The Canterbury hosts a Mario Kart tournament Saturday

The city has been getting some nice shots of spring recently. With some clouds headed our way this week, a visit to SpringShot, a festival at 18th & Union featuring a clowning performance, might be a good idea.

There are plenty more exciting performances on and around the Hill this week, including a play about black queer parenthood written by Seattle civic poet Anastacia-Renée at Annex Theatre, Washington Ensemble’s bloody horror-comedy Feathers and Teeth at 12th Avenue Arts and stand-up by Portland Queer Comedy Festival co-founder Belinda Carroll at Club Comedy Seattle. Find more performances and things to do plus eat on the list below, and on the CHS Calendar.

THURSDAY, April 4: Many of us have grown up with the idea that poetry can’t, or shouldn’t, be funny. Hearing Morgan Parker (author of There are More Beautiful Things than Beyoncé, and Other People’s Comfort Keeps Me Up At Night) read her work out loud dispels that notion. In Parker’s case, it’s the wry kind of comedy, soaked with the pain of being alive and walking through the world as a Black woman. Parker excavates the experience in her newest pop-culture laced collection of poems, “Magical Negro,” from which she’ll read at Hugo House. Hugo House, 7 – 9 PM

THURSDAY, April 4: During World War II, tomatoes (and thus tomato ketchup) were in short supply in the Philippines, so locals came up with banana-based ketchup, now a staple in Filipino cuisine. Tacoma-based chef Jan Parker uses banana ketchup in her signature sauce, which she brushes on grilled meats such as adobo-marinated pork belly to create a beautiful, tacky crunch. During Balikbayan Filipino Eats pop-up, Parker teams up with East Trading Co. chef Domingo Ramos to serve Filipino dishes such as Pancit Palabok, a noodle dish topped with boiled eggs, shrimp and flaked smoked salmon, Jufran Glazed Pork Belly with atchara and bibingka, a rice flour coconut cake topped with salted eggs. East Trading Co., 7 PM – 12 AM (21+)

FRIDAY, April 5, 6, 12, and 13: Even acclaimed choreographers such as Mark Haim, who has created work for some of the world’s most celebrated dance companies, has to crowdsource once in a while. For his newest choreography premiering at Velocity Dance Center this Friday, Haim reached out to family, past lovers, collaborators, mentors, and friends to send him 10-15 second videos of a “movement” they came up with. Haim strung the 371 pieces together, from young to old, into a single dance titled Parts to a Sum. Velocity Dance Center, 7.30 PM

SATURDAY, April 6: Last year, a group of local preservation advocates associated with 4Culture, the cultural funding agency for King County, found that properties associated with underrepresented groups such as women, people of color, the LGBTQ community and the working-class are less likely to get designated for landmark status. The numbers represent a larger trend of historical preservation and attention tilted towards places associated with wealthy white men. Organizations nationwide are working to redress the balance, including Capitol Hill Historical Society. This Saturday, the local preservation non-profit is organizing a guided visit to the historic waitresses’ recreation home. RSVP (on the Facebook event page) is required. 1227 20th Ave E, 3-5PM

SATURDAY, April 6: If there’s one thing millennials do not like, it’s generalizations about millennials (see what we did there?). Anyway, the cliché that people born between 1982 and 2004 generally share a soft spot for nostalgia rings true. Case in point: at the success of the new, Seattle-based event organizer Nightpain Events. They’ve been organizing N64 Mario Kart tournaments in bars across the city, and Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Donkey Kong, and co. now land for the third time on the Hill for some good old Kart racing. Three groups of four people can play at once, and the top 3 finishers receive cash and “bar tab” prices. Canterbury Ale House, 7-10 PM