Ivan Suvanjieff

Thirty years in, these Best of Denver winners are still the best in town

PeaceJam founders headed to the United Nations for global call to action

When we last caught up with Dawn Engle and Ivan Suvanjieff, the founders of the homegrown PeaceJam, they were on their way to Guatamela, to spend December 21, 2012 -- that important date on the Mayan calendar -- with Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu Tum, Mayan elders and hundreds of indigen ... More >>

PeaceJam's founders hope to dispel myths about the Mayans

See also: PeaceJam leaders are predicting a busy 2013

PeaceJam leaders are predicting a busy 2013

See also: PeaceJam's founders hope to dispel myths about the Mayans

See PeaceJam film The Mayan Renaissance on the big screen

At tonight's installment of the Denver Film Society's Women Film series, PeaceJam's Dawn Engle will be the woman, and The Mayan Renaissance will be the film. This fastidious and lovely history of Mayan civilization and culture fast-forwards into the present, as it is seen by Nobel laureate (and Pe ... More >>

Mayan Renaissance tracks 4,000 years of Central American history tonight on TV

It's safe to say that the year 2012 is a big one in Mayan culture -- but few people really know the extent of its importance, argues PeaceJam Executive Director Dawn Engle. Not up to speed? No worries: Tonight you can catch Mayan Renaissance -- a Peacejam-produced movie that puts 4,000 years of Maya ... More >>

PeaceJam co-founder recalls connection with now-traveling Aung San Suu Kyi

Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma is currently in Thailand, her first international trip in 24 years. Suu Kyi spent much of the past two decades under a house arrest enforced by the ruling military junta, which has since been replaced. Now freed, Suu Kyi has been elected to Parliament. The ... More >>

PeaceJam founders on the time they helped Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys get an audience with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in the '90s

While we've been mourning the untimely passing of Adam Yauch (aka MCA) of the Beastie Boys last week and reminiscing about the act's shows in Denver, we've learned that the musician/activist had pretty interesting ties to our city beyond playing here nearly a dozen times over the past two decades. B ... More >>

Shirin Ebadi comes to Denver as another Nobel Peace Prize winner pulls out of Chicago summit

Mairead Corrigan Maguire, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976 for her work in Northern Ireland, has pulled out of the twelfth World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates that starts Monday in Chicago. "That's what happens when you don't hold your big Nobel events in Denver!," jokes Dawn Engle, a founde ... More >>

Are you ready for 2012? Watch The True Mayan Prophecy tonight

​Good news! The world is not going to end next December 21, no matter what people insist the Mayan calendar predicts. Dawn Engle and Ivan Suvanjieff, the founders of PeaceJam, exploded that myth in 2012: The True Mayan Prophecy, the award-winning film they released last year that will air toni ... More >>

Give PeaceJam a Chance

Doomsday countdown, day five: Harold Camping's third try

Harold Camping, living it up.​If there's any lesson we can take from our look back this week at a number of apocalyptic prophesies (apophesies, as I like to call them) in advance of what Harold Camping is predicting to be the end of the world today, it's that they all have one key component in ... More >>

Former GOP-er Ali Hasan is pushing his movie

Doomsday countdown, day four: Project Icarus and the asteroid that didn't destroy earth -- yet

Jerry Bruckheimer's prophesy was by far the most entertaining.​Every sensible person knows that when Earth is eventually destroyed, it will be by a huge asteroid like the one that killed all the dinosaurs. We learned this mostly from Jerry Bruckheimer, but Jerry Bruckheimer probably learned it ... More >>

Doomsday countdown, day three: The Amazing Criswell and the Denver goo

The Amazing Criswell: As much credibility as anyone else, really.​Call it an unlucky guess: In March 1963, the Amazing Criswell, born Jeron Criswell Konig and otherwise known as Jeron Criswell King, predicted that John F. Kennedy would not run for re-election because something would happen to ... More >>

Doomsday countdown, day two: Kim Miller jumps off the deep end and never comes back

When Christ returns, it's going to be weird.​In late December 1999, while the artist then known as the artist formerly known as Prince was preparing to party, and while the rest of the world was shoveling canned goods into their bunkers in preparation for the would-be-apocalypse of Y2K, Kim Mi ... More >>

Doomsday countdown, day one: The many apocalyptic predictions of Harold Camping

This dude just looks like a charlatan, doesn't he?​If the world had a nickel for every time the world was supposed to end, let's just say the world would have a whole boatload of nickels -- but as not-at-all-unusual as it may be for the various pseudo-prophets and charlatans of history to pred ... More >>

