City Week: Weekly Picks

click to enlarge City Week: Weekly Picks
(Catalyst Creative Collection/Submitted)
Catalyst Creative Collective celebrates successful collaboration.

Introducing Catalyst Creative Collective

The 14,0000-square-foot Catalyst Maker Space now has a new name and a bigger, better concept. An event celebrating the new mission also highlights its new emphasis on sharing resources in a way that participating organizations learned to survive and thrive during the pandemic. Guests will enjoy food and beverage sampling, live performances by partnering organizations, visual arts by artists in residence and interactive educational activities.
5 to 7 p.m. Friday, May 19, Catalyst Creative Collective, Tucson Mall, 4500 N. Oracle Road, Suite 110, saaca.org/aboutcatalyst.html, $40

Mount Lemmon Hill Climb

Ride 59.6 miles up and down Mount Lemmon with the Greater Arizona Bicycling Association (GABA). The organization’s motto is “Cycling is more than just riding a bike,” so know that you’ll be supported through every pedal push. You may need it. This climb has been named 33rd on a list of 100 toughest road bike climbs in the United States. That means you’ll be welcoming out-of-towners, including some Europeans.
6 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday, May 19, meet at McDonald Park, 4100 N. Harrison Road, bikegaba.org, free

Santa Cruz River History Tour

Mauro Trejo guides this new, 2-mile adventure over ground that’s seen all 4,000 years of Tucson’s continuous habitation. Our forebears hunted woolly mammoths nearby. Later, native agrarians invented an irrigation system to draw river water to their crops. A short distance away, a “convento” was one of the two-story adobe structures rare in the Southwest. The walk, hosted by the Presidio de Tucson Museum, includes a stop in the Mission Garden for the San Ysidro Festival, celebrating traditional methods of making flour from Sonoran wheat.
8 a.m. Friday, May 19, Mission Garden, 946 W. Mission Lane, tucsonpresidio.com/walking-tours, $30 includes admission to Mission Garden

Build a Model Airplane

The third Saturday of every month, kids are invited to discover the fun of making and flying model airplanes. Each child gets a quick-build model kit to construct while they learn about the aircraft. Then they get to visit the real thing out on the tarmac. Museum admission isn’t included in the price, but it’s not required. Each child must be accompanied by an adult, but an adult can accompany no more than three.
10 a.m. Saturday, May 20, Administrative Building, Pima Air and Space Museum, pimaair.org/makentake, $20 for nonmembers, ages 6 and older

Cry Fest Emo Night

What is emo western wear? “Y’allternative fashion”?  If you’ve got it, wear it. Event organizer Katt Kassidy promises that this event will “Go offfff!” Sounds like fun! The Revenue band will fill the night with emo classics while Hath No Fury Tattoos staffs a tattoo station. Forsythe Imaging will run a photo booth to capture everyone’s best emo-tude.
8 p.m. Saturday, May 20, Thunder Canyon Brewery, 220 E. Broadway, facebook.com, $10

click to enlarge City Week: Weekly Picks
(The Gawnes/Submitted)
Vocalist Crystal Stark brings “Nothing but Love” to the Tucson Pops.

Tucson Pops: “Nothing but Love” with Crystal Stark

Local favorite Crystal Stark, a vocalist, artist and “American Idol” finalist, performs a range of popular standards and show tunes, including “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina,” “Natural Woman,” “I Will Always Love You” and “At Last.” English horn soloist Christian Hill performs a Nelson Riddle arrangement of “When I Fall in Love” and the orchestra will play more favorites. Food truck sales benefit the Southern Arizona Animal Food Bank.
7 p.m. Sunday, May 21, DeMeester Outdoor Performance Center, 900 S. Randolph Way, tucsonpops.org, free

George Howard Celebration of Life

George Howard was a legend of live blues in Tucson. When he died last month the blues community was left reeling. A regular at Gaslight Music Hall and Oro Valley Marketplace, his shows covered the entire blues genre. Join in with the Southern Arizona Blues Heritage Foundation for a tribute that features at least 12 Tucson blues musicians.
2 to 9 p.m. Sunday, May 21, Hotel Congress Plaza, 311 E Congress Street, hotelcongress.com, $10 suggested donation.

Waila Celebration

We may seem a little heavy on the Waila pedal, mentioning every waila event we find, but the Tohono O’odham social dance known as Waila, or “chicken scratch,” is community gold. Young, old, friends, strangers, lovers, loners, saints and sinners shuffle and smile, always counterclockwise, as one big family. Waila’s heart-like beat is everything, but the band’s defining accordion and saxophone pump up the joy. See the website for details about the history, sources and complexity of Waila music. Food and arts and crafts will be for sale.
4 to 11 p.m. Saturday, May 20, Desert Diamond Sahuarita Plaza, 1100 W. Pima Mine Road, Sahuarita, ddcaz.com, free

Child Pool Safety Programs

Registration for swimming lessons opens at 9 a.m. Tuesday, May 23. Classes fill quickly, but you might beat the clock, or at least get on a waiting list, by registering online. Classes for infants and toddlers teach how to float, submerge, move in the water and roll over to breathe. The classes incorporate songs and other familiar activities to make the learning fun. Classes are at various times at parks throughout the city.
9 a.m. Tuesday, May 23, registration, tucsonaz.gov, $15 per session

Sweet Ghosts with Caleb Caudle

Sweet Ghosts is vocalist Katherine Byrnes and singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Ryan Alfred. For their Century Room show, they’re adding pianist Angelo Versace and bassist Colin McIllrath to help flesh out music from their just released album, “When it Burns.” The pair’s Americana-tinged music is smart and tasteful, exploring the ebb and flow of relationships. Fans may know Alfred as Calexico’s upright bassist. Both he and Byrnes often sing harmony with Calexico, and Byrnes is the choreographer for The Gaslight Theatre.
7 p.m. Tuesday, May 23, The Century Room, Hotel Congress, 311 E. Congress Street, hotelcongress.com, $20.25 

click to enlarge City Week: Weekly Picks
(Fox Tucson Theatre/Submitted)
Animated documentary “Home is Somewhere Else” tells a story of undocumented children.

Cinema Tucsón: “Home is Somewhere Else”

This animated feature-length documentary reveals the hearts and hopes of children in undocumented families. Three immigrant kids tell of the complexity of their lives, the challenges their families face and their worst nightmares about their predicament. A different team draws each story in a unique style. Spoken-word poet Lalo, “El Deportee,” weaves them all into a unified narrative.
7 p.m. Wednesday, May 24, Fox Tucson Theatre, 17 W. Congress Street, foxtucson.com, $6