INDY Selects: What to Do in the Triangle This Week

DUNUMS released one of the INDY’s favorite albums of 2024, and it just feels right that the sprawling musical collective kicks off the year at the Pinhook. Led by Palestinian American musician Sijal Nasralla, last year’s roiling I wasn’t that thought release explored parenthood, diasporic identity, loss, love, and political change.

Proceeds from this concert will go toward mutual aid for displaced Palestinians. DUNUMS is joined by performances from two other INDY favorites, musician Tre. Charles and band Meltdown Rodeo. Altogether, this is a lineup that promises to contend candidly with our political reality—and to keep singing anyway. —Sarah Edwards

Perhaps your New Year’s resolutions have something to do with robots, fighting, crafting, and public spectacle. (Mine don’t, but maybe yours do?). Per the Durham Sports Commission website, the club is “exactly what it sounds like. People dress up in created robot costumes and fight for honor and the cheers of the audience (And a cash prize.)” Permitted DIY costume list materials include cardboard, duct tape, and foam-based materials like pool noodles and sponges. The club kicks off the year with a match at Durham’s Common Market, which also has lower-tenor activities throughout this week, like “tipsy trivia”—see the market’s Instagram for more. —SE

There are comedians who break barriers, and then there is Maria Bamford. Anxiety, depression, OCD, intrusive thoughts, the fear of being unlovable, bouts in psychiatric units—nothing in Bamford’s own psychology seems off-limits to the comedian, who performs her daring, bizarre, brainy comedy wide-eyed and in a slightly quavering voice.

This approach has proven wildly successful, with Bamford starring in a Netflix show, Lady Dynamite, and three stand-up specials. But it’s no wonder why the material lands: Everyone is neurotic, to some extent, and it’s a relief to see it spelled out so candidly, and hilariously, onstage, by someone committed equally to doing the work and to doing bits. —SE

Food writer and UNC-Chapel Hill professor Kelly Alexander, Root Cellar Café and Catering chef Sera Cuni, and the organizers behind Durham Community Fridges each have a unique perspective on food insecurity and food waste. Alexander studied food waste solutions in Brussels, Belgium, for her new book, Truffles and Trash: Recirculating Food in a Social Welfare State. Cuni founded Feed-Well Fridges in 2023 to place unsold food from local restaurants and grocery stores into free community fridges around Chatham County.

In Durham, the Durham Community Fridges project uses a mutual aid model to make free food available to the Durham community. In this panel discussion, they’ll delve into how global problems of waste, hunger, and inequality manifest here in North Carolina—where about 10 percent of the population is food insecure—and what we can do about it. —Chloe Courtney Bohl 

Looking to explore new third spaces in the new year? The Durham County Library offers a surprisingly eclectic selection of activities, ranging from story time for kids to mah-jongg meetups. One solid upcoming option: the Main Library is hosting a screening of the documentary The Strike.

The film follows the story of a hunger strike at Pelican Bay prison in 2013 that rippled through California and led to statewide protests. Following the film, a panel discussion will examine the film’s themes and connect to the present-day challenges of a justice system for which the scale remains unbalanced. Public libraries, provocative art, and collective action aren’t things we can take for granted heading into 2025. Check out the screening—and if you’re lucky, maybe you’ll get roped into a mah-jongg match afterward. —Justin Laidlaw

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