Arts & Entertainment

Though Denver's art scene is starting to catch a national buzz, local museums have had relatively little to do with that hometown success. They generally skip material with a made-in-Colorado stamp in favor of scanning the globe, looking for stuff to display from just about anywhere else. But there's a notable exception: The Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art has taken a different tack by focusing on the paintings, sculptures, pottery and prints that were done right here, with the best of the lot being as good as it gets. Named for the great mid-twentieth-century abstract painter Vance Kirkland, the museum is the brainchild of Hugh Grant, who is doing more to advance the cause of Colorado art than anyone else in town.

The 1200 block of Bannock Street is a difficult place to build something, not because the topography is difficult, but because the level of competition for architectural excellence is so fierce nearby. That makes it quite an accomplishment for the designers of the Denver Art Museum Administration Building, Denver's Roth Sheppard Architects, to have come up with something that doesn't just hold its own, but actually stands out among its heady neighbors. For the design, Jeff Sheppard conceived of a sleek horizontal mass with a constructivist handling of the fenestration. The chaste and smartly composed box is richly detailed with colored glass and stone panels. The building is absolutely perfect in its prominent location, and its many fine qualities remind us why Roth Sheppard is one of the most respected architectural firms in town.

The railroads were essential to Denver's development, and there has been a train station at 17th and Wynkoop since the 1880s. Union Station, in its present form, was built in 1914 by the renowned firm of Gove and Walsh. In the intervening years, time and the decline of passenger rail service led the building to fall into a genteel decline. But it was so beloved, and so important to the character of nearby LoDo, that it was rehabbed — a $54 million project that was finished last summer. The resulting design, by Tryba Architects and JG Johnson Architects, includes shops, restaurants and the new but old-fashioned Crawford Hotel, which boasts 112 luxury rooms, some of which have been decorated in a way that highlights the days when people traveled in Pullman sleeping cars. The spiffed-up station still serves passengers on trains, but it is also now connected to a huge bus and light-rail station that ties modern transportation back to the city's days of yore.

The Denver Public Library's system of branches features many little architectural gems, some of them dating back a century, and the newest one has taken a spot in this worthy tradition. Named for late Denver Chicano activist Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales, the smart-looking branch was done by Studiotrope Design Collective. There's a lively handling of the building's volumes; though basically rectilinear, some of those rectangles are set on the diagonal. The details are even livelier, and the most striking of these are the thin horizontal bars of color cladding the second floor and spilling down onto the first in places — which gives the whole thing a futuristic character.

As part of her job as cultural-affairs director for Denver Arts & Venues, Tariana Navas-Nieves oversees what visitors see and do at the city's malleable McNichols Building. But while wielding that directorial influence, Navas-Nieves began to feel that the McNichols needed more than just the physical makeover that will begin there when the doors temporarily close this coming August; it also needed an image makeover that would make its ongoing events and exhibitions seem just a bit more interesting. To that end, the building is hosting the McNichols Project, a quarterly event series that turns art viewing into an experience unlike those you'll find at other gallery spaces in town, as new shows come and go in the space. The program's successful first installment took place in February; the second event, scheduled for June 18, will riff on spring gallery shows about rock musicians of the '60s and art about play.

When Pagliacci's closed in 2012 after 66 years of serving Italian food, the fate of the funky old building where it was located was sealed. And while it's sad to see old landmarks disappear, at least some of their replacements are worth looking at — like the distinctive Lumina Apartments, which rose on the Pagliacci's site. Designed by Tres Birds Workshop, the building has a complex form stepping up from the corner, which is marked by a semi-circular wing with a tower tucked behind. Above that, the upper floors are set back in a sequence of three additional terraces. This dramatic massing is the perfect setting for unusual metal panels that have been pierced with geometric patterns. These panels are used for the balcony railings and screens and represent a clever take on traditional ironwork.

Mile High United Way's new headquarters, called the Morgridge Center, was designed by the Davis Partnership so that it would resemble the low profile of the nearby structures. And although it's an entire block long, it mimics the rhythm of buildings lined up close together — the mark of the existing built environment. Overall, it's been conceived as if it were not a single structure, but rather a row of storefronts. Completing the illusion is the fact that each separate mass is adorned with a different material and has a different setback and height from the others. Some have been done in blue mirrored glass, others in buff brick, and still others in enameled metal panels. Because of that, the building's size has been hidden in plain sight. This divide-and-conquer technique works artfully.

Designed by W.J. and Frank Edbrooke in 1882, the old Temple Emanuel building has been reincarnated many times, but it also spent several seasons boarded up and in disrepair. In the last year, however, the building was purchased by Adam Gordon, Rob Dick and Kathy Crawford and turned, floor by floor, into a thriving community of artist studios and even the Denver Zine Library. More recently, the artist/mentor youth program PlatteForum took over part of the space, and Processus, a member-driven workshop with community equipment and workspaces, opened to the public early in 2015.

The Art District on Santa Fe has gone through a number of changes over the years, but it bolted to the front of the pack in 2014, thanks to a trio of major additions. The first was the creation of Michael Warren Contemporary, which opened in the space once occupied by the storied Sandy Carson Gallery. Then Space Gallery moved into its own swanky, custom-made new building. And finally, the brand-new Point Gallery was unveiled in Space's former haunt. Although higher rents and higher taxes threaten all of the city's arts districts, Santa Fe, at least for now, still seems to be a great place to open new galleries.

Readers' choice: Art District on Santa Fe

At more than 22 feet high, Christopher Weed's monumental "Connected" is as tall as, or taller than, nearby buildings, and since it's on a raised circle in the middle of a roundabout, it seems to soar even higher. Made of 11,000 pounds of stainless steel, the piece takes the form of four giant jigsaw puzzle pieces, one red, the others silver. Weed is a Colorado Springs-based artist who likes to use ubiquitous items as sources for his sculptures; in addition to puzzle pieces, he's employed paper clips, spores and chairs. The puzzle pieces here have been fitted together, representing the relationship of the various neighborhoods in the area — something that connects "Connected" to Lakewood.

Readers' choice: "Connected" and "Hear the Train A Humming," by Bobby MaGee Lopez (tie)

Last summer, Denver's Birdseed Collective and the Urban Arts Fund worked with art couple Hari Paniker and Deepti Nair — best known for their haunting, backlit cut-paper dioramas — to add a mural to a growing project on the walls of the I-70 underpass at Lincoln Street and 46th Avenue in Globeville. The forty-foot image on the theme of "community" features Paniker's signature "monsteroid" character cradling a communal weaverbird nest to his chest and is rendered in a beautiful mosaic of jewel tones. It joins additional public murals by Birdseed and Jolt in beautifying the urban landscape under the highway. See more mural work by Hari and Deepti on a wall sponsored by New Belgium Brewing at 21st and Market streets, near Coors Field.

After the death of comedian/actor Robin Williams last year, we were hard-pressed to find new reasons to smile; the Colorado connection from his show Mork & Mindy made us feel like we'd lost a native son (even though the Mork character was from outer space). So imagine our surprise when, one morning last September, the usual drive along East 13th Avenue revealed a giant new mural on the side of the Buffalo Exchange store, featuring Mork and one simple word: "Smile." The store commissioned artists Danny Fernandez and Pat Milbery to pay tribute to a great entertainer, soothing our souls in the process.

In our city of wheels — cars, bikes, scooters, 'blades and skateboards — taking a walk has almost become an oddity. But the Colorado-owned business Walk2Connect works to remedy that situation by inviting people to just slow down. Part of the program is a series of community walks and tours, including City Safari: Guerrilla Art tours through the streets and back alleys of the Golden Triangle and Baker neighborhoods, the Art District on Santa Fe and the RiNo Art District in search of Denver's rich lode of street and graffiti art. Fully researched by walk leader Rachel Hultin (who says preparations require "a hell of a lot of walking and riding my bike"), no tour is ever the same twice — except for the part where the group ends up at a beer stop in a neighborhood pub. Use your feet: See Denver in a new light.

This past summer, it seemed as though beautiful, cosmopolitan, street-smart murals were blossoming everywhere, as teams of artists began painting walls throughout the city and along the Cherry Creek and Platte River greenways, thanks to funding from the city's Urban Arts Fund graffiti-prevention program(artsandvenuesdenver.com). Individual collaborators included everyone from student artists from VSA Arts to international artists such as Brazil's Bruno Novelli and Claudio Ethos, with a wide swath of local writers, fine artists and muralists carrying the most weight, transforming walls in Denver into the kind of graphically sophisticated, community-minded concrete-and-brick canvases we're used to seeing in cities around the world.

At times, the term "newscast" can seem like a misnomer, since so much of what fills too many thirty-minute shows doesn't actually qualify as news. But 7News swims against the tide. The anchor team of Anne Trujillo and Eric Kahnert do their best to keep the focus on events, incidents and happenings of significance, supplemented by an ace investigatory crew featuring John Ferrugia, Theresa Marchetta and Keli Rabon. On a nightly basis, 7News newscasts earn the name.

Readers' choice: 9News

Downtown Aurora Visual Arts has been providing at-risk kids from the neighborhood with mentoring and positive art experiences for more than twenty years. Late last year, DAVA hit the jackpot by being selected to receive the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award — a $10,000 grant awarded annually to just twelve programs across the nation — for its Job Training in the Arts wing, which teaches older kids art-related work skills. DAVA director Susan Jenson and thirteen-year-old student Boris Cochajil traveled to Washington, D.C., in November to receive the award directly from the hands of First Lady Michelle Obama, who also gave Cochajil a neck rub and some advice on how to loosen up.

The hoopla in February over the opening of the touring exhibit 1968 at History Colorado overshadowed El Movimiento: The Chicano Movement in Colorado, a locally produced 1968 side trip that debuted at the same time, but its impact is no less stunning. Put together with help from local movers — from muralist Emanuel Martinez and CHAC co-founder Carlos Santistevan to Chicano power couple Daniel and Maruca Salazar, who've participated in the Chicano-rights movement here from the very start — the exhibit traces an important and underappreciated part of Colorado history. Then, to add a splash of color to history, Maruca Salazar, director of the Museo de las Americas, organized Chicano, an art exhibit designed to wow viewers with wit, installations and imagery — and to convey a real sense of why the movement has never really gone away. Los Supersonicos (the artist tag team of Carlos Frésquez and Francisco Zamora), photographer Delilah Montoya and filmmaker/installation artist Daniel Salazar show the movement through artistic eyes; Salazar's film installation even gives viewers a chance to take a selfie against a moving backdrop of marching protesters. Both exhibits continue through May.

Dancer and RedLine resident Tara Rynders is on a global mission to bring her moves right out into the streets, and she's been doing it, country by country, since 2011, when she launched You & Me, an ongoing series of site-specific interactive performances that has been on the road ever since. The model is both simple and a little complicated, but it all comes together in a magical way: Last year, in a Denver-based version, guests moved from one individual, multidisciplinary, artist-led experience to another during an evening that kicked off with a dance in an empty lot and culminated in a community dinner that was an art experience all its own. (tararynders.net)

Processus is one of several projects that have opened in the newly renovated Temple building. It consists of a community workshop with a multi-use wood and sculpture shop, a darkroom, a clean room for printmaking and a small gallery space, well equipped with tools and equipment. And it's all available to members who pay a reasonable $100 monthly fee or people who purchase $200 punch cards good for eighteen hours of workshop time. The dream of Denver artist couple Viviane Le Courtois and Christopher Perez, who put months of hard work into fundraising for the project, Processus will soon add lectures, gallery shows, hands-on workshops and pop-up events.

