One of Denver’s oldest cultural-heritage festivals is a moveable feast, even though its very name comes from an early-spring celebration. In Japan, Washington, D.C., and other temperate climes, the Sakura Matsuri, or Cherry Blossom Festival, is timed to coincide with the picturesque flowering of cherry trees, usually in April. In…
Arts festivals, food festivals, music festivals, heritage festivals, historical festivals, bike and balloon festivals — by the middle of July, even serious summer celebrants can come down with a bad case of festival fatigue. Residents of mountain resort towns are particularly prone to the syndrome, as hordes of flatlanders invade…
Forget wagon trains and sodbusters. It was the railroad that won the West, powerful steam locomotives hauling raw materials to markets back East and returning with settlers from places like Chicago and St. Louis. Large-scale mining was not possible until narrow-gauge track was laid through the mountains; more than one…
Back in the day, before limited-stakes gambling transformed the former mining town of Central City into a hub of casino activity, the streets were lined with bars, with a general store and a newspaper office about the only non-drinking establishments along Main Street. In the 1960s, the bars attracted local…
With all of the attention that’s been focused on urban sprawl in the past year, it’s easy to forget that half of Colorado’s land — 32.5 million acres — is given over to agriculture. Although the majority of the state’s 29,500 farms and ranches produce meat animals or the crops…
In an earlier media age, historians didn’t have to worry about matters such as voice and personal appearance. They could sound like a rusty hinge and resemble a troll and it wouldn’t matter, because the only people who saw and heard them were librarians at musty archives. But thanks to…
In Pueblo, there are two distinct classes: westsiders and eastsiders. The westside folks, notes Jina Pierce, visual-arts curator at the Sangre de Cristo Arts Center, are the ones who frequent the cultural venue. But each summer, when the center celebrates its anniversary, it’s Pierce’s job to find new ways to…
It is the happiest news imaginable. The Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center has finally, if reluctantly, abandoned its plans to build an addition on the facade at the southwest corner of the building next to the main entrance. Any addition placed in this spot, no matter how inspired, would have…
Spark (1535 Platte Street, 303-320-4547) is currently presenting Wasteland, a show featuring two of the co-op’s members, Annalee Schorr and John Davenport. The Schorr portion readdresses television as a topic. Schorr had produced photo-based works on this subject for about a decade before abandoning it in recent years in favor…
Weakened by self-doubt and the elements — as well as being driven to near despair by a fellow traveler’s demise — British explorer Robert Falcon Scott temporarily interrupts his Antarctic expedition to ask, “When is the point when the whole thing becomes worthless? After one man dies? After two?” Moments…
The lavish production numbers in Annie Get Your Gun are hard for any theater company to pull off. So is the script’s archaic depiction of Native Americans, with character treatments and one-liners that range from mildly embarrassing to patently offensive. And if either of the show’s two leading performers has…
For the next five days, Richard Lewis will seldom leave his North Dallas hotel room, hidden away at the far end of the top floor with a view of overpasses, office buildings and distant dark clouds. He will venture out only to visit a couple of radio and television stations,…
In the annals of social change, Alma Schindler is strictly small potatoes, and Bruce Beresford’s new biopic, Bride of the Wind, unwittingly threatens to erase her altogether. For those who don’t have the history of the Austro-Hungarian empire at their fingertips, Alma (Sarah Wynter) was an outspoken party girl from…
The Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities tends to be taken for granted, in spite of its groundbreaking accomplishments. On the eve of its 25th anniversary, the Center is still a veritable beehive of cultural activity, where quality art exhibitions, theatrical presentations and concerts are par for the course…
Cable television sports its share of peculiar religious programming. But few of those ministries can match the first impression made by Denver’s own TV evangelist, Sister Who. For ten years, viewers of Denver’s DCTV/ Channel 58 have watched Who, the alter ego of Mr. Denver NeVaar, a book-inventory specialist for…
Photographer R. Skip Kohloff is well known in Denver, but he only rarely exhibits his work. In fact, déjà-view: A Retrospective Exhibition: R. Skip Kohloff, on display at the Colorado Photographic Arts Center (CPAC), is one of the only solos he’s had during his thirty-year career and the largest presentation…
There are only a few days left to catch Richard Hull at the Rule Gallery (111 Broadway, 303-777-9473), as it is set to close on Saturday. The exhibit is an impressive painting solo featuring recent pieces by Hull, a nationally known Chicago artist whose work was first shown at Rule…
Now and then, fantasy and reality humorously collide in Pork Pie, a self-styled “mythic jazz fable” set in a period described only as The South: “When men wore hats, women had the power, and legends were alive.” Beginning with a kindly narrator’s tongue-in-cheek remarks, Michael Genet’s world-premiere play, currently running…
At this moment, Baz Luhrmann, control freak and self-proclaimed ringleader of conspirators “who conspire to something greater than ourselves,” is not in control at all. The cameraman trailing behind him, like a faithful puppy awaiting treats, does not work for the director; rather, he is in the employ of the…
Those expecting Himalaya to focus upon the beloved traveling carnival ride known for its liberal use of Def Leppard (“Do you wanna go faster?”) are in for a few surprises. For one, this sensuous, exotic film is more like an issue of National Geographic come to life, rich with cultural…
After winning five separate Audience Awards and other honors at various gay and lesbian film festivals over the past year, Thomas Bezucha’s Big Eden has finally opened in general release. You don’t have to be an expert on the history of gay cinema to see why — and you don’t…
The values that you grew up with are that people come before things,” offers the mother of one the protagonists of Startup.com, “and that didn’t seem to be a part of this new world.” You sure got that right, ma’am. While this new video documentary by Chris Hegedus and Jehane…
