A hip after-hours party at the Olympic Sculpture Park

Call the Seattle Art Museum's Remix event an unorthodox tour. Call it a pseudo-dance party. Just try not to call it educational, please.

"When you say the word education, it kind of turns people off," admits Sandra Jackson-Dumont, SAM's adjunct curator and deputy director.

SAM started Remix about a year ago to be the museum's "young contemporary hip night," Jackson-Dumont said. But the old Remixes ended at 9 p.m., and the feedback Jackson-Dumont received indicated that people wanted more. "They felt they could spend significant amounts of time at the museum," she said.

With that in mind, the creators of the museum's new, now-quarterly Remix have lengthened the hours from 8 p.m. to midnight, stepped back from some conventional night-at-the-museum ideas and re-crafted others to appeal to the 18-to-35-year-old demographic.

"It's called Remix because it really is about mixing up the institution, making it a place that's not really what someone would expect," Jackson-Dumont said.

Which is why the pieces at the Olympic Sculpture Park will be lit by flashlights. And instead of traditional guided tours, SAM employees, and writers and editors from The Stranger, will lead groups on "My Favorite Things: The Park After Dark" tours, giving opinions about their preferred pieces.

In lieu of silence and whispers in galleries, musicians will perform at different places around the park. Performers include electronic musicians Rena Jones and Lusine, and reggae vocalist and electronic-music producer DJ Collage, as well as video projections curated by Seattle's Decibel Festival. There will be break dancing, spoken-word performances and DIY art stations.

But there will also be quiet, loungelike spaces where viewers can relax or discuss what they see.

"Our hope is that this event will be a point of entry to larger discussions about the world we live in," Jackson-Dumont said. "It's kind of covert education.

"I want them to feel as if the museum is as accessible as any other institution or any other place they might go. Wouldn't it be wonderful if going to a museum was as popular as going to a movie?"

Blythe Lawrence: blawrence@seattletimes.com