Iraqi war veteran Curtis Bean found healing in art and yoga, and now he's helping other soldiers find peace through his Art of War Project. Bean founded the homegrown art-therapy program in 2013, through the Denver VA Medical Center. Last summer, the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post #1 purchased a space on Santa Fe Drive where Bean could expand his program to include yoga, photography classes and film nights. Everything is free for veterans and their families, and aspiring artists are given gallery space and a chance to show their work to viewers on First Fridays.

Denver's galleries and museums are top-notch, but art lovers can also view premier work at other venues. Many bars and coffee shops celebrate our town's talent, filling their walls with dedication and a careful eye. But Kaladi takes that up a notch, rotating the work of quality artists — whose pieces are often affordable and approachable — on a frequent basis and making the shop feel like as much like a pop-up art space as a coffee spot.

The original intention of Open Press: Celebrating 25 Years of Printmaking was to toast Denver's premier print-atelier master printer Mark Lunning. But the show also turned out to be a salute to the Denver art scene during the last quarter-century. Of the fifty artists included — which was a who's-who list — most still live and work in the Denver area. The enormous show was the keystone event of the inaugural Mo'Prints: Month of Printmaking, a biennial that alternates with the more well-established Month of Photography. It's hard to imagine how next year's print-event organizers will be able to top this riveting extravaganza dedicated to Open Press, a genuine Denver treasure.

The thing that immediately set Stephen Batura: Stream apart from its peers was the fact that once viewers were inside the gallery, they were completely surrounded by landscape paintings, mostly set along the Platte River. Interestingly, the exaggerated horizontal views depicted in the show's seventeen works didn't have continuous compositions, so the images didn't flow from one to the other. To further the point that each panel was a separate work, Batura gave each a distinct palette. The paintings are based on amateur photos by Charles Lillybridge that Batura found at History Colorado; he used the Lillybridge snapshots as preliminary "sketches" for the paintings but only loosely responded to the photos, changing their details at will. Using historic images as a source for these landscapes pushed Batura's work into the realm of conceptual realism — and created a truly extraordinary visual experience.

It turns out that landscapes depicting Alaska's Denali and the surface of Mars look a lot like those of the scenery in the West. That was confirmed by the marvelous Far North & Outer Space, which featured the work of Beau Carey and Lanny DeVuono. Carey, a former Coloradan who now lives in his native New Mexico, was represented by paintings of the frozen north that he conceived of during an Alaskan residency for the National Park Service. DeVuono, who moved to Denver from Washington State, has based her paintings on satellite photos of the Red Planet's surface. Though both artists captured the recognizable details of their chosen landscapes, they also conflated representation with abstraction, each in an individual way. It was these differences as much as the similarities that made Far North & Outer Space jell.

The large exhibition rooms at Robischon Gallery allow co-directors Jim Robischon and Jennifer Doran to mount large solos that are linked thematically. That was the case with these four shows, each of which examined the politics of the landscape. Chuck Forsman: Markers featured the famous Boulder artist's iconic paintings of the environment under siege. Next were the digital photo-based images of Elena Dorfman: Empire Falling. These montages depicted scenes that the California-based photographer encountered in a tour of abandoned quarries. Beyond was David Sharpe: Waterthread, which comprised a breathtaking array of large-format pinhole photos in color by local photographer Sharpe. And finally, there was Isabelle Hayeur: Flow, a video projection by a Canadian artist that depicts a landscape morphing from bucolic to industrial. One of Robischon's strong points is presenting programming that functions separately but works well together.

Natural resources are a major concern in the West. Water in particular can be scarce, and its actual and implied absence was the theme of Kevin O'Connell: Memories of Water. One of the region's most notable contemporary photographers, O'Connell is best known for his moody and often tiny photos of the plains, but in this show, he displayed monumental color photos pointing out that the plains were once a sea bottom. Thus, as dry as they are now, they still carry with them the memory of the water in the evenness of their topography. O'Connell's lens goes spontaneously to the horizon, just as it would if he were at sea. Despite the implicit political content of O'Connell's photos, they are mostly striking for their elegant minimalism.

The late abstract expressionist Clyfford Still was an irascible character — even going so far as to formally announce in 1951 that he was withdrawing from the art world. And he mostly did just that, refusing to exhibit his paintings for the rest of his life. A rare exception was the solo he put together himself for the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York, in 1959. Interestingly, Still included both his full-blown abstracts and his earlier surrealist compositions in that show. Since the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver owns nearly everything that was in that initial show, it made sense for museum director Dean Sobel to re-create it, and that's what he did with 1959: The Albright-Knox Art Gallery Exhibition Recreated. It was spectacular, conveying what Still was thinking when he was at the height of his powers.

Taos and Santa Fe were very cosmopolitan places from an art standpoint in the 1920s and '30s, and many of the artists who lived there or visited were well aware of recent developments in vanguard art overseas — developments such as abstraction. One of these artists, Raymond Jonson, went on to become one of the most significant abstractionists in the West. This fact was showcased in Raymond Jonson at Z Art Department, a densely installed show that focused on his later work; it was chock-full of colorful treasures, most of them revealing Jonson's commitment to hard-edged forms assembled into constructivist compositions. Z has highlighted a number of early modernists in the West, including Colorado's Herbert Bayer. The Jonson paintings have a definite relationship to Bayer's, which is no surprise, as they were working at the same time in adjacent states.

If the twentieth century was a time for celebrity artists (Picasso, Dalí and Warhol), then the 21st century is turning out to be a time for celebrities as artists (think Bowie, Björk and Franco). Myopia, still on view at MCA Denver, showcases forty years of work by Mark Mothersbaugh, a founder of the legendary new-wave group DEVO. But this is a different proposition altogether: Unlike other celebs who would be artists, Mothersbaugh was an artist before, during and after his rock-star years. Organized by MCA director Adam Lerner and laid out by Ben Griswold, Myopia is breathtaking in the incredible volume of works on view and their invariably high quality. Maybe that's why Lerner believes Mothersbaugh is one of the greatest creative forces of our time.

In 1973, budding curator Ron Otsuka took the helm of the Denver Art Museum's Asian Art department and immediately began working, through the solicitation of gifts, to bolster those parts of the collection that were strong and to shore up the weaker parts. Otsuka retired at the end of last year, but during his tenure, he brought the level of the collection way up. For his swan song, Otsuka organized At the Mirror: Reflections of Japan in 20th Century Prints, and nearly every one of the seventy prints included in the show was one that had come in during Otsuka's time at the museum. Japanese art was an important influence on modernism in the West, but in At the Mirror, Otsuka presented the opposite view, which was how Western modernism impacted Japan. It was a worthy farewell, as it revealed both his first-rate scholarship and his interest in plowing fresh curatorial ground.

In many ways, Matt O'Neill is Denver's original pop surrealist (not to mention perennial art bad boy), having played with the now-hip sensibility since way before it was cool. In honor of his notable place in that scene, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center director Blake Milteer, along with curator Joy Armstrong, mounted Matt O'Neill: Thrift Store Sublime. The show sampled O'Neill's well-known works, including his creepy hybrids of yearbook photos and Picasso portraits. There was also a wall covered in small, complex sendups of cocktail-napkin doodles done in India ink masquerading as ballpoint. Particularly compelling were O'Neill's parodies of abstractions done in dusty retro shades, one of which, "Town Without Pity," was subsequently donated by the artist to the CSFAC's permanent collection. It's currently on display on the center's main level.

Driving or walking around Denver, it's hard not to notice that the Latino graffiti scene is strong — as it has been for decades. Less well known is that some street kids with spray cans turn into artists. This was the inspiration for Outside in 303 at the Museo de las Americas. To mount the mini-blockbuster, museum director Maruca Salazar enlisted the help of Denver Art Museum curator Gwen Chanzit, and together they chose seven artists, highlighted by the mentor of the group, Jack Avila, who came up with a spectacular mural. Avila was joined by Josiah Lopez, Victoriano Rivera, Javier Fidelis Flores, Gabriel Salazar, Josh Rogers (aka Kans 89) and Mario Zoots, who is one of Denver's hottest emerging artists.

In the early years of feminist art, abstraction was seen as being part of the patriarchy and was therefore rejected by many women. The trouble with that idea was that in reality, many women were creating abstracts, including the lesbian feminist activist and artist who was the subject of Harmony Hammond: Becoming/Unbecoming Monochrome. This magisterial show was clearly the high point of a year's worth of exhibits on the theme of women in the arts at RedLine. Put together by guest curator and queer theorist Tirza True Latimer, the show focused on work Hammond had done in the '70s based on American Indian baskets, as well as related — and stunning — recent paintings, many of them the size of billboards. In the language of the movement, Hammond liberated abstraction from its domination by men.

Mark Brasuell was a member of Edge for more than two decades before defecting last year to rival co-op Spark. Before he decamped, however, he gave over his Edge solo slot to a group show that he curated. It included four of Colorado's most noteworthy abstract artists, all of whom happen to be women: Sue Simon, known for her science-based abstractions, which often include formulas and equations; Terry Maker, who embraces the use of unusual materials, in this case sawed stacks of painted canvas; Ania Gola-Kumor, a painter working in an abstract-expressionist vocabulary; and Virginia Maitland, a master of color-field abstraction. It's interesting that Brasuell would select these particular artists, as their varied approaches are admittedly distinct — but he established the roster based solely on his admiration of and respect for each.

Mark Brasuell was a member of Edge for more than two decades before defecting last year to rival co-op Spark. Before he decamped, however, he gave over his Edge solo slot to a group show that he curated. It included four of Colorado's most noteworthy abstract artists, all of whom happen to be women: Sue Simon, known for her science-based abstractions, which often include formulas and equations; Terry Maker, who embraces the use of unusual materials, in this case sawed stacks of painted canvas; Ania Gola-Kumor, a painter working in an abstract-expressionist vocabulary; and Virginia Maitland, a master of color-field abstraction. It's interesting that Brasuell would select these particular artists, as their varied approaches are admittedly distinct — but he established the roster based solely on his admiration of and respect for each.

Frank Sampson: New Paintings highlighted recent efforts by the well-known eighty-something Boulder artist, who, despite the rise of abstraction and conceptualism, has devoted his entire output to figurative painting. But his approach to his depictions of people, animals and birds has been anything but traditional, instead falling into the magic-realist camp. Sampson has created an oddball body of work that's one part storybook and one part dream — with some of those dreams being nightmares. There are weird hybrids of animals with human qualities, and frequent appearances by scary-looking jesters and clowns. Set in Old Masterish surroundings, these characters are either whimsical and childlike or ominous and threatening. It might not be possible to teach an old painter new tricks, but it's also impossible to keep one like Sampson down.

The new Point Gallery, the brainchild of co-directors Frank Martinez and Michael Vacchiano, specializes in contemporary representational art. And that was the subject of David Menard: Urban Grotesque. To create his pieces, the artist began by scanning photos — both his and those of others — and then used Photoshop to combine different images into single ones. The resulting computer files, which were titanic in size, were printed, then attached to boards and sealed in resin. The results were prints that read like paintings, with Menard being particularly adept at capturing atmospheric effects. Most strikingly, he used photos to push representational imagery to its abstract breaking point.

