SUN, 7/3 Anyone tired of seeing people steering toward the conservative right in Colorado Springs can watch them turn liberally left at Pikes Peak International Raceway today, when contestants speed counterclockwise around the one-mile oval during the U.S.A.C. Rocky Mountain Classic. After the gates open at 9 a.m., fans will…
THURS, 6/30 There’s more to art than meets the eye. The new exhibit Beyond Visual, created by the kid-oriented Downtown Aurora Visual Arts, expands the sensory scope of artistic expression — and makes a big stink in the process. “They smell like mint, orange, strawberry, blackberry and cinnamon,” says DAVA…
SAT, 7/2 If you’ve been itching for some dramatic romance but can’t quite bring yourself to watch Days of Our Lives or As the World Turns, Samuel Barber’s Vanessa could be just what you need. The work, which won the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1958, gets its regional premiere…
Since taking over as president of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center a couple of years ago, Michael De Marsche has made many changes — some for the better, some for the worse. But one call no one can argue with is his decision to bring in Chihuly, a massive…
A couple of months ago, Cherry Creek North’s Pismo Gallery (2770 East Second Avenue, 303-333-2879) moved from its familiar spot on Fillmore Street, where it had been for a decade, to a gigantic and handsomely finished showroom next to Hapa Sushi. Relocation, always a risky prospect for a small business,…
Alden Mason, Kimberlee Sullivan and Lorey Hobbs. The changing of the seasons from spring to summer is what inspired William Biety, director of the Sandy Carson Gallery, to put together three solos, each comprising nature-based abstractions. Alden Mason marks the debut of the Washington artist, who is represented in this…
There’s a lot that’s good about Humble Boy, currently showing at the John Hand Theater. The play is literate, with eccentric characters, some absorbing scenes, occasional unexpected moments — but somehow the structure eluded me. And all the esoteric talk about space and time and the habits of bees seemed…
Independence is a story about three very different young women and their terrifyingly possessive, half-mad mother. Kess, the oldest daughter, left the family and remained out of touch with her mother for four years. She’s a successful academic, living in Minneapolis with her lesbian lover. At the beginning of the…
Impulse Theater. Basements and comedy go together like beer and nuts or toddlers and sandboxes. The basement of the Wynkoop Brewery where Impulse Theater performs is crowded, loud and energetic. Impulse does no prepared skits, nothing but pure improv — which means that what you see changes every night, and…
Bewitched may go down as the first movie about a fictional failed actor that creates a real-life failed actor. This hackneyed, hapless and utterly useless redo of an overrated 1960s sitcom is excruciating to sit through for a dozen reasons. But nothing is more intolerable than the sight of Will…
You’re a talented young resident at a New York hospital, first-generation Chinese, and you happen to be gay. In fact, you’re dating a new and exciting woman, a dancer with the city ballet, and she wants you to share the relationship with the world — and your family. But can…
Anyone who would insist that movie reviewing is not a real job (ŒSup, Mom) hasn’t been forced to sit through screenings of Bewitched and Herbie: Fully Loaded in the span of five days — and by forced, I mean either you see both movies, write 800 words about each, or…
Horror-movie cultists are in for a dark thrill this week when the 1945 British classic Dead of Night is shown in Boulder. Linked by the tale of an architect’s recurring nightmare, it’s a series of five supernatural episodes. Notable are the two directed by Alberto Cavalcanti — the first about…
In his first book, The United States of Wal-Mart, journalist John Dicker lays out plenty of reasons to revile the goliath retailer and its ubiquitous smiley faces. Yet he understands that such criticism may sound like liberal elitism to folks whose shopping options are limited by a modest income. “How…
Thursday, June 23 Having already fully covered the landscape of non-fiction in a scorching trio of documentary/ memoirs about his own life and the experiences of illegals on the Mexican borders, author Luis Alberto Urrea now turns his poetic pen to fiction, applying gorgeous prose to a new epic novel…
Saddled with a painfully useless degree in creative writing and an apocryphal career path, I started working at Penny Lane in 2002, after seeing a handwritten sign taped to the front door advertising for a barista. I knew that the legendary Boulder coffeehouse would provide the perfect environment for shunning…
SAT, 6/25 Ever dreamed of bumping into a porn star and buying her (or him) a drink? Well, tonight’s your chance, at the Pleasure’s Second Annual Adult Film Star Ball, being held at La Bohme Gentleman’s Cabaret, 1443 Stout Street. “I think it’s going to be a crazy, crazy night,”…
THURS, 6/23 Bulls, horses and lassos are rarely the images conjured up when folks discuss high school sports. But some 300 teenage cowpokes think it’ll take just about eight seconds — the length of most bull rides — to change that concept when they compete in the Colorado State High…
SAT, 6/25 How exactly do you outfit a dog in drag? Do you dress him up like a cat? Do you put Fifi in a muscle tee, squeeze Buster the boxer into a tutu? Anything goes, say organizers of the Dogs in Drag competition at this year’s PrideFest. So feel…
THURS, 6/23 Comic Dave Attell offers this philosophical stumper: “Which would you rather have: A butler, an ice sculpture of your own ass, a baby pool full of Skittles, or $100?” “Huh?” I reply, wondering if this question was actually rhetorical. “C’mon man! The 100 bucks!” exults Attell over the…
Although its roots go back almost a century, to the World War I-era work of Marcel Duchamp, only in the past thirty or so years has conceptual art become a common approach. Today the Denver area has many proponents of conceptualism; key among them is John McEnroe, currently the subject…
There are so many talented representational painters in the area, it’s a wonder that no curator of some local museum or art center has thought to put a group of them together in a show. The next best thing might be a duet, which is essentially what’s shoehorned into the…
