One night to thaw the Seattle Freeze: A KUOW Curiosity Club pop-up

KUOW brings together a new group of 10 inquisitive humans for an experimental dinner party.

On February 28, we’ll host our first Curiosity Club Pop-Up dinner. Like our original Club, the dinner will be held at The Cloud Room and our conversation will be fueled by five KUOW stories, bookless book club style. That Brown Girl Cooks! will provide the dinner for our February Pop-Up.

Our guiding question for this Pop-Up is the same as for the original Club: Can surprising stories and great food transform a group of strangers into a community? The challenge for our Pop-Up cohort, is that they will only have one night to test this question. (Our first Curiosity Club cohort is currently in the middle of a three-month experiment.)

Curious about who will be joining us for dinner? Meet our KUOW Curiosity Club Pop-Up crew below and follow #KUOWCuriosity on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook to be a part of the experiment — even if you won’t be joining us for this dinner.

And then stay tuned. If our curious dinner parties keep up the momentum of our first gathering, we’ll open up another round of applications in the future.

Our KUOW Curiosity Club Pop-Up diners are:

Uly Rivera was born in Spain and then spent six years of his childhood in the Philippines before moving to Alaska. He has called Seattle home since 2010. He has worked in many diverse industries from transportation to biotech. Currently, Uly supports startups focused on life sciences through the University of Washington’s CoMotion Labs. Uly’s interests range from fashion to sports to comic books and beyond.

Ishea Brown is a Seattle-based blogger and digital media producer. She is the host of Revive or Archive, the first web series from Allrecipes.com. A Chicago native and always up for an adventure, Ishea moved to Seattle sight unseen in 2013. Ishea can be found on social media at @sixtwentyseven. She is passionate about storytelling,creating community for women of color and advocating for mental health awareness.

Patrick Holderfield has been steeped in the visual arts for over 36 years, first as a studio artist and now as a graphic designer. He sees design as the ideal profession for those who are curious about everything since it offers windows into so many aspects of life and requires understanding and empathy to be successful. For him the world is endlessly fascinating, complex and mysterious with ideas lurking in the strangest places.

Dy Johnson is an Installation Artist and UX Designer. He is currently embarking on creating a multicultural mixed-media installation based around African American men and women. Dy was a standout performer at KUOW’s Uncode: Storytellers event for Juneteenth last spring. He is currently managed by Wilhelmina Artists.

Dacia Clay is assistant program director at Classic KING FM and is the creator, host, and co-producer of the Classical Classroom podcast. Dacia is also a host, music writer, and interviewer for KING’s new music project and radio station, Second Inversion. When she’s not trying to figure out how to use recording equipment, she likes to run, write and figure out how to use outdoor equipment.

Joe Santiago is a second-generation Filipino-American working in marketing. He has called Seattle home since 2008. He received his degree from the University of Washington's School of Art in 2015 and has worked in various creative roles around Seattle ever since. Joe has been exploring digital marketing and is curious about how humans will consume media in the future.

Marrene Franich is a secondary English teacher in Bellevue. She served with the Peace Corps in Romania from 1997-1999. She loves talking with teens about big ideas and is in awe of their intellectual potential and inspired by their earnestness. In addition to being an aspiring crone, Marrene can also be spotted volunteering in the coat check room at the Seattle Art Museum. Marrene is passionate about progressive politics, especially those focused on women's issues.

Ana Paula Pessotto immigrated to the U.S. from Brazil in 2002. Paula is a licensed mental health counselor in private practice. Her interest in healing relationships started in Brazil, where she got her degree in Behavioral Sciences. Paula also has a masters in existential phenomenology and a post-masters in relational psychoanalysis. She is especially curious about how movement can heal our relationship with our bodies and transform sadness into strength.

Rachel Oppenheim is the director of the School of Education at Antioch University Seattle where her work is focused on ensuring that people who have traditionally been marginalized and underrepresented in school spaces have access to robust educational opportunities. She has worked for many years to facilitate educational opportunities for people incarcerated in our country’s jails and prisons.

Abel Pacheco is a young professional working on thoughtfully engaging and changing the systems around us. He believes we have a collective responsibility to each other and our community. Pacheco ran for city council in 2015, and is currently running again for the open District 4 seat. He previously worked for the Seattle Police Foundation and during his council campaign he advocated for police accountability and restoring trust in between law enforcement and the communities they serve. Pacheco is now the director of strategic engagement for Washington MESA, a STEM pathway program for students of color and girls, at the University of Washington.

Thank you to The Cloud Room and Plum Bistro, our KUOW Curiosity Club partners. And thank you to That Brown Girl Cooks! for providing the dinner for our February Pop-Up.

The Cloud Room is a stylish co-working community and bar that’s enriched by the people who occupy it.

Plum Bistro is serving the best in plant-based comfort food made with local, sustainable, and organic ingredients.