One of Denver's most outrageous sculptors was the author of a surprisingly somber show, Michael Brohman: Horizons. The standout, "Borders," was made of salvaged twelve-foot-long boards that Brohman stacked up in order to reveal the ghosts of lines from the lathe strips that were once attached to them, and from the joints between the boards, which also formed lines. These stripes represent prison uniforms and even bars to Brohman. On top of the stack, Brohman installed a monumental bronze element that comprised scores of simple armless human figures that face the viewer but seem to be held in place as though behind a fence. The piece is meant to refer to imprisonment and evoke the Holocaust, the deportation of immigrant children across the southern border, and other events in history. With this show, Brohman has taken a new, more contemplative tack.

The Arvada Center's Collin Parson and Kristen Bueb have put together one great exhibit after another, but their finest effort to date has been the combination of shows that included Unbound: Sculpture in the Fields, for which they tapped the expertise of Cynthia Madden Leitner of the Museum of Outdoor Art. Not only is it a cogent survey of some of the top abstract and conceptual sculptors active in Colorado, but it also marks the artistic activation of a formerly empty lot next to the center — which appears to be the perfect space for giant sculptures. The works will remain there through September.

Longtime Colorado artist Emilio Lobato spent the last few years caring for his terminally ill wife, Darlene Sisneros, who ultimately died. Afterward, sadness over her loss was combined with doubts about whether or not he had done enough to help her. The result of these contemplations was Emilio Lobato: The Measure of a Man, a spectacular solo comprising some sixty works. Taking a literal approach to the show's title, many of the pieces incorporated measuring devices, such as yardsticks and rulers. While the signature pieces subliminally conveyed the fact that the artist was healing from his grief, the dark palettes of the last few years were eventually replaced by vivid color schemes, as if Lobato was lightening his spirits by brightening up his art.

Readers' choice: Lauri Lynnxe Murphy

The swanky new neo-modernist building that houses Michael Burnett's Space Gallery provides the ideal setting for the kind of neo-modernist abstraction that is the venue's mainstay. For the ambitious Natural Surroundings, Burnett invited ten artists from Colorado and elsewhere, most of whom did paintings that employed encaustic, a paint made by mixing pigments with wax, resulting in a viscous substance that may be applied in extremely thick layers. When dried, the encaustic is translucent, and that quality, combined with the material's thickness, lent these paintings a rich and intriguing three-dimensionality.

Readers' choice: Momentum, Space Gallery

Conceptual art is usually more about thought than beauty. Not so for Dmitri Obergfell, who creates credible idea-pieces that are also gorgeous. On an intellectual plane, all of the offerings in Yinfinity: New Works by Dmitri Obergfell at Gildar Gallery were based on ancient or familiar symbols like the yin-yang circle, or the double profile of a bust of Janus. What made them beautiful was the artist's use of a custom-car finish called interference paint which, once applied in a mirror-smooth layer, caused the pieces to actually change color as viewers passed by them. It was a tremendously cool effect.

When longtime Denver art dealer Robin Rule died last year, a trio of faithful assistants — Valerie Santerli, Rachel Beitz and Hillary Morris — decided to resurrect her namesake gallery and carry on her legacy. The new Rule Gallery, inside Hinterland, is small and informal, but it meets the minimal requirements for an exhibition space for first-rate art. One of the earliest shows there was Joseph Coniff (in parenthesis), an elegant affair made up of the artist's chic-looking post-minimal paintings. Though his color choices were unnatural, the paintings conceptually evoked landscapes, as each was divided into three broad horizontal bars that easily stood in for foregrounds, mid-grounds and backgrounds. This was in spite of the fact that the Coniffs were utterly flat, with no illusion of depth whatsoever. Because of the high quality of its presentations, the new Rule is a worthy successor to the old one.

The art of New Mexico and Colorado has been intimately intertwined for a century — an affair that continued with Layered Perspectives at Michael Warren Contemporary. The show focused on three abstract artists: Angela Berkson of New Mexico and Teresa Booth Brown and Stanley Bell, both from Colorado. Curator Mike McClung presented each artist in depth. Berkson employed arrow shapes mounted on the wall that were potentially kinetic, since they could be spun. The Browns — updated versions of classic abstract expressionism done in exaggerated horizontal formats — were sublime. Bell embraced a more-is-more approach, covering the surfaces of his paintings with as many visual flourishes as possible and then inserting little toy figurines here and there. Each artist staked out a different abstract territory, and the resulting combination economically expressed how persistent an interest in abstraction is here in the West.

For Angela Beloian: In Technicolor, the Boulder-based artist created a body of sharp-looking paintings and screen prints that riffed on minimalism, abstract surrealism, psychedelic art and op art simultaneously. Using flowing hard-edged lines, Beloian created interlocking shapes that are filled in by shifting shades of color that overlap. And what marvelous colors she used. The relationship between them suggested the illusion of light and shadow, lending these utterly simple compositions an unexpected three-dimensionality. The Beloians looked very 1960s-'70s retro, like they had come right off the set of a Star Trek episode. But if the artist's aesthetic sensibility recalls the past, her methods are thoroughly up to date: Her preliminary studies were done on her iPhone.

Tobias Fike is best known for performance-based videos and photos done with collaborator Matthew Harris, but for the elegant meta-modernist Tobias Fike: Then and now and then, Fike focused on himself and his place in the universe. In the sculpture "My Own Night," for instance, a cube covered in sheets of black fiberboard was pierced with tiny holes through which points of light shone in an arrangement that corresponded to the position of the stars in the sky over his birthplace on the night he was born. The showstopper was "Accumulation," a pyramid of internally lit open cardboard boxes which were also pierced, reflecting stars that are 38 light-years away — Fike's age. The conflation of the personal and the universal made this show very smart, but it was Fike's eye for formal elegance that made it great.

Paper provides the base for watercolors, drawings and pastels, and it's a key component of collages. For Cecily Cullen, the creative director at Metropolitan State University's Center for Visual Art, it also works for sculptures and bas-reliefs. In the ambitious Paper Work, Cullen welcomed many artists who work with paper, including Melissa Jay Craig, Jennifer Ghormley, Anne Hallam, Bovey Lee, Diane Martonis, Dawn McFadden, Mia Pearlman, Susan Porteous and Liz Miller. Though everything was breathtaking, especially given the meticulous craft skills necessary to manipulate the fragile material, it was Miller who created the exhibit's tour de force, a room-sized installation called "Splendiferous Jungle Warfare" that was made especially for the show.

Trees, shrubs, bushes, flowers and cacti have always been the true stars of the Denver Botanic Gardens, but the institution added sculpture shows a few years ago — and the idea has allowed for one triumph after another. This past year it was Chihuly, featuring monumental art-glass installations by Dale Chihuly, the internationally famous glass artist. Each work was made up of hundreds of separate blown-glass elements; the resulting compositions found the perfect foils in the DBG's 24 acres of foliage and water features. The show attracted more than a million visitors, setting an attendance record for the DBG. The cherry on top was the announcement before the show closed that Robert and Judi Newman and the Kemper family had come up with about $1 million to purchase "Icicle Tower — 'Colorado,'" an eleven-foot-tall tower rising from the pond behind the historic Waring House. The piece comprises some 700 glass spikes in red, orange and yellow — inspired, Chihuly says, by Colorado's famous sunsets.

Royalty, movie stars and the fabulously wealthy are good for something: jewelry. That fact was highlighted in Brilliant: Cartier in the 20th Century, which featured exquisitely beautiful things like ruby-encrusted clocks and diamond-encrusted tiaras among a raft of other luxurious bibelots made by Cartier. The remarkable show was organized under the direction of the DAM's Margaret Young-Sanchez, who relied on her lifelong love of jewelry, her familiarity with the exhibition of artifacts, and a special relationship with the Cartier Foundation. Made up of 200 objects, Brilliant was something of a visual marathon. The key revelation of the show was not that people of means love jewelry — we knew that — but rather that Cartier was often on the cutting edge of vanguard design, something Young-Sanchez underscored in her picks.

Photographer Suzanne Heintz and her too-perfect mannequin family, including husband Chauncey and daughter Mary Margaret, have been the subjects of an ongoing project called Life Once Removed for fifteen years. Somehow, Heintz's ideal family has a way of always falling to pieces, as it did last summer at a failed wedding ceremony caught on camera; more recently, things got hinky during an awkward holiday shopping spree, which Heintz both videotaped and shot for a one-of-a-kind Christmas card, wherein the family walks by a shop window decorated for the holidays with mannequins that look disturbingly like themselves.

Although he pens comics for Westword every week, that's just a fraction of Noah van Sciver's creative life; he's also published tiny zines, a full-fledged Blammo comic book and a well-received Fantagraphics graphic novel, The Hypo. He's now moved on to Saint Cole, which tells the ordinary story of an ordinary man — the kind of guy who supports his family by working as a pizza-delivery boy and blots out his misery with drugs and alcohol. Van Sciver has a drawing style that evokes everything from old-time classic comic strips to the skilled sketches of Robert Crumb, but his storytelling is all his own.

Jill Hadley Hooper's sensitive illustrations appear on book covers and in national magazines and newspapers, and her paintings get show time at Goodwin Fine Art. But they were also tailor-made for the pages of Patricia MacLachlan's The Iridescence of Birds, a picture book released last fall about the young Henri Matisse and early influences on his career as a painter. Hooper skillfully meshes the sights and experiences of the artist's boyhood in northern France with the spirit and exuberant color of his later works in her block-print illustrations.

While war in the Middle East seems unwinnable, a book that profiles three women who've served in the National Guard won a major victory for a Colorado author. Last year Helen Thorpe, whose Just Like Us took the Colorado Book Award for Creative Nonfiction in 2009, published Soldier Girls: The Battles of Three Women at Home and at War — and not only did Thorpe's efforts earn her good reviews and a segment on Jon Stewart's Daily Show, but Time named it the magazine's top non-fiction pick for 2014. "The mobilization of the U.S. National Guard to Afghanistan and Iraq is one of the most remarkable chapters in the war on terror, and Thorpe's reporting draws on the experiences of three female soldiers to illustrate it," Time said. Illustrate it, and remind us all that no matter how distant the battlefield, war can hit very close to home.

Jeff Miller's grandfather never talked much about how he happened to meet Jeff's grandmother while he was assisting civilian relief efforts in German-occupied Belgium during the Great War. That reticence stirred Miller's writerly curiosity about the little-known exploits of the American-led Commission for Relief in Belgium, which went to ingenious and extraordinary lengths to prevent the starvation of millions trapped behind enemy lines during the long, bloody conflict. Thirty years ago, Miller inherited many of his grandfather's CRB papers and his grandmother's diary, which offered fresh insights into that grim struggle. That led to a sprawling historical novel, a project that Miller eventually shelved, and now to something even more ambitious: a three-volume nonfiction account detailing the biggest relief effort the world had ever seen, self-published through Millbrown Press. The first volume, Behind the Lines, showed up in bookstores just in time to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the founding of the CRB on October 22, 1914. Hungry for a good read? Miller delivers.

Aurora isn't messing around when it comes to the arts, something it proved a year ago by naming Slam Nuba veteran (and a member of the group's 2011 National Poetry Slam champion team) Jovan Mays as its first civic poet laureate. Mays grew up in Aurora with a mind for the power of community; as a performer, he's electric, and his enthusiasm for spoken word is easily shared with others on a human level that cuts through the barriers of poetic hogwash. He'll hold the post through December 2016, and one thing's for sure: He'll be hard to replace when his time is up.

