Thursday January 22 New developments: The fruit of the lens–taken from every angle–blossoms tonight at the Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities, 6901 Wadsworth Blvd., where a reception to introduce a trio of new photographic exhibitions will take place from 7 to 10. The human form, one of photography’s…
Thursday January 15 Voice of America: There’s something mighty special that differentiates a cowboy poet from all other bards–call it rugged individualism or manifest destiny, but it all boils down to a kind of agrarian authenticity. It won’t be hard to imagine campfire smoke wafting in the background when the…
Thursday January 8 Dear old Dodd: Director and playwright Terry Dodd knows it better than just about anyone else: “The World’s a Stage,” and to paraphrase someone more famous than Dodd, we’re the ones putting on a show. That’s the name of the talk Dodd will give this evening as…
Thursday January 1 Strauss relief: In the past, the only place one could possibly experience the Vienna Philharmonic’s traditional Neujahrkonzert was in Vienna–or sitting in front of the tube, where the New Year’s Day fete is televised yearly. Not the same, is it? Now, thanks to the efforts of Toronto…
Thursday December 25 Grate expectations: Face the facts–holidays are at least 80 percent about stuffing your face, and the more the merrier. Hanukkah frolickers can get their fill of potato pancakes at today’s Munchin’ Lots of Latkes Luncheon, a tribute to those crunchy, munchy, grated and fried traditional spud treats,…
Thursday December 18 Material world: Well-worn baby blankets, christening gowns, Halloween costumes, patchwork quilts and wedding attire are the kinds of sentiment-charged mementos we stash in our attics for posterity. Cultural Threads: Ceremonial Textiles Around the World, a new exhibit opening today at the Mizel Museum of Judaica, 560 S…
Thursday December 11 Top of the season: A Christmas Carol–the Dickens classic replete with spooky ghosts, flashbacks and flash-forwards, an indefatigably cheery invalid and the original Scrooge of all Scrooges–has to be counted among the most essential of Christmas musts. So that you may fulfill your family holiday duty, Scrooge…
Thursday December 4 ‘Tis the season to be shopping: Art, which allows you to act the part of a cultural dilettante and still be a blatant consumer, makes the chore of holiday shopping more palatable–so put on your stuffed shirts, look down your noses and hit the shows. Openings tonight…
Thursday November 27 Get a load off: You can have too much of a good thing, and it never becomes more evident than on Thanksgiving Day, when the dinner table, covered with mounds of food, suddenly resembles a fire sale at Macy’s. Doesn’t your belt tighten around your waist just…
Thursday November 20 Songs in the key of Broadway: Nothing gets ’em going like a Broadway standard–something the Colorado Symphony Orchestra learned well during last year’s sold-out Broadway showcases. This year the CSO goes whole hog for the Great White Way with an expanded Bravo Broadway Two pops program, which…
Thursday November 13 So zoo me: In the world of offbeat artist Dede LaRue, “Doberman Dominatrix” is just another day’s work, along with the irresistibly characteristic mixture of social commentary, brute rapture, surreal humor and plain old puppy love evinced by LaRue’s life-sized papier-mache animal creations. Her adorable, corpulent cats…
Thursday November 6 Pet project: It’s hard to understand how the animal urge ever got stuck with a negative connotation. After all, the birds and beasts have a much better grip on the natural order of things than humans do, and they exercise their urges merely because they’re supposed to…
Thursday October 30 Where you been? Songwriters don’t come any tougher–or any more tender–than Austin musician Lucinda Williams, whose songs have been snatched up and made into hits by the likes of Mary Chapin Carpenter and Emmylou Harris. After holing up for months, painstakingly recording a long-awaited followup to her…
Thursday October 23 Ready to roll: Glamour, glitz and miles and miles of old and new film from around the world are certain benchmarks of the Denver International Film Festival, returning to town for its twentieth go-around. As always, the fest features celebrity guests (actors Jack Palance and Bryan Brown…
Thursday October 16 The Shaw must go on: Screwball comedy may have been hatched when George Bernard Shaw’s Misalliance first hit the stage earlier this century, with stuffy British underwear magnate John Tarleton for a protagonist and a Polish aviatrix as his unexpected foil. The same issues of the heart…
Thursday October 9 Clay of the land: Not long after people discovered fire and started drawing with coals on cave walls, it’s likely that they learned how to squish mud into utilitarian vessels. Pottery, like fine art, has grown up considerably in the interim, but its functionality persists–and that’s the…
Thursday October 2 Lions and tigers and hippos: While the highfalutin’ crowd packs Cirque du Soleil’s LoDo big top this month for swanky circus fare, the rest of us can simply experience the Greatest Show on Earth. The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus–featuring old-fashioned carnival attractions such as…
Thursday September 25 Novel ideas: The last time author Lisa See came through these parts, it was to promote On Gold Mountain, a fascinating history/memoir of her multiracial Chinese-American family. With that story out of the way, See has switched over to fiction, and she should do just fine, considering…
Thursday September 18 Nothing but the blues: One of the best blues lineups you’ll experience in these parts will turn all of Boulder into a non-stop boogie parlor this weekend. The three-day Boulder Blues Festival festival comes in with a roar tonight at 8 when Chicago blues veteran Son Seals…
Thursday September 11 The writing on the wall: From Toulouse-Lautrec’s Folies-Bergere can-can girls to the late Joe Camel, poster images have filled our modern cultural landscape with a graphic march of political and social messages along with purely commercial entreaties. The Colorado International Invitational Poster Exhibition, a biennial showcase sponsored…
Thursday September 4 The Rio thing: Moonlight on water, feijoada and mangoes, miles of virgin sand, a gentle bossa nova, your lover’s eyes–they all fall gently into the romantic territory of Ivan Lins, a Brazilian pop composer/performer who pads like a boy from Ipanema in the footsteps of the late…
Thursday August 28 Queen of the roost: Once upon a time, all she wanted to do was have some fun, and she did–but former back-up singer Sheryl Crow has come full circle to settle comfortably on a music-business pedestal reserved for few artists, especially female ones. Now she’s running her…
