SAT, 6/28 Pink and white cherry blossoms no longer line the banks of Cherry Creek, but that doesn’t stop Denver’s Japanese-American community from celebrating its culture each June at the annual Sakura Matsuri, otherwise known as the Cherry Blossom Festival. Now in its 31st year, Denver’s Cherry Blossom Festival takes…
FRI, 6/27 Robbie Morales’s crucial transformation took place when he was thirteen, astride a banana-seat bicycle. The Long Island teen popped a wheelie, and the move — front tire airborne, merely decorative — quickly became his passion. Soon baseball faded in favor of a new sport, BMX bicycle competition. The…
TUES, 7/1 For children, the life-sized elephant puppet may be the highlight of Walden Family Playhouse’s Toby and the Big Top. But adults will be amazed by the sense of nostalgia for an old-time circus re-created by internationally accomplished artists. “We’re kind of re-creating the turn-of-the-century circus that stopped a…
SAT, 6/28 Can’t afford a European adventure this summer? Here’s how to enjoy a Roman holiday without ever leaving the comfort of your own scrappy little American city: Be transported by Sargent and Italy, a traveling exhibit from the Los Angeles County Museum and Italy’s Ferrara Arte Museum that opens…
Comets on Fire rescramble reality SUN, 6/29 Do you remember that one time Alice Cooper was a guest star on The Jetsons? No? How about when your MC5 Kick Out the Jams eight-track got twisted up in your stereo and started playing backward, forward and sideways all at the same…
The Center for the Visual Arts in LoDo is currently hosting a large and important show. Tamarind: Forty Years documents some of the many accomplishments achieved over the decades by the legendary New Mexico-based printmaker. The title is somewhat misleading, since Tamarind was founded in 1960, making 2003 the 43rd…
It’s unusual for a juried show to have a coherent theme, because there’s no controlling what artists will submit. Yet Interior Spaces, a sculpture show in the North Gallery of the Lakewood Cultural Center (470 South Allison Parkway, Lakewood, 303-987-7844), was juried and is coherent. So how did artist-jurors Patricia…
There’s a lot of excitement surrounding the production of The Elephant Man at the Miners Alley Playhouse in Golden. The playhouse didn’t exist until recently. What existed was the Morrison Theatre Company, which, under the direction of Rick Bernstein, mounted performances and offered acting classes in Morrison for over a…
When Mark Lundholm appeared at the Ricketson Theatre in Addicted: A Comedy of Substance last year, I was blown away by his talent as a performer but had mixed feelings about the material. It was often hilariously funny and sometimes insightful, but it was weighted down — particularly in the…
He’s twelve feet tall. He’s ripped. He’s quick as a tiger and fierce as a dragon. Lit to a dull green glow by his fury, the guy is sheer, boundless power. Any NFL team you can think of would love to start him at middle linebacker. But as art-house director…
The hero of Ken Loach’s Sweet Sixteen is an isolated teenager mired in a gray Scottish slum with only a vague dream of family life to sustain him. Like previous Loach heroes — the impoverished boy who finds hope training a falcon in Kes, say, or the downtrodden working stiff…
Cult director Trent Harris, whose bizarre and challenging films have thrilled cutting-edge cineasts the world over, will appear in person Friday and Saturday nights as a guest of the International Film Series at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Harris will screen two of his most renowned works, Beaver Trilogy…
Graffiti and tagging may be on the rise in Denver, but don’t worry if you stumble upon dozens and dozens of artists scrawling all over the pavement in Larimer Square this weekend. They’ll be taking part in Denver’s first Italian street-painting festival, La Strada dell’Arte. “Nothing like this has ever…
Thursday, June 19 Summer has come to Aspen — a fact made obvious by this weekend’s blossoming of cultural events in the high-country playground of the rich and famous. One of the mountain town’s most enduring traditions, the Aspen Music Festival, begins today, boasting a nonstop, summer-long paean to classical…
If it’s early on Sunday morning and you see bright-pink woolly gorillas whipping up raspberry fuzzy navels in blenders along Colfax Avenue, then either you have just surfaced from a three-day bender or you’re witnessing the countdown to the June 22 PrideFest 2003 parade. Perhaps it’s both. PrideFest, organized by…
SAT, 6/21 The recent news that the last of the old-style Volkswagen Beetles will trundle off the assembly line this summer at VolkswagenMexico in Puebla, Mexico, may be just a blip on the radar of Gens X and Y as they whiz by with daisies in their dashboard vases. But…
WED, 6/25 You should bike to work more often. Really — get some exercise. Get your car off the street. Heck, maybe you’ll love the fresh air so much you’ll sell the car. If you cycle in on today’s Bike to Work Day, you might even get a free breakfast…
FRI, 6/20 Was there ever life before Harry? Depends on how you look at it: Harry Potter, you could argue, has always been here and always will be — if you throw out the usual boring restrictions of real time, which can’t possibly regulate happenings in the magical Hogwarts cosmos…
SUN, 6/22 Perhaps one of the most misunderstood tenets of Jewish law, the mikvah, or ritual monthly immersion by women after menstruation, is one of those things people don’t talk about. Among Orthodox Jewish women, though, it’s been practiced for centuries, handed down privately from woman to woman. For some…
FRI, 6/20 Comic Greg Proops has a simple image of himself: “I’m like Mt. Rushmore. People know I’m there, but they don’t visit me much anymore.” Say what? If this shocking — though obscure — admission is true, it’s probably because the Los Angeles-based stand-up comic and improviser spends much…
One of the most hotly discussed contemporary shows of the year is the 2003 Colorado Biennial: 10 + 10, at Denver’s Museum of Contemporary Art. The controversial show is undeniably important, which is not unexpected. After all, it’s the state’s official biennial and the lone summer attraction at Denver’s official…
Many of the city’s most prominent women artists are brought together in the Ladyfest Out West Art Exhibition at Andenken Gallery (2110 Market Street, 303-292-3281). The show is the art component of the larger Ladyfest Out West, an event that includes concerts by acts with names like Vox Feminista and…