Uche Ogbuji won a 2014 Colorado Book Award for the poetry he penned in Ndewo, Colorado. Born in Nigeria, Ogbuji traveled the planet before landing in Boulder to work as a computer engineer and raise a family. In his poetry, he blends his love for the environment and the Rocky Mountain region, his scientific know-how and his passion for language, telling concise stories that delight both the left and right sides of the brain.

Slam poetry is often spoken in tones that reflect the meaning of the words being recited, and competition judges take delivery and enunciation into consideration. ASL Slam isn't audible, however, because it's in American Sign Language. Every month, the local chapter of this national group hosts a slam at Hamburger Mary's as a way for literary artists in the deaf community to perform and promote their work. Competitors slam, rap and rhapsodize with their hands, taking the art of slamming to a whole new level.

Author Kent Haruf, author of luminous novels about life on Colorado's eastern plains, died last fall, and this year, the Denver Center presented Benediction, dramatized by Eric Schmiedl, the third of Haruf's novels the company has staged. Set in the fictional town of Holt, it tells the story of Dad Lewis, an old man dying with unresolved wrongs and griefs on his conscience. It didn't hurt that the estimable Mike Hartman returned to town to play the role with his customary guts, talent and integrity. A web of ancillary characters brought the small, fictional town of Holt to life, and the result was a sense of tribute, peace and, yes, benediction.

An original piece created by the company itself, Naughty Bits sets up three stories, all involving the famed Roman statue of Hercules — the one that was lovingly restored in the eighteenth century except for one teeny part: his penis. There's a wealthy mansion owner and his sexy, satiric mistress, an eccentric art historian, and a romance novelist who has some problems with real men but is working on a book in which a Lady Louisa falls in love with the statue. These characters all inhabit different time spheres, but their worlds eventually intersect, to insanely comic effect. No one can be as smart, inventive, entertaining and original as Buntport at its best — and the company is at its best here.

With its complex set requirements, numerous characters and thoughtful plot, Ambition Facing West is an ambitious choice for a small company, and BETC did it proud. The play deals with three generations of an immigrant family: Stipan, who leaves Croatia for the States before World War I and marries a fellow immigrant from Italy; his daughter Alma, who changes before our eyes from an idealistic youngster to a no-nonsense businesswoman; and Alma's bored and very American teenage son. The play touched your emotions even as it made you think.

Tarnished by a thousand mediocre high-school and community productions, Fiddler on the Roof seemed a lazy choice for BDT, but under Michael J. Duran's direction, this version was revelatory. You remember Tevye, the poor milkman with five daughters who struggles to keep afloat, the guy who sings "If I Were a Rich Man"? And who all too often comes across like a twinkly-eyed Jewish Santa Claus? This Tevye had depth. And so did everyone else in the talented cast. The staging was great and the songs so well sung that you remembered just how brilliant they are. Best of all, this Fiddler managed to be funny and entertaining while still acknowledging the sorrowful historical currents beneath the folktale.

The daughter of a professional violinist, Laura is a talented basketball player, all jock and uninterested in music. Needless to say, her dad doesn't appreciate her talent. As Laura, Kate Berry Mann looked like an athlete and had all the sports moves down pat, including a complicated sequence in which her thumping basketball illustrated the musical terms by which her father lives: She dribbled, bounced and passed as he called out: Pizzicato. Arco. Fortissimo. Mann was called on to grow up during the course of the show; she was completely convincing as a gangly teenager and just as convincing as a hard-voiced, take-no-prisoners high-school coach, all the while doing justice to Laura's inner life — the defiance and resignation, the baffled longing for her father's approval.

After creating many luminous roles, Karen LaMoureaux vanished from local stages for several years. So it was a delight to see her back for the role of Josephina, an Italian immigrant trying to raise her daughter and support her husband in a country whose culture she found baffling, in Ambition Facing West. LaMoureaux gave this relatively small role a sad, bitter power that made it memorable.

Dave Belden played John Starr — the narrowly focused and sometimes unpleasant violinist whose obsession with music blinds him to his living daughter's hunger for affection — with quiet conviction in Charles Ives Take Me Home. He also played the violin so beautifully that the instrument itself spoke, and man and music became one, lending depth and intensity to a transcendent script. It's rare these days to leave a theater feeling that you've actually heard the inexpressible expressed, but that's what Belden did for Curious audiences.

Jim Hunt always works with intelligence, insight, warmth and charm. But in playing the ghostly composer in Charles Ives Take Me Home, Hunt outdid himself. He was funny and wry; he was soulful. He even managed to mock-play the piano convincingly in a musical duet with genuine musician Dave Belden — a feat much harder than most non-actors realize. Most of all, his Ives was a generous font of wisdom, insight and kindness.

Christy Montour-Larson's shows are always worth seeing, but something particularly magical happens when this skilled director takes on a play about art. She did this three years ago with Red, about painter Mark Rothko, and again last year. Beautifully staged and acted, Charles Ives Take Me Home is all about music and composition. In performance, you could feel the subtlety and specificity with which Montour-Larson worked with her actors to explore the script and bring it to vivid life.

Directed by Bruce Sevy, Animal Crackers was a romp of a musical, a trifle, a bright, funny nothing full of bad puns, visual jokes and silly stunts. And between the elaborate set, the innumerable costumes, the dippy props, the crazy sound requirements and — not least — the very large cast, it must have taken a zillion painstaking rehearsals to perfect the timing and get the jokes delivered for maximum impact. The cast, which included Jonathan Brody, Jonathan Randell Silver and Jim Ferris impersonating the Marx Brothers, worked together brilliantly, each member knowing exactly when to hog the spotlight and when to give it up, maintaining a high energy level and responding with open appreciation to the others' antics.

The lead in Next to Normal is complex: Diana suffers from bipolar disorder. She's intelligent and funny, but also self-pitying and sometimes nasty as hell. Margie Lamb gave us all the character's complexities in one prickly, scintillating package. She wasn't afraid of being unlikable when necessary, but she also made the audience pity and understand Diana's suffering. Lamb also unleashed a fine, supple voice that was easily up to the difficult score.

As Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, Wayne Kennedy gave the comedy its due while also showing the profound sadness beneath Tevye's jovial exterior. He was larger than life, full of passion and vitality, sometimes enraged and sometimes thoughtful, and — as he bargained with God, bickered with his wife, and devised an outrageous plan to free his oldest daughter from an arranged marriage — funny as hell.

The role of Engineer, the profiteering pimp of Miss Saigon, was written for a man, and you could say that Arlene Rapal completely reinvented it. Her version came across as an archetypal figure, a sort of mash-up of the amoral Old Lady of Leonard Bernstein's Candide, who survived through cunning no matter how much trouble she found herself in; the salacious Emcee of Cabaret; and the heartless, endlessly bargaining, titular proto-capitalist of Brecht's Mother Courage. Rapal has terrific poise and presence, and her rendition of the satiric "American Dream" was the highlight of the production.

Playing Donkey, who insists on befriending a reluctant Shrek, Tyrell Rae was a hoot. He posed and preened, whined and threatened, cajoled and charmed, sang his lungs out and, with his cute little hooves, almost trotted away with the entire show. No matter how silly his antics, Donkey always had our sympathy in Shrek, and also somehow maintained a weird off-kilter dignity.

A literary S&M fest involving whips and leather; a one-man piece about sexual predation, rage, forgiveness and understanding; an examination of the very personal way a Boston woman experiences class, power and powerlessness; a wry comedy about two weary fortyish losers falling in love; and a brilliant play about a dead composer (Venus in Fur, All the Rage, Good People, Lucky Me and Charles Ives Take Me Home, respectively) — these were the offerings from Curious Theatre Company in the past year, as the company reaffirmed its primacy in producing fascinating new works, well-acted and mounted with care, passion and integrity.

Readers' choice: Curious Theatre Company

One of those evenings of theater you felt blessed for having experienced, Charles Ives Take Me Home evoked thoughts and emotions you couldn't put into words. A beautiful script, beautifully brought to life by the director and her actors, transcendent and filled with music, the play tells the story of a violinist profoundly influenced by the work of composer Charles Ives and the daughter who, to the violinist's distress, is a dedicated jock. Ives himself makes a ghostly appearance. The play left the audience so entranced that a few members actually resented the applause that broke the silence of that crystalline final moment.

Readers' choice: The Book of Mormon

Rick Padden's Beets isn't a perfect play, but it's an intelligent one that deals with an important and generally forgotten historical topic. During WWII, German prisoners were held in rural Colorado, and many worked on local farms. Set in Berthoud, Beets explores the tense relationships between the locals and the prisoners — in particular, between farmer Fred Hunt, whose son is fighting overseas, and a polite young German who's beginning to take an interest in Hunt's daughter, Anna. Padden has many quietly wise things to say here about rural life, war and forgiveness.

A white suit, worn with a pale lavender shirt and a yellow bow tie. A patterned, slightly darker lavender dress that gently skims slim hips and beautifully complements the shirt. Long strings of beads, men in braces, a woman's cloche hat and a man's boater. Clare Henkel's costumes for The Great Gatsby were so elegantly form-flattering, and moved so beautifully with the actors wearing them, that you half wished for a return to the 1920s.

Exhibition-goers in Denver have gotten used to seeing the work of internationally famous artists, from van Gogh to Warhol. Rarely are the examples that wind up here the best efforts of those artists, however. Instead, we often get the middling if still noteworthy exemplars. Such was not the case with Modern Masters: 20th Century Icons From the Albright-Knox Gallery. Not only did the show include some of the biggest names in art show business — Gorky, Pollock, Motherwell and Rothko — but they were each represented by one of their most important works.

Readers' choice: Whales: Giants of the Deep, Denver Museum of Nature & Science

A pilot who's been carrying out air strikes in Iraq and loving the solitary blue of the sky she inhabits is grounded when she becomes pregnant, then tasked with launching drone attacks from the safety of an air-conditioned trailer in the Nevada desert. Between the hours of excruciating boredom she endures and the vivid images of the dead and dying recorded by the drone camera, she begins to break down. Grounded, a brilliantly written, tough-minded exploration of the effect of war on a particular woman, couldn't be more timely, as the issue of PTSD becomes more and more pressing and veterans' organizations discover that the illness is affecting drone operators as well as soldiers in the field. Laura Norman turned in a brilliant, nerve-shattering performance as the Pilot.

Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1 is filled with complex and fascinating characters, and one of the most fascinating, at least as played by Geoffrey Kent, is Hotspur. Though tough as nails, this hothead was as much joker as warrior. He was both tender and rough with the wife he loved, he punned relentlessly and fully appreciated his own wit, and he was willing to attack any male he encountered for any slight — big or small, real or imagined.

Hotspur's wife, Lady Kate, is usually played in Henry IV, Part 1 as a gentle charmer, and Jamie Ann Romero was indeed charming and gentle in the role. But underneath the charm, this was a strong-minded woman, more than capable of keeping the bull-headed husband she loved in check.

