.