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Best Arts Merger

Colorado Photographic Arts Center

Our region doesn't lack good photography, but it's been lacking a good photography showcase since Hal Gould's Camera Obscura shut its doors a year ago. In the meantime, though, two of the area's biggest photography boosters — the then-homeless Colorado Photographic Arts Center and Working With Artists in Belmar — struck up a merger deal last summer that's still being finalized. Here's our snap judgment: Now under the directorship of Rupert Jenkins as the New Colorado Photographic Arts Center, the strengths of both venues, pre-merger — WWA's instructional side and CPAC's curatorial reach — combine to make this a powerhouse representative of the future of photography in Colorado. We can't wait to see what develops.

Best Band Couture

Fingers of the Sun

Dressed in thick tweed suits to match their infectious twee songs, the members of Fingers of the Sun have not only graced the Denver music scene with one of the most expertly crafted albums of 2011, but they've delivered plenty of eye candy, as well. From Nathan Brasil's mid-'60s slug mustache to Suzi Allegra's thrift-store dresses and Marcus Renninger's daring leisure suit and ascot, the band always looks theatrically sharp, strutting that fine line between Prada perfection and what Project Runway's Tim Gunn would describe as "costumey."

Best Band That Broke Up

Hot White

You know a band was noteworthy if a number of its peers, based on word of mouth and having heard the music, say they wish they'd been able to see the band live before it broke up. That was the fate of Hot White, which, after roughly four years of existence, played its last show on September 26, 2011, with No Babies and Echo Beds. The band's raw, wiry energy and fearlessness, coupled with a complete disregard for any expectations, always made Hot White one of the most interesting and exciting outfits around. The threesome started as a twosome, with Kevin Wesley and Darren Kulback making instrumental noise rock, but the lineup came to include Tiana Bernard on circuit-bent devices before she started playing bass and doing archly intense vocals. A favorite of the underground cognoscenti and ever-increasing circles of fans of challenging music, Hot White will be sorely missed.

Best Birdbrained Scheme

Thinking About Flying

People still flip out when they learn they can check out a pigeon at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver — and we don't mean that they can just see one; we mean they can check one out like a library book, then take it home — with the stipulation that they then let it loose. These birds, part of an ongoing project called Thinking About Flying by artist Jon Rubin, are trained homing pigeons, which makes them way more convenient than a book. We had our own fun with the project when Westword writer Jef Otte raced a checked-out pigeon to MCA on his bike (the pigeon, it turned out, took her own sweet time), but you can also find documentation of other pigeon experiences on MCA's website. Or just try it on your own, though time's running out: Thinking About Flying packs up and flies away after April 30.

Best Blues Club

Blues & Greens

Whatever "Boulder's Home of the Blues," as Blues & Greens is known, might lack in atmosphere, it makes up for in talent. The club, housed in Boulder's Outlook Hotel, not only brings in a regular roster of top-notch local talent like Otis Taylor, the Delta Sonics, David Booker and the Lionel Young Band, but it frequently welcomes well-known national acts, too, such as Big Bill Morganfield (Muddy Waters's son), Tommy Castro and Bernard Allison. And with blues jams on Sundays and Tuesdays, there aren't many nights when there isn't something happening.

Best Blues Jam

David Booker at El Chapultepec

The basic blues formula is fairly simple — but to really get a good handle on it, you've got to play in a live setting with other musicians. And what better way to hone your chops than jamming at the legendary El Chapultepec with guitarist David Booker, a Brit transplant who's been in Denver since the '80s and has performed with Bo Diddley, Solomon Burke and Rufus Thomas? The jam, which Booker started in October 2009, gets a steady stream of regulars that includes a fair amount of guitar and horn players.

Best Body Painter, Chalk Artist and Haunted House Actor

Mythica von Griffyn

That Mythica von Griffyn is a colorful character goes without saying once you've met her. That's partly because she holds down some of the rarest jobs on earth: She turns models into exotic birds, sidewalks into masterpieces and actors into the walking dead. And sometimes she simply is the walking dead, as a character herself in haunted houses. As a mistress of the paintbrush, Mythica seems to understand how the images she paints will mesh with the body's nooks and curves before she starts work — but even she admits it doesn't come without many hours of practice. As an award-winning chalk artist and especially a colorist, she shapes oversized patchworks of pure hue into recognizable images. It all fits in with her haunted-house career, part of her life since she was fourteen and took the job on a lark, eventually developing an obvious talent for making monsters as a makeup artist. Not your everyday occupation? Leave it to the professional.

Best Boylesque Night

Cora Vette's Hot Rods

Leave it to local burlesque madame and emcee Cora Vette to start a nationwide revolution in boylesque. She's been traveling the country over the past year to perform at boylesque shows, talking about why men putting on fabulous costumes and then taking them off is awesome and generally advocating for the concept. And Denver has definitely benefited from her efforts with the monthly revue, now at Bender's. Featuring Cisco Yocisco, Phoenix Rising, Nite Fury, JoJo Justin Tyme, token lady Ophelia P. Cocque and assorted guests, the show is wild-and-crazy eye candy of the (mostly) male persuasion. You'll see everything from a clothes-shedding Zorro to sexy football players to really sexy cowboys to strip-poker numbers. The next one takes place on Thursday, April 19; if you caught this crew at Artopia this past February, you got a peek at what to expect. If not, hold on to your jockstrap!

Best Breakout Hip-Hop Artist

Myke Charles

Myke Charles made a name for himself as the MC in his a cappella group Urban Method on NBC's Sing Off. Before that, though, he was known as Purpose, the super-charming fresh-faced kid with the golden rhymes from Fresh Breath Committee. More than just one of a posse, though, Charles has honed all of his skills and emerged as a breakout star in his own right. His writing is deep and dramatic, and his rapping execution is poised and confident. A singer as well as a rapper, Myke Charles is most definitely on the verge of national notoriety.

Best Burlesque Night

Black Box Burlesque

They might be split personalities, but neither Reyna Von Vett nor her on-stage alter ego, Cora Vette, is a plain Jane. One of the strongest — and sassiest — personalities in Denver burlesque, Vette's creatively coy sex appeal lends itself to rowdy and raunchy rotating themes — planned by Von Vett and other organizers of Black Box Burlesque, and scheduled the third Friday of each month. In March, the leaders and their coed troupe channeled '80s nostalgia for "My Teen Angst Bullsh*t," taking on both teen-dream John Hughes hits and the easy target that is Risky Business. At Bar Standard, Black Box's current home in a long roster of Denver sites, fans can order bottle service and get their drink on as the costumes come off.

Readers' Choice: Lannie's Clocktower Cabaret

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