In the ironically named Lucky Me, Tom, played by Erik Sandvold, comes to the aid of Sara, a woman who claims to suffer from electromagnetic hypersensitivity, after she's fallen from a roof. He soon discovers that lightbulbs pop and fizzle in Sara's vicinity and that she hasn't had a hot meal for over twenty years because she can't handle a stove, knife or microwave. Tom, who works for the TSA at the airport, is determined to rescue Sara, even as her ailments threaten his own health and sanity. Sandvold was wonderfully strong and sympathetic — and also appealingly goofy — in this story of two fortyish people who've been beaten down by life but still entertain a flicker of hope that love is possible.

The character of Jane is at the heart of This, a bittersweet comedy. Widowed, she's having trouble coping with her young daughter and life in general — and she hasn't yet dealt with her husband's cremains. Jane is brittle, moody, cynical and quick to anger. It takes a complex actor to bring a complex woman like this to life; fortunately, Jessica Robblee is one of the most multi-layered performers we have. She gave a wired, vibrating performance in the role, every now and then allowing us just a glimpse of the real feeling behind Jane's defensiveness.

Josh Hartwell isn't one of those larger-than-life actors: no booming voice, no huge presence. His work is quiet, intelligent and subtle, and he slips into a role rather than overpowering it. All this made him perfect for the character Alan in This. Because he's a mnemonist and can remember entire conversations verbatim, Alan's become the chronicler for his group of friends, a charge that makes him a little crazy. He's anxious and neurotic in general, but, as played by Hartwell, also unexpectedly compassionate.

Having dressed up for a costume party, Sonia, played by Amelia White, transforms from a down-at-the-heels, enraged and self-pitying nobody in Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike into a magnificent sequin-clad dowager. She's going to the party as the Wicked Queen as played by Maggie Smith on her way to the Oscars, she explains. White's utter delight in herself is glorious, and so infectious you can't help sharing it. The woman is full of piss and vinegar, and she may just be ready for love.

For our money, this smaller-scale version of Next to Normal was more moving and involving than the Broadway production that came through a while back: You cared more about the characters; the plot made more sense; the songs came across more clearly. Director Nick Sugar couldn't have found a stronger cast for this musical drama about a family torn apart by a mother's mental illness, and he coaxed wonderful performances from all of his actors.

Professor Bernard Barrow (aka Jeremy Make) explains the passion for William Blake that led him and his colleague Ellen Barker (Amanda Berg Wilson) to make love naked on the campus quad, an act that threatens their jobs. For him, Blake's poetry is pure, ecstatic celebration. Ellen, fighting a private torment, has a fiercer take. She sees Blake's message as "Fuck someone. Fuck someone hard." This is a very smart play. Written in verse, it takes well-deserved digs at academia while also asking viewers to contemplate a mystical poet they may not have thought about since high school. It takes two very talented actors to give the ideas emotional weight and make the verse sound like natural speech, while still coming across as funny, bewildered and very real human beings.

The literati are pretty much guaranteed to appear for each summer's three productions at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival. And since professors often assign the shows to their students, you'll see lots of bright young people there as well. It all makes for a pleasant and congenial vibe in the lovely open-air Mary Rippon Theatre. But professors also go because these shows can open up new interpretations or illuminate a facet they think they know by heart. It's fun overhearing or joining their discussions at intermission — and just as much fun to listen when they take a poor production apart scene by scene.

The Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company realized early on that many top scientists live and work in town, and director Stephen Weitz decided to reach out to them — for both audience augmentation and creative symbiosis. He staged science writer Dava Sobel's fascinating play about Copernicus, And the Sun Stood Still, last year, and has also formed a creative partnership with the Fiske Planetarium through a grant from the Boulder Arts Commission. Local author William C. Kovacsik's Vera Rubin: Bringing the Dark to Light will be shown at the Fiske — with astonishing visual effects — and then taken to local schools. Judging by their numbers at even non-science-related shows, Boulder scientists appreciate the effort.

You want the kids to learn to love theater; you want to stimulate their pliant young minds with something more interesting than the usual children's-theater fare. Most of all, you'd like them out of your hair for a couple of hours while you enjoy a grown-up play. The Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company is offering on-site theater classes led by artists for grade-school-aged children during certain of this season's performances. Everyone has a good time, and the entire family gets to talk theater afterward.

All the world really is a stage when you take your theater to the trail. At a Theatre-Hikes performance, participants are greeted by a trail leader and guided along a moderate hike to the first scene of a play. Viewers kick back and enjoy the act, then pack their seats and trek to the next scene. Last year, the company saw its widest age range yet — 1 to 92 — at thirteen sold-out shows. This summer's show, a fairy-tale mash-up, premieres in June, and the fall offering, 10 Ways to Survive the Zombie Apocalypse, runs through September and October.

Known for its unusual adaptations and quirky original comedies, the Buntport crew brings innovative, affordable entertainment to the metro area. And for theater-loving families, there's Duck Duck Dupe. On the second Saturday of each month, a five-person Buntport ensemble performs three themed stories. Two are true, the other is false, and for a fun, game-like spin on traditional theater, audience members are asked to figure out which story is the phony.

If you buy tickets for a Catamounts production early, you'll be amazed at the low prices for the company's brain-teasing, hip and funny shows; some seats go for as low as $12. And you never find yourself seated miles and miles from the action, either, because the troupe performs in small venues where every seat affords a good view. Even better: If you book for certain nights, you'll be fed after the show — not just crackers, cheese and cheap wine, but serious, delicious snacks like tiny croissants or macaroons accompanied by craft beer or specialty cocktails.

The Garner Galleria is the place to sit back with a drink in hand, ease off your shoes under your seat and catch some laughs. Tickets are reasonably affordable, ranging from $29 to $35. Second City pops up now and then, along with Forbidden Broadway, a barbed and clever take on big, bloated Broadway musicals. And we always look forward to the next visit from Tupperware Queen Dixie Longate.

Someone at Vintage Theatre is doing wonders with the women's bathroom. It's always beautifully and seasonally decorated — not to mention never out of soap and necessaries. Beyond that, you'll find small vases of flowers, along with hand cream and other toiletries placed in artful white-paper origami boots by each sink.

The venerable Avenue Theater has undergone some changes recently, but it's still the place to go for funny, and it's still as warm, grungy, unpretentious and welcoming as ever, with the booze flowing freely among happily lubricated audience members.

Two recent shows at the Edge Theater were the profanity-laced The Motherfucker With the Hat and Cock, a triangle involving two gay guys and a woman. These titles might not raise an eyebrow in some places, but tough, gritty, on-the-edge plays are rare in the suburbs, and that's where Edge is pushing the limits. And it's working. People who might be more accustomed to ancient musicals or Neil Simon revivals are filling seats here night after night.

There's nothing like Buntport's work anywhere else in Colorado. The members write their own scripts, many of them purely brilliant, and they've evolved a style and approach all their own — sort of experimental, sort of Eastern European, bare-bones but sophisticated, smart and insanely silly.

Several local companies make a point of producing new works, either frequently or on an occasional basis. But Curious Theatre Company is at the forefront here. Having staked out a claim to contemporary work from the beginning, Curious has produced many regional premieres, and the company surprises us year after year with work by playwrights we've never heard of, or plays that we've read but figured would never show up in Denver.

Sparkling, creative shows should be paired with creative eats for those of us who like to nibble at intermission — not ancient Kit Kat bars and stale chips. The Colorado Shakespeare Festival has figured this out, and although it has an unfair advantage — it has access to the University of Colorado's catering service — it's nice to get a sandwich or a fine, chewy brownie along with all the intellectual nourishment.

We guarantee you've never experienced theater like this before. Every year, Senior Housing Options puts on a play in the lobby of the antique and elegant Barth Hotel, one of fourteen residences it maintains for elderly and disabled people in the state. In the past, the proceeds have been used to provide emergency kits, to upgrade technology or for capital projects. The plays are always directed and acted by some of Denver's top talent, and the venue adds an indescribable richness and resonance to the entire evening.

This isn't New York City, but the ticket prices for musicals are still high in Denver and can leave you stranded in the farthest reaches of a cavernous house. At the Littleton Town Hall Arts Center, however, you'll pay $20 to $40 for a quality show in a far more intimate setting where there isn't really a bad seat in the house. What you lose in spectacle and special effects, you'll gain in intimacy and immediacy — a great trade.

Su Teatro's Tony Garcia widened the scope of his work as a playwright with his 2011 collaboration with journalist Sonia Nazario on a play based on her well-received account of the Honduran migrants who ride atop trains in dangerous company in search of the promise of a better life in El Norte. Retooled in 2014, the play captures every detail of the trip, right down to the technologically rendered rocking and screeching of the train cars. Garcia thought the gripping real-life story was the right play to showcase when the troupe was invited to perform at Encuentro 2014, a national gathering of Latino theater groups in Los Angeles. "Su Teatro has really done a lot to tell local Colorado stories, and one reason we chose Enrique's Journey for the trip is that it is broader; it has a bigger message," Garcia told us last fall. "It will make people ask, 'What is this Mexican-American group from Denver doing, telling a story that would be great to come out of L.A.? That speaks to a lot of things; it [says that] Su Teatro has a national as well as a regional perspective."

"Doin' the most" is the motto of the Black Actors Guild — and its members live that out, mounting plays and multi-disciplinary performances weekly, and hosting and organizing regular improv and standup nights year-round. Born out of a high-school production, the company comprises teenagers and young adults, all working together to write, produce, direct and act in politically engaging and universally funny and original work. The Black Actors Guild is more than just a theater troupe; it's a company that aims to represent the many ages, cultures, communities and experiences that make Denver what it is — a melting pot for artists from all walks of life.

In an age of on-demand domination and overwhelming options, it's a pleasure to wander into this cozy film mecca and find a manageable mix of fresh new programming to choose from. And the Sie FilmCenter is tended entirely by locals, so the neighborhood vibe shows in every thought-provoking documentary, mini-film festival, head-scratching foreign film or repertory classic. The awesome staff also watches every movie shown at the theater, and they're happy to chat you up for that very important post-film discussion.

Readers' choice: Alamo Drafthouse Cinema

Watching a film and taking in a meal is the bread and butter of the Alamo Drafthouse, and its menu is still the best for food and drink in the dark. Hot popcorn, compact burgers, leafy salads, crispy pizza, at least 32 beers on tap and more are just an order card away, and you'll barely notice the ninja-like waitstaff whisk by with your food during the best parts of the film. The Alamo has upped the ante recently, adding in more "craft dinners" — special dishes and craft-beer flights paired with the perfect retro film.

Readers' choice: Alamo Drafthouse Cinema

You don't often think about the comfort of your favorite movie house until the action on the screen shifts your focus to the pain in your back or just how close that popcorn-gobblin' stranger is to you at a sold-out show. And getting up to visit the restroom in the middle of the flick? You might as well just step on everyone's feet before the film to save them some grief. Thank heaven for the design gods of the Sie, who provided seats that cradle and support you, removable arm rests (for snugglin' with your honey) and plenty of leg room.

Readers' choice: Alamo Drafthouse Cinema

For the past half-decade, Tammy Brislin has overseen nearly every aspect of this growing women's film festival, which each year brings bigger movies, more star power and plenty of discussion to the table as a great way to honor National Women's Month. Female empowerment is on the rise in the film world, and with a fest like Voices, our eyes will be privy to every new vision as it rolls in.

