I’ve been doing this cultural beat for a long time now, and I’ve come to realize that most things don’t last. Artists are disorganized and sometimes flaky, propelled by great ideas and held back by chancy finances. But those that do survive usually do so because someone, or in some…
Nothing gets your blood pumping faster than a little African dancing and drumming. Doesn’t matter if you’re on the stage or in front of it – by the time the drums start talking and the dancers start whooping and leaping, you’ll be ready to credit the Africans for inspiring the…
Before she died, in 2005, Ofelia Miramontes lent a loud voice in support of diversity on the CU-Boulder campus and bilingual education in the world at large. In her memory, each spring CU presents the Miramontes Music and Art Festival, a condensed outburst of multi-disciplinary events focusing on cultural contributions…
I was just wondering the other day: What’s the haps at the Denver Community Museum, the pop-up Platte Valley venue offering rotating exhibits of themed artworks and other contributions made by regular old citizens like you and me? A lot, it turns out: Currently on view through this Friday, March…
The Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art will stick its toes in new waters tonight when poets from Denver’s Lighthouse Writers Workshop drop in to read original poetry written in response to selected works in the venue’s current exhibit, Colorado Abstraction: Paintings and Sculpture. The poets, including Dee Casalaina,…
Times are tough all around, but no one wants to hear about another independent theater company biting the dust. And though we all know that folks in the arts are among the first to suffer when wallets are thin, it’s no less shocking to hear that Boulder’s brave little Theatre13…
“It’s just another one of those silly things we decided to do on a whim. We don’t know anything about musicals, just like none of us knew how to ice skate before we made Kafka on Ice. But we’re all really the jump-in-with-two-feet kind of people.” Buntport Theater troupe member…
It’s hard to believe that The General, now considered to be silent-film comic Buster Keaton’s finest effort, was a flop in its day. Defined throughout by the clever train chase that propels the choreographed flick’s plot, it’s also the unconditionally perfect showcase for Keaton’s imperturbable, stoic style of comedy, which…
Choreographer/dancer David Dorfman of David Dorfman Dance says his figurative, representational style moves in and out of favor, and right now, riding a wave of Obama-inspired national hope, it seems to be making a comeback, along with the ’60s-based ideas of community participation and taking action toward change. The time,…
Tyler McNally of the Denver Gaels says the local Irish sports club, which promotes the rarefied games of Irish football and hurling, is growing all the time. That, he notes, is because, more than anything, it’s purely authentic. “A lot of our members are the real thing — expatriates from…
To call the talented alumni of DU’s Lamont School of Music merely “distinguished” seems conservative at times. And that’s a fine reason to make tracks for tonight’s Lamont Distinguished Alumni Series concert, particularly if you’re a fan of well-played jazz and don’t often get to hear it performed with the…
I don’t suppose you’d be gassing up and heading your car south on I-25 to Pueblo tonight, but if you are up for that 90-minute haul (you never know!), it’ll be worth your while, especially if you’re a freak for folk art, like me: Tonight from 5 to 7 p.m.,…
There’s no more democratic way to make a difficult decision than to draw it out of a hat. And that’s basically how things work at the devil-may-care Boulder Fringe Festival. Performers vying for a spot during the two-week event in August cross their fingers every February and hope their rabbits…
Tyler McNally of the Denver Gaels says the local Irish sports club, which promotes the rarefied games of Irish Football and Hurling, is growing all the time. That, he notes, is because, more than anything, it’s purely authentic. “A lot of our members are the real thing – expatriates from…
The Denver Public Library’s Fresh City Life program holds one of the most egalitarian fashion stances around. It promotes local designers at such events as the enormously successful Frock Out Denver and by sticking to the general view that everyone can enjoy fashion — not just the rich and famous…
Black History Month couldn’t have a better spokeswoman than Awele Makeba, an award-winning actress/storyteller/educator who channels historic figures into learning experiences for all ages all over the nation…and the world. The vivacious Makeba engages all her talents in I’m Not Getting On Until Jim Crow Gets Off, a unique one-woman…
Her lingering recovery after Hurricane Katrina ensures that New Orleans is never far from the nation’s collective mind. But as Boulder journalist and author Dan Baum notes on his website, “Hurricane Katrina is hardly the most interesting thing about New Orleans.” A city with deep roots, a lazy but enduring…
For 32 years, the Rocky Mountain Women’s Institute offered opportunities unique to the region: It provided female literary, performing and visual artists a breather from the real world to pursue creative ends, by offering one-year stipends and, in earlier times, studio space, to a handful of lucky applicants annually. Each…
Curling is a strange sport, and I can’t say that I’m strange enough to follow it. But the shuffleboard-like Olympic endeavor on ice must have some kind of following, or at least a curious gang of people who want to know more about it. Curling led television ratings for all…
What makes an ale a wild ale? Perhaps it’s the barrel you age it in, or the yeast that ferments it into a complex brew. In the case of Avery Brewing Company’s new Brabant Barrel-Aged Wild Ale, one supposes it’s both. Named for a seminal draft horse that spawned what…
In his latest work, first generation Cuban-American artist Anthony Giocolea explores his heritage and the sense of loss he feels for family members he’s never met in a number of pointedly fleeting ways. In Related, a new exhibit by Giocolea at the Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver, this self-reflective process is…
One of Colorado’s more remarkable citizens, Dr. Temple Grandin, first distinguished herself in her chosen field of animal science and as an advocate of humane treatment of animals. She went on to garner further attention as a best-selling author and lecturer — one who’s unique in that she is also…
