Mithic Markets: Building Community at Notsuoh & Expanding Dome Potential
- julia wallace
- Jul 1
- 4 min read
Over the past year, one of Notsuoh's most exciting recurring collaborations has been The Mithic Markets, the bi-monthly vendor market and performance series created by Benny Valentine of Mithic Media LLC (IG -mithic_media) with the help of Kylie Sivley (IG - prismaticexpressions) .
More than just a themed market, Mithic has become a gathering place for Houston's artists, performers, makers, and creative community, bringing new energy into Notsuoh while continually finding inventive ways to transform the Dome.
Every market revolves around a different theme, encouraging both vendors and attendees to fully embrace the experience. Visitors often arrive in elaborate costumes, participate in themed contests, and spend the evening exploring handmade artwork, photography, jewelry, clothing, prints, and other creations by local artists and makers. The events have cultivated a welcoming, body-positive, and sex-positive atmosphere where people are encouraged to express themselves, meet new collaborators, and discover artists they may not have encountered otherwise.
Performance has always been at the heart of the Mithic Markets. Throughout the series, audiences have enjoyed burlesque, drag, belly dance, lyra performances, shibari demonstrations, live body painting, and a wide range of experimental performances that celebrate movement, craftsmanship, and self-expression. Rather than separating the performances from the market, the two become part of the same experience, inviting visitors to wander between vendor booths, performance spaces, and conversations throughout the evening.
One of the things that makes the Mithic Markets especially engaging is the emphasis on participation. Guests are encouraged to visit every vendor through scavenger hunts, contests, and interactive activities designed to introduce people to each artist's work. Costume contests regularly invite audience members to become part of the event itself, creating an atmosphere where everyone contributes to the evening's creativity rather than simply observing it.
The Dome has become an especially exciting part of each market. Rather than functioning as a fixed performance venue, it has been reimagined again and again to fit each event's theme.
For one market, the Dome became an immersive performance space where belly dancers performed beneath projected visuals that surrounded both performers and audiences with moving light. During another event, artists created paintings live while overhead cameras projected each brushstroke across the Dome's walls, allowing visitors to watch the artwork develop on a monumental scale from every angle. The Medieval Market transformed the Dome into a fantasy tavern, complete with tabletop role-playing games that welcomed both experienced players and curious newcomers. During the Pride Market, the space filled with rainbow projections, live performances, and a joyful celebration of creativity, identity, and community.
Each event has challenged artists to think differently about the space, and each transformation has revealed another possibility for what the Dome can become.
Another important part of the Mithic Markets is its commitment to documenting the artists it brings together. Benny Valentine and Kylie Sivley are both accomplished photographers, and they are joined at many events by collaborators, including their primary event photographer Karah Sivley (IG-photographyby.rara) , who help with vendors, costumes, and installations throughout the evening. For many participating artists, these images become valuable promotional materials, helping them share their work, build portfolios, and reach new audiences after the event is over. It's another way the market invests in the creative community beyond a single night's programming.
As the series has grown, so has its impact. The Mithic Markets have introduced many first-time attendees, vendors and performers to Notsuoh, provided emerging event organizers with opportunities to collaborate, and helped build lasting connections between artists working across different disciplines. It has become a place where someone might arrive to sell handmade jewelry and leave having met a photographer, a performer, a future collaborator, or the organizer of their next event.
Watching Benny, Kylie and their wonderful team continue to develop the Mithic Markets has been a pleasure. Their creativity and generosity have built an event that people return to again and again—not only because each market offers something new, but because it has become a place where artists feel supported, audiences feel welcome, and experimentation is encouraged.
Benny’s foremost priority and the inspiration behind creating the events was to cultivate a safe and protected space for performers, artists and viewers alike. This is supported by open communication, security at the doors of private dressing rooms and frequent check-ins with all collaborators involved. The driving force behind the passion put into the markets is the belief that all artists, creators and people of passion should be able to freely express their passions, talents and showmanship without having to worry about their safety and well-being.
The collaboration has also highlighted one of the things that makes the Dome unique. Beyond hosting finished performances and exhibitions, it has become a flexible creative space where artists and organizers can test new ideas, transform the architecture in unexpected ways, and invite the public to experience familiar spaces from entirely new perspectives. Every Mithic Market leaves the Dome with a more expanded, more realized potential.
Mithic continues to create new environments of celebration and showmanship with their upcoming “Mithic Muses Cabaret” which is their debut burlesque show hapenning this Wednesday, July 1st featuring stunning performers like Lollie Monstrose, Aisha Raqs and Mahogany Wood. All of which are long-time collaborators and performers from the Mithic Markets.
Join us for the next Mithic Market-- a carnival theme-- happening on August 5th, stay tuned on instagram for more info to come!
Many thanks to Benny Valentine, Kylie Sivley, Mithic Media, and the many performers, vendors, photographers, volunteers, and community members whose creativity continues to make the Mithic Market such a special part of Notsuoh.
More glimpses of The Mithic Market captured by the talented photographers that make it happen:
Photos & video on this page courtesy of Kylie Sivley, Benny V, Karah Sivley & Julia Wallace
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