As cozy as the hamlet of Estes Park but as huge and foreboding as the hotel it is named after, the Stanley Film Festival is the right festival at the right place and time. This is the only horror film festival you'll ever attend where the creepiness of the top-notch programming doesn't stay only on the screen. The setting itself, in the Stanley Hotel — the inspiration for Stephen King's The Shining — makes you feel like you could be bumped off at any moment walking in the dark. Big, important horror films and high-caliber guests from the genre made last year bloody good, and this year promises to be a cut above.

Readers' choice: Starz Denver Film Festival

David B. Weaver thinks small. His project-in-a-trailer, Davey B. Gravey's Tiny Cinema, seats four at a time for 8mm screenings and rolls to wherever the action is — from the Boulder Outdoor Cinema to the Starz Denver Film Festival — to entertain guests with silent films and live ukulele accompaniment by Weaver, who dresses in vaudevillian garb. Now the Tiny Cinema is on the road across America, with a new sense of purpose: Aside from visiting festivals like SXSW, Weaver is heading to West Virginia to shoot a new (but old-school) Super 8 film — something about an alien on a farm and the girl who finds him. We can't wait to see where the road takes Davey B. Gravey next.

Musical wunderkind Paul Buscarello has a way with improvising fresh, unique scores for some of cinema’s silent classics, and he’s reinvigorated such gems as The Phantom Carriage and Pandora’s Box with a young sound that polishes the dust right off the screen. His talents aren’t tied to a specific venue in town, but woe be to the place that doesn’t explore a monthly series with this young master.

John Golter brings great local shorts and feature films to light at Glob — a DIY superspace and performance venue — once a month. This fresh series has heralded some quiet geniuses, serving as a great place for amateur filmmakers to work through their burgeoning visions with the help of an audience of eager viewers ready to offer up advice or admiration.

For some reason, many Colorado filmmakers tend to render their work dull by framing our city's landmarks and scenic vistas in ways that distract from the narrative at hand and feel more like tourism promos. But Jamin Winan's latest film, The Frame, along with his previous Colorado productions, actually transforms our streets, neighborhoods and views — from factories and refineries to downtown architecture — into imaginative and fantastical worlds, all without trying to cram a Colfax sign into every shot.

Director Heather Dalton put seven years of loving care into the film Neal Cassady: The Denver Years, an in-depth look at the manic Beat icon's early days as a boy on Denver's skid row and his less-publicized life as a family man. The film, which premiered last year at the Sie FilmCenter, is packed with extensive interviews with key figures in Cassady's life, including ex-wife Carolyn Cassady and children John Allen and Jami. The Denver Years adds a new layer of lore to the canon of Beat history and a glimpse into the real Neal Cassady (aka On the Road's Dean Moriarty), who hid behind his own charisma.

What happens when a Hugo Award-winning writer and a Denver Comic Con co-founder join programming forces? Out-of-this-world bliss. Jason Heller and Frank Romero, respectively, are the overlords of a monthly sci-fi series at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema that blasts past the usual fare and dives far into the fringes of the genre with films like Videodrome, Krull, Dark Star and Heavy Metal — offerings that deserve a stamp in any true fan's passport. Heller and Romero introduce each film with a deep discussion, taking you into the far recesses of cinema's time-and-space continuum.

Horror films certainly get their due in Denver, but no one screens or curates them as lovingly as Theresa Mercado. Dressed in full costume and usually toting handmade collectibles for her guests to take home, Mercado brings excitement to every spooky screening, no matter where it is. Although currently looking for a new home for her Cruel Spring/Summer/Autumn/Winter series after the recent closing of Globeville bar Crash 45, she's busy organizing pop-up horror screenings elsewhere in town.

It takes a quick wit and a steady hand to lead one of the beloved Quote-Alongs or '80s Sing-Along Dance Parties at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema. Megan Miles skillfully encourages huge crowds of strangers to quote along to their favorite films and utilize props en masse. She also gets boozy '80s lovers to sing at the top of their lungs and dance their asses off at the series of regular events hosted by the Littleton movie house.

Craft brewing differs from many other industries in that rather than fighting each other for customers, beer makers typically offer assistance and advice to their would-be competitors. While it doesn't always work, that spirit permeates the craft-brewing community as a whole, and it's one of the things that makes Collaboration Fest so special. Founded in 2014 by the Colorado Brewers Guild and Imbibe Denver as a way to celebrate the aforementioned bonhomie, the fest showcases one-off beers that Colorado breweries have collaborated on with their in-state peers or with breweries in other states or countries. The first event was such a success that the second one, which took place in March, had to be moved to Sports Authority Field at Mile High, where drinkers got a chance to sample more than 75 cooperative, collaborative creations.

Readers' choice: Top Taco Denver

Over two big, well-done days each June, PrideFest brings all of Denver together in the correct way by offering just the right wares, foods and a whole lot of entertainment throughout Civic Center Park. Last year, more than 365,000 people turned out — many of them in colorful get-ups and costumes — to show everyone what's so great about having such a bustling gay community. PrideFest, which also features a parade from Cheesman Park to Civic Center as well as family-centered activities, will mark its fortieth anniversary in Denver this year, and we're expecting it to be the best celebration yet.

Readers' choice: Great American Beer Festival

The idea doesn't sound that good on paper: Take one part bus station, one part LoDo bar and one part trendy restaurant row and smash them together under the hundred-year-old ceilings at Union Station. But so far, the formula has been a success — and custom-made for quality free entertainment. Take a seat at one of those big chairs in the lobby and watch as harried or bemused travelers with rolling suitcases try to make their way around drunken twenty-somethings searching for the bathrooms. Or try to guess whether that family of four is running to catch a bus out to the airport or to get into Stoic & Genuine before the hostess gives away their table. On just about any night, Union Station is alive and well — and that's worth the price of admission alone. And when warm weather hits, watch for kids from across town to flock to the outdoor water feature, where they'll frolic all day in the next best thing to a beach.

Reader's choice: People-watching

Nestled into a particularly sparse corner of the Athmar Park neighborhood, Chain Reaction Brewing isn't an obvious venue for comedy. But despite the brewery's location, high ceilings and brightly lit tap room, Chain Reaction Comedy Night has packed the house with gigglers and guzzlers every month of its short tenure. Much of the event's success is due to the combined efforts of former hockey buddies Chad Christofferson (who co-owns the brewery with his cousin Zack) and local standup Steve Vanderploeg, who oversees a precisely chosen lineup. The show has already drawn local-hero headliners such as Jordan Doll, Kristin Rand and Adam Cayton-Holland to its stage. Drinkers can also enjoy delicious oddities like peppercorn saison, crème-brûlée imperial milk stout and the limited-release Denver Comedy Pale Ale that Chain Reaction has on tap.

Usually attended only by nervy fledgling standups and neighborhood inebriates who resent the incursion, open-mike nights often have the feel of a glum joke workshop — which is why emcee Kevin O'Brien likes to mix things up, kicking off each comedy open mike at the Matchbox with a throaty rendition of "America the Beautiful." Curating the lineup like he would a mixtape and doling out "bag of human garbage" and "beer with ol' Kev" awards to their deserving recipients, O'Brien proves that just because anyone can sign up to perform doesn't mean that showmanship should be an afterthought. The Matchbox draws the best ratio of newcomers to seasoned pros, which means that spectators have the best chance to see a hilarious, chaotic comedy show for free, particularly during warmer months, when the program takes over the patio.

Too Much Fun is a success story years in the making. By creating a bridge between the local comedy and music scenes (both of which have a fair bit of overlap with the service industry), the Fine Gentleman's Club has achieved the impossible dream of hosting a successful weekly comedy show for free. The Club's hip, loyal fans have been rewarded for their steadfast attendance with highlights such as Dave Ross's album recording and a surprise drop-in set from Dave Chappelle. The Gents — Nathan Lund, Chris Charpentier, Sam Tallent and Bobby Crane — hustle each week to arrange lineups, generate fresh material and even design posters for this crown jewel of Denver's comedy and DIY scenes.

Most comedy shows thrive on simplicity: a stage, a stool and a microphone. That's why Lucha Libre & Laughs is unlike any comedy show in the city, fusing producer and bumbling referee Nick Gossert's twin loves of wrestling and standup in a unique and unholy hybrid that simultaneously delights two fan bases, each cultivating their own relationship with irony. While it appears as though wrestling is the main attraction, the comedy is fully integrated into the show throughout the matches. In fact, the ongoing color commentary from Nathan Lund and Sam Tallent often becomes the highlight of the evening. At Lucha Libre & Laughs, the chuckles leap off the turnbuckles.

Readers' choice: Comedy Works

Comedy thrives in dark rooms with low ceilings. At Comedy Works' historic downtown location, the generally cocktail-besotted crowd is tightly packed into the venue's cozy showroom; once the lights darken, they become an anonymous mob freed from any sense of propriety. Kept satiated by tiptoeing waitstaff, otherwise reasonable people are reduced to giggling delirium by comedians drawn to what is fondly known by fans and professionals alike as one of the best clubs in the entire country. Recent headliners Hannibal Buress, Jim Norton and frequent surprise guest Dave Chappelle are only the start of the funny business at Comedy Works.

The Queerbots are giving a voice to gay comedy with their new monthly improv show at Hamburger Mary's — and proving that laughter is truly a great unifier. Using typical stereotypes, the all-gay group invites audiences to laugh at them and with them in order to demonstrate just how funny being human is.

Denver's exploding drag scene is teeming with a card deck's worth of queens hoofing and hot-assing all over town, but Janessa Befierce isn't taking a slow pony ride to the top; she's grabbing the reins of a stallion and racing it there. Seemingly in drag seven days a week, Befierce has worked out the kinks of her persona and delivers a polished performance on stages all over town.

Gone are the days of bingo halls filled with old ladies and church-like reverence. In today's game, you'll find that comedy, booze and laughter rule the night. Dolls With Balls at Hamburger Mary's is one of Denver's longest-running bingo games, where you'll find three vivacious vixens — Harley Quinn, Alexandra Winters and Victoria Sexton — dropping balls every Wednesday. Go ahead and invite Grandma — just make sure she's sufficiently liquored up.

The stage at Broadway's isn't the fanciest, but that makes it the perfect spot for a new queen to break in some heels and feel the rush of performance. The energy of these two Thursday-night shows is reminiscent of high school in the best ways: Experienced senior queen bees like Lala Leigh, Amber Domaine and Le'd Fatale pick their favorite underclassmen, then give them a platform on which to cut their teeth and earn their diplomas.

With every new season of RuPaul's Drag Race, Tracks hosts a series of viewing parties, and this year the spot will feature its own competition as well, in which a bevy of queens will submit to a sixteen-week boot camp of wigs, heels, makeup, sequins, and the tightest tucks this side of the Platte. The reward is a chance to join the cast of Tracks' own Drag Nation show, where blood, sweat and glitter-stained tears will be met with tough skin and fierce idolatry.

The beer may be cheap at Charlie's, but the performances aren't. Every Sunday, a cast of local legends and new faces turns the floor at Charlie's into a Xanadu of drag perfection. Mama hen Shanida Lawya and company treat raucous crowds to three numbers, complete with costume and makeup changes, and immerse themselves in the crowd. Don't be surprised if you wake up Monday morning with a big red lipstick kiss on your cheek.

It's no secret that Denver burlesque has helped put this cowtown on the map: The notable names who take over intimate stages all over the city also headline major festivals and receive accolades on the global burlesque scene. A case in point is Midnite Martini (aka Kim Townsend), the reigning Miss Exotic World, who earned her title as the Burlesque Hall of Fame's 2014 Queen of Burlesque in Las Vegas last June. The lovely Miss M wowed the judges with a routine that combined burlesque, aerial fabric and a ladder.

