Archives: February 2025

Olympus Digital Camera
Art

100,000,000 gallery opens with Kiwi Phong Nguyen’s ‘Dinner, Look’

Emily Wheeler,

“Dinner, Look” by Kiwi Phong Nguyen at 100,000,000. // Photo Courtesy 100,000,000 Tucked away in an alley in the Waldo neighborhood is 100,000,000—a new art space dedicated to exhibitions, collaborations, and interactive experiences. For their first exhibition, the space presents “Dinner, Look”—a solo show by Detroit-based artist Kiwi Phong Nguyen. The exhibit highlights Nguyen’s exploration of celebrating intergenerational love, self-determination,…

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Politics

KC mayor will use nonprofit for Super Bowl trip, but donors remain unclear

In 2023, a politically-connected trade group donated $24,000 to a nonprofit that paid for the mayor, an aide and security personnel to travel to Phoenix for the game.
Allison Kite,

The Chiefs will make their third consecutive Super Bowl appearance on Sunday, and Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas will be in New Orleans to cheer them on. Exactly who is funding the organization picking up the tab for this year’s trip, however, is not clear. Two years ago, the mayor attended the Super Bowl in Phoenix with a top aide…

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Politics

UMKC students can make less than minimum wage. One group is fighting for $25 an hour.

An exemption for certain employers means public college students don’t always benefit from Missouri’s new minimum wage at their on-campus jobs.
Maria Benevento,

(File photo) The Miller Nichols Library on the University of Missouri-Kansas City campus. Some students working in campus jobs such as at libraries or recreation centers make less than Missouri minimum wage because of an exemption in state law. (Zachary Linhares/The Beacon) When Henry Sowell clocks in to work a 5 a.m. shift at a University of Missouri-Kansas City campus…

Open The Doors Coaching
Culture

Keep Them Coming: Pucker up, buttercup

Kristen Thomas,

Kristen Thomas // Photo by Nicole Bissey Smooching, locking lips, snogging—There are a dozen more ways to describe kissing. Anthropologists say that the more names something has, the more significant it is culturally.  Western cultures place high importance on kissing. To many people, it serves as a litmus test to discern potential sexual prowess or what their style will be…

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Culture

Creature Feature: Meet the beautiful Blanca

Scott Poore,

Creature Feature is The Pitch’s weekly profile on a local animal looking for adoption. Shelters and support in Kansas City and the surrounding region are often pushed to the breaking point, so picking one future companion to highlight is how we want to put them on your radar. But there are far more than we could ever fit into our…

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Politics

Memory-Holing Jan. 6: What happens when you try to make history vanish?

The Trump administration’s decision to delete a DOJ database of cases against Capitol riot defendants places those who seek to preserve the historical record in direct opposition to their own government.
Alec MacGillis,

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox. On Jan. 10, the U.S. Department of Justice released a 123-page report on the 1921 racial massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which claimed several hundred lives and left the thriving Black neighborhood of Greenwood in smoldering ruins. The…
Movies

Bloody Irish revenge-thriller Bring Them Down mixes penance and pain

Adrian Torres,

Courtesy MUBI. There’s just something foreboding about the landscape of Ireland. Be it a history that includes generational strife, famine, or the numerous eire images conjured up in Irish folklore, it seems to be a place steeped with dread and malice among its picturesque scenery. Director Christopher Andrews’ Bring Them Down is a movie that won’t change that view but…

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Culture, Music

Zhou B Art Center to celebrate history of Black rock ‘n’ roll with ‘Rock is Black’ concert

Emily Wheeler,

Rock is Black will feature an all-Black artist lineup. // Courtesy of Zhou B Art Center On Feb. 28, The Zhou B Art Center will host “Rock is Black”—a groundbreaking concert celebrating the often-overlooked contributions of Black artists to the rock genre. This event marks the release of Malek Azrael’s indie rock EP, redefining the genre through a Black lens….

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Culture, Theater

Four Inane Questions with actor Guy Gardner

Michael Mackie,

Photo Courtesy of The J Guy Gardner is a huge fan of the Kansas City theater scene. Over the years, Gardner has been immersed in everything from directing and choreography to helming a full-blown musical production. He’s also the current associate artistic director at Theatre in the Park. “Kansas City has one of the best theater scenes in the nation,” Gardner mentioned…

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News

Topeka police lawyers in wrongful-death case want family’s attorney punished for sharing video

Tim Carpenter,

Attorneys for Topeka police officers who are defendants in a wrongful-death lawsuit want an attorney for the late Taylor Lowery to be sanctioned by the federal court for releasing police body camera video of the shooting to reporters. This image from Topeka police officer Bradley Netherton’s body camera shows Lowery reaching for a socket wrench. Police open fire a second…

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Politics

Lawmakers debate new constitutional amendment banning abortion in Missouri

The proposal would ask voters to include exceptions for survivors of rape or incest up until 12 weeks of pregnancy, as long as the crime was reported to police.
Anna Spoerre,

State Rep. Melanie Stinnett, a Springfield Republican, is sponsoring a proposed constitutional amendment that would again ban abortion in Missouri (Tim Bommel/Missouri House Communications) Missouri Republicans formally began the push to reinstate a ban on abortion Tuesday night, with a proposed constitutional amendment outlawing the procedure with limited exceptions for victims rape and incest. A Missouri House committee heard four…

