Bhangra — a form of party dancing that originated with the Punjabi in India — has become increasingly popular in recent months, judging from the number of musicians (Jay-Z among them) who have incorporated a bhangra element into their work. “It’s got origins in the agricultural roots that the Punjabi…
In 1979, Saddam Hussein became president of Iraq, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, Iranian radicals seized the American embassy in Tehran, the Pittsburgh Steelers won the Super Bowl for the second year in a row, Mr. Ed died, and Denver’s first cooperative art gallery was born. For thirty years now…
The 1859 Rush to the Rockies started out slow — and cold. On a frigid day in January 1859, prospector George Jackson was camped on a sand bar in Clear Creek when he noticed that the frozen ground laid bare by his fire was glittering. Jackson had been at the…
Master printer, teacher, artist, retailer – Patricia Branstead is all these things, but since she relocated here from Steamboat Springs and opened her tiny but fabulous emporium of handmade papers and printing supplies, Kozo (a Best of Denver winner last year), her focus seems to have been on building the…
Every Tuesday at Bovine Metropolis Theater, two improv teams battle for the audience’s affections — and votes. Only those rare comedic talents who can keep the laughs coming, winning for six consecutive weeks against new challengers, earn the coveted Battle Royale title. “It’s not easy,” says theater producer and sales…
Curley Taylor and Zydeco Trouble, one of Louisiana’s premier zydeco bands, gets a mile high tonight at the D Note, 7519 Grandview Avenue in Arvada. The five-piece band includes the piano accordion plus musical arrangements drawing on R&B, soul and urban blues. “When the music was first recorded, it was…
Today, teams of birdwatchers and chili lovers come together for the annual Holiday Bird Count, spending the day counting birds throughout the Denver metro area, including Roxborough State Park. The 3,339-acre park is a Colorado natural area and a national Natural Landmark, with breathtaking views of several beautiful rock formations,…
The Dinah Shore Weekend is probably the biggest lesbian party in the nation, which is kind of strange. As Kim Ficera, author of Sex, Lies and Stereotypes, has said, “The only common denominator between Dinah Shore the person and Dinah the party is a golf tournament that very few people…
I’ve always been fascinated by skijoring, a winter sport wherein a person on skis is pulled along by a horse, dog or even a car. And it seems plenty of people across the state share my interest, which is why Devil’s Thumb Ranch offers Skijoring Clinics every month or so…
It’s official: The holidays are over. Whether you celebrated Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Yule or just New Year’s Eve — the decorations can come down, the wrapping paper can be put away, and any kids in your household can begin studiously preparing to return to school in another week or so…
Adam Helms. This solo in the MCA’s Paper Works Gallery is the New York artist’s first museum show anywhere. In his works on paper and in a monumental sculpture that conjures up a shooting blind, Helms explores political themes, especially armed struggle. He takes images of different radical and extremist…
We already love that the Denver Public Library’s changing, themed, free Fresh City Life programs always include a cooking series from season to season, offering culinary tips, demonstrations and samples for every local closet gourmet worth a dash of salt. Fittingly, in a fledgling new year marked by the need…
My primary interests when writing reviews lie in contemporary art and, to a lesser extent, historic modern art. But this sensibility means I don’t always get a chance to focus on traditional art from the past, which is much more popular with the general public. As a result, I have…
The art world is driven by trends, and some artists spend their careers following one after another. Others develop their own point of view and carry on with it for decades, completely oblivious to anything else. This latter type is exemplified by longtime Denver painter Sandra Wittow. She has definitely…
Adam Helms. This solo in the MCA’s Paper Works Gallery is the New York artist’s first museum show anywhere. In his works on paper and in a monumental sculpture that conjures up a shooting blind, Helms explores political themes, especially armed struggle. He takes images of different radical and extremist…
Walt Kowalski growls a lot — a dyspeptic rumble that wells up from deep inside his belly when he catches sight of his midriff-baring teenage granddaughter text-messaging her way through her grandmother’s funeral, or when his good-for-nothing son and daughter-in-law suggest that he sell his house in a gang-infested corner…
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is certainly curious — a modest F. Scott Fitzgerald story, about a man born in the twilight of life and gradually regressing toward dawn, that has been adapted into a two-ton Oscar-season white elephant. Directed by David Fincher from a screenplay by Eric Roth,…
Under new artistic director Philip C. Sneed, the Colorado Shakespeare Festival offered A Child’s Christmas in Wales last year. Now the show is back, but three new members in the six-actor cast offer an object lesson on the ways in which performances alone can shape the way we experience a…
“You’ve made the first movie of the Obama generation!” exclaimed an audience member as he rushed up to Clint Eastwood after a recent screening of Gran Torino. “Well,” the 78-year-old actor-director replied, without missing a beat, “I was actually born under Hoover.” It was an ironic juxtaposition, given that Eastwood’s…
Like Doubt, Stephen Daldry’s The Reader is low-budget, high-profile and beamed straight at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Category of High Moral Tone. Only in this case, the stakes are way higher and the attitude muted to a fault. Based on a partly autobiographical novel by Bernhard…
Claus Philipp Maria Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg — a lot of name for a lot of guy. Born into aristocracy in 1907, he was a soldier by the age of nineteen — and, by most accounts, a warrior with the soul of a poet (he was especially smitten with the…
It’s July 20, 1944, and Adolf Hitler has been assassinated — the victim of a bomb blast organized and executed by a cabal of high-ranking German army officers seeking to wrest control of the country away from the Third Reich and, with luck, bring an end to World War II…