With a recent renovation that included the addition of an expansive front deck, this watering hole at 629 East Colfax solidified itself as the perfect spot for meeting up with pals and dishing all the recent gossip. The drinks are fast and cheap, natch, and the background music stays at just the right volume, so you can take in all the juicy details.

Readers' choice: Tracks

A feminine mystique definitely runs through every inch of this Colfax bar, which describes itself as "a unique drinkery." But in fact, the bar is only a part of what Blush & Blu has to offer. The welcoming community establishment spends its daytime hours as a coffeehouse and fills the rest of its time with a variety of events, including game nights, poetry, standup comedy, dance parties, karaoke, comic sex advice and even capoeira lessons.

Readers' choice: Hamburger Mary's

This mammoth gay club already has a sterling reputation for welcoming all comers, no matter their sexual orientation, but on Thursdays the place truly becomes the United Nations of dance parties, with every inch of space occupied by all manner of man, woman and teen. The sprawling landscape at Tracks makes for great fashion- and guy/gal-watching, and the club's roster of hot DJs, both regional and national, keeps the bodies moving and, for a brief time, our peaceful world spinning.

One of the city's few remaining true dives, the Nob Hill Inn has hosted its share of music royalty — including Bob Dylan and Motörhead frontman Lemmy Kilmister — in over a half-century of operation. And there's a good chance you'll find those legends' music on the bar's jukebox, which is just about as eclectic as its regulars. A bonus are the juke's mix CDs, which feature such expert and disparate pairings as Buck Owens and the Beau Brummels, the Hollies and Uriah Heep, and Parliament and Gene Autry.

Readers' choice: Sancho's Broken Arrow

The folks at Armida's are serious about karaoke. They should be, after hosting it for the past two decades — first on a once-a-week basis, and now every night. It got so popular, in fact, that an upstairs karaoke room, which can fit about thirty people, was added two years ago to accommodate all the folks — from first-timers to old hands — who come down to sing.

Readers' choice: Armida's

Belting out the Spice Girls' "Say You'll Be There" is always fun, but sometimes you just want to get in touch with your inner Selena and sing "Como La Flor" while a frozen margarita melts all over the microphone. When it comes to Spanish-language karaoke, 100% de Agave has a complete song list. Once the clock strikes 9 p.m. on Thursdays, the place fills up with people who want to chow down on happy-hour-priced munchies and salsa-dance to the amateur singing.

On the third Monday of each month, the experimental outfit ANIMAL/object holds an avant-garde open-mike night at Strange Grounds. Here, though, "avant-garde" just means that performers are prized for their imagination and willingness to throw themselves into the music. There's often time at the end of the night for impromptu collaborations — and last summer, the Violent Femmes' Gordon Gano (a recent Colorado transplant) decided to drop by with his violin and join the festivities.

It's not easy to get an in-store performance booked at Twist & Shout, and there's a good reason for that: These shows are almost invariably events you'll never forget. The store hosts cozy, living-room-style performances from big names (local and national) playing for shoulder-to-shoulder audiences full of excitement and focus. Check out Steve Earle's killer Twist & Shout performance of "Copperhead Road" on YouTube sometime, or just head down to see an in-store set yourself.

With an undying love for music and the intimate concert experience that often gets lost in the nosebleeds of the Pepsi Center and other large venues, Strings & Wood (stringsandwood.com) aims to bring concerts back to the living room — literally. Whether it rolls out in someone's home, the basement of a church or some other unlikely, intimate venue, the concert series brings local and national acts together for the dual purpose of providing audiences with unique shows and providing bands with ideal performing situations. Sitting on a cozy couch while listening to an amazing local singer-songwriter at a Strings & Wood show should be on every Denver music fan's must-do list.

Tucked away on Morrison Road is MGM's, a little club with big things happening inside. On Sundays, the place brings out the best in old-school hip-hop and R&B. The dance floor packs people in as everything from Zapp & Roger to SWV to Usher pumps through the venue's mighty sound system. Brand-new tracks get thrown in, too, so the hottest songs from Drake and Nicki Minaj make appearances throughout the night. The bartenders pour it up stiff, and everyone's a friend on the smokers' patio, if you need a break from the sweaty boogie madness.

The intimate but spacious setup at Bar Standard is perfect for accommodating the people who pack the dance floor on Friday nights, when TheHundred brings some of the best tune-spinners on the planet to town. And that list is killer, with past headliners including Ten Walls and Classixx, Miguel Campbell and Kill Frenzy, Golf Clap and Doc Martin. Those are some notably big names to be playing this particular venue (alongside local staples who also know how to sling a beat), so you can feel smug about scoring a pair of tickets — and when you factor in the early-bird admission discounts that can get you through the door for as little as $5, you've got yourself a stellar club night that you can afford to hit up on a regular basis.

Readers' choice: Tracks

Eschewing the aesthetics of giant EDM shows, which have been increasingly popular in Colorado lately, Deep Club (deepclub.us) formed in 2013 with a mission to provide an alternative to those larger-than-life presentations. When you walk into one of Deep Club's "secret" events, the atmosphere is more laid-back, the emphasis is entirely on the music, and even when the event is held at an unconventional space, the sound system is robust. In 2014, Deep Club partnered with the Communikey Festival, which promises a great future in Denver for fans of more adventurous electronic music.

If there is a sports-like farm system in the Denver music scene, Bar Bar (aka Carioca Cafe) represents a quality AAA baseball club. Bar Bar's inclusive and open mentality allows up-and-coming bands like Hellhound, Gravity Tapes, Gentleman Crow and Nixon's the One to hone their craft and play rowdy and well-attended shows any night of the week. The regulars may sometimes be a little rough around the edges, but the crowd at Bar Bar is still inviting and open to all Denver's bands, regardless of stature.

Lotus Clubs owner Francois Safieddine has had a long and successful history in Denver's nightlife, especially with more recent venues like Chloe and both ViewHouse locations. While Chloe is a stylish dance club/restaurant, Safieddine went a step further when he opened Vie in late 2014 at 1427 Larimer Street. Formerly Suite Two Hundred, the 7,000-square-foot space has been transformed into an ultra-chic dance club. Vie brings in local and national EDM talent and features state-of-the-art sound and lighting systems.

Readers' choice: Mile High Spirits

Beta has a downtown location and sizable dance floor, but that's not what makes it the best dance club in Denver. It's also got a slick, sleek layout and a large patio where smokers can congregate and watch the LoDo night unspool. Neither of those things turned our heads much this year, though. What really makes this club the best place to lose your mind to the sound of a beat are the Funktion-One sound system, widely regarded as one of the best systems on the planet, and a lineup of DJs and producers that increasingly showcases the top names in the entire business. So far this year, Beta has played host to Chris Liebing, Robag Wruhme, DJ Heidi and Claude Van Stroke, to name a few, and the club continues to feature local talent and offer side trips in the second room. (Don't forget to tip the bathroom attendants!)

Readers' choice: Beauty Bar

The hi-dive has brought in top-notch local and national acts for eleven years now — and while the lineup is a good part of its success (talent buyer Ben Desoto does a noble job), there's more to the venue's charms. Over the past two years, owners Matty Clark and Josh Terry, who bought the place from Matt LaBarge and Allison Housley, have made some upgrades (like raising the ceiling and hanging speakers from it) to give folks a better concert-going experience.

Readers' choice: hi-dive

Ziggies celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 2014, and while it's hailed as Denver's oldest blues bar, it's been updated over the years, giving the place a modern feel while preserving its heritage. One thing hasn't changed, though: The walls of Ziggies still bleed blue. There's music most nights of the week, with performances by the best local blues acts (and some touring bands) Thursdays through Saturdays, while the rest of week is dedicated to jam sessions, including the long-running blues jams on Sundays and Groovesday Jam on Tuesdays.

Readers' choice: El Chapultepec

Denver is home to a startling array of home-grown jazz clubs. Dazzle Restaurant & Lounge is not the one with the most history or the one with the most novelty, but it is without question the one with the best jazz. The stage at Dazzle is routinely occupied by the genre's contemporary stars as well as its established legends. But there's more to this internationally recognized club than touring acts. It's also a great ally of the local scene, hosting regular jam sessions and album-release shows. We also have Dazzle's staff to thank for bringing guitar god Bill Frisell back for a performance at East High School — his alma mater.

Readers choice: Dazzle Restaurant & Lounge

It's impossible to talk about DIY venues in Denver without putting Rhinoceropolis front and center. One of the longest continuously running DIY spaces for live art and performance in the country, this space — lovingly referred to by regulars as Rhino — is the place to see the counterculture in action. From national acts such as Dan Deacon and Mykki Blanco to local icons like Pictureplane and Thug Entrancer, the show space and gallery has hosted hundreds of events in the past decade. The best part? Rhino runs on donations only, so no one is turned away for lack of funds. And the venue's slightly off-kilter atmosphere and vibrant community operation ensure a unique visitor experience.

If you're a fourteen-year-old (or just one at heart) who wants to ollie over a couch or grind a rail while listening to your favorite screamo band, Skatuary is your new home base. The youth center/skate park/music venue partnered with Narrows Productions to bring national and local bands right to the halfpipe. Nice trick.

With three rooms offering three very different experiences, the Mercury Cafe has been feeding and entertaining Coloradans for nearly four decades. Jazz standards and a piano-bar vibe inhabit the Rose dining room, while opera performances, poetry slams, open mikes and films can be experienced in the adjoining Jungle room. Things get wild on the second floor, where the dance hall hosts belly-dancing nights and swing classes, plays, concerts and every kind of performance imaginable. For a full Mercury experience, grab a cup of tea or a delicious plate of organic goodness from the kitchen — or even a tarot reading in the dining room — while you're there for a show.

After a five-year stint as talent buyer at the Meadowlark, Jonathan Bitz knew he wanted to start a place of his own. A three-year hunt led him to the building at 554 South Broadway — formerly the Bar (and the Atrium before that) — where he did some major renovations and opened Syntax Physic Opera, a music venue/eatery/art bar, in the spring of 2014. While the bar half serves an outstanding selection of cocktails and beers, the venue side is where the true magic happens, as Bitz presents a steady stream of the town's finest acts as well as weekly singer-songwriter and comedy open-mike nights and jazz jams.

Stuffed to the gills with new and used books, graphic novels, local-band CDs and vinyl, Mutiny Information Cafe is a place where you can sit at a table, sip coffee and flip through a book while a loud punk band plays on the floor just a few feet away. It's a rarely seen juxtaposition, but it's one that works alarmingly well. Rather than just keep Mutiny as a bookstore, the owners continue to cultivate the music community, opening up their doors to bands of all kinds and letting them play as loud as they want.

Anything goes at Deer Pile, whether it's weekly DIY comedy staple Too Much Fun, Occupy Denver meet-ups, experimental-film showings or ambient-noise concerts. Like a multi-purpose room for Denver's creative community, Deer Pile continues to be a space that welcomes performances and gatherings for all people, by all people; it's also donation-based, meaning audiences can get a taste of what's going on in Denver's counterculture for a nice price, and no one is turned away. Deer Pile proves that if you give them a room and an audience, performances will come.