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Music

Howard Mahan’s blues-infused album Hope on Credit pays dividends

Nick Spacek,

Photo by Rob Smith If you find yourself chasing that magic intersection of blues-rock-jam-funk where your favorite 1970s albums lived, mark your calendars for the Valentine’s Day release of Lawrence musician Howard Mahan’s Hope on Credit. With album highlights like “Tell Me A Story” and “Worth Waking Up,” Mahan gets bigger and bolder, with the new record sounding as though…

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Music

Photos: Ella Langley countrified the Truman on Thursday night

Eli Ralls,

Ella Langley. // photo by Eli Ralls Ella Langley with Carter Faith The Truman Thursday, January 30 Touring in support of November’s still hungover, the expanded edition of last August’s hungover, country singer Ella Langley took to the Truman stage Thursday night for her blend of both the traditional and modern sides of the genre. “Cowgirl hippie” Carter Faith opened…

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Culture

Letter from the Editor: Touched starved on Mars

Brock Wilbur,

Greetings dearest reader, and welcome to the February 2025 print issue of The Pitch magazine, homegrown here in Kansas City, U.S.A. As is our tradition, this month’s line-up of stories is our annual Valentine’s Day aside into love, licking, and lunch—wherever that Venn diagram chooses to cross. Is it a little hornier than usual? Sure. Is that a bad thing?…

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Politics

Sports betting sparks discussion on well-being of student-athletes at University of Missouri

Aiden Kauffman, Torryionna Miller,

The University of Missouri-Columbia’s iconic columns on a winter day (University of Missouri photo) The University of Missouri is facing critical decisions about sports betting in its campus community as the practice approaches legality in Missouri. MU must decide whether to ban betting entirely for its campus community, partner with betting companies or find a middle ground. The university could…

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Culture

Star Strategies: Let Venus plan your date night

Kaylynn Mullins,

For centuries, people have been using the stars for guidance. The early days of the ancient study consisted mostly of whether a war would rage or if this year would yield a bountiful harvest. However, people are naturally quite self-obsessed. It didn’t take long for us to wonder what fates could be foretold in our lives, especially regarding the only…

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Music

Photos: Leftover Salmon merging bluegrass, Cajun, and jazz at Knuckleheads

Allison Scavo,

Leftover Salmon. // photo by Allison Scavo Leftover Salmon Knuckleheads Friday, January 31 Leftover Salmon, a unique band merging bluegrass, rock, country, Cajun, and jazz into its own sound aptly noted as “polyethnic Cajun slamgrass” stopped through Kansas City in their 35th year together. Opening with a cover of the Leiber and Stoller classic, “Kansas City,” Leftover Salmon intertwined their…

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Politics

Missouri prison nursery opens to bipartisan fanfare with goal of keeping mothers with babies

‘This program is going to give women the building blocks to live a better life, and then that is going to overflow into their children, and then their children’s children,’ said one caregiver in the prison nursery.
Anna Spoerre,

Five incarcerated women at the Women’s Eastern Reception, Diagnostic & Correctional Center in Vandalia were chosen to act as caretakers at a nursery that opened on the prison grounds in January. The women, pictured from left to right, are Rheaya Goodwin, Antoinette Rutschke, Briana Johnson, Tara Carroll and Kendra Riggs (Anna Spoerre/Missouri Independent) VANDALIA  — Tara Carroll gave birth to…

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Culture

Spiritually Sound: Local Vodou Priestess combats negative connotations with holistic healing

Shannon Carpenter,

Photo by Shannon Carpenter The story goes that the Haitian Revolution began with Vodou. In the late 1700s, Haiti was governed by the French. Producing sugar and coffee off the backs of slaves from Africa, the island was prosperous for colonizers. For the enslaved population, it was brutal until the Bois-Caiman Ceremony. In 1791, Dutty Boukman and Cecile Fatiman performed…

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Culture

Portraits of Childhood exhibit uses dolls to delineate identity

Emily Wheeler,

Portraits of Childhood: Black Dolls from the Collection of Deborah Neff at the Toys and Miniatures Museum on the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) campus. // Photo Courtesy of The National Museum of Toys and Miniatures “Portraits of Childhood: Black Dolls from the Collection of Deborah Neff” opened at The National Museum of Toys and Miniatures on the University of…

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Theater

Stephen King overlooks the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in horror-thriller NOVEL at Arts Asylum

Kaylynn Mullins,

Photo by Ryan Bruce Last year, I had the privilege of interviewing playwright Ryan Bernsten. In the article, we dove into his three horror shows that have shocked, disturbed, and delighted audiences across Kansas City. The scripts alone were fantastic, but I never actually watched any of the productions. When I heard they’d be staging NOVEL at the Arts Asylum,…

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Sports

Photos: Kansas City Comets blaze past Harrisburg Heat

Tarik Sykes,

KC Comets versus Harrisburg Heat on Sunday, Feb. 2, 2024. // Photo by Tarik Sykes On Sunday, Feb. 2, the Kansas City Comets hosted the Harrisburg Heat for more mid-Winter soccer. Inside of Cable Dahmer Arena, it wasn’t until the second period when the Comets began to find the back of the net, and they never looked back. With three…