Arts Devo

Down the art hole Now this is an interesting premise: A frustrated artist named Dave builds a cardboard fort in his living room that evolves into a convoluted labyrinth from which he can’t escape. His girlfriend then assembles a rag-tag group of explorers—including a camera crew—to venture into his fantastical, shape-shifting world filled with various booby traps and creatures in an attempt to rescue Dave from his creation.

Dave Made a Maze is a visual trip. Director Bill Watterson and co-writer Steven Sears have created something wholly original that has to be seen to believed. It’s a horror-comedy where real danger appears in the form of cardboard axes and cardboard monsters and cardboard everything else. The film is making its way around the festival circuit and is coming to The Pageant for one night only: Wednesday, Aug. 2, at 7 p.m. Producer John Charles Meyer will be on hand to introduce the film and answer questions.

Room for activities Now that the Museum of Northern California Art (Monca) is officially open, the big, beautiful Veterans Memorial Hall is being put to further use with the beginnings of what promises to be a wide-ranging calendar of arts and community programming. First up is the Yoga and Creative Energy series, three weeks of classes (through Aug. 16) led by yoga instructor Marie Altman, who will be “exploring and creating art with elements of line, shape and color as they relate to the exhibition and yoga.”

Coming Sept. 1 is PechaKucha 20 x 20, an evening in which presenters share stories and ideas via 20 slides that are discussed for 20 seconds apiece. The theme for the night is Murals and Street Art (In Your City and Beyond) and the lineup of speakers will be announced soon. Visit www.monca.org for more info on both.

Mystery fest Anybody else know about this: The Stilldream Festival? It’s a music festival that happens every summer in nearby Belden and is returning this weekend, July 28-31. I always find out about it at the last minute, but I’ve never really understood what it was. It might be an electronic-music festival, but it’s kind of hard to suss out. According to the “about” page on the fest website: “Stilldream is the forming of two words, still and dream.” OK. What else does it say? “Still as in remaining in place or at rest; motionless; stationary. Dream as in a succession of images, thoughts, or emotions passing through the mind, an involuntary vision occurring to a person during sleep or while awake.” Uh … anything else? “When the two words are combined, it becomes ‘A stationary vision occurring to a person during sleep or while awake.’” What kind of party are they planning up there? My advice: Be wary of any free Kool Aid.

If you scroll down a little more, they more or less cut to the chase: “The 5 words that best describe Stilldream to us are: Music, Community, Nature, Culture and Consciousness.” Ahhhh … It’s a new age hippie EDM fest! Why didn’t you just say so?

Burners, mount up!