Even from the outside, with its large windows and spacious interior, the Denver Art Society feels like a welcoming place. As a nonprofit, DAS is driven by its publicly stated mission to engage the local and global community in the arts. To that end, it provides studios, art workshops and a place to display art, as well as live music, with performers ranging from electronic-dance artists to punk and avant-garde bands. DAS is quickly becoming a hub for creative pursuits of all types — and creative types of all ages.

Tucked away just off Colfax, Hyperspace is easy to miss. Whereas most arcades have a gaudy exterior and flashing lights to catch the attention of passersby, Xyla DuVal opened Hyperspace last June with a different vision: that of a low-key hangout where people can play vintage video games and occasionally see live music. DuVal also repairs and maintains video games, and this arcade, open here and there for special events, shows all the hallmarks of serious care and restoration. This place perfectly captures the vibe of early-'80s arcades, including the limited number of snacks and drinks available at the register. There are other fine arcades in the Denver area, but Hyperspace feels like a place that goths and rivetheads of a bygone era might have frequented before discovering Sisters of Mercy and Skinny Puppy.

It's been almost five years since twin brothers Greg and Garrett Hilpipre of Mountain to Sound started presenting shows at the unique, 35-seat Ubisububi Room in the basement of the Thin Man Tavern. If you think MTV Unplugged — where performers stand metaphorically naked and vulnerable to imperfections — is intimate, you haven't seen a show at this underground nook in City Park West. Most performances feature notable Colorado songwriters, and every gig has a face-to-face feeling you'll never forget.

Young Colorado natives Tom Abraham and Colin Wilcox operated Dead Leaf Arts in north Boulder for just under a year. They gained a lot of respect in that short time, putting on a slew of great shows featuring lineups ranging from David Dondero and Paleo to Inner Oceans and Male Blonding. Because of Dead Leaf, young people (and people who wanted to capture a DIY spirit) in Boulder were, for a short while, able to hear live music that offered something other than jam bands, bluegrass, EDM or coffee-shop banality. But Dead Leaf also hosted intriguing, informative silent-film nights, poetry and art installations. Those lucky enough to have seen a show at Dead Leaf, and thus become a part of it, won't soon forget trudging through snow to an unmarked warehouse next to a strip club to see, among other truly surprising things, punk rock in Boulder.

Opened in 1913 as the Thompson Theater, the Bluebird is grimy, old-fashioned and awesome. One of its highlights is the cramped green room downstairs, which is pretty much directly below the stage. There's barely enough room for a band to hang out, and it doesn't always smell wonderful, but the distanced, almost secret vibe in the air is one that says, "Friends, family and hangers-on not allowed; we're getting ready to play a show."

Summit Music Hall owner Mike Barsch says he spent three years shopping for sound systems, "trying to set us apart from the rest," before going with an Italian GTO C-12, the Ferrari of rock-venue sound systems, last fall. The Summit often hosts well-known '80s and '90s punk, metal and new-wave bands that need massive, loud and clear sound that fits their style but doesn't send fans at the relatively intimate 1,000-seat hall running for the doors. Becoming the first venue in America to install a GTO C-12, which is popular in Europe, was a no-brainer for Barsch. "The feedback has been great," he says. "People are like, 'I've seen this band 100 times and never heard them sound this good.' They're all blown away. Word is spreading."

If you had stepped into Lost Lake Lounge before last year, you might have thought you had accidentally wandered into the 1970s. The interior looked and felt like a repurposed American Legion hall (the bar area still does). But last year, the ramshackle sound system of old was replaced with a setup that can handle rock shows and electronic artists alike. Whereas before it felt quaint amd homey, the Lost Lake performance room now feels professional and capable.

In its first year of operation by AEG Rocky Mountains, Fiddler's Green (which took back its original name last year after years as Comfort Dental Amphitheater) has gone from being a serviceable spot for watching your favorite mega-star from the lawn to downright pleasant. That change came thanks to better traffic flow, upgraded sound and artful decoration.

Most door guys and gals take tickets, check IDs and run guest lists with a somewhat thorny attitude — perking up only when a friend passes through. And a few are too gregarious for the job, meaning the lines last forever. Trevor Thon is different. He manages to take his job seriously while still finding time to converse with artists and concert-goers — ideally about his beloved comic books, which he reads with one eye on the door.

By day he makes your spicy-tofu banh mi sandwiches; by night he spins your favorite dance beats. For the past seven years, Peter Schroeder, aka DJ Gatsby, has been building a name for himself in the metro-Denver area, most notably spinning hip-hop records at the Pour House, Crimson Hilt Tattoo and elsewhere. While the sun is still up, though, you can catch him at Vinh Xuong Bakery in the Alameda Square Shopping Center, putting together some of the best Vietnamese sandwiches around.

If you've been to a punk-rock show in Denver over the past five years, chances are you've seen Aaron Saye: He's usually perched at the back of the room with a video camera and a smile, documenting the night. He does this with no real agenda or moneymaking scheme in mind, but rather for posterity and an overall love of the scene. That love translates into Aaron's job as promoter and booker for Seventh Circle Music Collective, one of Denver's best all-ages venues. The bands that play there aren't genre-specific, but they must adhere to Saye's sense of community and respect and the DIY ethos. His goal is one that all venues and promoters should strive for: eliminating the gap between artists, promoters and fans.

Although Youth on Record changed its name from Flobots.org and found a new home last year, the group's goal is still the same: empowering young people to use their musical abilities in order to be heard. Local MCs and musicians are at the core of this organization, leading youth through the songwriting, recording, production and performance processes to make music that matters. The organization also hosts music-oriented events, such as this year's question-and-answer session with the members of Sleater-Kinney, which gave young musicians the opportunity to ask real-life rock stars about the ins and outs of the music business.

Being a musician and recording an album for the first time can be a daunting process, but Dryer Plug Studios takes the pressure off. Run by sound engineer Chad Saxton, this full-service studio offers reasonable rates, a room full of gear to work with, and the best in analog and digital recording technology. Rock bands, hip-hop artists, jazz trios and spoken-word performers at all levels of fame and ability get the same treatment at Dryer Plug. The fledgling studio believes in supporting local and national musicians as they grow by producing quality recordings that accommodate a variety of styles and budgets.

OpenAir technically isn't new — it had a good life on the AM dial — but the commercial-free radio station made the big leap to FM this year, and that changed everything. The station's open format allows for a diverse assortment of music programming from the past five decades, but it's OpenAir's contribution to the local scene that is truly groundbreaking. From shows like Mile High Noon, which is devoted solely to local artists, to the regular rotation of Colorado tracks and live sessions featuring key Denver players, locals get heard daily, clearer than ever, on the FM dial.

This is not an underdog story. Gregory Alan Isakov is among Denver's most well-known songwriters, and Laura Goldhamer, who directed the "Amsterdam" video, is a familiar name to anyone with even passing familiarity with the city's creative community. But favorites get that way for a reason, and this clip is proof that both artists deserve their accolades. The song itself is a quiet marvel, and Goldhamer took absolutely no shortcuts in creating a stop-motion accompaniment. In it, a paper Isakov travels the canals of Amsterdam to a strange and beautiful cathedral. There is simplicity and elegance to spare in both the song and the visuals, and they fit together effortlessly.

Readers' choice: "Sizzle Grizzle," The Dendrites

When America was released on New Year's Day 2014, it symbolized a new beginning for the Samples. It was the first album featuring the group's new lineup, and it was recorded and released independently, without any kind of label backing. Sean Kelly wrote his freshest batch of songs in years, imbuing America with the hopeful, thoughtful spirit that has always made the man's music so compelling for so many. The sparkly melodies, broad vistas of sound and impressionistic, poetic wordplay suggest a reinvention and the reclaiming of the ability to dream of a better place.

An epic 32-song mixtape, Wet Pizza V: Wet It Be shows off all of what Denver's under-the-radar musicians have to offer. From the stark and minimal modular-synth work on Thug Entrancer's "Sprawl" to Little Fyodor's wild-guitar-and-sloppy-organ ride "It Changes," this collection from local musician Gabe Stoll — also known by his performance-project name, Mystic Bummer — is a perfect cross-section of what's happening in the local scene right now. Dance tracks find a home next to noise pieces, and garage rock gets close to activist-oriented hip-hop in this ultimate Mile High collaboration. If ever there was a "Denver sound," this is it: raw, spastic and full of energy.

Paper gatefold CD packaging is hardly a new thing. And given the current era of weed culture in Colorado, it's only natural that someone would use hemp rather than wood fiber to make cardboard for a CD sleeve — which is exactly what promoter Morris Beegle proposed to Kathryn Ellinger of Sleepers for Drive, the group's first album in nearly a decade. The resulting cover is a revved-up example of the way the music community has taken advantage of our new marijuana economy.

When Matthew Hunzeker of Of Earth and Sun shows up to a venue, most sound people don't really know what to make of him. Sure, he has a sampler and pedals, just like a lot of other artists. But he also has an array of animal bones and horns that he has crafted into noise-making instruments. Like a shaman from the Stone Age, Hunzeker uses these instruments to create otherwordly, trance-inducing soundscapes.

Artist Vincent Comparetto describes his Werk Out Palace project this way: "Imagine if Richard Simmons was the most powerful lesbian in the world who could inspire you to crush your lover into dust with your thighs." Since Colorado is among the fittest states in the country, it was only a matter of time before a band would find a way to get some bodies moving at a show. Werk Out Palace combines its songs with cardio routines, injecting some sass and fun into the proceedings.

Featuring musicians from notable Denver bands like Uphollow, Glass Hits, Cannons and Il Cattivo, Fauxgazi performs near-perfect songs from one of post-punk's most lauded and respected bands: Fugazi. This is one of those tribute bands that fans will go to see because few actually got to see the original act while it was still playing and touring — unlike the replica, which does both. While Fugazi never had a "hit," it built a solid career based on integrity, musicianship and thought-provoking lyrics. The same could be said of the Denver musicians who continue to keep that legacy alive.

Punk is more than forty years old, and it often seems like every nook and cranny of the genre has been discovered and colonized. Yet once in a while, a band comes along that embodies everything that made the genre significant and inspiring in the first place, one whose raw and impassioned performances and effusive energy cut straight to the seething adolescent psyche in all of us. Right now, Future Single Mom is one of those bands. The act's use of keyboards, as well as its tendency to incorporate no wave's disregard for conventional melodies, sets it apart from its putative peers.

Readers' choice: Ark Life

At some recent point in time, people like investment bankers started paying attention to music festivals, and the industry ballooned. Now the summer concert season feels like an arms race between massive promoters rushing to cram more bands, more people and more amenities into any given field or parking lot. You'll find an antidote to all that at RockyGrass, which is held each July on the picturesque grounds of the Planet Bluegrass ranch. For 42 years, the festival has rewarded its exceedingly loyal fan base with a lineup dense with legends and talented up-and-comers playing fiddles, banjos and the like. As an operation, RockyGrass seems determined to leave its attendees relaxed and renewed.

Walking into the posh Temple Buell Theatre to see Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, fans knew they could expect an extraordinary performance from a band with plenty of sophistication and emotive power. On that score, Cave and company amply delivered. But when Cave waded into the crowd on the backs of seats, it was a surprise that flipped the usual dynamic of performer and audience on its head, in a place where that almost never happens. In that moment, Cave brought us into the realm of his masterful storytelling for an inspired, unforgettable experience.

Readers' choice: Colorado Symphony Orchestra