Jesus, Bono and the Apocalypse examined in a new film

Video: Watch the Jesus vs. Bono trailer

Jesus vs. Bono documentary looks at last non-pocalypse in time for next apocalypse

When Christ failed to make a second earthly appearance on May 21, 2011, it probably came as a surprise to few -- would-be prophet Harold Camping, the Biblical number-cruncher who predicted that date as the day of the Rapture, had been wrong about the world ending before, after all. But while nobody ... More >>

The rapture didn't happen on Saturday, but a documentary about it got filmed

There was none of this.​Despite the predictions of doomsayer Harold Camping, the Lord apparently did not see fit to visit destruction upon the earth Saturday, which passed somewhat unremarkably except that it was a particularly beautiful day. (Personally, I went to an apocalypse barbecue and a ... More >>

Jeff Dowd, the dude who inspired The Dude, to appear in person with The Big Lebowski at Film on the Rocks

No, I'm The Dude. ​Somewhere out there, The Dude abides, taking 'er easy for all us sinners -- no, seriously: There is an actual Dude. His name is Jeff Dowd, his nickname is The Dude, and he was the Coen Brothers's inspiration for their most famous and beloved character by the same name, playe ... More >>

The apocalypse will kick off in Boulder, and here's why

Jesus vs. Bono: Who would win? The founder of PeaceJam intends to find out

Pictured here without cross.​Come Saturday, Colorado's poised to have more incoming messiahs than anybody ever asked for, including the evangelicals; besides being the scheduled day of Jesus' second coming according to Biblical number-cruncher Harold Camping, it's also the day Bono comes to De ... More >>

Flick Pick: 2012: The True Mayan Prophecy shows March 3

Watch three clips from 2012: The True Mayan Prophecy

The Dalai Lama talks about 2012.​Last week Westword published "Apocalypse No," an Off Limits piece on the 2012: The True Mayan Prophecy, a documentary recently released by PeaceJam founders Ivan Suvanjieff and Dawn Engle. In addition to the story, Westword presented the documentary in its enti ... More >>

The 2012 apocalypse scenario is all wrong, say filmmakers

2012: Mayan end-times prophecies, courtesy of PeaceJam

​It's been quite a year for PeaceJam, the homegrown organization that uses Nobel Peace Prize winners to empower kids to fight for peace around the globe. But the challenges of the past year -- including a major restructuring and a new PeaceJam office -- are nothing compared to what 2012 might ... More >>

Give PeaceJam a chance: Buy a guitar

​The five hand-painted guitars signed by ten Nobel Peace Prize winners that will be auctioned off on eBay today are truly for the man who has everything -- although "that's not true until they buy one of the guitars!," points out Ivan Suvanjieff, the founder of PeaceJam, the organization that ... More >>

Wake-Up Call: Pull some strings for Peacejam

​It's been a tough year for Peacejam, the homegrown nonprofit that over the past fifteen years has reached out to hundreds of thousands of kids around the globe, showing them that in the toughest circumstances, it's still possible to push for peace -- and then proving it by bringing ten Nobel ... More >>

Wake-Up Call: A noble, if not Nobel, calling

​Yesterday was a long day in Idledale, the tiny town in the foothills where Dawn Engle and Ivan Suvanjieff put up their feet when they're not pounding the pavement on behalf of PeaceJam, the non-profit they founded over a dozen years ago that links up youth from around the world with Nobel Pea ... More >>

Zebra Junction closes up shop this evening

DanielK​After four albums, extensive touring and a decade together, Zebra Junction, who just took home honors at this year's Westword Music Showcase awards, will be playing its last show tonight in Golden at Parfet Park. Although the members intend to continue to collaborate and record music with ... More >>

Letters to the Editor

Letters from the week of 7/3/2008

Nobel Virtues

Colorado's Nobel Peace Prize nominees rock harder than Bono.

Pennies for Peace

A Nobel Calling

Speak Your Peace

Some very Nobel intentions pay off.

Nobel Intentions

Go, Broncos! Promoting peace is serious business.

Give PeaceJam a Chance

Pressing Engagements

A Nobel Calling

In just two months, change starts here. In Denver. No joke.

A Peace of the Action

Look out, Cherry Hills: The world's coming to Denver.

Make Book With PeaceJam

The PeaceJam outreach continues in a new book.

We Be Jammin'

PeaceJam scores two theatrical releases -- and kudos from Michael Moore.

We Are Capitol Hill

When Stephen Elliott was murdered in an Alfalfa's parking lot last year, it shocked neighbors right down to the bone. Down to the bone, that is, for about 72 hours.

Peace Pipeline

How a couple of "average, flawed people" are jammin' till the jam is through.