Aurora sometimes gets a ho-hum rap from the urbanistas to the west, but the sprawling gateway to the plains certainly has its hidden treasures. Downtown Aurora Visual Arts, which provides a creative haven for at-risk youth of all ages, is one of them, offering year-round art-making programs led by a…
I first saw the movie of West Side Story at a drive-in as a little girl, but that first time, tinny window speakers and all, was a love-at-first-sight moment. I hadn’t seen many musicals at my then-tender age, but I knew immediately that it was radically different: Ruthlessly modern and…
Lights might be the best part of the holiday season: neighborhoods and business districts all lit up, more lights twinkling on trees and candles aglow in menorahs, kinaras and luminarias. And the enjoyment of those magical lights is a piece of childhood that never leaves us; as they turn off…
Some parents consider this the worst week of the year: Kids are underfoot and bored with their holiday loot, but it’s often too cold to kick them out of the house without spending time bundling them up — and meanwhile, grownups are busy trying to pull themselves together for New…
Colorado has more than two dozen ski areas, but SolVista Basin at Granby Ranch may be the one most dedicated to families. Although night skiing and tubing aren’t officially offered there until January 7, the resort is making an exception this week, just to keep its families happy. From now…
Hal Aqua likes to call the music he plays with his party band, the Lost Tribe, “nouveau klezmer.” That’s because, like classic klezmer itself, it’s already a mash-up of cultural influences — but then takes things a step further, fusing klezmer with the more contemporary grooves of rock, reggae, salsa,…
So, fellow Jews, have you chosen which Christmas Day matinee you’re going to hit before downing the traditional repast of sesame chicken and moo goo gai pan? Nobody suffers through the holiday season more gallantly than you do, braving the annual onslaught of ho, ho, ho and jingle bells with…
Brandi Shigley could be our Westword MasterMind poster girl: Civic-minded and an ever-positive dynamo on the local style scene, the Fashion Denver founder lives up to the very definition of a MasterMind in a way that truly befits a member of the inaugural 2005 creative class. Back then, she was…
The lights are very bright on Broadway, and 2012 is shaping up to be the year that SoBo, with its growing lineup of independent shops and boutiques, second-hand emporiums and quirky dining spots, becomes a solid destination. The biggest news on the hip and funky stretch of Broadway between First…
You know you’re in trouble when you’re still shopping and Christmas is just a little more than a week away. Though the most organized folks have finished their gift-buying and are now focusing on tree-trimming, wrapping and baking, procrastinators can breathe easy: You can still snag hip, edgy, arty gifts…
If performance-on-the-fringe is your cup of tea, here’s a great way to support it — Silver and Gold: A Holiday Extravaganza, hosted by Band of Toughs at Naropa University at 7 p.m. Friday, focuses on a handful of qualifying Boulder fringe ensembles and their friends buy presenting three-minute, holiday-tinged introductions…
In the waning days of 2011, in the midst of holiday-season cheer, many folks turn to the movies — December blockbusters, to be sure, but also Oscar contenders. For Academy Award geeks, this is the season to both catch up with past and last-minutes entrants and look ahead, and if…
They’ve got butterflies, and they’ve got lights. Also, glowing scorpions — and in the museum’s Rainforest conservatory, “firefly” lights imitating the real thing. And you say you were looking for something different this holiday season? The halls of the Butterfly Pavilion and Insect Center, normally, um, a beehive of invertebrate…
Mare Trevathan, GerRee Hinshaw and Melanie Owen Padilla, the very funny and multi-talented trio behind Balls! A Holiday Spectacular, keep bringing the benefit variety show back every holiday season for some very valid reasons, one of the most important being that it serves an important urban niche: “It fills some…
The great songstress Lena Horne, who died in 2010 at the age of 92, was elegance personified; as lovely as an orchid, she could belt out a standard like nobody’s business and wasn’t afraid to be outspoken. She once said, “My life has been about surviving. Along the way I…
With one production under their belts in the new Laundry on Lawrence performance space, Brian Freeland and the LIDA Project are ready to meet more exacting artistic challenges of their own making. For instance, the second production of the season, Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, which opens tonight…
Just from its name, you can tell that the Boulder collaborative theater troupe Band of Toughs knows how hard it is for an experimental group to get a foothold out there — even in Boulder. And in the spirit of that sheer will and a good dose of brotherhood, they’re…
Phil Bender might be the heart and soul of the Pirate gallery, one of Denver’s oldest art cooperatives and a standard-bearer of the communal spirit, but 32 — the number of years Pirate’s been operating — is just another year to him. And he says he’ll be there, even if…
Nederland santera Catherine Robles Shaw usually sticks to the basics when creating her lovely retablos — plaques depicting the saints that are hand-carved and painted in a folk style that’s been handed down over hundreds of years in northern New Mexico and Colorado’s San Luis Valley. Contemporizing the old art…
The inimitable Westword cover boy Rick Griffith and his ink-spattered crew at Matter Studio normally toil with their sleeves rolled in a letterpress world that bridges classic craftsmanship and modern design, hand-running hip posters and other printed matter on the old-fashioned machinery of another time. But once a year, they…
We can all get behind Toys for Tots, the perennial U.S. Marines-sponsored holiday toy drive that provides gifts for kids who might not otherwise have anything under the tree to unwrap. But artists and hipsters like to do things in their own arty-hipsterish way. Going to Walmart to buy the…
Yes, Virginia, you still have time to make a holiday gift that comes straight from your heart. Or, if you’re the industrious type, you can swap your handiwork for something equally wonderful. AIGA Colorado and Fancy Tiger are hosting tonight’s Craftworks Trading Party, which mashes up the making and the…
