If you’re performing folk music from the indigenous people of the northern Nordic area, you must be joiking. The Sámi have lived in the upper reaches of Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Russia’s Kola Peninsula for around 5,000 years, but Christian missionaries in the late 1600s tried to put a stake in their shamanistic religion. Despite Sámi cultural repression, joiks never went away entirely, and young singers such as the Gaup Sisters are introducing new audiences to the tradition, which sounds analogous to Native American intonations: droning, haunting, and deeply beautiful. Read more >>> The Gaup Sisters perform at 6 p.m. at the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage, 2700 F St. NW. Free. (202) 467-4600. kennedy-center.org. Read more about the Kennedy Center’s Nordic Cool festival on Arts Desk. (Christopher Porter)
EAT THIS
Ernest Hemingway drank to make other people more interesting, but you shouldn’t have to at author Philip Greene’s cocktail seminar at Union Market tonight. Greene will discuss his book To Have and to Have Another: A Hemingway Cocktail Companion, a boozy literary jaunt through Hemingway’s works and the drinks within them. In addition, mixologist Gina Chersevani from Buffalo & Bergen will serve up Hemingway’s legendary cocktails, and appetizers will be served. The $40 admission price includes signed copies of the book. 6:30 p.m. at Union Market, 1309 5th Street N.E. (301) 652-7400. unionmarketdc.com/events. (May Wildman)
OH AND ALSO
The Washington International Design Festival begins today with the opening of “The Next Wave: Industrial Design Innovation in the 21st Century,” tonight at Artisphere. Read Kriston Capps’ preview from our Spring Arts Guide here and stop by for the free opening celebration. 7 p.m. at Artisphere, 1101 Wilson Blvd., Arlington. Free.
Longtime D.C. rock frontman Ian Svenonius inaugurates Club Lip-Sync at Adams Morgan vintage shop Meeps tonight. It’s a mini-parade of D.C. rock personalities (Mary Timony, Alex Minoff) who have signed on to pantomime their own music. Conceptual? Very. City Paper‘s Jenny Rogers talked to Svenonius about the event on Arts Desk today; read all about it on the blog. 8 p.m. at Meeps, 2104 18th St. NW. Free.
Pack your poncho and head for Crystal City to see Synetic Theater‘s new production of The Tempest, performed in a pool of water. 8 p.m. at Synetic Theater, 1800 South Bell St., Arlington. $35–$55.
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